Unfortunately, the former is winning, and students are suffering the loss. “Sadly, in 2010 the Bay State abandoned its literature-rich English standards for inferior national ones, the Common Core, which slashed fiction by 60 percent and stagnated NAEP reading scores,” Jamie Gass wrote in The Berkshire Eagle. “Marginalizing great books deprives schoolchildren of legendary stories that can transform young lives.” Gee, the Fordham Institute seems to think it happened by accident.
Gass is director of the Center for School Reform at Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think tank.
