Reaching Higher? The Impact of the Common Core State Standards on the Visual Arts, Poverty, and Disabilities

Abstract

As the common core state standards become reality, teachers have reason for concern. In this article the author outlines the roots of what has been called the corporate reform in education and its effects on the arts, poverty, and disabilities. The financial contributions of the Gates and Broad foundations led to the corporatization and nationwide implementation of President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan’s Race to the Top. Teachers’ autonomy and intellectual freedom to craft their own curriculum, tests, and assessments are relinquished to the “experts” and testing companies such as Pearson. The author describes how this reform has consequently marginalized the arts and exacerbated the inequities of poverty and disabilities. These populations flourish when engaged in autonomous acts of discovery, experimentation, and hypothetical thinking, all antithetical to the new reform. Rather, passive submission to expository teaching is an inevitability of teaching to the test.