Resistance to the Common Core in New York State: How Might the Funnel Be Upended?

• In Event: Academ-ecologies: Learning, Unlearning, and Resistance

Abstract

The Common Core, announced in 2009, seeks to ensure that all students graduate high school college and career ready. The Common Core is what Ivan Illich might describe as a funnel. It is an education intended to universally funnel all learners into workers who can compete in a global economic competition. This paper uses qualitative research methods to examine actions taken by local communities and unions within the state of New York to upend the Common Core advocates’ intended funnel toward universal college and career readiness. We also consider how the reform’s resisters have not voiced a notion of education in which “each moment” for each individual entails “learning, sharing, and caring” (Illich, 1970/1983, viii).

Authors

• Mindy L. Kornhaber, The Pennsylvania State University

• Nikolaus Barkauskas, The Pennsylvania State University

• Kelly Griffith, The Pennsylvania State University

• Erica Beth Sausner, Pennsylvania State University

• Julia Mahfouz, The Pennsylvania State University

• Philip Chew

• Stephen Kotok, The University of Texas - El Paso