Doug Noble is a member of Rochester’s Coalition for Justice in Education. He wrote this letter to the editor of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
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Editor:

The D&C Feb 11 editorial “Committed to Common Core” reveals a
remarkable willingness to swallow the Common Core Kool Aid
and to accuse of “posturing” its many critics, including parents’
groups, teachers and their unions, who have moved Regents and state leaders to action.

This long overdue resistance, though, is hardly “posturing.” These
critics, with counterparts across the country, have conducted “close
readings” of the curriculum and policy materials while documenting the
damage done to children and to schools. They have analyzed the
glaringly inappropriate pedagogy, researched the dubious corporate
history, and understood fully the premature, flawed implementation.

They could serve as a perfect role model of the very “critical thinking” the Common Core allegedly champions.

The D&C editorial explains that “systemic change is never easy,”
unmindful that the Common Core, rather than any kind of change, is
really more of the same.

Common Core has been in the works for decades. It is nothing but the
culmination of more than 25 years of a well financed, power-brokered
campaign orchestrated by opportunist politicians seeking a
standardized silver bullet for education and by corporate profiteers
seeking a national education market ripe for their ventures and wares.

These antidemocratic intrusions of standards, curricula, tests, and
management schemes have been distracting schools and educators from
authentic improvement for decades, with such labels as “America
2000,” “Goals 2000,” No Child Left Behind, “Race to the Top,” and now “Common Core,” all with the identical agenda.

The D&C editorial reminds us that “lost amid all this posturing are
New York’s students, including those in Rochester’s schools.” As if
all these concerned teachers and parents have somehow forgotten them.
As if enthusiastic, autonomous and unafraid teachers are somehow not
essential to helping them. And as if Common Core curriculum standards
will somehow address the grueling concentration of child poverty that
is the real source of poor student performance. No, the critics have
not lost sight of the students, as Common Core evangelists repeatedly
insinuate. On the other hand, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, trumpeting students’ welfare while throwing them under the bus in the name of reform is the last refuge of education’s scoundrels.

Doug Noble
268 Brunswick St, Rochester, NY 14607