The Value of Common Core in Schools

Santa Rosa Press Democrat 2/6/2014 By: Michael Haran George F. Will’s article (The Common Core is Worth Opposing 1/17/2014) is amazing in its “conservative” mentality. He bashes the Common Core Standards as a continuation of “Fifty years of increasing Washington inputs into K-12 education that has coincided with disappointing cognitive outputs from schools.” Hello? This is exactly why the Standards were enacted.  Will’s reminds us that the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the 1970 General Education Provisions Act an d the 1979 law...

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Education needs to be retooled as well

By Michael Haran Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Ca. Published: Friday, April 19, 2013 at 7:31 p.m. Last Modified: Friday, April 19, 2013 at 7:31 p.m. In reading Andy Brennan and Simone Harris’ Close to Home (“A teacher’s perspective on improved learning,” April 4) and Bill Gates’ column (“Here’s a fairer way to evaluate teachers,” April 5) on teacher evaluations, I found that neither opinion piece addressed the new curriculums that are now being developed by textbook and eBook publishers and the evolution of K-12 teaching...

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