"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Not just "noise"


Letter to the Editor, Published in Reading Today (IRA), Jan/Feb, 2015
In response to the NovDec cover story, "Beyond the noise."
Concerns about the Common Core are not just "noise." It is a bad solution for a nonexistent problem. Our problem is not a lack of standards, but our unacceptably high rate of poverty. Poverty has a devastating impact on school achievement. When scholars control for the effect of poverty, American students' test scores are at the top of the world.
The Common Core does nothing to protect children from the effects of poverty. Instead, it spends billions on unnecessary testing.
The Common Core is a tsunami that could destroy American education.
Stephen Krashen
Original article: Hall, April. 2014.Moving beyond the noise of the common core.  Reading Today 32(3): 18-21

1 comment:

  1. This may sound radical but maybe American education in its current form needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up, not simply given a new coat of paint and hope it looks and smells better.

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