Common Core: Reinforcing Failure

[Geee]

American Thinker:

There are three distinct outcomes of the educational process: skill acquisitions, learning specific content, and critical thinking. Acquiring the skills of reading, writing, and doing basic math is the initial stage of education. Good education should promote skills that will enable the student to progress to the level of content acquisition. But the purpose of education is not accomplished by a self-indulgent pursuit of content acquisition alone. Gaining knowledge should be accompanied with the ability to think critically and evaluate one's beliefs.

How does Common Core, the latest governmental effort at educational reform (following "No Child Left Behind" and "Race to the Top") measure up to these criteria?

Government educational initiatives have continuously focused on implementation of rigorous all-inclusive educational standards. Unfortunately, the goal of implementing universal educational outcome criteria addresses the symptom and not the cause of the problem. The educational crisis in this country was not caused by lack of universal criteria for success, in much the same way that widespread obesity is not caused by the lack of criteria for healthy weight and body mass. Many Americans fail to meet the standards for healthy weight, but this is the effect and not the cause of being overweight.