John,

I know you are beyond busy and may even be on top of this issue, but we are facing a real political problem with these new Common Core Standards Initiative and their Draft English Language Arts Standards. The "standards" are being written by The College Board and ACT!
The third link below is a FAQ by Tom Hoffman which describes the problem. Basically, federal money is being dangled in front of schools and to get it they have to adopt the standards. Kentucky has already done so. I think the upshot is that our discipline which is rich and full and interesting will be diminished. We will become 'literacy' instructors who will have their every move dictated by 'national' standards dictated by Educational Testing Services for the purpose of allowing them to create simple tests and improve their bottom line.

I am worried and just wanted to vent about this. The first link is from a blog colleague of mine, Will Richardson. He connects me with Tom Hoffman and the Core Standards webpage whose links are also below. Is this worthy of a post on the ning site?


http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/on-common-standards/

http://www.corestandards.org/Standards/index.htm

http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2009/09/10-reasons-why-you-should-care-about.html