Common Core’s Slow Collapse

As a public service, we try to track the progress, or lack thereof, of the latest top-down education reform concocted by elites and insiders—Common Core. We are aided immeasurably by the Heartland Institute which publishes updates on Common Core’s setbacks and advances in School Reform News.

In the May issue, we learn that:

• The governor of Mississippi vetoed a commission on Common Core;
• “Ohio may soon give certain school districts the option of creating their own exams;” and
• Montana parents went to court to repeal Common Core.

Meanwhile, parents fighting Common Core still face uphill battles in Arizona and West Virginia, often struggling against Republican officeholders such as Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. Nevertheless, as more parents, and even teachers, become aware of what C-squared contains, the backlash against it grows.

Michael Goodsey, a high school English teacher in San Luis Obispo, told Vivian Hughbanks, a writer for SRN, that his bosses told him to cap the class time his class spends on literature at 30 percent. And that “literature” may very well not be of the classic variety.

“According to a 2015 Brown Center report on American education, fourth-grade teachers are teaching more nonfiction works than in 2009,” Hughbanks writes.

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