Why Isn't Common Core Working?

First, the facts: Common Core (CC) is not working, as measured by its own standards and metrics. After seven years of implementation in 40 states, Associated Press now summarizes the National Report Card that reveals that two-thirds of graduating seniors are not ready for college. Seventy-five percent failed the math test and sixty-three percent failed the reading test.

These dismal findings are no surprise, as we get similar reports every year during CC's reign. Everybody seems to have an explanation, which too often is an excuse—like we don't spend enough money on schools. That conclusion is easily refuted by extensive documentation, and I won't take the time to rehash that evidence here. But let's look at some possible explanations that are widely shared and perhaps real:

Teaching to the Test. The problem with CC is not so much with its standards but with the testing regimen that has been captured by two publishing houses. The federal government education bureaucrats ("educrats") have turned schools into test factories for CC-based testing. In other areas of politics, we would call that crony capitalism. The focus of teaching in many schools is to teach students to pass multiple-choice tests limited to specific standards in only two areas, math and English. In the old days, we practiced learning the multiplication tables; today, kids practice taking tests—again and again. If teaching to the test worked, maybe we could endorse the practice. But it clearly doesn't work. Why? This leads us to other explanations.

One Size Fits All. Federal educrats treat our hugely heterogeneous population as if it were homogeneous. If you live in the Southwest, you know that this part of the country is largely Mexicanized, with huge numbers of students who don't even speak English. The country as a whole is a mixture of suburbia and ghettos. The government promotes multi-culturalism, while at the same time demands that our schools produce a cookie-cutter product. We have Red and Blue states that seem to be moving further apart. We have growing disparities in personal wealth, aspirations, and family structure. It is a fool's errand to think that one size fits all is the remedy for education.

Political Correctness. CC is notorious for its PC curriculum, which contains significant elements of anti-Americanism and leftist doctrine that have little to do with education. Moreover, for many students, such PC is demotivating. Kids do have a capacity for spotting when they are being manipulated by adults. They do not like it, especially when it is imposed in school.

State-centric versus Student-Centric Education. Students live in a different mental world than adults. Our standards of learning are not inherently theirs. Whatever it is we say they must learn has to be put in a context that is meaningful to them. Math, for example, taught as an isolated subject, has little attraction for most students, especially when the only purpose is to pass a federally mandated exam. However, when taught as a necessary component of a shop class or classes in other subjects, math acquires a relevance that even students can value. Language arts, when studied as an end itself, is hardly as motivating as when students learn it to accomplish their own purposes, like perhaps debating with peers, writing persuasive blogs and social media posts, or school publications. I think that educrats have forgotten what it is like to be a youngster.

Trashing Memorization. CC was designed to abandon the old emphasis on memorization and focus on teaching thinking skills. This is most evident in math instruction. Learning to think is of course admirable, but why then do we not see improvement on the tests designed to measure thinking skills? Do educrats not know that you think with what you know, and what you know is what you have memorized?

I have professor colleagues who criticize me for trying to be a "Memory Medic" and help students learn how to memorize more effectively. Teachers seem reluctant to teach memory skills, or maybe they don't know what the skills are. Even if teachers can teach such skills, their principals and superintendents set the demands that are focused on teaching to the test. Teaching learning skills these days is an alien concept.

What schools need to focus on is helping students to develop expertise in something. That may be in band, art, vocational classes, farm projects, or any area where skills are valued. CC does none of that. The real world needs and rewards expertise. Of course, experts can think well in their field of expertise. And why is that? They know their subject.

When a student memorizes information, she not only acquires subject-matter mastery but the personal knowledge of success. Nothing is more motivating than success. A student owns the success. Nobody can take that away. Federal exams remind students of their ignorance. And we expect that to be motivating?

When I went to school decades ago, school was fun, because I was learning cool stuff and nobody was on my back all year long to make the teacher and school to look good with my test scores. Today, a lot of kids hate school. I would too.

"Memory Medic" has three recent books on memory:

1. "Memory Power 101" (Skyhorse) - for a general audience at http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239100060310http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239100060310

2. "Improve Your Memory for a Healthy Brain. Memory Is the Canary in Your Brain's Coal Mine"- an inexpensive e-book for boomers and seniors in all formats at Smashwords.com, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/496252https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/496252

3. "Better Grades, Less Effort" - an inexpensive e-book for students at Smashwords.com, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/24623https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/24623