I wrote in a recent post on Common Core that professional autonomy and a coherent national system can co-exist, as they do in nations like Finland and school districts like mine.

I expected vitriolic tirades against government intrusion. Instead, most who disagreed with me voiced reasonable objections rooted in daily experience: their professional autonomy is being stripped away in the name of Common Core.

2008 New York Teacher of the Year Rich Ognibene wrote, "In a perfect world, we would be given an end goal and the freedom to reach it in whatever way we deem professionally appropriate. Instead the excessive focus on test scores is causing district leaders to fear autonomy and favor uniformity of instruction and assessment year round. A superintendent in a neighboring district told his staff he expects to move from one 3rd grade classroom to the next and hear the teacher in the latter classroom finishing the sentences of the teacher from the former."

Madness.

Click here to continue reading.