• Category: Common Core State Standards, School
• Published Dated: November 8, 2013
• Written by: Susan

For the last year, many educational supply stores, particularly on the east coast of the U.S., have told me that unless my math workbooks have a Common Core State Standards label on the front cover, teachers would not be allowed to purchase the books for their classrooms.

Well, to begin with, I thought to myself, if in fact administrators really said that to their teachers, then this CCSS issue is not good. The CCSS are supposed to be guidelines, not curriculum. Many, many educational products are already excellent teaching resources, and do cover CCSS without having to say so, and for schools to discard good educational materials because they lack a sticker on the front cover, well, that is a good reason to not support paying higher taxes to benefit schools.

Because my workbooks DO support many CCSS in math, I did not have to make any interior changes to the books, and so far I added changes to one book’s cover and inside cover so that those teachers who needed this would have it. However, today, after I contacted a store owner who wouldn’t buy my books without the CCSS label, saying now Two Plus Two Is Not Five does have that CCSS statement, she wrote back saying that now their state doesn’t want CCSS! REALLY???

Do these educators making decisions have any idea how much effort and dollars the various educational publishers put into designing products for CCSS demands? Now, they changed their minds?

Lesson learned: Continue to create quality products based on what is I know to be educationally best for children, and practical for teachers and parents to use. Do not be swayed by NTLB or CCSS or other hot issues of the times.

I would love feedback on this blog.