Dear Maria,
Okay, I freely admit I have no personal news of note, but I
just had to laugh—and when is that not a good thing? I know I am slow, or at
least slower, to react to current events these days, even as I have more time
to follow the news, which I don’t very much.
A sign along a local roadway touting a state education
superintendent candidate’s commitment to ending Common Core nearly prompted me to
spend a few minutes on the subject via Facebook, but I just couldn’t get around
to it. Now, our very own governor is ready to demolish the whole thing.
Remember the fanfare when in 2010 we were committed to
Common Core? To be fully implemented by 2014-15. Now what? After all the
speechifying, the political wrangling, the true believers, and those who choked
it down because their admins claimed this was the ed movement to end all ed
movements. And the money. All that money.
Of course, to be fair—do I have to be?—writing standards or
objectives is not easily done. Maybe if parents and law-makers and policy thralls
were to try their hands at it, then rather than eyes glazing over when actually
reading standards like those in the Common Core, the public might understand
how nuanced are the issues of teaching and learning.
Wonder how many parents would own up to different standards and
approaches for raising each of their own children. Cue the chorus of
that’s-not-fair. If only some sort of yardstick or weight scale could be
applied and the messiness of learning and maturing of children could be tidied
up for a spreadsheet.
Curiously, I am reminded of that old saw, measure three
times and cut once.
The unsettling whisper beneath all of this cacophony is the
basic notion of why public schooling—in the name of social cohesion, or the
public good, or the needs of an informed citizenry. Or an effective labor
force.
My weak-kneed bailout is to bend before such overwhelming complexity,
both in the ideas and in scope of the undertaking. Too much for my head to
ponder much beyond a chuckle or a headshake. Now, if I am not helping with the
solution, then I am part of the problem?
My best guess about much of anything is just that, a guess.
Doesn’t mean there’s not some money to be made by folks shrewder than I will
ever be.
Let the dithering continue. I have a lawn to mow.
Yours, as always, srk
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