It’s called Common Core, but the new standards coming to New York schools are anything but common.
For one thing, they aim to better prepare students for college and work.
For another, they aim to align curricula and tests, addressing complaints that too much time is spent teaching to tests.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that students start taking the first exams this week, and the results aren’t likely to be pretty.
“It’s going to be a very painful week or two,” said Merryl Tisch, chairman of the Board of Regents.
Officials are lowering expectations, with estimates that city scores could drop as much as 20 or 30 percent when results are released in July. And therein lies the biggest danger.
So much decline could set off wails that the new standards, which require broader understanding of subjects instead of just the basics, are too high and must be lowered.
On the surface, the demands will sound reasonable. They will speak of compassion for poor students, and blame will be heaped on teachers, principals, parents — even the test designers.
But scratch beneath the surface and the complaints will be hollow. They can be reduced to: “Can’t have Johnny fail, it will ruin his self-esteem. We have to make him feel good about himself so he can learn.”
Right — give him a trophy first and maybe then he’ll hit a home run.
Politicians will be the worst. They will spin failure while calling it success, then distort the numbers to justify their self-serving claims.
We’ve seen that movie before — it’s Reform followed by Social Promotion. The bar is raised, then quietly lowered because failure is not an option. Only success is allowed — even if it’s phony.
For an example of that, consider that 80 percent of New York City high-school grads who go to local community colleges need remediation. That means their high-school diploma was effectively meaningless.
Actually, it was worse than meaningless. It was a lie, a fraud, bogus. Trying to catch up in community-college remediation is a dead end for most, leaving them ready for neither college nor work.
The Common Core standards, used in 45 states, have a real chance to change those dreary outcomes. They propose to challenge students, and teachers, to be able to succeed in a global economy.
Apart from the specifics, the idea itself is not new, nor is it the only path to success. The ultimate test is whether higher standards are enforced over time, or dumbed down.
If history is any guide, the only way to consistently enforce higher standards is to throw the self-esteem experts out of the room. Their psychobabble about the need to coddle children is turning too many American kids into entitled, empty-headed whiners.
An honest assessment of what students know, and don’t know, is nothing to fear. The only thing to fear is the fiction that kids are learning when they aren’t.
As I have argued before, the freedom to fail is an essential part of success. Without failure, we can’t know what success is.
And failing, even the fear of it, can be a great motivator. Talk to any athlete or successful adult, and they will talk about overcoming adversity, doubts and failure. Most successful politicians have lost at least one election.
Childhood and the teen years are no different. Taking away failure does students no favors. It defeats the purpose of education, which is about building character as well as acquiring a foundation of knowledge and learning how to think critically.
The wailing must be ignored for the good of students.
Raise the bar, then stand firm. Help those who help themselves get over the bar, but don’t lower it.
That’s a life lesson as valuable as anything else taught in school.
It’s the Obama appease process
Here’s today’s current-events quiz: What foreign adversary rejects American demands, and gets rewarded with taxpayer cash and kid-glove treatment?
A) Iran
B) North Korea
C) Palestinians
The correct answer is: all of the above.
The appeasing patterns toward Iran and North Korea are well known, with recent headlines attesting to the dangerous error of our ways. Unfortunately, the White House is following the same ruinous course with the Palestinians.
After rejecting President Obama’s request to drop their unilateral bid for statehood at the United Nations, Palestinians in the West Bank are being rewarded with goodies from international aid groups and American taxpayers and companies. All this is part of a push to get Arabs to restart peace talks with Israel.
Naturally, Israel is being pressured to make concessions, while nothing is asked of the Palestinians except that they talk.
As wrongheaded as the idea seems, get ready for a worse one. Now that Obama visited the region, and Secretary of State John Kerry is trying some shuttle diplomacy, watch for increasing talk of involving Hamas in a final deal.
Never mind that the terror group wants to destroy Israel and refuses to renounce terror. Under the appeasement mind-set, their refusal to change their bad behavior obliges us to open our wallets even wider.
Uncle Sap, indeed.
Adolfo’s Weiner woe
Adolfo Carrion could be the first casualty if Anthony Weiner runs for mayor.
Carrion, the former Bronx borough president, has been endorsed by the Independence Party, but insiders think his hold is shaky. The party’s ballot line has been for sale — just ask Mayor Bloomberg — and Weiner could open his war chest to take it from Carrion.
“The Independence Party is a coin-operated group,” one insider said. “Weiner could contribute enough so that the leaders would — surprise — decide he’s a better choice.”
The conventional wisdom is that Weiner would run as a Democrat, but a third-party route is also a possibility. It would let him avoid a tough Dem primary, or, even if he were to lose it, still be on the ballot in the general election. A three-way contest in November among, say, Democrat Chris Quinn, Republican Joe Lhota and Weiner on the Independence line “would be a jump ball,” the insider said.
The ’Chelle game
Michelle Obama’s changing hairstyles should have been a tip-off. The first lady is having an identity crisis.
In a recent interview, she called herself a “busy single mother” and, days later, said of a murdered Chicago teen, “Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her.”
Obama’s poses are aimed at political ends, of course — mostly gun control — but her desperation to connect with ordinary Americans rings false.
She should try simple honesty on for size. It might make her feel better about herself and might make the country proud of her.
Must ‘See’ TV
“The Vatican,” a new TV program, is being described as a cross between “Upstairs Downstairs” and “The Sopranos.”
In other words, a butler in therapy dresses as the pope, goes to Bada Bing, takes the cannoli and leaves the gun. Or something.