Disrespecting Rurality: The Inherent Placelessness of the Common Core State Standards

• In Event: Standardized Education in Nonstandard Rural Places

Abstract

Forty-five states have approved the Common Core State Standards and are preparing to implement them in the 2014-15 school year. Similar to earlier iterations of standards-based reform, the CCSS are not oriented to the needs and values of rural communities. Juxtaposing the policy agenda of the CCSS and the tenets of place-conscious education, I critically analyze the tensions between the urban educational values of individualism and mobility embodied in the Common Core and the efforts of rural schools to strengthen attachments to place and community. This paper foregrounds the significance of the CCSS on shaping the contours of rural schools and communities by exploring the centrality of the relationship between educational policy and the political economy of rural places.

Author

• Eric Freeman, Wichita State University