Common Core Is About Measurement And Control

After Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet post on the burgeoning opposition to the Common Core from many Republicans is this comment that gets right to the core of the Core:

The attempt to measure everything and make it into a data point is what drives common core. It is not a desire to improve education. It is about MEASUREMENT and CONTROL. Merrow has a new article on his blog and he concludes his comments with this rather wise commentary:

"I have said this before, but we need to be measuring what we value, instead of valuing what we measure (usually cheaply). What do we value?

Right now it seems we value very narrow curricula that can be test every six weeks, test scores and teachers who can "add value" to those test scores as measured by a VAM with a large margin of error and wide swings in stability from year to year.

Senator Chuck Grassley, in a move to defund the Common Core money from the federal budget, called the curricula an  an “inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children.”

People on the right are waking up to this fact.

Some on the left are waking up to this fact now too.

Now we have to work together to end the Common Core Federal Standards and the control it exerts over the nation's children and teachers.

ONE CURRICULUM TO RULE THEM ALL.