Two dilemmas: Common Core and private option
An article in the Aug. 25 issue of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Arkansas students' ACT average in 2015 was 20.4 on a scale of 36, the same as last year. One in five young people met college readiness standards and the likelihood of earning a B or C. The national average was 21.0. Statistics show that only 33 percent of Arkansas fourth-graders are proficient in reading and 18 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in math. So we don't need Common Core?
First, people must understand Common Core does not dictate what schools must teach. The former head of curriculum for Siloam Springs schools speaking on Common Core told how hard our district worked to build the necessary curriculum for students to learn up to the standards set by Common Core in the PARCC exam -- math and reading/language arts only -- and she believes Common Core is needed. The Governor's task force surveying the state reported a positive response from educators in Northwest Arkansas.
Unfortunately, to appease the dissenters, our usually competent governor suggests the Common Core exam, PARCC, be dumbed-down to ACT Aspire -- used by Alabama and perhaps one other state. So Alabama will be our benchmark! A silly idea is changing the Common Core name. A secondary purpose in our mobile society is when a child moves to another state they will encounter the same program.
The second issue is the private option. Most of the general public probably doesn't understand enough about it to have an educated opinion. Those against it have closed their mind and have one theme -- it's Obamacare. Actually, it's a program some very sharp legislators devised as a solution to what Obamacare mandated Arkansas to do: Add around 250,000 working poor to our Medicaid program.
The private option gives regular health insurance, regulated by insurance companies, rather than out-of-control Medicaid or clogging up ERs and bankrupting small hospitals (this was happening). For three years the government pays the entire premium amount -- eventually Arkansas must pay 10 percent. Could that possibly be more than the exorbitant cost of actual medical treatment for the poor?
Editorial on 09/02/2015