Letter from the Editorial Board

Another academic school year is in full swing. Students across the country are engaging with more advanced material, negotiating new social relationships, and, if fortunate, feeling enriched and emboldened by all that goes on in their schools. As a classroom teacher I relished the opportunity to start fresh again, to make improvements and become better. The beginning of a school year held the promise of hope.

Sadly, not all students are filled with this same sense of revitalization and renewal. For them, schooling is something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Discrepancies in funding, for example, create and maintain opportunity and achievement gaps that adversely affect student learning and thwart our commitment to equity (Darling-Hammond, 2010). School reform, consequently, is a continuous source of debate and analysis.

One of the more recent reform efforts has been school choice. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, has made school choice the centerpiece of his educational agenda during his three terms in office. The rationale is fairly straightforward: parents should have the right to choose the best school for their child, and the competition for students will force schools to improve and be attractive in the marketplace or else be shut down. Spencer (2012) recently reported mixed results in Bloomberg’s New York City, however. After a decade in which over 500 new schools were opened and over 100 were closed, a majority of students in Harlem—an epicenter of reform initiatives—attend schools where less than 50% of students are reading at or above grade level. While test scores are certainly not the only—or even desirable—means for evaluating schools, Spencer’s point is well taken. School choice, while beneficial to some, is indeed no cure-all.

The latest attempt at improving schools is curricular. In 2009 the National Governors Board and the Council of Chief State School Officers agreed to help create and implement national standards in English and mathematics. The Common Core State Standards Initiative intends, according its website, “to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce,” and, moreover, to serve as “the first step in providing our young people with a high-quality education.” As of this writing, every state except Alaska, Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Virginia has adopted the standards.

On some level the initiative is laudable. In an increasingly diverse and mobile nation, a certain measure of uniformity and standardization promotes national unity and the belief that all students—regardless of geographic or social location—should have access to the best and highest standards. The mission statement captures this sentiment:

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

(http://www.corestandards.org)

Few would disagree that standards should be clear, consistent, and relevant. Students, especially, appreciate hand-on, applicable educational opportunities that matter to their lives.

The Common Core, however, has become quite divisive (Toppo, 2012). Some misgivings are rooted primarily in politics: control over educational issues is reserved in the Constitution for states. Even though the Common Core is a state-led initiative, state adoption of the standards is voluntary, and the federal government did not promulgate the standards, many believe a national curriculum undermines the vigorous practice of democracy. Moreover, there are concerns that the greatest beneficiaries of the Common Core are not students but the corporations that are expected to profit in the billions from textbook publishing, e-learning resources, professional development programs, and teacher evaluation systems (Samtani, 2012; Weiss, 2011).

There are also questions about whether new standards will increase student learning. Loveless (2012) finds no relationship between curriculum standards and achievement or between rigorous performance standards and achievement. “The empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will...