What Will Be the Future of a Common-Cored World?

If we continue on this course of corporate-sponsored reform, what will be the characteristics of the Common-Cored generation?  

1.  I fear society will be separated into those who compliantly study old tests to score well on future ones and those who are branded as failures because they do not.  I think society may be more sharply divided than ever. 

2.  I fear America will lose its creative edge.  With too much focus on test prep, people will "think inside the bubble."

3.  I fear we will condition citizens to accept what they are told as "right" answers, instead of learning to question.  

4.  I fear we will raise kids who lose faith in themselves and others who think they are the world because they know how to rope, drag down and subdue a standardized test.  I fear for the kids who will become nervous, agitated and anxious in life as well as for those who will develop false bravado because they think the best measure of a human being is his test score.  

5.  I fear for the kids with learning disabilities and I fear for others who may be wrongly diagnosed with the same or given unnecessary "remediation" because they just don't care to sit for so many long hours of testing.

6.  I fear what will happen to kids who have social and emotional issues pressing upon them.  They will be pushed further down because of their inability to focus on standardized stuff.

7.  I fear what will happen to kids who are held back by common standards.  How many will seize their inner grit and sprint ahead to try to rejoin the race?  And, how many will walk away and give up, with head bowed?

8.  I fear what will happen to populations that don't buy into the system.  They don't lack in "smarts," but they'll be counted as losers by statisticians, just more fatalities of the Common Core.  

9.  I fear what will happen as society becomes more segregated between those who thrive on tests, those who do not and those who see the whole thing as meaningless.

10.  I fear good teachers will be driven from a profession that is becoming increasingly more unattractive to the kind of people who like people.  

With educational deformity so prevalent these days, it seems like we're living in a science-fiction story.  And the landscape looks pretty bleak some days.  But I remind myself, ultimately, the future remains for us to write.