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Embrace The Common Core

The BriefGet Up To Speed

In K-12 education, there is nothing more controversial than the Common Core State Standards, national academic standards in English and math. Adopted by more than 40 states, they were developed, in part, to address concerns that American students were falling behind their foreign counterparts and graduating high school without the necessary skills for college and the workforce. But is this the reform we'€™ve been looking for? Has the federal government overreached and saddled our schools with standards that have been flawed from the start? Or will the Common Core raise the bar and improve the quality of our children'€™s education?

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  • Paul Butler

    3 Items
    • Former Federal Prosecutor & Professor, Georgetown Law
    Read Bio
    Q&A with Paul Butler

    Paul Butler, author of ‘Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,’ talks about jury nullification, and current issues in the war on drugs and criminal justice with Post-Exchange reporter Jamie Loo.

    Thursday, April 8, 2010
    Post-Exchange
    Paul Butler
    Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

    If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.

    Tuesday, December 20, 2011
    New York Times
    Paul Butler
    My Jury Service to America

    I have jury duty on July 2, and I can't wait. If I get put on a jury in a non-violent drug case, I'll vote "not guilty," based on my principles -- even if I think the defendant actually did it.

    Wednesday, July 1, 2009
    Huffington Post
    Paul Butler
    More from Paul Butler

  • Nick Gillespie

    4 Items
    • Editor-at-Large, Reason
    Read Bio
    What About the 'War on Drugs' and Libertarians?

    Gillespie and Welch answer the question: ‘What does a libertarian think about the war on drugs and how do we change it?’

    Wednesday, June 15, 2011
    Nick Gillespie
    What Would a Sensible Drug Policy Look Like?

    Gillespie speaking at an SSDP conference on the topic of ‘What Would a Sensible Drug Policy Look Like,’ and discussing how drug prohibition functions as a ‘structuring event’ in American life, forcing all sorts of activity to pay hypocritical and misdirected lip service to a Just Say No mentality.

    Saturday, October 25, 2008
    Reason
    Nick Gillespie
    Paying With Our Sins

    Legalize drugs and then tax sales of them. And while we're at it, welcome all forms of gambling (rather than just the few currently and arbitrarily allowed) and let prostitution go legit too.

    Wednesday, May 20, 2009
    Reason
    Nick Gillespie
    The 13th Step

    Why is it that ostensibly pro-drug movies can never quite deliver the goods, can never quite depict drug use as something other than depraved?

    Thursday, March 1, 2001
    Reason
    Nick Gillespie
    More from Nick Gillespie
FOR
In Defense of the Common Core Standards

The Common Core standards offer several virtues in terms of innovation, collaboration, and personalized learning.

Saturday, March 1, 2014
Joshua Bleiberg and Darrell West
Why I Support the Common Core Standards

They guarantee educational quality while leaving states, not Washington, in charge.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Bob Riley
How Teachers Unions Use 'Common Core' to Undermine Reform

Instituting new standards has opened the door for attempts to gut teacher evaluations and 'suspend' accountability.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Eric Hanushek
Springing to Life: How Greater Educational Equality Could Grow from the Common Core Mathematics Standards

Empirical research provides some evidence that the Common Core math standards have the potential to increase student achievement.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016
William Schmidt and Nathan Burroughs
Despite All The Conspiracy Theories, Common Core Is Actually Just Boring

The Common Core can help us build a baseline of data reliability that will help organize what has traditionally been a stubbornly opaque system.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Connor Williams
AGAINST
Good Reasons Abound to Oppose Common Core

The Common Core, by its nature, must treat every child as essentially the same.

Friday, June 13, 2014
Neal McCluskey
Doubts Over Common Core Won't Be Easily Dismissed

What begins with mere national standards must breed ineluctable pressure to standardize educational content.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014
George Will
Common Core National Standards and Tests: Empty Promises and Increased Federal Overreach Into Education

Americans who cherish limited government must be constantly vigilant of pushes to centralize various aspects of our lives. Government intervention is a zero-sum game; every act of centralization comes at the expense of liberty and the civil society institutions upon which this country was founded.

Monday, October 7, 2013
Lindsey Burke
Everything You Need to Know About the Common Core

I fear that the Common Core plan of standards and testing will establish a test-based meritocracy that will harm our democracy by parceling out opportunity, by ranking and rating every student in relation to their test scores.”

Wednesday, December 31, 1969
Diane Ravitch speech
A Progress Report on the Common Core

Evidence shows that standards have little to no impact on student achievement.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Tom Loveless
BACKGROUND
Common Core State Standards Initiative

This site is the official home of the Common Core State Standards. It is hosted and maintained by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center).

Wednesday, December 31, 1969
No Child Left Behind - Overview

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is the most recent iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), the major federal law authorizing federal spending on programs to support K-12 schooling. ESEA is the largest source of federal spending on elementary and secondary education.

Wednesday, December 31, 1969
Assessment
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a group of states working together to develop a set of assessments that measure whether students are on track to be successful in college and their careers. The PARCC assessments will be ready for states to administer during the 2014-15 school year.

Wednesday, December 31, 1969
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) is a state-led consortium working to develop next-generation assessments that accurately measure student progress toward college- and career-readiness. Smarter Balanced is one of two multistate consortia awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Education in 2010 to develop an assessment system aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by the 2014-15 school year.

Wednesday, December 31, 1969
New Twist in Common Core Wars

A new front has opened in the Common Core wars—over testing contracts.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Stephanie Simon and Caitlin Emma
Teachers & Teachers Unions
Teachers Union Pulls Full-Throated Support for Common Core

After years of battling conservative groups opposed to Common Core, supporters of the testing standards discovered Friday morning that one of their most avid allies, the American Federation of Teachers, is bailing on them too.

Friday, July 11, 2014
Haley Sweetland Edwards
Nation's Biggest Teachers Union Slams 'Botched' Common Core Implementation

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said he still believes the standards can improve education. But he said they will not succeed without a major 'course correction' — including possibly rewriting some of the standards and revising the related tests with teacher input.

Thursday, February 20, 2014
Stephanie Simon
Teachers Say They Are Unprepared for Common Core

Nearly half of teachers feel unprepared to teach the Common Core Standards, according to a new survey.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Catherine Gewertz
Poll: Majority of Teachers Support Common Core

The NEA found that the majority of its members either 'wholeheartedly' supported the standards (26 percent) or supported them with 'some reservations' (50 percent). The NEA is the nation's largest teachers union, representing roughly 3 million employees working in every education level, from preschool through college.

Thursday, September 12, 2013
Allie Bidwell
Parents
Parents Lean in Favor of Common Core, but Many Unaware

35% of public school parents have a positive impression of the new education framework and 28% have a negative impression. 37% haven't heard of it or don't know enough to say.

Friday, April 11, 2014
Mitchell Ogisi and Lydia Saad
Math & English
Six Ways Commone Core Changes English and Math Classrooms

Before and after Common Core.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013
The Hechinger Report
A New Kind of Problem: The Common Core Math Standards

A set of guidelines may turn children into ‘little mathematicians’ who don’t know how to do actual math.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Barry Garelick
Why Is This Common Core Math Problem so Hard? Supporters Respond to Quiz That Went Viral

Some of the new curricula labeled Common Core include high quality materials that match well with the standards, but many don’t, supporters of the standards say.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Sarah Garland
Making Math Education Even Worse

American students are already struggling against the competition. The Common Core won't help them succeed.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Marina Ratner
Why Do American's Stink at Math?

Today the frustrating descent from good intentions to tears is playing out once again, as states across the country carry out the latest wave of math reforms: the Common Core.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Elizabeth Green
Federal Bureaucrats Declare 'Hunger Games' More Complex Than 'The Grapes of Wrath'

When Huckleberry Finn isn’t complex enough for our high-school students, I can’t help wondering if we need to change the way we conceptualize literary complexity.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Blaine Greteman
How Does 'Lord of the Flies' Fit Into Common Core?

According to the Common Core English Language Arts Standards website, the Lexile isn’t the only measure of reading difficulty

Saturday, November 30, 2013
Holly Korbey
Polls
46th Annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools

60% of Americans oppose requiring teachers in their community to use the Common Core State Standards to guide what they teach, with opposition among Republicans much higher than Democrats.

Monday, September 1, 2014
William Bushaw and Valerie Calderon
No Common Opinion on the Common Core

Although a majority of the public continues to support the standards set by CCSSI, and supporters outnumber opponents by a two-to-one margin, trend lines show serious erosion in support. In 2013, no less than 65% of the general public favored the standards, but that portion is now just 53%.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Michael Henderson
State News
50-State Look at How Common Core Playing Out in U.S.

A state-by-state look at the Common Core standards.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Associated Press
The Hechinger Report: Common Core

Can the Common Core State Standards transform teaching and raise student achievement? The Hechinger Report and the Education Writers Association looked at seven states in depth.

Wednesday, December 31, 1969
Common Core Becomes Touchy Subject for Governors Group

The National Governors Association was one of the founders of Common Core, a set of academic standards aimed at raising student achievement. But as Democratic and Republican governors gathered here for summer meetings, Common Core wasn't on the official agenda, a sign of how the bipartisan idea has become a political minefield.

Friday, July 11, 2014
Beth Reinhard
Common Core Education Standards: Why They're Contested Left and Right

More than two-thirds of states quickly adopted Common Core in 2010, but four years later, the standards seem to have become, among other things, a proxy for whatever in education people are unhappy with.

Sunday, August 3, 2014
Amanda Paulson
Jindal Withdraws La. From Common Core Standards Program

Tensions over the Common Core in Louisiana erupted into an intramural battle Wednesday as Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) declared he was withdrawing his state from the national education standards while the state’s top education officials insisted Louisiana would keep them.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Lyndsey Layton