I teach in Ohio. It is a small, urban school in which I teach eleventh grade English language arts. This used to be American literature. It still is, to some extent. By following the prescribed content, we’ve read exactly two literary texts: “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” The rest of the CC prescription is informational text. We’ve read the Declaration, the Preamble, the Bill of Rights, Patrick Henry’s “Speach to the Virginia Convention,” “Federalist Papers Number 44,” Dr. King’s “Letter from the Birmingham City Jail,” Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” the Iriquois Constitution, Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the 4th of July,” Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and the Emancipation Proclamation and several other historical informational texts. We were just about to read a lovely ten page narrative about the Chinese building the transcontinental railroad when I had enough and supplemented with other material.
You might think that the informational text is all good and well; however, CC requires that all of those documents be examined through a victim’s lens. It’s all about the evil white man. In fact, the CC standards for To Kill a Mockingbird (which I teach every year highlighting the conservative values within, and sorry for no italics) focus on the development of the female characters! What?
My kids are in public school, doing common core testing right now. Yesterday, my 8th grade son had to write an essay after reading four articles. Two argued that manned space flight should be undertaken, for various reasons, including the opportunity to somehow understand our environment better by doing comparative planetology. One was about robots and was an obvious attempt at distraction. The fourth said that manned space flight was not feasible and, considering what we don’t know yet about our own planet, such as our oceans, we should study Earth first. One of the questions posed was what criticisms could be made about the study-earth-first essay’s position? It made it clear which point of view was the acceptable one, and which was the one that should be attacked. My son found this to be manipulative.
Last year, my daughter, in HS Common Core testing, read pieces questioning why borders are necessary. She wrote a whole essay about how “good fences make good neighbors” because she was so ticked off at the naive, Kumbaya-singing tone of the materials she had to read.
Go into the attic and get a 1950s Readers Digest. Then get behind the spandex lady at Wal-Mart and get the latest edition. Compare and contrast.
Even the gosh-darned Hardy Boys have been dumbed down. A well turned-out 8th grader in 1950 could cruise through college today, IMNVHO.