It was once little more than an afterthought and what opinions there were of it were generally favorable. Now, it has become a pariah, an object of disgust and scorn.
The subject is The Common Core State Standards, best-known simply as “Common Core” or, in some states (including Mississippi), “The Devil’s Primer.”
Common Core was a product of almost 20 years of careful study that showed America’s students were poorly equipped to take on the challenges of higher education and the working world.
Developed by the National Governor’s Association and The Council of Chief State School Officers, the program was adopted by 44 states and the District of Columbia. The goal was to make sure students, regardless of where they lived, would achieve a standard of competency to better equip them for the future. In June 2010, standards for English language arts and mathematics were established and training and implementation began.
But over the last few years, Common Core has become a whipping boy for conservatives. It is, they say rather vaguely, an attempt by the federal government to take over the nation’s schools, although they provide scant evidence of that.
But let’s assume, for the moment, that Common Core really is a federal take-over of the nation’s public schools.
To that, I would say, “Great. Some responsible entity needs to do that” and I would point to the history textbooks that will be introduced into the Texas school system this fall as Exhibit A.
Five years ago, the Texas board of education adopted a revised social studies curriculum. Those new standards include a lot of dramatic changes, from a focus on the biblical underpinnings of our legal system to a whitewashed picture of race in the United States. The new guidelines for teaching Civil War history are particularly disturbing: They teach that “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — carefully ordered to stress the first two and diminish the last — caused the conflict. In August, the first textbooks catering to the changed curriculum will make their way to Texas classrooms.
Leaving aside the biblical argument that seems to all but ignore the established fact that most of our law is based on English Common Law, let’s consider the matter of Civil War history, which has been a hot topic of late.
As Mississippi considers the issue of whether our state flag should be altered to remove the Confederate flag from its canton, those opposed to the move have argued that the flag represents Southern pride and heritage. When confronted with an opposing view – that the flag is symbolic of slavery – their argument insists the flag doesn’t represent slavery since slavery was not the primary cause of the war.
To suggest that sectionalism/state’s rights, rather than slavery, were responsible for the bloodiest conflict in our history is to mistake the symptoms for the illness. It is a classic case of putting lipstick on a pig, an effort to sanitize history to ease the consciences of those who cannot see evil for what it is.
Those who insist on such a distorted view should be called upon to answer two simple questions: What caused the sectionalism that divided the country? What “right” were the Southern states seeking to preserve? There is but one answer to both questions: Slavery. There is no credible evidence to the contrary.
Now, it is one thing for those who cling to the relic of the Confederacy and insist it be provided the official status to embrace this regrettable distortion of our history.
But now it will be taught to schoolchildren in one of the largest public school systems in our country. Today it is Texas. You wonder how long it will be before Mississippi’s children will be taught that revision of our history as well.
Discard Common Core? I think a better argument is to be made to expand it to include history.
Because if the states are incapable or unwilling to provide our children an honest account of our history, then some responsible entity must step in.
If what is happening in Texas is an example of “state’s rights,” it can be said that state’s rights can be just as dangerously wrong today as it was 150 years ago.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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