What we know about North Carolina’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards has changed since the John Locke Foundation released 35 Questions About Common Core: Answers for North Carolinians in April 2013. What has not changed is the demand for basic information about Common Core. As a result, JLF’s Director of Research and Education Studies, Terry Stoops, has revised and expanded the original study and maintained the Q&A format. Among the key questions and answers is this one:
Are the Common Core English language arts standards high quality?
There is a great deal of debate about the quality of the Common Core English language arts standards. The new
common standards are likely an improvement over North Carolina’s previous English standards but are still critically
flawed. Chester E. Finn and Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation argued that the Common
Core English language arts standards are “clearly superior to the existing English standards of 37 states,” including
North Carolina.7 On the other hand, in a detailed 2012 study, Sandra Stotsky, Professor of Education Reform at the
University of Arkansas, and Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory University, concluded that the Common
Core has deficient literature standards and a misplaced stress on literary nonfiction or information reading.8
Parents, do you know what your children are being taught in public school?
