(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Do. Not. Miss. This awesome article over at Reason on how Common Core is already destroying options for parents.
My son’s charter school focuses on rigorous academics. Even so, as third grade kicked in this year, so did a lot of tears during homework time. Tony’s teacher explained to us that the kids are having a rough time, especially with math, because they didn’t just jump up to third-grade lessons and expectations as usual, but are now expected to meet Common Core standards. We may have picked a charter, but it’s publicly funded, and so the new standards apply.
Don’t agree with the CC PLDDs about what kids should learn and when? TFB.
“Pre-algebra?” my wife, a pediatrician who deals with children and tracks their physical and mental growth every single day, asked. “I’m not sure third-graders are developmentally ready for this. Their brains may not be able to handle it yet.”
But ready or not, my son is held to those tear-inducing standards—the identical standards that bind his friends at the International Baccalaureate school, and the Montessori charters in town, and the district schools, and the Waldorf charter down the road. Forget educational emphases, or philosophical differences over the pace at which different children should learn. The benchmarks will be met, or else.
Private schools are under the gun to conform as well, because the college entrance exams are strutting around bragging that they’re mega-super-CC-aligned and are going to become even more so.
CC is doing for school choice what Henry Ford did for automobile color choice.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
Or else, what?
[…] Common Core Made J.D. Tuccille’s Son Cry […]
I am envisioning the post that you would pound out on your keyboard if someone were to write a blog post about how their 3rd grade child had their best friend move to a private school with a voucher and it made them cry. The ridicule would flow like a mighty stream, and rightly so.
I also recall a previous discussion here on Jayblog where you, quite sensibly I thought, agreed that the homogenization threat via college entrance exam argument was overblown.
If you have new information that has changed your mind on this, let me know. This concern is more plausible than the scare story du jour (Federal Takeover! United Nations! Standards too easy ERRRR I mean too hard!) but would be easily dispatched. I can put you in contact with some Texans that can put this concern to rest with extreme prejudice, if there is more to this than slapping a CC bumper sticker on the tests. I believe that you would find it both easy and fun to do so.
[…] Common Core made J.D. Tuccille’s son cry […]
[…] implementation is causing a retreat on standards and accountability. Common Core implementation is causing restricted options for parents. Common Core implementation is causing the crumbling of teacher […]