By Victoria Pagonis
It seems like every other day there is an article written about the new Common Core State Standards slamming them as a terrible new policy. As an expert in standards and assessment, I could not disagree more. Yes, the Standards are challenging but isn’t that what we want for our children? Why would we adopt new standards that reflect what was, instead of what is and what will be?
The real problem isn’t the standards, it’s the tests.
When the Standards were first adopted in 2010, two consortia received hundreds of millions of dollars to construct the Next-Generation Assessments, the tests that will evaluate students’ success in mastery of the Common Core. With 47 states and territories adopting the Standards, it only made sense to administer these new tests online. The problem came to light with the first glimpses of the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and Smarter Balanced sample tests. The items were unusual in their construct, and the content was far too challenging even for the most gifted students.
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