The political bashing that public education gets year in, year out, has always been a bit of a head-scratcher. We don’t recall ever having a math teacher, for example, who tried to teach multiplication tables with an agenda that was liberal or conservative. Just learn the darn tables, kids. They’re useful.
But North Carolina’s on-again, off-again, on-again association with the Common Core curriculum has been one for the books – textbooks, not included.
The curriculum was developed and proposed by educators from all over the country and by the National Governors Association – most of whose members are Republican.
It has come under fire from ... mostly Republicans, including a majority in the N.C. General Assembly. The legislature here wasted little time in announcing that it planned to develop a curriculum to replace Common Core, and so it did. Sort of.
But the Academic Standards Review Commission charged with developing a new curriculum announced last month that its members were unable to agree on much of anything to replace Common Core.
The commission wound up recommending a few cosmetic changes to the standards and said teachers needed more training.
Other than that, the new curriculum is pretty much Common Core under a different name, according to one commission co-chairwoman.
If that’s settled, maybe teachers can turn their attention now to more important matters. We hear multiplication tables can be pretty useful.
