A concept identified as a "myth" on the website of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012, Myths vs. Facts) is the idea that the Standards will prescribe what teachers must teach in the classroom. Unfortunately, the response provided by the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) attempts to veil the response and redirect the reader by confusing the ideas of what and how teachers provide instruction. CCSSI (2012) notes that teachers will be given plenty of freedom regarding how to teach. The problem is that this portion of the response is sandwiched between two statements that directly admit that the Standards will prescribe what to teach. Thus, the indictment is validated.

At the root of the indictment is the notion of academic freedom. This concept was addressed in by Gehle (2012) who noted that centralized curriculum and academic freedom need not be diametrically opposed. In this instance, if the Common Core Standards are considered a centralized curriculum, then faculty are relieved of the need to create curricular content and can instead concentrate on the means of most effectively delivering that content to maximize student learning. However, the Common Core Standards are different from a centralized curriculum. In the centralized curriculum, the faculty members who must deliver the curriculum retain input into what the curriculum will contain. The Common Core Standards remove faculty involvement in the selection of what to teach leaving faculty members with a sense of being falsely admonished for ineptitude and publicly deemed inferior because this vital decision diminishes their academic freedom and removes them not only from control of classroom content selection but also from the professional and scholarly communities in which they willingly serve.

From the perspective of a classroom or online instructor, the removal of faculty members from the professional and scholarly communities is as much a personal and emotional issue as it is a professional one. Indeed, the consternation rises much more quickly among faculty members because of the personal and emotional affront than the professional attack. Teachers at all levels dominantly enter the profession with an innate desire to do good and thus to improve the lives of those they touch through their teaching. So, the Common Core Standards are often perceived by teachers as a personal attack on a retinue of caring, committed, and dominantly underpaid individuals. This sense of teachers being emotionally attacked is the issue that must be reconciled before any further progress can be made toward lasting school improvement. Once this is addressed, teachers may come to see the Common Core as having the benefits of a centralized curriculum that increases their academic freedom and allows them to focus on the art of teaching rather than the details of content selection.

There are additional issues surrounding the acceptance of the Standards as a centralized curriculum. However, that remains a topic for another time and place.

References

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012). Common core state standards initiative. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/.

Gehle, T. (2012). Centralized curriculum and academic freedom [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://cirt.gcu.edu/blogs/handinhand3acurriculumandinstruction/centralizedcurriculumandacademicfreedom.