The National Pulse – New Report Reveals the Twin Dangers of Common Core and School Choice

This article for The National Pulse written by Dr. Karen Effrem analyzes the risks associated with school choice and how it could be another way which the proponents of Common Core use to require the standards be applied to private and charter schools.

A thorough new white paper from the Pioneer Institute titled “Common Core, School Choice and Rethinking Standards-Based Reform” expertly discusses the mountain of evidence showing the flaws and failures of the Common Core standards and their aligned curriculum, as well as how damaging the centralized standards reform movement is to school choice. The report is authored by Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom; Theodor Rebarber, head of the nonprofit AccountabilityWorks; and Patrick J. Wolf, Distinguished Professor of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas.

With regard to the quality and success of the Common Core standards, the report discusses the recent declines in math in 4^th and 8^th grade on the NAEP and the lack of improvement internationally. NAEP reading scores were also stagnant in 4^th and 8^th grade, with lower scores for struggling students.

Sending public funds to private schools, especially religious ones, greatly risks opening these private schools to control by the state, which will eventually mean imposition of public Common Core curriculum on private schools. Given the support for this program among the same corporate establishment groups described above, this seems to be what a significant portion of these pro-Common Core groups have wanted all along.

That is why seeing the apparent takeover of conservative Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis’ campaign by these establishment forces is so disconcerting to education freedom advocates and anti-Common Core parents who helped him win the primary. Instead of keeping his promise to get rid of Common Core, his platform now speaks of merely doing a review of the standards, which is what was used to rebrand but not significantly change Common Core in Florida and other states. There is also much promotion of school choice without addressing the dangers of Common Core-aligned testing and curriculum. All of this is then endorsed by Jeb Bush, whose promotion of Common Core was an electoral disaster. This is potentially a significant reason why DeSantis’ campaign has been having difficulties since the primary.

The full article can be found at The National Pulse’s website.