Why the Common Core is a Bad Idea explains how the latest effort to fix America's schools backfired. It tells the story of an elite group of would-be reformers who devised a brilliant political strategy to transform education across the country without ever facing public scrutiny. It was a bold--and initially successful--ploy. But by 2013, parents started to notice bizarre changes in their children's math assignments and teachers started to complain about new requirements that turned familiar documents such as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address into the equivalents of messages from Mars. Politicians who had hastily endorsed the Common Core without really understanding it began to proliferate excuses. 'Give us time,' they said, 'and we will work out the bugs.' Many of those politicians still don't get it: the bizarre aspects of the Common Core aren't glitches. They are exactly what the Common Core is about. The Common Core is, in fact, a radical educational experiment, one which lowers standards while pretending to raise them.
It also chokes off local control of our schools in favor of domination by the federal government and private consortia that are completely unaccountable to the public. Bankrolled by the Gates Foundation, favored by political elites, and supported by true believers on both sides of the political spectrum, the Common Core may look unstoppable. But as Wood shows, the Common Core is now in deep grassroots trouble. This book explains why and offers a practical way to stop educational steamroller in its destructive path.