Standardizing Failure: The Truth About Common Core

I received a simple but important email today. A podcast listener wrote to ask, “What are your views on Common Core and curriculum?“

It’s been a while since we’ve addressed Common Core on the blog, so here was my answer to her.

We are strongly opposed to Common Core (the Common Core State Standards Initiative) and most Common Core-aligned curriculum. We have spent a considerable amount of time discussing the topic on the the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast and the Thinking Dad, and we touched on it in our documentary, Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution. I have included a couple of videos on the topic below.

Briefly, our concerns about Common Core and Common Core-aligned curriculum fall into several general areas:

Promotion of Specific Agendas: Common Core curriculum is designed to promote the agenda of its designers. It is heavily weighted towards globalism, atheism, Marxism, multiculturalism, social-emotional learning, etc.
Poor Academic Outcomes: Common Core curriculum produces poor academic outcomes. Common Core math and reading programs have been especially disastrous.
Student Tracking and Data Mining: Student tracking and data mining are central features of Common Core.
Standardization: A prime objective of Common Core is the standardization of curriculum and ultimately students. This concentration on standardization leads to “teaching to the middle,” which is harmful to students at both ends of the academic spectrum. There is no standard student.
Global Standardization: Common Core curriculum is designed to standardize education across national, social, economic, religious, and political boundaries. What works for a student in Nebraska doesn’t necessarily work for a student in Singapore. As much as the proponents of Common Core would like you to think it isn’t, Common Core is part of a UNESCO plan to globalize education.
Standardized Testing: Common Core uses standardized testing extensively as a measurement tool, which results in teaching to the test. It robs teachers (and parents) of the ability to implement creative and individualized teaching methods and leads to a tendency to prioritize memorization of answers rather than the learning of concepts. It reduces learning to a “bucket of facts,” rather than a rich skill set that allows for thriving throughout a lifetime of learning.
Government Funding: The federal government has increasingly tied the distribution of education funds to the adherence to Common Core standards. While there are bigger issues to consider when it comes to government spending and control over education, we believe that education is a super-local issue, with parents as the primary authorities. Common Core is consistently used to move the oversight and administration away from families, local communities, and states, to the federal government – and ultimately, to the oversight of global interests.

There are several more problems with Common Core, but they mainly boil down to a fundamental understanding that every student is different. Homeschooling allows us to customize the education of each of our children not only to meet their needs and cater to their strengths but to transmit our values to them.

Videos on Common Core:

What’s the Problem with Common Core? Alex Newman and Aby Rinella

Common Core: A Global Education Plan – Alex Newman

How Common Core and School Choice Affect Homeschoolers – Alex Newman

Alex Newman – Death by Indoctrination: The Role of Education in Shaping Global Strategy

In addition to Common Core, we strongly oppose “school choice” programs which distribute tax dollars to private schools and homeschools. We see Common Core and “school choice” as two branches of the same tree—a move toward government-controlled, standardized education. We view “school choice” as an existential danger to homeschooling, as there is no way to decouple government money from government oversight and control.