College professors are joining the ever-growing ranks of those opposed to the Common Core educational standards.
Common Core math standards have drawn the ire of math professors in Kentucky’s public universities, write Jane Robbins and Emmett McGroarty in the Federalist. Both Robbins and McGroarty work with the conservative American Principles Project.
“This rebellion among Kentucky math professors is likely a harbinger of things to come across the nation,” write Robbins and McGroarty. “By and large, professors weren’t consulted before their colleges and universities signed onto the Common Core scheme. They are only now beginning to understand that Common Core will result in hordes of unprepared students showing up in their freshman classes, and that the professors will be expected to relax or suspend course quality to hide the problem.”
Common Core has been fully implemented in Kentucky since the 2011 to 2012 school year. It was the first state to fully implement Common Core.
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Opposition from math professors stems from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education’s decision to abolish remedial courses, according to Robbins and McGroarty. The council argues that students will catch up on old math material while learning new material. In response, the math-department heads at many of the state’s four-year universities wrote a letter about unprepared students, saying, “Placing these students into courses for which they have not met prerequisites can only lead to either lower educational standards or increased failure rates.”
Robbins and McGroarty argue that K-12 education standards should be written to meet college requirements, not the other way around. “Common Core’s promise of ‘college readiness’ means nothing if the definition is set not by colleges themselves but rather by the standards-writers. Now that professors are catching on to the trick, their rebellion could go a long way to undermine the fraudulent foundations of Common Core.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
