Common Core in the classroom and beyond

The big political narrative around the Common Core this summer is that the national education standards pit Republicans against Republicans.

Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and the Chamber of Commerce support the standards. The Tea Party decries them as “Obamacore.” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a onetime supporter of the standards, has turned against them; Jindal’s top education official, a high-profile education reformer, still supports them.

But Jindal can’t actually get rid of the standards on his own. That requires cooperation from the state’s top education official, among others — and that official says the state will stick with Common Core.

The state education department left no room for doubt in its press release: Common Core and the PARCC tests are still in place. (John White, the state superintendent, is a longtime Jindal ally who had the governor’s backing when he got the job.)

A Florida state lawmaker argued that new Common Core tests have a more sinister goal: to “attract every one of your children to be as homosexual as they possibly can.”

“I really hate to bring you that news,” Rep. Charles Van Zant, a Republican, added at an anti-Common Core event in March.

An argument for the Common Core from the Center for American Progress: The standards help the military and military families.

The Chicago Teachers Union voted Wednesday to oppose the Common Core state standards and fight to stop their use in Illinois.

The full resolution is here, but here’s the union’s argument:

The list of stories, poems, and nonfiction near the end of the Common Core state standards isn’t supposed to be an assignment list. But teachers seem to be using it that way.

The standards, now used by 44 states, spell out what students should learn and learn how to do at each grade level. Near the end is a 13-page, single-space list of books, poems and plays.

There are lots of people you can blame for the rise of standardized testing. But if you’re faulting the Common Core standards – as Louis CK did in his viral Twitter rant this week – you’ve got it all wrong.

“It’s all about these tests,” the comedian bemoaned in a string of anti-Common Core tweets that went viral.

This spring, millions of children nationwide are testing out a test. About 4 million students in 35 states are taking exams based on the new Common Core education standards. It’s a dress rehearsal for the full release next year of two new tests designed to measure how well students are meeting the tougher standards.

Students’ individual results will not count this year, and school districts will not even learn their students’ scores. But districts and states are arguably learning something more important: whether the new standardized tests will work.