Actually, 'white suburban moms' say Common Core's too lax

Much of the criticism of Education Secretary Arne Duncan's recent remarks -- that "white suburban moms" dislike Common Core because the new standards are revealing their kids as academic laggards -- has focused on the "white suburban moms" part. It's true that, if a Republican uttered anything along those lines about any group of females, the words would be lumped into the faux "war on women" Democrats dreamed up last year. And Duncan's non-apology apology simply indicated he wished he'd found a less controversial way to ding the same group of people.

But I've not seen anyone point out that, far from complaining the standards are too high, one of the primary lines of attack on Common Core is the standards are not rigorous enough.

That was one of the points made by a group of current and former Catholic teachers and professors: "In contrast to such academic rigor" in what the letter elsewhere calls "the history of Catholic education," Common Core standards "lack an empirical evidentiary basis and have not been field-tested anywhere."

It's part of the argument made by Concerned Women for America, for instance in a recent press release titled "New reports reveal Common Core standards are inferior to Georgia Performance Standards."

A Topeka newspaper used this headline to summarize the arguments made by speakers representing Americans for Prosperity and the American Principles Project: "AFP speakers: Common Core dumbs down Kansas students."

But Duncan isn't addressing that question or those critics -- or, as far as I can tell, anyone real. It's another strawman argument, mischaracterizing the opposition's actual beliefs, from an administration that specializes in those.

The Common Core on the End of the Cold War: Even Worse Than You Might Have Supposed

"From a column by Terrence Moore, professor of history at Hillsdale:

On pages 403-4 of Pearson/Prentice Hall’s LITERATURE, Grade Ten, Common Core Edition, we see an editorial written on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It appeared in The New York Times. It begins, “The Berlin Wall was bound to fall eventually.” That’s interesting. Was the editorial board of The New York Times writing in 1980 that the Berlin Wall was “bound to fall eventually”? The editorial continues:

"But that it came down as bloodlessly as it did 10 years ago this week is largely a tribute to one leader. Today Mikhail Gorbachev is a political pariah in Russia and increasingly forgotten in the West. But history will remember him generously for his crucial role in ending the cold war and pulling back the Iron Curtain that Stalin drew across Europe in 1945. [Emphasis added.]"

So there you have it. Gorbachev brought down the Wall. Why? Well, evidently because he was a good guy. In one line of the editorial we are treated to a masterful use of elliptical prose: “As political pressures began to build in the late 1980s, Mr. Gorbachev was left with two options.” Etc. What political pressures? Who or what brought those pressures? We are not told. The New York Times editors assign the words “enlightened,” “idealism,” and “pragmatic” to Gorbachev. Indeed, the General Secretary of the Communist Party is said to have had “a wisdom and decency that is sadly rare in international power politics.” Does that comment extend to American participants in international power politics, particularly at that time?

Those of us who lived through those years and kept up with events might wonder what role, if any, Ronald Reagan played in this drama, according to the textbook editors. Will the adjectives “enlightened,” “pragmatic,” “wise,” and “decent” be applied to him? His name is not to be found in any of the documents concerning the fall of the Berlin Wall. But on page 449, we do find, as promised in the Common Core, his Address to the Students of Moscow State University held up as a model “exemplar text.” Unfortunately, the address is so heavily highlighted with shades of green, blue, orange, gray, purple, and pink—and so buried under the jargon of two-bit literary criticism (central idea and point of view, methods of development, organizational structures, rhetorical devices, figurative language, tone and word choice)—that it is hardly readable. Worse still, in the textbook editors’ introduction to the speech, students are told the following:

"Led by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviets were blazing through the greatest changes they had seen since the 1917 revolution. Although reforms were rapidly taking root, they were not far enough from communist ideology for Reagan. . . . In this excerpt, notice how Reagan restrains his strongly anti-communist sentiments while still extolling the ideals he represents.".............

Yep but for a lot of reasons. First, cost - no one thought about how to finance this beast. The online testing infrastructure is one thing. I work with school districts and they need to ensure they have enough laptops and tablets for each kid to test on (Race to Top Funds linkage) and they don’t have wifi systems strong enough to handle the load. Second, the cost of reporting requirements - you cannot believe all of the extra paperwork teachers and staff have to deal with. Planning periods to get classes ready to go are a bust - they are now being used for CC related activities. The premise of using more non-fiction and historical documents is great IMO. The danger lies in the interpretation or a school choosing material that is not factually balanced. Kids are expected to learn about and identify bias in writing - a good thing - but when I had one school buy 50 copies of Al Gore’s global warming book to be used in science class I about wanted to throw up. Most educators (not union lackies) want to do a good job and they have been tossed into a cluster. It will be interesting to see who else drops out.

I often tutor my friends kids in different levels of math. They usually come to me after struggling with something for a couple of weeks. The first question I ask them is for them to explain to me how their teacher explains how to do it. The reason they are struggling becomes quite clear in seconds. There seems to be a conspiracy even from the youngest ages (watch a 9 year old do multiplication and division, for a “wow, really?” moment) all the way through high school algebra to make sure the steps to do anything are as numerous and confusing as possible. I also tutor university level kids, and they seem to struggle in calculus because of what they didn’t learn in school.

I have hacked up sputum that more accurately portrays American history than this drivel!

The Berlin wall fell mostly because of OUTSIDE pressures being foisted upon Russia. The Russian people had been told for YEARS that America and the west were dying out, they had no money, they had no inventions, they had nothing to offer the Russian people, etc...

Well, you can only contain the truth for so long and the truth was rapidly filling the vacuous depths of East Germany and the rest of Russia. It was getting easier for the Russian people to see that they were being lied to on a grand scale. The world was passing Russia by and THAT progress from outside Russia was a greater influence on the fall of the Berlin Wall than anything that Gorbachev actually accomplished!

To be honest, I think Gorbachev was hoping that the massive influence of the west would scare the Russian people back into the controlling arms of Socialism - and it almost worked, considering how many people despise Gorbachev and his actions.

It reminds me of Obama completely, utterly FAILING with the Obamacare system, hoping the American people will RUN to the Government, begging for a single-payer solution!

Common Core only teaches your children how to be good commies. It sure does not teach them reading, writing and math, much less US History and Civics. Or skills learned in shop classes or Food or Sewing.

I have a 36 year old step daughter that can fix your computer, install a server, trouble shoot your PC from home with a icon you tap and enter your code. BUT she cannot boil water or sew on a button! So she lives of fast food or nuked stuff. And when any household item goes haywire it’s call your 73 year old dad to come lay that new floor you want, or fix your garbage disposal or your clothes washer that is making a strange nose, because you forgot to remove change from your pockets. DUH!

Now I am a simple operator of computers and smart phones, but I can cook, bake, sew, and rewire a lamp and do minor first aid. All taught in the school system before the commies took it over.

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