No disagreements there. I have looked into a few of my daughters' assignments that are clearly out of the common core agenda. They are being forced (pun intended) to think critically more than they were when my other daughter took the same courses a few years ago. That is the ONLY good of common core, other than perhaps seeing me as a refreshing change when they wise up and come to my university. A couple of generations ago I would have seemed normal in my teaching philosophy. Now things have changed enough that I look like a refreshing change. This is bad in general, but good for me personally.

... And that's the good part? They are being taught to accept confusion and to believe that they'll never be the smartest thinker in the room. That is not conducive to nurturing future idea makers. It's laying the ground work to easily form masses of lemmings. This has all been done before and millions have been lead to their deaths with barely a peep.

Some of common core is actually good. The students are actually being forced to learn how to think. It is what they are being taught to think that is the problem with common core.

It's what's coming down the common core pike.

Interestingly enough, I just saw my daughter's feedback from three such student essays tonight. They were graded by humans and graded about the way I would have graded them.

Best wishes,
Prof. Jim Brenner
Florida Tech Chemical Engineering