The latest TIME magazine devotes four pages to an article promoting Common Core public school standards.
American education has always been run at the state and local level. Even as Washington has pushed states to try out this or that policy in exchange for federal funding, states have always chosen their own tests and learning goals.
But this fall, for the first time, a majority of American public school children are working to master the same set of more rigorous skills in math and English. These new targets, known as the Common Core State Standards, have been adopted by 45 states in an almost inexplicably speedy wave of reform, representing the biggest shift in the content of the American education in a century.
For an alternative view, check out Terry Stoops’ thoughts about Common Core here, here, and here.
