It always looked like political conditioning to me.
This is an interesting piece from the other day. "....When the priority becomes raising average test scores, individual needs are lost sight of. Both high achievers and low achievers are poorly served as resources are focused on raising the average classroom scores, but it is especially the high achievers who suffer. The message to these students, those who have the greatest potential to make important contributions to society, is “pass the test and you’re done.” That should never be the message of teachers or schools. The classroom should demand the most from students, not the minimum. Students should be challenged and inspired, not told that their task is to pass a standardized test written by Washington officials.
Common Core also fails because it imposes national standards over state and local priorities. It is unlikely that students from west Texas will have the same background or interests as students from Manhattan or south Florida. It is likely that the literary tastes of students from Vermont differ from those of students from Oklahoma. Students should not be made to study the same material or to arrive at the same conclusions. But under Common Core, the local culture that determines so much of how one thinks must be suppressed. The standardized material censors out all local “bias,” except of course the politically correct bias of liberals in Washington.
One of the most insidious aspects of Common Core is the potential for federal officials to impose not just neutral standards, but ideologically biased content in the name of testing. When nearly every question in the reading section hinges on race, class, and gender, schools are forced to inculcate a leftist ideology. When science questions focus on climate change and social science stresses income equality, schools move farther to the left.
Even by its own minimal standards, Common Core fails, because it generates resistance on the part of students and teachers. Even if one discounts the effect on high achievers and the ideological bias of Common Core, its effectiveness in reaching the goal of basic competency must be questioned. Once students are led to believe that the purpose of education is to pass a test of any kind, respect for learning has been compromised. Miss Jones understood this truth about education......."