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Goals and objectives are nothing new in the classroom. Teachers have always had
expectations for their students. However, since the 1990’s the shift has been towards whom is setting those objectives or standards ~ the local districts, the state, or national special interest groups. In the late 1990s, Governor Ridge had a commission
of people headed by Paul O’Neill, the CEO of Alcoa, to oversee the inception of state lead standards. Meanwhile, there was also a national movement during the Clinton years to do something similar called Outcome Based Education (OBE).
OBE failed for that moment, because of the backlash related to the first attempt at national standards. Those initial outcomes/standards were in the subject area of History. This would have shifted control from the local schools and states, giving more power over education at the national level. Where would we go for answers about how our children are being taught, to our local school boards or an unknown/faceless bureaucrat or special interest group?
Most of the states that jumped onto the Common Core did so prior to the National Common Core Math and Language Art Standards even being written.
The 50 states did not sit in a room and go over their existing standards. Instead people such as David Coleman, the new head of the College Board, is considered by many the architect of the National Common Core structure. They did not use
existing state standards. Coleman is actually intending to align the SAT to the Common Core forcing all schools to teach to these standards.
Today we have many more bureaucrats and special interest groups marketing the same idea as Common Core Standards. To make it seem as if this is a state lead initiative they went through the National Governors’ Association and the Chief State School Officers. >>read more>> |
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