(Cartoon image is by Drew Sheneman in the Newark Star-Ledger.)Many on the right in this country oppose the Common Core standards for education. They seem to view it as a government conspiracy to impose a liberal (socialist) agenda in the country's schools. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
What is Common Core? It is nothing more than a set of minimum standards set by education officials that would insure American students would have a good education when they get a high school diploma. American students have been falling behind students in other countries in recent years -- and these minimum standards would insure that no longer happens.
Why then, do some people oppose the adoption of these standards? Texas, under the guidance of Rick Perry, missed out on billions of dollars in federal education funds just because they refused to adopt the minimum national standards -- and some other states are now trying to do the same thing.
Do these states want their students to get an inferior education? I don't think so. The real reason lies in the ideological and religious beliefs of the right-wing and the evangelicals. The right-wing is worried that young people are starting to abandon them. In a misguided attempt to fix this, they want to replace real history and political science with their own propaganda. The evangelicals see the number of young people without religion is growing. They think they can reverse this trend by teaching religion instead of science in the schools.
That is what's happening in Texas (where the political and religious right control education), and I suspect it is the same in other states now wanting to reject the Common Core standards. They think they are helping their own particular cause, but all they are really doing is dumbing down the education students receive -- insuring they will continue to receive an education that keeps them behind students in other countries.
Rejecting these minimum standards is ridiculous.
