Common Core State Standards In L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz

Behind the Curtain of Common Core

In L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her friends embark on a journey to the castle of the Wizard, who rules over Emerald City. They reach the hall of the Wizard, and the creature which they discover is intimidating and authoritative; however, Toto the dog eventually spots an inconspicuous curtain in the corner of the room. Upon pulling back the dark cloth, the group discovers that the Wizard of Oz is not the magnificent, omniscient being whom they had once thought him to be, but a simple man (Wonderful Wizard). The Common Core State Standards are not at all unlike the wizard from Baum’s novel, and they constitute perhaps the most controversial topic in the educational world today.

52); however, the true purpose of Common Core is not to advance students, but to advance and strengthen government bureaucracy, and to improve America’s world ranking in the global market while ignoring key social issues.

The first step in discovering what hides behind the curtain of Common Core is judging its foundations. It its most primitive form, the ideology of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) began as the Elementary and Second Education Act in 1965, which minimally increased the amount of financial support from the federal government which would be allowed in the public school system. The next major step for this government-endorsed education arrived more controversially in 2002, and was renamed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The NCLB raised concerns from individuals of all sides of the political spectrum, as the act enabled even greater federal intervention in the developing of policies in local education establishments. Additionally, the NCLB mandated nationwide testing, that, while states were allowed to develop their own tests so long as they aligned with the NCLB standards, had to be reported in order to determine if any

He argues that the majority of schools which implemented the Common Core standards only did so after being bribed, in a sense, by liberalist financial institutions. Rycik states that business tycoon Bill Gates and his Gates Foundation were enlisted by powerful supporters of the Common Core curriculum to financially support the CCSS, and, as a result, Gates spread funds to nationally fundamental educational organizations and businesses alike. These educational establishments included the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Gates further had the opportunity to intentionally influence the CCSS campaign, as a number of his former staff in the Gates Foundation later became employed as members of the Obama administration; consequently, CCSS received immense support from the president as well. The combination of secure funding support and presidential provision ultimately showcased the implementation of the Common Core State Standards as appealing. Within a mere two years of the launching of the Gates program, forty-five American states had instigated the CCSS, not because they we convinced that the CCSS curriculum was a good method of education, but because they had been bribed: the implementation of any educational option other than Common