Susan Ohanian addressed
this letter to the top officials of the state of Vermont.
She asks straightforward questions about the claims made for Common
Core: what is the evidence? Who wrote them? Where is TE evidence
that Vermont schools were doing a poor job? What will it cost to
implement the Common Core? What makes the new assessments better
than current ones? Bottom line: where is the evidence? Or, look
before you leap.
A site to discuss education and democracy
12 Comments
Leave a comment
-
Diane Ravitch's Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Susan O. is long-term jewel who asks all the right questions of those in power. Good idea to use her questions on every state dept of ed going along with CCSS.
oh yes
My thoughts, precisely!
Ohanian’s piece is stellar.
These questions need to be posted nationally! Like Luther’s indictments on the church door.
: )
Fantastic job, Susan. And now for my list of questions about the “standards” (I can’t bear to use the term to refer to them) in ELA.
Please please please supply a link if you’ve written such a list, or post them here. As an ELA teacher I am trying to spread the word in my department and building…and within my union.
Tweeted about corporate corporate this morning and ended up being berated by a “true believer ®.” Fortunately the eloquent P.L. Thomas joined the fray.
All,
I remember reading a really good argument against CC in California – it was a 1-2 pager, and I just looked it up. . . it was on the http://www.CUACC.org website. I have no connection to this site, other than stumbling upon it a year ago.
Diane, blogs are great, but at some point there needs to be a single document/cause that people can rally behind. the opt-out movement has such a chance. But I believe that the general public has to be informed about CC. How, I have no idea. Grassroots efforts? Sending a 2 page pdf to every parent, teacher and administrator that each of us knows?
I am getting such conflicting information. Last night’s back to school night had our quite experienced MS grade math teacher singing the praises of the new math standards.
This should go viral.
Excellent questions. Every state should be answering them. Thank you for voicing them thoughtfully and intelligently.
I agree. I hope this is very, very widely read. Susan Ohanian is one very bright, clear-thinking person!