User blog comment:Dustyfootwarrior/The US government be ruining this country/@comment-25021327-20140716155532

I don't know a whole lot about Common Core, I've done some research on it, but am unfamiliar with the specifics of what is required knowledge for the standardized testing. I would like to know what your sources are for your claims about the history curriculum. I sincerely hope it's misinformation, but I'd like to read any articles containing those very concerning claims.

It seems as though the Common Core program may have some good intentions which unfortunately have been twisted or convoluted in implimentation. I gather that it would not necessarily dictate what teachers can, and can not teach in their classrooms. But would put enough of an emphasis on topics covered in the standardized tests, that it might affect the time required for instructors to touch on other, equally important factors not emphasized by Common Core testing.

I personally think that annual standardized testing is far too frequent, and rigid. I graduated in 2002, having taken far fewer standardized test than CC would require, and I still found that my peers and I were at fairly comparable academic levels. I wasn't really good with math, but was a better writer than some of my other peers, and I wonder how I would have done on a current Common Core test :P

All that said, there has been a bit of an alarming trend in this culture regarding entitlement. Children(myself included) have grown up being told that no matter what, they can be, and do anything they want. That mentality can be dangerous for a culture, and a work force. For a large group of students, the expectation is; graduate high school, graduate college, get a carreer. That is no longer a foregone conclusion by any means. There are glamourous carreers, and there are paying jobs. There shouldn't be shame in being a ditch digger.

Maybe more stringent public education standards could help, but I'm not an expert. I also grew up lower-middle class, so I didn't really deal with issues of poverty as many do.