"We open up the Common Core State Standards process and product, revealing that both are constructions-partial and value laden. With this understanding, we hope readers will step forward to take active roles in the discussion of why CCSS as well as how CCSS."
-Patrick Shannon
Common Core is on everyone's lips. We all want answers about implementation and integration as well as about what constitutes "close reading" or "text complexity." But who is asking the big questions: Common to whom? Core of what? Standards toward what end?
Closer Readings of the Common Core finally asks and answers those questions. Patrick Shannon convenes a conversation among some of the most respected members of the field. They examine the history and content of the standards, teasing out their implications for teachers and classrooms, critiquing their assumptions about students and learning, and looking at their portent for American education now and in the future.
With compelling analysis from Shannon, Peggy Albers, Randy Bomer, Catherine Compton-Lilly, Curt Dudley-Marling, Elizabeth Jaeger, Marjorie Orellana, Sandra Wilde, and Maja Wilson, teachers, school leaders, and policy makers will have the understanding necessary to avoid passively receiving mandates. Instead they'll be able to ensure that instructional decision making remains meaningful and well-informed.
About the Author: Patrick Shannon's latest book with Heinemann is Closer Readings of the Common Core, an analysis and critique the Common Core State Standards. He and his colleagues seek answers to the big questions about standards (Common to whom? Core of What?) by examining the product and process of the CCSS document, its creation, and its adoption. A former preschool and primary grades teacher, Pat is currently a professor of education at The Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of numerous other Heinemann titles, including Reading Against Democracy (2005); Education, Inc. (2002); Becoming Political, Too (2001); iShop, You Shop (2001); Reading Poverty (1998); text, lies, & video tape: stories about life, literacy, & learning (1995); and Becoming Political: Readings and Writings in the Politics of Literacy Education (1992), all published by Heinemann.
