The Pro-Common Core Push Back Remains The Same

Carol Burris left this comment on a Valerie Strauss post at the Answer Sheet on how the CCSS testing is coming apart:

Put a fork in the Common Core...it's done. And when the history is written, its demise will be attributed to Race to the Top and the way the Gates Foundation people influenced the Department of Education. And it's irresponsible implementation in NY will receive credit as well.

A pro-CCSS commenter left this response:

As you know, CBurris, the polling in NY does not suggest that residents want the state to drop the Common Core. Half of NY voters support slowing its implementation. Nearly 40 % like it just fine.

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s3339011.shtml

Half of New York voters believe the state should delay implementation of Common Core.

That's according to a new Siena Research Institute poll.

Fifty percent of people polled support a two-year moratorium on the more-stringent education standards.

That's compared to 38 percent who said they should "continue to be implemented as quickly as possible."

The same pro-CCSS commenter left this earlier in response to the Strauss piece about the CCSS testing falling apart:

Valerie Strauss's hair is on fire once again. Tea Party states may continue to drop the CC because they're drinking the Kool Aid that the CC is a curriculum. But heck. Bobby Jindal can't even lie and distort his way out of the CC in Louisiana. 

Other states will retain the CC and slow the adoption of the assessments until they have aligned their instruction--not their curriculum-- to the standards. That makes good sense. 

You can see the strategy of the pro-CCSS people remains pretty much the same here - claim the CCSS doesn't amount to curriculum (technically true, but in practice, given the emphasis on the testing, not true at all) and marginalize CCSS critics as nut cases or people with their "hair on fire."

The thing is, this push back strategy isn't working in the least.

The reality is, the more people come into contact with CCSS and the ancillary testing, the less they like both.

The trajectory in the CCSS polling is pretty clear - negatives on CCSS are growing.

And while pro-CCSS folks clearly think delaying the stakes attached to the CCSS testing for students and teachers will save their initiatives, there are so many other problems with the CCSS outside of the testing and the stakes that I'm dubious delay is going to do what it is CCSS proponents think it will do.

One of the biggest is this: the Common Core is now a national punch line - from Stephen Colbert to Louis CK to David Letterman - just as the "new math" became a national punch line for Tom Lehrer and Charles Schultz back in the 60's.

It's difficult to save any kind of reform - educational, or otherwise - when that reform becomes synonymous with "mockery."