The tougher standards associated with the Common Core have shown that education reform is needed in the suburbs where schools have traditionally performed well.
This week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan challenged the assumption that only inner city schools need improvements.
The Newsday opinion piece cites Long Island as example to support Duncan’s point:
On Long Island, where prosperity and property values were built on the promise of superb schools, only about 50 percent of students finish high school ready for college-level work. As many as 60 percent of enrollees in Suffolk and Nassau's community colleges must take remedial courses. The problem is not that the local schools haven't traditionally been good, experts say. It's that they haven't changed to reflect a world that's quickly becoming more demanding, competitive and technologically complex.
The opinion piece also explains that the lower proficiency rates shouldn’t slow down the implementation of the Common Core:
Our standards have been too low. The schools are not preparing our kids as well as we had hoped. And it has to change.
