Common Core and Common Sense – There is a lot of turmoil and controversy these days over Common Core (CC) and how the desire to have nation-wide standardized expectations for education has snowballed (or train wrecked) through the country.

The original idea, thanks to some ‘experts’ working with Bill Gates and many of his dollars, was a good one, because there should be an organized system of clearly defined goals that explain what children are expected to learn.

The first issue with CC is that many early educators say the standards created were not developmentally appropriate for children under eight. I have read and reread them and compared them to the developmental milestones of many early education curricula including the ‘traditionals’ like Creative Curriculum, High Scope, Montessori, and Bank Street; to a variety of individual programs using a variety of curricula, like Head Start, Reggio Emilia, private day care, faith-based preschools, and VPK (FL based pre-kindergarten program managed by the public school system); and to the recommendations of the ‘biggies’ like the American Medical Association, American Pediatric Association, and NAEYC, and in my opinion, the Common Core STANDARDS are not far off the mark. Uh, oh – losing some readers now!

It is not the standards that are developmentally wrong – it is the practices teachers have been forced to implement because of the measuring of those standards – the incredibly inappropriate standardized testing system, that is completely wrong.

Gates created a monster that Godzillaed its way from Washington throughout the country, was radioactively altered by the evil greedy test makers, and now causes five-year-olds to have clinical depression over the stress of test taking and making sure their favorite teacher can feed her family because if he fails, she makes less money!

I personally and openly blame Arne Duncan for this, and not just because his first name is spelled funny and his last name is a yoyo. I will probably also lay blame on the Betsy DeVos theory of “education” which is not based on research and which insists on channeling funds to privatized charter schools rather than making necessary changes (USING DAP) to our pubic education system. NO, BETSY, NO!

As teachers have always done – while legislators, administrators, and other ‘educational experts’ make mincemeat of education – please try your best to do what’s right for your children and their parents. Calm the fears, sneak in lots of active learning experiences, fight hard for Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) and wait until this wave of silliness in American education passes.