First the Republicans seized upon the initial failure of the Affordable Care Act in its execution, but now that the initial problems have been all but solved, at least in terms of the website involved, public opinion is less solidly on their side, and they are beginning to feel the sand shift below their feet. So they are seeking another axe to throw at the opposition, and they thought they had it with the minimum wage. They dragged out the old supply-side rhetoric about "job killing" and the free market, but there are more minimum wage earners than there are people who pay minimum wages, and what they assumed would be resurrection of an article of faith among conservatives turned out to be an uphill slog politically. Municipalities and states...even some Republican governed states...are raising their minimum wages because they see that they have more votes to lose than to gain by resisting the movement in that direction. That's strike two for the Republican Party and its November aspirations. So now, they are taking a last gasp leaning on dogma with the "Common Core" educationstandards. They are mischaracterizing them as an attempt by the federal government to take over state and local education. But the fact is that the Common Core is only a set of performance standards for students that the federal government will reward the states monetarily for achieving. There isn't any attempt to color history or imbue children with the civic standards that some big brother administration wants them to observe. It's just a set of competencies that the Republicans are trying to associate with President Obama so that they can characterize him as an evil force...once again. They want us all to believe that The President concocted the idea and is foisting it upon us when in reality, the roots of the common core are in the sixties.
It all started with what was called "competency based education." It was not teaching to a test, but was rather teaching to enable students to do certain things. And it was not based on a specific course or curriculum as much as it was on the ability at the end to perform specific tasks and demonstrate specific skills and spheres of knowledge from arithmetic to history. Mastery of the subject matter was what counted, not the amount of time spent studying it. From that educational credo came CLE--or "credit for life experience"--and returning or non-traditional students were thereby allowed to accrue credits for what they had learned on their own, thus making degrees in higher education more accessible, and in reality, more meaningful. After all, what is important about a degree is that it connotes a level of competency, not that you spent a certain number of years learning how to do things. And all of it made sense then, which it still does. But the common core, which is in its essence the same thing, is too easy to vilify as political chicanery, and that is why it is ill advised; not because it is a bad idea, but because it isn't being presented the right way. This is what I mean.
When I was in high school in the sixties, there were two tracks that we could take. There was the general curriculum, which was designed for the people who wanted to enter the trades when the graduated, and there was the academic track, which was intended to prepare us for higher education. As to those of us in the academic track, when we graduated from high school in New York in 1964, we all had to take a series of tests called "Regents' Exams." They were achievement tests in various disciplines that had been part of the standard, state-wide curriculum, including chemistry, biology, algebra, foreign language, etc. Those of us who did well got "incentive awards:" specific amounts of money to be applied to tuition throughout the standard four year program at a state school. Those of us who did the best--approximately the top 5%-- got full scholarships that paid all of our tuition at the state schools of our choices. That kept able students in state to some degree, and it enabled some students who were capable to go to college even though their family finances would not have afforded them the opportunity without the assistance. That was a system that everyone could understand. Show that you are up to the work, and you get to go to a state college for free...at least without having to pay tuition. No one objected to the State of New York administering a test by which their children could qualify fornancial grants and scholarships for college, and that is the essence of the mistake that the Obama administration is making with the common core. The federal government shouldn't be rewarding the states for participating. It should be rewarding the children for doing so, and that would serve two purposes.
First, by setting a federal--essentially universal--standard for high school graduates to meet if they want to be rewarded, we induce, not compel, satisfaction of that standard, and who can complain about that. Second, in this era in which college costs the figurative arm and a leg, we are financially crippling tens of millions of young people with debt that will follow them for decades in many cases because it often amounts to a six figure burden. By providing merit grants to student regardless of income or factors other than the sheer mastery of standard skills that are availing to anyone when he goes to apply for a job; we enhance the competency of our workforce, ease the financial burden that higher education or trade school represents, and we put more spendable money into the economy, which all federal expenditures accomplishes. That is what we should have instead of what we call the common core. We should have a merit system that embodies not only a set of criteria by which to measure educational success, but a way in which to enable the best, brightest and most skilled to go on with their educations and to contribute that much more not only to their own families, but to the nation as it competes in the world of commerce around the world. It's simple really, so why didn't anyone think of it? Oh yeah, they did...fifty years ago.
Your friend,
Mike
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