The Political Hat

     Increasingly, colleges are assigning reading to incoming freshman to read.  The choice of reading, however, is anything but reassuring, as has been outlined by the National Association of Scholars.

     One of the major problems is that, consistent with Common Core, fiction is being replaced by dry texts and essays.  Why?  Because the essays and texts they are pushing are ideologically slanted, combined with the fact that incoming freshmen are not ready for college.

“Common Core replaces many of the full-length classic novels state-level K-12 education standards once favored with brief selections instead. Common Core also tends to substitute short, non-fiction “informational texts” for literature. Critics of the Common Core worry that replacing classic novels with brief bits of non-fiction not only dumbs down the curriculum, but opens the way to its thoroughgoing politicization.

“The NAS Beach Books report shows these fears to be entirely justified. A learning environment stripped of literary richness and reduced to preachy leftism already exists in campus common reading programs. Instead of fighting it, Common Core simply carries this unfortunate trend into our high schools.  Common Core is supposed to turn out ‘college ready’ students. Since preserving your book-virginity throughout high school is excellent preparation for the trendy memoirs and graphic novels many colleges now assign their inexperienced freshmen, I guess Common Core works. When it comes to reading books in their entirety, Common Core supporters would appear to endorse a form of abstinence education.”

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