Expecting too Much from Young Children: Common Core Standards

I mentioned my son not wanting to write stories in another blog post, but I did not mention that in addition to needing to write stories, the school was expecting my son to write with topic sentences and a beginning, middle and end to his stories. In the teacher's defense, she was only doing what was required by the new Common Core Standards. Here are a few articles about how the common core standards for the earlier grades may not be developmentally appropriate.

http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=407

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/01/29/common-core-in-nyc-kindergartens/

http://deyproject.org/category/standards/

And, an article about the problem of creating tougher standards in general:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/standards/rationale.htm