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In their June 8, 2013 opinion piece published in The New York Times, co-writers Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus discuss students taking their “first Common Core State Standards tests.” They go on to imply that the standards are a curriculum complete with mandated assessments that create unhealthy stress on teachers and students and emphasize uniformity.

This kind of argument against the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is inaccurate and simply muddies the waters. Despite the erroneous nature of the argument, it contains echoes of concerns that I have heard outside the classroom, in professional development meetings, union meetings, policy pieces, and news outlets big and small.

As I have kept up with the discussion about the state of education and the shift to the CCSS, I have noticed a number of trends, but the argument made by Mr. Hacker and others is one of the most vexing. This type of argument makes a critical error in describing how public education and the CCSS work.

When we discuss public education in America, we must be clear that education standards in general, CCSS or not, articulate and focus on critical skills for students to learn. They do not advocate for or mandate types of teaching or standardized testing. In its focus on skills, the CCSS are extremely flexible, as it allows districts, schools and teachers to make the decisions they are trained to make in deciding how best to teach the skills to their students.

Frequently this type of opposition to the CCSS points to examples of ridiculous “Common Core math problems” or terrible “Common Core tests.” Countless social news feeds and blog rolls have been crowded with screen shots of supposed CCSS assignments and test questions.

When the standards and the skills, are conflated with content and tests, resistance to positive change becomes stiffer and stasis easier.

A recent article from The National Review entitled, “The Ten Dumbest Common Core Problems,” makes the mistake of calling types of math problems “Common Core problems” ignoring the fact there is really no such thing.

The article also confusingly states that the CCSS is a “widely denounced” initiative that imposes “confusing, unhelpful experimental teaching methods” on schools. This article highlights how one person’s mistaken explanation of the CCSS can lead to a popular misconception that could have a real world impact. Five states have recently stepped away from their commitment to the CCSS after pressure from a perhaps misinformed public.

These posts make a crucial mistake in their criticism. They conflate the standards with content, ignoring the fact there is no such thing as a CCSS assignment or test question. These criticisms are potentially legitimate critiques of poor teaching or rigid testing but are being used to call the CCSS something that they are not. The CCSS are a research-based set of standards; an agreed upon set of skills that are crucial to being a well-adjusted, critical minded person who can succeed in our world. They focus our teaching on skills that will endure beyond the walls of public school.

The CCSS was never meant to prescribe how to teach or how to assess students. It asks me — and all public school teachers — to deeply consider how we will get our students to learn the skills that are important in life, and it provides us with the flexibility to teach those skills to our students.

With this consideration, naturally follows a reconstruction of how I teach and assess, which can be difficult, but is highly rewarding. One of the core responsibilities of a teacher is that she or he be critical and self-reflective, always seeking to adjust and improve.

What actually needs to be changed is how we educate and train teachers to understand and implement the CCSS.

So instead of changing or making time to analyze and digest, some opponents fall back on lazy retorts about how “new math” will not help and how more tests only hurt, forgetting that the CCSS do not mandate methods of teaching or assessing. When the standards and the skills, are conflated with content and tests, resistance to positive change becomes stiffer and stasis easier.

How do we know what level of mastery is achieved if we have no standards against which to measure our teaching and the students’ learning?

The CCSS give us the clear guidelines we need to ensure all children have access to a high quality education. It ensures that all stakeholders have the same understanding of what constitutes a high quality education.

Without the clarity provided by the CCSS, teachers are working in the dark, isolated, making their own decisions regarding what high quality teaching and learning looks like.

If we truly care about equity in education, we should accept the clarity and flexibility provided by the CCSS, along with it challenges, so that we can all speak the same language and know we all have the same goals in mind.