New York Times Columnist Gets It Mostly Right On Common Core. Mostly.

In her recent New York Times op-ed, “The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students”, Diane Ravitch describes the effects of Common Core as compared to its promise. I do agree with much of what she says there, about the way Common Core was a rush job funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation money — and, incidentally, written by ill-qualified authors — and the way it was sold as a panacea that will “improve achievement and reduce the gaps between rich and poor, and black and white.” And I do agree with her when she attributes the recent sharp

Common Core’s Promise of “College-Readiness” Proves Empty

A small kerfuffle has broken out among education reformers about what level of proficiency is sufficient to be deemed “college-ready.” The original promoters of Common Core pointed to the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test and its performance levels — “basic,” “proficient” or “advanced” — and created a sense of crisis by showing the small percentage of American students who reached the “proficient” level. Declaring this to be a national scandal, they sold Common Core as the solution. But a few days back, Tom Loveless, of Brookings, published an interesting piece in which he suggested the shaky underpinnings of