On Education's common core

The Op-Ed is from the Columbus Dispatch and I think it needs a lot of attention paid to it.
(Click on the link to read more)

National education standards will be a costly failure

Saturday April 27, 2013 6:27 AM

On June 2, 2010, the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers quietly changed American public education as we know it. On that humid summer day from the swamps of Washington, D.C., sprung the Common Core State Standards, a national curriculum aimed at standardizing K-12 education across the country.

Only 16 days later, Ohio's State Board of Education adopted Common Core, pushing the national standards on our state's schools without allowing enough time for parents and teachers to review what their children will be learning. Three years later, the negative repercussions of this hasty decision are unraveling in the Buckeye State.

At a time when Ohioans are struggling to make ends meet, Common Core could cost taxpayers up to $500 million to fully implement, according to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Common Core is so expensive because every school in the state will have to refurnish its library upon adoption, buying thousands of new textbooks that comply with the national standards. But, the textbook costs are just the beginning. Ohio schools also will have to buy hundreds of new computers, since Common Core requires standardized tests be administered online. These tests, by the way, have not yet been released, and the standards are set to kick in this fall.