Susan Ochshorn: Angie Sullivan is Weeping for the Children of the Common Core

Susan Ochshorn tells the back story on her early childhood education blog. Angie Sullivan, a teacher of grades K-2 in Nevada, is upset because Lucy Calkins is supporting the Common Core. Angie is weeping for the children. She wrote a letter to Lucy Calkins, whose Writers Workshop she admires.

She writes:

There is one Common Core writing standard for kindergarten students in Las Vegas: write a fact and opinion paper.

Yep.

And that is all.

Children who have never picked up a pencil have one global standard: write a paper.

I’m weeping as I read through these pages in your book (up to 13)—as you describe fine-tuning your research, somehow expressing a loving Common Core at the same time.

I’m having a very difficult time thinking that something as beautiful, powerful, and developmentally appropriate as Writer’s Workshop can work smoothly with the terribly inappropriate, developmentally gross Common Core. I appreciate that this program is your best attempt to fill in the holes with solid examples and sample lessons, but as a professional educator, I question why we would accept this solution. While Common Core meets the needs of a few, in my experience, it ensures the failure of many.