Common Core: A Story of School Terrorism
A novel of intrigue centered on standardized school testing. Spring (American Education, 2013) starts his over-the-top satirical novel with two plot twists to hook readers: First, the U.S. secretary of education keels over dead at his podium while giving a speech to a group of education officials in Dayton, Ohio. Second, an explosion rocks the Booker T. Washington Charter School in Cincinnati, which investigators later trace to a small storage room. The day before, two teachers had been in that room, industriously changing student’s answers on federally mandated Common Core standardized tests. During the investigation, the FBI exposes connections among the Cincinnati school system, Brightstone, and Kiwi, a China-based tech company that manufactures computers and tablets loaded with Brightstone testing materials. Kiwi is also pioneering a series of robot teachers to replace humans. As suicides mount at Kiwi’s China production plant, Brightstone executives huddle in their boardroom and gripe about the “crazies and teachers” complaining about Common Core. The high-spirited, engaging plot eventually branches into governmental conspiracies, financial misdeeds and international skullduggery—mostly involving scheming Chinese businessmen intent on using Kiwi technology and Brightstone greed to make a killing in the impending global robot-teacher market. The real enemy throughout, however, is the Common Core agenda itself—a stance that educators may find drolly entertaining but may somewhat limit the novel’s appeal. A sharp, tongue-in-cheek adventure set in a world of testing run amok.