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‘White Moms’ Remark Fuels Common Core Clash
11/18/13 | Politico
Behind the Headline
Teaching Math to the Talented
Winter 2011 | Education Next
Parents are reacting to a comment made by Arne Duncan that some of the opposition to Common Core standards comes from white suburban moms who are upset that their children are not doing well on the new common core-aligned tests. “All of a sudden, their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought … and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said.
This has spurred further debate about how well kids at suburban schools are actually performing. According to Politico’s Stephanie Simon
In fact, kids at well-to-do suburban schools do exceedingly well against global competition on international reading and math exams. The U.S. average is dragged down to middling, or worse, in the global rankings by its high concentration of high-poverty schools.
However, a study published in Education Next found that even more advantaged U.S. students trail their international peers. “Only a small proportion of the children of our college-educated population is equipped to compete with students in a majority of OECD countries,” wrote Eric Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann in their study, “Teaching Math to the Talented.” They explain that this is not “a story of immigrant or disadvantaged or minority students hiding the strong performance of better-prepared students.”
-Education Next
