New York Times Opinion Piece on The Common Core

There is an opinion piece written on Common Core in the New York Times today. I recommend reading it. Here the link. I wrote this comment:

The biggest problem with high-stakes testing is that it weakens the most important building block of education, and that is the relationship between the mentor and the student. Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and the Race to the Top all distract the teacher from that direct relationship and the art of teaching, causing them to look behind their backs rather than at their students. The problem overflows into the home, as the teacher thinks, to shove all the "stuff" in the kid needs to learn, that he or she has to expand the school day into the home, with more and more homework. Homework goes on to distract the parent from his or her primary relationship as a caretaker and as a teacher (one who does not need a curriculum sent home by the school), to one who gets overly worried that the homework assignments get done. The whole system goes awry and the student is the one to suffer. Interestingly, the student who is going to be a great scientist or mathematician may still do well in this system. The student who is going to be an artist or philosophy may not. And the student who needs a basic education to live an average life is the one who is going to suffer the most.

_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.}