Theres a fight over the CCSS

COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS AND THE EDUCATION/CORPORATION COMPLEX Patrick J. Finn

Right-wingers in America suspect that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a plot to impose a national curriculum on our public schools directed by Washington liberals. Left-wingers fear that the Common Core State Standards are the product of an anti-progressive agenda that relies upon an unquestioning faith in Meritocracy and the Logic of Deficit. I do not believe that anyone is actually looking at the standards or understands what is really behind them. Here, for example, are several of the Common Core State Standards for 8th grade reading: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision. Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor. These are the same curriculum goals for eighth grade reading when I started teaching 8th grade reading in 1959. Theres nothing new here, so why do have yet another loud fanfare for new standards? Since about 1900 we have had compulsory education of some sort in nearly every state. Textbook publishing has become a national enterprise. Every state, county, and local school district has a Curriculum Department that establishes curriculum goals for each grade level. The first national, norm-referenced standardized tests appeared at mid-century creating a new corporate enterprise, and eventually curriculum goals came to be called standards. Although these hundreds of Curriculum Departments, textbook publishers, and publishers of standardized tests seemed to be operating independently (based allegedly on scientific findings meaning studies based on statistics) they all arrived ultimately in the same place because they were all looking at each others products. If some poor, benighted employee of a curriculum department, 1

textbook publisher, or standardized test publisher were to propose that understanding Iagos motivation in Othello be the basis for a curriculum goal or standard for 5th grade, for example, he or she would be laughed out of the room (and had better begin thinking about a career change). This is not only because this is patently ridiculous, it is also because no one else is doing that! To imagine that a group of people will meet together and come up with new reading standards that are significantly different from what have been the reading standards for the past 50 years is preposterous. The question then becomes why this new effort when any teacher of a certain age (my age, for example) can tell you that the Common Core Curriculum Standards are not new. Its about money, status, and power. In 2013, there were about 3.3 million elementary and secondary public teachers in the U. S. 50.1 million children were enrolled in public schools and 5.2 million in private schools. On average $11,810 was spent for each student. The total expenditure for education at the federal, state, and local levels was about $580 billion. That rivals the defense budget. The answer to why we keep having new standards is the same reason the military industrial complex keeps looking for new threats and developing new weapons when our arsenal could destroy the world a dozen times over. Suppose the government were permitted to say, OK, were good. Lets direct some of these defense resources to other problems like the environment or rebuilding the nations infrastructure. With money directed away from it, The Military/Industrial Complex would lose money, status, and power. Suppose the government were permitted to say, OK, were good. Lets direct some of these curriculum studies, textbook, and standardized testing resources to other problemssay increasing teachers pay, reducing class size, hiring more teachers aids, or reducing poverty (the single most detrimental factor effecting students school performance), and providing health, mental health, and social services for students and their families. With money directed away from it, the Education/Corporation Complex would lose money, status, and power. Thats not going to happen as long we dont understand the power dynamic behind these never ending cycles of new standards.