Debating Common Core: Beware Decomposing Numbers and Rinky-Dink Assessments

Open to Debate formerly known as Intelligence Squared U.S. sponsored a debate on September 9, 2014, on the Common Core State Standards. Four participants argued whether American schools should embrace the standards. They included Carmel Martin, a former assistant Secretary of Education and current executive vice president at the Center for American Progress, Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York in Rockville Centre, New York, and Frederick Hess, director of educational policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Martin, from the left, and Petrilli, from the right, argued in support of Common Core. Burris, from the left, and Hess, from the right, were opposed.