Common Core polling

The Siena poll out Monday asked people what they think about the Common Core educational standards that have been the subject of so much debate, and answers are about evenly split along the too demanding-not demanding enough spectrum, with respondents shifted a bit more heavily toward "too demanding." One thing that caught our eye: 59 percent of respondents said they were either "very familiar" or "somewhat familiar" with the Common Core. That surprised us, if only because, you know, there's a lot to be familiar with (see: 4,600 word Wikipedia entry) and people don't generally follow policy and government all that closely (see the roughly 70 percent of people who reported basically not knowing anything about Bob Duffy). Maybe the next poll will include a test...

Comments

The idea of the Common Core is fine -- that there's a core foundation of knowledge and skills students should acquire in school. But the way they've implemented it -- scripting modules for the teachers, testing the bejeebers out of the kids, removing critical thinking skills from the curriculum because it's hard to test on a bubble sheet, removing any creativity or spontaneity or ability for the teachers to respond to the needs of their students -- that part all needs a LOT of work!

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