The #CommonCore Rumor Mill

By Erica Grey

Before my career in education policy, I was a middle and high school special education teacher.  Naturally, I learned a lot more than I ever thought I’d need to know about the world of social media.  There was constant chatter among my students about the most recent tweet, post, newsfeed, etc. In my day high school gossip traveled through notes passed in between classes; now the rumor mill works much more quickly thanks to the world of social media. Still, when working with teenagers you expect rumors and gossip to be spread; that’s kind of a characteristic of teens, right?

When I began my career in education policy, I was astonished to discover that social media plays just as big of a role in shaping public opinion around policy as it does in spreading middle and high school rumors.  This is particularly true regarding the contentious Common Core State Standards.The same lessons I previously gave to teenagers – “You can’t believe everything you read on Facebook and Twitter,” and “Don’t spread it if you aren’t sure it’s true” – are apparently lessons that adults need as well.

In a recent Washington Post article titled How Twitter is Changing the National Common Core Debate, Valerie Strauss observes how Twitter has made “the invisible visible,” creating a platform for many people to express their opinion and giving a voice to many people who usually have none. Amplifying the voices of all who wish to be heard is a wonderful and powerful achievement illustrative of true democratic ideals.But what happens when the voices that are amplified are of mistruths and inaccuracies, as in the case of Common Core? Is it really powerful enough to move the needle?

Sadly, so many of the so-called “facts” contained in tweets are complete mistruths. Quickly scrolling through results from a search for #commoncore reveals tweets spouting that Common Core takes recess out of the school day, calling them a federal takeover of schools, and that they remove American Exceptionalism from history classes. I don’t need to waste my time looking at any of the links attached to those tweets to tell you that none of those are accurate (by the way, the Common Core standards are only in math and English language arts, not history). I used to dismiss these types of statements as mere social media hype, but when I hear them repeated in conversations with people whom I would describe as intelligent I find that they travel far beyond the twitter universe.

Social media outlets give everyone a voice, but doing so can be a double-edged sword. In the debate over Common Core, they have enabled rumors, inaccuracies and propaganda to spread at the speed of light. It is disheartening for me to read tweets and posts that mischaracterize the standards and even more devastating to hear the same statements coming from peers. As a former teacher, I truly recognize the value of the Common Core standards in holding all students to high standards to provide them all with a high-quality education. Despite the fact that this was one of the fundamental reasons to develop the standards, it seems that this argument isn’t popular enough to survive in the social media world.

The standards are an opportunity to improve educational opportunities for students, especially for those most disadvantaged. I can only hope that the majority of the public will fact-check what they read on social media, and find reliable sources of information on which to base their stance on Common Core.

My fear is that too many adults still need to learn the same lessons about social media that I gave to my students.