Sunday, November 17, 2013

Balog Needs Critical Thinking on Common Core

She's too young to remember high school and college students who skipped classes to protest the Vietnam War. That's why columnist Melanie Balog, while paying lip service to freedom of speech, denigrates families that will protest Common Core by doing the same. Why, they might even be (horrors!) tea partiers!

Balog has the mindset that, if Common Core standards are supported by CCSD's Superintendent McGinley and Executive Director Paul Krohne of the SC School Boards Association as well as the federal Department of Education, they must be great. She parrots Krohne's opinions:
"Neither of those things quite justifies pulling kids out of school. Just because it happens to be the federal government involved in trying to set up a uniform standard for math and English doesn’t make it wrong. The plan is there not only to ensure that what students learn in South Carolina is the same as what they learn in South Dakota, but that students from both states — and all the rest — are ready for what comes after high school.
“All we’re doing is talking about establishing world class standards, getting kids either career ready or college ready,” Krohne said. “To say that it’s more than that is a complete misinterpretation of the facts.”
Sounds like what these folks need is more education, not less.
No, it's Balog who needs more education. She accepts Krohne's judgment that the Common Core is "world class" and will accomplish "career or college ready" graduates, more so than the previous ones, despite ill-thought-out materials and serious testing questions. 
Whom do you trust?

3 comments:

Pluff Mudd said...

Balog drank the Kool-Aid. Just like the Tea Party she so abhors, her mind is not open to any possibility that the critics may have a point. Where does she send her children to school? Not all schools in Charleston County are equal, but we already know that.

Clisby said...

Oh, this isn't even the silliest thing she wrote. That would probably be the opening:

"Here’s a little pop quiz for all you parents out there.

If you’re concerned that your child isn’t doing well in school, would you:

A) Schedule a parent-teacher conference to create strategies for improvement.

B) Investigate tutoring options.

C) Limit the time your child spends on TV and video games so that there’s more time to devote to homework.

Or would you:

D) Keep her home from school to protest a national set of educational standards?

Apparently if the people grading this quiz are members of SC Parents Involved in Education, then the right answer is D."

Good grief - she must have done absolute zero research into this.


Alex Peronneau said...

The correct answer is "E" - All of the above.