Detroit — The Common Core State Standards have risen up a cloud of controversy among parents and educators alike, from numerous “Stop Common Core” Facebook groups to an October 2013 letter from Catholic professors sent to U.S. bishops, expressing concern over the program.

While many dioceses have adopted the Common Core in their Catholic schools, the Office of Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Detroit has chosen a different route.

“The Common Core State Standards are the threshold of what’s expected,” said Brian Dougherty, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Detroit. “Our schools go well beyond that threshold on a daily basis.”

Dougherty explained that a popular misconception about the Common Core is that it’s a formal curriculum, but it is actually “a syllabus of education on grade levels,” essentially, it defines what should be expected for each grade.

“Rather, a curriculum is ‘how’ you meet your standards,” said Dougherty, adding that the Core’s standards offer the bare minimum in education.

“We are for all intents and purposes a college-bound curriculum,” he said of the archdiocesan schools. “I don’t want teachers teaching just to the threshold (presented by the Core).”

Furthermore, he added, despite the widespread adoption of the Common Core across the nation, only two of its standards have actually been published: mathematics standards, and English language arts standards.

Dougherty said he is concerned about education systems that have already adopted the Core without seeing what else the program has to offer.

“I wouldn’t buy a car that’s only half-built, and I’m not seeing a reason to move beyond the tremendous success we are already having,” he said.

Archdiocesan schools will use some of the textbooks recommended by the Core, but they will only be used as a support for professional teachers, he added.

Additionally, archdiocesan schools will continue to monitor students’ success through the IOWA, SAT, ACT and AP exams to ensure they are aligned to their peers’ college readiness and other assessments.

In following the archdiocese’s standards set specifically for Catholic schools, “we can infuse our Catholic identity in each of those core subjects as well,” Dougherty said. “We continue to develop our curriculum which preserves our academic strengths of going beyond the threshold, and preserves and is centered on our Catholic heritage.”

 

Pragmatic approach

The October 2013 letter to the U.S. bishops states in part that “… notwithstanding the good intentions of those who made these decisions, Common Core was approved too hastily and with inadequate consideration of how it would change the character and curriculum of our nation’s Catholic schools.”

The letter also details particular concerns about the Core itself, such as “when algebra is to be taught, whether advanced mathematics coursework should be taught in high school, the misalignment of writing and reading standards, and whether cursive writing is to be taught.”

The letter includes the signatures of many prominent names in Catholic education, such as Sacred Heart Major Seminary’s Robert Fastiggi, Eduardo J. Echeverria and Janet E. Smith, as well as Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Scott W. Hahn and Patrick Lee.

Fastiggi, a professor of systematic theology for the Detroit seminary, told The Michigan Catholic that the Core “seems to be grounded in ‘a bottom-line pragmatic approach to education,’” as the letter states.

“It does not give adequate attention to the classical understanding of education as the opening of young minds to the great works of art and literature,” he said, “and to what the Greeks identified as ‘the Good, the True and the Beautiful.’”

He said the Core could possibly help promote basic literacy and mathematical skills, since “so many students going through U.S. public education today come out as functional illiterates, this might be a potential benefit. This goal, though, could be better achieved using more classical approaches to education.”

The Catholic Church has a far longer history in education than the proponents of the Common Core, Fastiggi added, emphasizing that Catholic educators should trust the Catholic approach to education “as one rooted in the truth about God, the world and the human person.”

 

Falling short

Dennis J. Marshall, a professor of theology at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, is another of the Catholic professors who signed the letter against the Common Core.

Marshall said in an interview with The Michigan Catholic that his greatest concern about the Core is “the way it instrumentalizes human beings … education takes on a purely utilitarian function, in this case.”

“Therefore, anything that is not judged to be immediately valuable or useful in the educative process can be eliminated because it is seen to be worthless in the face of immediate socio-economic needs,” he said.

He said placing the Common Core in Catholic schools falls short of what is expected for Catholic education, as the Core was “developed to ‘enhance’ academically poor performing public schools.”

“Catholic schools generally outperform public schools, academically, and have no reason to adopt the Common Core curriculum,” Marshall said. “If a Catholic school adopts Common Core, I would home school my children.”

He added that parents whose children will be using the Common Core State Standards in their schools should remain diligent about what is being taught in class, as parents have successfully challenged public school boards about content in the past.

 

More than tests

Fr. John B. Huber, CSB, principal of Detroit Catholic Central in Novi, an all-boys’ college preparatory school, said it would be erroneous to condemn or judge the government for creating the Core.

“It is a sincere attempt to meet the needs of students today,” said Fr. Huber, who belongs to the Basilian Fathers, the order that has taught Catholic Central since 1928. “It wasn’t created to promote evil and it certainly isn’t a plot to infiltrate the minds of our young people with propaganda.”

“As a Catholic school, however, we see all truth, all reality as sacred,” he said. “Thus we need to present all subjects through the lens of faith. The Core isn’t allowed to do that.”

He cited his December 2013-January 2014 newsletter to parents, in which he explained that there is more to a Catholic education than the ability to pass exams, as an integral Catholic education goes far beyond the limitations of the Core.

He added, however, that the majority of Catholic young people do not attend Catholic high schools, “and much of that is a financial dilemma we cannot deny and that we cannot give up on.”

“As a Church we really need to rethink how we are supporting our young people who cannot afford the right of a Catholic education,” he said.