Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I'm Not Hearing Many Comments

Curriculum Matters:

The common core standards drew more than 2,000 comments in the first nine days that they were posted online for public reaction. By last Friday morning, the draft standards had gotten more than twice as many comments as the "college-and-career-readiness" draft drew during the entire month it was up for comment last fall.

Chris Minnich, who's leading the common-standards work for the Council of Chief State School Officers, told me that the comments are currently trending about 75 percent positive and 25 percent negative. Not that we can know that independently; the current plan is not to post any of the actual comments, so we can see for ourselves, but to summarize them at the end.

There is no reason people couldn't be also publishing their comments on the public internet, but I'm not seeing it. Based on the changes between the last public draft and this one, complaining loudly and in public is a much more effective strategy than speaking quietly and politely in an attempt to get the proverbial "seat at the table."

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