Re the Sept. 20 editorial, No backtracking on Common Core: According to the mass marketer and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, as stated in an hour-long interview at Harvard University on Sept. 21, the student population and education accountability experts will have to wait 10 years to ascertain whether Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are effective in achieving the goal of higher learning in schools and leading to career success.
However, the Brookings Institute, an internationally recognized think tank, said this about Common Core State Standards in their 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education: "Despite all the money and effort devoted to developing the Common Core State Standards, not to mention the simmering controversy over their adoption in several states, the study foresees little to no impact on student learning." That conclusion is based on analyzing states' past experience with standards and Assessment of Educational Progress.
Unlike Microsoft, Brookings Institute is a nonprofit organization with no fiscal benefit to either opposing or proposing the benefits of CCSS. Can it be that Microsoft failed to read the Brookings report or that, having already invested millions into CCSS, it plans to make millions, if not billions, off of the technology requirements in Common Core? If so, it's not about to change course, no matter how disastrous CCSS is to state budgets as well as classroom teaching and learning.
Furthermore, Common Core is not a move towards classical education's trivium -- logic, grammar, rhetoric -- and is not laying the groundwork for higher learning. The search for education's utopia will need to be continued elsewhere.
The development of Common Core State Standards (three private organizations have copyrighted the standards) was wrong.
The lack of communication to residents and the stealth implementation of CCSS in Florida is wrong. The standards' chokehold on assessments, and hence curriculum, is wrong. The decimation of parental rights, parental input, and parental empowerment is egregiously wrong. The lack of legislators' input in establishing Florida education reform policy is wrong. The race to the bottom in math and emphasis on informational text in English is wrong. The increased time being spent in testing, as a requirement of CCSS is wrong. The data collection of students' personal identifiable information is dangerous and wrong.
Common Core State Standards are wrong for Florida.
Luz de los Angeles González, Miami
However, the Brookings Institute, an internationally recognized think tank, said this about Common Core State Standards in their 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education: "Despite all the money and effort devoted to developing the Common Core State Standards, not to mention the simmering controversy over their adoption in several states, the study foresees little to no impact on student learning." That conclusion is based on analyzing states' past experience with standards and Assessment of Educational Progress.
Unlike Microsoft, Brookings Institute is a nonprofit organization with no fiscal benefit to either opposing or proposing the benefits of CCSS. Can it be that Microsoft failed to read the Brookings report or that, having already invested millions into CCSS, it plans to make millions, if not billions, off of the technology requirements in Common Core? If so, it's not about to change course, no matter how disastrous CCSS is to state budgets as well as classroom teaching and learning.
Furthermore, Common Core is not a move towards classical education's trivium -- logic, grammar, rhetoric -- and is not laying the groundwork for higher learning. The search for education's utopia will need to be continued elsewhere.
The development of Common Core State Standards (three private organizations have copyrighted the standards) was wrong.
The lack of communication to residents and the stealth implementation of CCSS in Florida is wrong. The standards' chokehold on assessments, and hence curriculum, is wrong. The decimation of parental rights, parental input, and parental empowerment is egregiously wrong. The lack of legislators' input in establishing Florida education reform policy is wrong. The race to the bottom in math and emphasis on informational text in English is wrong. The increased time being spent in testing, as a requirement of CCSS is wrong. The data collection of students' personal identifiable information is dangerous and wrong.
Common Core State Standards are wrong for Florida.
Luz de los Angeles González, Miami
j william
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