I haven’t paid that much attention to the Common Core debate. I’m fairly agnostic on curriculum and standards matters. I don’t really care whether students are learning math one way or another, as long as they are learning it. I don’t care if students learn to memorize the state capitals or whether they work on group projects on immigration patterns in America. As long as they learn something. Because I have a political science background, I tend to think that other factors – community involvement, financial support of the school district,  a qualified and happy staff, smart leadership — make a bigger difference in educating kids than one type of curriculum or another.

And then Arne Duncan opened his big trap and blamed “white suburban moms” for the Common Core backlash.

He had just told a gathering of state superintendents of education that “white suburban moms” were rebelling against the Common Core academic standards — new guidelines for math and language arts instruction — because their kids had done poorly on the tough new tests.

“All of a sudden, their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought … and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said at the event Friday.

Now that Duncan brought politics into the Common Core debate, I’m paying attention.

Because we moved once and Ian switched public school autistic programs, I’ve seen three elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school close up as a parent. There weren’t huge differences in the curriculum between the two middle schools. One middle school studied US government in the 8th grade; the other studied world history. Whatever. Not a big deal. There were differences between the two middle schools in terms of leadership, teacher happiness, and so on, but the curriculum was roughly similar. However, there were major differences in the curriculum among the three elementary schools. One emphasized memorization and tests, the other emphasized group projects and learning “experiences,” and the other was a mix of the two. The kids with the more progressive education do have some troubles adjusting to the more traditional education approach in the middle school, so parents hire tutors to help their kids catch up.

Other than a few complainers, everyone is pretty much satisfied with their kids’ elementary schools. I’m a sucker for local involvement in education, so I think it’s interesting to see how different communities with their differing preferences help shape these schools.

And then comes the Common Core, which sets uniform curriculum goals and assesses progress with standardized tests. For the schools that already had regular tests, this isn’t a big deal. For schools that have fewer tests and less of an emphasis of memorization, this is a huge change in business. It pits one group of parents against another.

Frank Bruni, in the Sunday Times, said that kids are being coddled. They need to fail some tests. They need to learn to work hard, like kids in other countries. We’re too worried about their self-esteem and not worried enough that they are learning important skills.

And now I’m going to be a lazy blogger and step back. No conclusion here. I’ll let you all weigh in instead.