Faster learning progress seen in first Common Core state

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

My CAT gut reaction:

Whatever.

Time will tell...

...whether the results are:

• A fluke

• Another George W. Bush "Texas Miracle" which proved to be anything but upon further scrutiny.

• Another "Atlanta Miracle"...and we get to see another batch of educators do the "perp walk" and spend their days (and nights) with mother rapers and father rapers.

• The real deal...the salvation of public education...and the politicians will have to find a new scapegoat to divert the public's attention from their own ineptitude. (Don't hold your breath on that one. Public school teachers...damned for all time!)

Actually...

...the Common Core State Standards never were the problem.

Standards, schmandards!

The previous incarnations of "state standards" by whatever name they masqueraded by never did rule the education world. As they say about politics, that all politics is local, well, the same can be said about education...all education is local...it's what happens in the trenches that matters. CCSS is simply the flavor of the month.

The problem is the high-stakes consequences of the CCSS...

...the totally unfair labeling of children, educators, and schools as "failing"...

...and the high-stakes punishments meted out to educators and schools for failing to reach an arbitrary "meets or exceeds" score on an invalid, unreliable standardized test.

If it weren't for that, we wouldn't be having this CCSS discussion...

...nor the growing "opt-out movement".

The problem is politicians...

...like that Texas fella who start this mess, George W. Bush, infamous for his statement: "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?", and the bipartisan group of senators and representatives that pushed through NCLB...

...followed by Barack Obama and his never-taught-a-day-in-his-life Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and the bipartisan senators and representatives that pushed through RTTT.

So...

...whether or not the "Kentucky Miracle" proves to be real or simply more smoke and mirrors...

...time will tell.

What we know for sure is that children in the United States are under extreme pressure to become more like students in China..."good test-takers" (while in China, they have seen the error of their education ways and are trying to emulate the "American Model", with an emphasis on "critical thinking".

Sigh.

Ya know...

...while our children spend their days test-prepping, maybe we should ask that rarely asked question: