“So this represents a fundamental shift in the way that we teach our kids.”

If you’ve heard about the debate over the Common Core education standards that are being implemented in North Carolina classrooms but aren’t quite sure what it all means, you’re not alone. That’s why JLF’s Terry Stoops, director of research and education studies, has developed a great resource of questions and answers about Common Core in a handy Q&A format. He and I recently sat down to talk about concerns over Common Core in a Carolina Journal Radio interview. Here’s an excerpt.

Stoops: Well, I have lots of concerns about this. Just following up on your point, I think these standards are probably better than what North Carolina had. But are they the best standards? Are they the highest standards that we could establish for our public schools? No, they’re not. The math standards have been panned by just about everyone, every expert out there who has examined them. And there’s debate about the English language standards. But it should be noted that one of the complaints about the English language standards is that a lot of the fiction — the classical literature that students had read previously — is no longer going to be part of the curriculum. They are going to read so-called “information texts.” These include speeches from the president, articles from Time magazine, and that sort of thing. So this represents a fundamental shift in the way that we teach our kids.

Martinez: That’s very interesting because I would say speeches of the presidents: OK, that sounds fine to me. You want to know what presidents were saying during their time and study that. But does that mean they’re not going to be getting any sort of historical perspective on the great writers of our time?

Stoops: That’s right. And history and social studies are supposed to be incorporated in the English language arts standards, although it’s not quite clear how that’s going to happen. But those classical American authors — for example, the James Fenimore Coopers — we’re not going to see students reading those things anymore. We’re going to see them reading short essays and things that are pulled from, essentially, 21st-century publications rather than 19th- or 20th-century works of great American authors.

As Stoops explains, adoption of the Common Core represents a fundamental shift in the way we teach our kids. We hope you’ll get educated about what’s happening with Common Core and start asking questions.