Anthony Cody on The Standardization Of Schooling

Why turn school into drudge work for the overwhelming majority of children in this country via the Common Core and the Common Core testing?

Here's why:

In practice what this is likely to yield is an intensification of factory-style education for these low-scoring populations. Students who perform well may be somewhat relieved of this, but those in the low-scoring schools and social classes will get ever an more prescriptive curriculum, closely aligned with the tests.

The cynical among us might begin to suspect that this is exactly the sort of education one might impose on people whose destiny is low-level drudgery-filled jobs - while the elite reserves for itself the small classes, the rich interactive curriculum described on the websites of schools like Lakeside, where the Gates children attend.

The meme about Common Core is that it "raises" standards so that children can better "compete" in a global economy.

The reality is, it is a emotionally-devoid drudge work that is quickly making many children hate school, check out of their lessons, and in the very near future drop out completely.

That's what happens when you teach lessons devoid of content and focuses only on skills over and over and over.

People need to care about what they are learning.

CCSS - and the people who designed them - do not give a shit what anybody thinks or feels about anything.

All they care about is whether the children can do the market analysis by Friday.

That's ELA CCSS designer David Coleman's famous quote to the Regents at a meeting about the standards.

It is emblematic of the reform movement as a whole these days.