Learning standards and real life.

Sent to the Baltimore Sun, Nov 6

Arnold Packer is right: "The Common Core won't help the common man," (Nov. 5). As Packer points out, the math standards are skewed to the college path. So are the English Language Arts standards: Susan Ohanian has remarked that they seem to be made for English majors. 

John Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, spoke to this problem in 1961:"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California

source: John Gardner, 1961. Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? WW Norton. Reprinted, 1995.
original article: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-11-05/news/bs-ed-education-policy-20131105_1_math-standards-the-common-core-basic-math-s