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Common Core opponents jump the shark
The test results are in: Knee-jerk opponents of Common Core are NOT smarter than a fifth grader.
The latest bogus example to gin up fake outrage comes from an anti-CCSS website called whatiscommoncore. A Utah high school student captured screenshots of the SAGE test, showing somewhat philosophical resource material for the essay question, which was about the nature and value of books. Follow the link to view the screenshots.
The question presents some reading material on the value of books, making a sort of modest proposal that books are static narratives that do not engage the reader, compared with narratives like video games that involve the reader. The essay questions then invite the student to write on that prompt, either supporting or refuting the argument. This is in the best pedagogical tradition of rhetoric, by making the student support or refute an argument on a provocative topic.
The author says right in the text “It should probably go without saying that I don’t agree with this argument.” That’s in the screenshot.
But the opponents’ claim, of course, is that CCSS is “anti-book” and teaches the value of video games over books. I am laughing out loud at the sheer willful idiocy of it all. Here’s what they say:
Utah High School Student Captures Screen Shots of the Anti-Book Common Core Test
A Utah High School student took the Common Core (SAGE) test this week. Seeing objectionable issues in that test, she thought her mother should know. The student took screen shots using her cell phone and sent them to her mother. Her mother passed them along to us.
The message given in this test is that book literacy is inferior to the playing of video games. The test claims that literature forces passivity but video games teach students how to be leaders. Long live grunts and smoke signals.
The test makes these following devilish assertions: “books understimulate the senses” and “books are downright discriminatory” and books are “choreographed by another person [while video games are not]“. These are mean pushes toward valuing video gaming instead of books and they precisely match the pushy philosophy of Common Core creator-turned College Board President David Coleman. They also match the philosophy of Microsoft Owner/ Common Core funder Bill Gates. So it is no surprise. It’s still sickening.
I am reminded of Tea Party rallies featuring OBAMA=HITLER signs and demanding “Government, hands off my Medicare!”
It is the same idiocy that claims “Huckleberry Finn” is racist – or that “Brave New World” advocates sexual libertinism.
The worst part is, it just might work.
Feelin’ good about Common Core
Last week in science class my ninth-grader was assigned to develop a test to measure the absorbency of paper towels, including a few store brands plus whatever they put in the school bathrooms*, and then to write a procedure on how to perform the test. It fit right into the lesson. The teacher selected hjs procedure as a good example to read for the class.
Is this the big deal about teaching informational writing? I remember having to write procedures for every lab in my 7th grade lab notebook. It’s just how science is done.
Common Core? Bring it on.
* the school bathroom brand failed miserably
the seventh type 
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