The Common Core journalism blackout

Earlier this month, a deliberately anonymous teacher set forth some of the problems she saw in the Common Core-based test she had to give her students. This teacher argued — and provided anecdotal evidence to show — that the Common Core-based test: (1) is developmentally inappropriate; and (2) does not actually assess what it claims to assess. Both excellent points. But it seems unlikely that reporters for any "mainstream" — or even non-mainstream — media outlets will investigate either of her assertions.  

Criticism of Common Core, it is regularly implied by the mainstream, comes only from wing-nuts concerned about "federal overreach," not from teachers or parents or experts on standards and testing. But as Mark McQuillan (former commissioner of education in Connecticut), Richard Phelps (testing expert), and I wrote in our analysis of Common Core-based sample tests, PARCC (one of the major Common Core-aligned tests) has at least four major problems.