The Origins of the Common Core

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. The Nation Was at Risk and the Public Schools Did It

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 1-28

3. Public Schools: Conservative Coalescence and the Socialist Threat

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 29-63

4. Friedmanomics, School Vouchers, and Choice

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 65-89

5. Corporate Superstars and an Inconvenient Truth

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 91-110

6. Public Schools and a Third Way of Governing

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 111-129

7. NCLB and the Texas Tall Tale

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 131-143

8. Education Reform and the Deep State: An Alternate Universe

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 145-167

9. The CCSS: Systemic Education Reform Writ Large

   • Deborah Duncan Owens

   Pages 169-189

10. CCSS: The Gorilla in the Room for Free Market Education Reform

    • Deborah Duncan Owens

    Pages 191-209

11. Conclusion

    • Deborah Duncan Owens

    Pages 211-218

12. Back Matter

    Pages 219-287

    PDF

Owens provides a historical analysis of the ideological movements and reform efforts leading to the Common Core State Standards, beginning with conservative criticism of public schools in the 1930s and culminating in a convergence of the political right and left in efforts to systemically reform education based on free market principles.

• Common Core State Standards
• CCSS
• Race to the Top
• RTTT
• public schools
• education policy
• free market
• Friedmanomics
• ESEA
• NCLB
• civil rights
• Reading First
• RF
• Teach for America
• TFA
• value added measurement
• VAM
• academic achievement
• poverty
• charter schools
• education
• education reform
• school
• Standards

"This timely book goes beyond the tired debates about the Common Core State Standards and asks instead: How did we get here, with self-appointed "reformers" casting public schools as the enemy, and unproven market models for education as the answer? This comprehensively documented treatment of that question proves that Deborah Duncan Owens is a voice to be reckoned with in education policy debates." - Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, University of Illinois, USA; Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Adjunct Professor, Murdoch University, Australia; and author of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (2014)

"Deborah Owens offers a detailed probe of the corporate-political alliances that cross party lines to push radical ventures traveling as education reform. She provides a needed history of what is really behind the Common Core, the curriculum and testing it requires, and why anyone who supports the survival of local public schools should care." - Susan Ohanian, Fellow, National Education Policy Center

Thomas J. Fiala, Arkansas State University, USA

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