After Thanksgiving, you might have worried that you ate too much. Perhaps you needed to loosen your belt a little. No worry if you shop at the Common Core Store. One size fits all. Do you remember the buzzword "Differentiation"? It applies only to your classroom. Banish the thought of applying it to common standards, standardized tests or measures of teacher evaluation.
While capitalists may readily agree that the free market trumps central planning, those who look longingly at the school system with dollar signs in their eyes dare not risk applying that same train of thought to the sphere of education. With centrally planned common standards coming at us from behind closed doors, one can open the door to mass marketing national textbooks, national review books, national tests and so much else. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
But, wait, there's more... Imagine a vast database of student information to open cyber doors to meeting the unsolicited "needs" of "failing" students. Close failing schools (there will be a lot of them, if the test is hard enough); open charters and direct more money to the private sphere. Why not put some in your pockets, perhaps half a million per year, all in the good name of helping the less fortunate? Central planning is starting to look way too attractive now!
Forget the joy of letting millions of minds across the country work to meet the needs of their local populations. When one size fits all, whether following a hefty Thanksgiving dinner or burdensome Common Core, things can be made so much more comfortable...for some.
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