Description
Book SynopsisHow the Common Core standardizes our kids' educationand how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rat
Trade ReviewIn
Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy, Nicholas Tampio offers a concise and readable anatomy of the Common Core movement as well as a case against national standards generally.
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Wall Street JournalThe book is brief, pithy, to-the-point and well-focused, making it a great gift for your civilian friend who wants a quick, accessible explanation of what all the fuss is about.
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CurmudgucationCommon Core provides a useful reminder of how educators—together with parents, and civil society—
should be engaged in a larger political process of how schools, curricula, and national standards are organized.
—Emmerich Davies, Harvard University,
Perspectives on PoliticsTable of ContentsAbout the Author
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Arguments for National Education Standards
2. Arguments against National Education Standards
3. English Standards, Close Reading, and Testing
4. Math Standards, Understanding, and College and Career Readiness
5. Science Standards, Scientific Unity, and the Problem of Sustainability
6. History Standards, American Identity, and the Politics of Storytelling
7. Sexuality Standards, Gender Identity, and Religious Freedom
Conclusion
Epilogue
Notes
References
Index
