Who Should Decide What Knowledge Is Most Worth Knowing?
The Council Of Chief State School Officers and National Governors Association have appointed 29 people to help decide the national common core standards in English and math. The group is dominated by Achieve, College Board, and ACT, but includes many other qualified individuals. There are 2 college professors, but they do not represent any major higher education organization. My concern with the common core process that is that that the groups pushing this idea do not have sufficient support from postsecondary education leaders or organizations. There are organizations that represent every type of postsecondary grouping from community colleges to research universities. Neither ACT or College Board can represent this spectrum, and none of these higher education organizations play a prominent role in the common core process.
For more information go to www.corestandards.org or www.ccsso.org
No, you don’t understand. This is a done deal and this committee is merely a Rubber Stamp.
Achieve and it’s backers have been working on this reform for at least five years. They have brought in state educators and businessmen and developed the America Diploma Project. It’s a collection of standards that “everyone” agreed are needed for success in the 21st century. It moves from a liberal arts (knowledge based/thinking) to a skills based (skills for college and career readiness) type of education. Then, building on the ADP, they brought in state educators who — at the urging of their governors — worked to develop new state standards. Achieve reviewed their proposals for how well it aligned with the ADP; the states revise until Achieve approved. Then, it went through that state’s process for approval.
For example, read this letter of approval for the Wisconsin standards: http://www.dpi.wi.gov/cal/pdf/standards-adp.pdf
Achieve and Friends have already done the ground work and the announcement of the initiative for core standards is really an announcement that it’s done. It matters very little who is on the committee. The American Diploma Project approved the core standards long ago and they have been used for the last 4-5 years in this silent reform. It’s way too late to have a voice in this process.
Darcy