Little Boxes Made Of Ticky-Tacky

GrumpyElder requested help in getting two pieces circulated that deal with standardizing education in America today.  The subject is the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which according to Wikipedia is a U. S. education initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of standards-based education reform.

Excerpt from Debunking the Common Core “The Emperor’s New Clothes” Narrative….

(CCSS) creates a standardizing apparatus…we should respect differences among children, not try to extinguish them…there is a lot more going on here on the societal level than meets the eye…it’s more complex than the creators and vendors of the standards either understand or wish to present

Excerpt from Best Research Award Winner Says Common Core is Data-less Decision Making

If we really want to bring up the lowest performing students, Tienken advances that a better approach would be the development of better social safety nets. “Housing policy has been shown to be a stronger intervention for increasing test scores than nationalizing curriculum (Schwartz, 2010).” These would have to be carefully constructed so as not to demolish personal responsibility or pride, and not foster an unnecessary dependence on the system.

“Perhaps it‘s not universal curriculum standards that make the difference. Maybe it‘s a comprehensive social system that provides a quality social safety net for children and mothers that has the greatest influence on ultimate education outcomes.”

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Normally I would/should be the last person to weigh in on our education system, it’s problems or solutions to it’s problems, but because of the request from Grumpy I read the two pieces and am left with a sickish feeling of an attempt to mold our youth with an outcome (alignment/conformity)  desired very much like this old song……

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