Pros
- Discourages self-centered, weak writing; encourages grounding arguments in evidence.
- Encourages classic works over young adult popular fiction.
- Reading research shows children need broad background information; Core emphasizes “informational text.”
- Significant emphasis on source documents.
- Requires more than previous state standards except in California, Indiana, and Massachusetts.
- Provides course alignment across teachers, grades, and nearly all states.
Cons
- States can only add to the standards, not alter them.
- Eliminates algebra before 9th grade. Provides students no accelerated path.
- Requires English teachers to explain “informational text” and historical documents they are not trained to teach.
- Already being used to promote “fuzzy math” in some areas.
- The draft science standards endorse Darwinian evolution and manmade catastrophic climate change as fact.
- Requires specific percentages of fiction and nonfiction, starting more even and ending with a ratio of 30 percent fiction to 70 percent nonfiction in 12th grade.
- Implements an experimental form of geometry that failed with gifted Russian students.
- Creators admit it prepares graduates for a two-year college, not four-year college or university.
Sources: Bill Evers, Pioneer Institute, Common Core State Standards, David Coleman.
Image by Dell, Inc.
Joy Pullmann
Joy Pullmann is a research fellow on education policy for The Heartland Institute and managing editor of The Federalist, a web magazine on politics, policy, and culture.
