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8/2/12
Assessable Standards
Hundreds of millions of dollars (and of hours of teachers' time) are being devoted to the illiterate "Common Core State Standards Initiative." (http://www.corestandards.org/) They are "illiterate" because literacy does not mean just the ability to read and write, but also to do so meaningfully. In the first place, these "Standards" are not standards -- they are objectives. If you try to read them (and you should at least try), you will find that there are repetitious (and often silly or insane) statements about what students should be able to do, but there is very little about what students should know, and even less about assessment. (In the FAQ, they pass that buck to the states.) If you are interested in this problem, you should also study any sample assessment documents that you can find. Often there is a huge gap between the "standards" and the assessment. The purpose of this essay is not to go into the specifics of what is wrong with the Commom Core -- that would require another, rather long, essay. My purpose here is to suggest how standards should be written such that they are clearly assessable -- and easily comprensible for teachers and parents. Standards for Grammar and Literacy
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