On edit: The paper book reads better than the Kindle because it is easier to flip back and forth and underline, etc.
This was a very detailed and serious book. It was depressing to learn all this, especially since so few have the intellectual ability and time to dive deep into this deliberately obfuscated area.
I was raised liberal and still have an inner liberal which is quite snarky.
My inner liberal says:
So, she thinks common core is a communist plot to weaken the US. What a maroon! (ht to Bugs B.).
Answer to inner liberal:
She asks questions about whether these CC ideas sprang up recently or whether they have a long history. She finds that the CC ideas DO have a long history, although the ideas keep changing names as people figure out the details. These ideas came from people who have a desire to rule the masses in a totalitarian state, preferably without having to use much force or being able to disguise the force.
Some of these people are Westerners who want to create a heaven or utopia on earth as a hobby/way to give their lives meaning. Bastiat said
the public then becomes socially-engineered by the legislator and must bend to the legislators' will "like the clay to the potter":
Others are people in Communist countries who required an ideology and tools useful to keep the masses in check and keep them in one congealed mass.
That is the history of the CC ideas. For an extreme example of destroying the individual see Ayn Rand's book Anthem.
She has several useful aspects to her analysis.
She keeps in mind 'the educators relationship to the means of production', although not using those words. The teachers, school administrators, foundation members, and NGO employees are not directly financially harmed by the CC. In fact they benefit from them.
She digs deep into what the CC people mean when using common words like 'competency' and 'outcomes.' They don't mean what the common usage would imply.
She properly dissects use of the word 'system' as the CC people apply to activity that is not part of a system. Totalitarians like to label everything as a system so they can then say they are just changing one system for another; not imposing a system where none existed before.
The enemies of CC are the girl in the corner engrossed in Jane Austen or the independent thinking boy arguing with the teacher
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