This will be, I promise, the last round in a series of exchanges with Diane Ravitch focused on the Common Core State Standards.  Her response to my last post was to post on her site some comments posted on my blog from Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus at the University of California. Krashen is a literacy expert.  For the views of another highly regarded expert in this field, I suggest you look at a piece by David Pearson.  Pearson, a member of the Validation Committee for the standards, provides what seems to me a very balanced and thoughtful defense of the Common Core. 

But Krashen does not actually attack the Common Core standards per se.  The "content of the standards is not the real issue", he says.  "The real issue is whether we should have standards and tests based on standards." He describes the construction of the standards, the development of the new tests and the purchase of equipment to install this new system as one of the "greatest boondoggles of all time."  The real problem, he says, is "our high level of poverty."  He wants all the money invested in this new system invested instead in food programs, school nurses and school libraries.