The debate about the Common Core is usually couched in political terms. Critics on the right don't like government doing anything at all. Critics on the left think the Common Core is just one spoke in a wheel running over teachers and teacher unions.
The bureaucrats charged with implementing the Common Core dodge the flak from right and left, pointing out that the Common Core is a set of common standards, not a prescribed curriculum. This defense, while limitedly accurate, is irrelevant.
The problem with the Common Core is that it drives bad education. If it weren't so serious, a recent message from the New York State Education Department would be hilarious. Introduced by Commissioner John King on the blog EngagedVoices, the message provides a link to "50% of the 2014 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and math test questions." The commissioner evidently believes that a review of this material will convince teachers and others that the Common Core and its implementation are wise and wonderful.
This link brings you to his message and the PDF subtitled "Our Students. Their Moment."
The very first third-grade ELA section amply demonstrates the absurdity of the entire scheme. Students are asked to read a relatively innocuous piece titled "Sugaring Time." It is a straightforward description of the process through which maple syrup is produced. The intentions are laughably transparent throughout this dull exercise. I can just imagine a freshly minted MBA and a Teach for America alumna sitting in a Pearson cubicle saying, "Good education is student-centered, right? Kids like maple syrup, don't they? Great idea!" The first sentence of "Sugaring Time": "You probably like to eat maple syrup on your pancakes and waffles, right?"
Yummy! This test will really be fun!
The essay is presented in short chunks, probably because the Teach for America graduate had a brain-biology seminar during her several weeks of training. Each chunk is numbered, so as to allow easy reference when the kids look back and try to figure out which one of the several plausible multiple choices they should select. A junior-sized SAT.
A less developed third grader on the Upper West Side scratches his head in confusion, squirms in his chair and gives up. The words on the page, which had initially been mildly interesting, become an incomprehensible blur. A more developed third grader in Westchester County wastes 10 minutes pondering the reasons that three of the proposed answers might be right. The pondering leads to anxiety, which leads in turn to the student gazing longingly out the window at a real maple tree, wishing she could be climbing it. Thousands of third graders in the South Bronx don't know or care what maple syrup is, since it costs $20 a pint. It's like having an SAT question about a 1982 Chateau Haut-Brion.
I'm essentially a Vermonter, despite living and working in New York. I love maple syrup so much that I could pour it on broccoli. I never believed that anything could make me averse to maple syrup. But I was wrong. It may take months before I can look at a can of "Grade A Light Amber (Fancy)." New Englanders should object to the Common Core just on the basis of its potential to disrupt the local economy.
Using maple syrup to draw little moths to the flame of testing and accountability is philosophically offensive. The whole mess is philosophically offensive. Anyone who understands child development -- nay, anyone who was actually a child and remembers it -- knows that curiosity is as natural as sap from a maple tree. Kids want to learn, unless we make it dull and frustrating.
Here's a radical idea! Why not take the class to a sugar bush in upstate New York, let them tap a tree, taste the sap, visit the sugarhouse and watch the process of making syrup? Then invite them to write a journal entry about it. I suppose that doesn't correspond to one of the Common Core standards.
I intended to review dozens of the ELA and math questions so that I could craft a well-informed critique. I just couldn't. I got through the first three or four and my eyes glazed over. I'm heading up to Vermont soon. I suppose I'll just butter my pancakes.