User manuals, train schedules and other “informational texts” – what do these reading materials have in common? Now they will all be prioritized in the classroom over some of our most revered works of fiction.

A new Common Core State Standards mandate will demand that non-fiction constitute 70 percent of reading materials in classrooms. Despite the fact the mandate won’t be put into full effect until 2014, many public schools are already altering their curriculums to conform to the new standards.

Apparently, learning about fictional literature and the imaginative odysseys they invoke isn’t a priority for our public school system or CCSS. The new standards are being set under the pretense that being able to understand non-fiction is more useful to students for finding jobs in the current economy.

What about encouraging students to engage with what they are interested in, even if it is fictional literature? Isn’t that the role of education?

The new mandate has already shaken up many literature enthusiasts.

“What troubles me, though, is the way, in this new model, non-fiction is increasingly privileged in English curricula, to the point where it is finally 70 percent of an English class in the twelfth grade,” said Mylène Dressler, visiting assistant professor of English in an email interview. “The message that seems to send is: “ ‘It is time to leave the world of imagination behind… that world belongs to your childhood. The mature mind concerns itself primarily with the factual.’ ”

Obviously, non-fiction comprises a key aspect of education. However, resorting to state mandates to create quotas shows an assumption that teachers are incapable or don’t already understand the relevance and importance of non-fiction to their topics. It only further reveals some of the more systemic problems with public education.

Restricting students’ agency in determining their interests apparently is not going far enough for the system; now even teachers must alter their content and sacrifice their essential right to develop their own curricula in order to comply with the state administrative overlords breathing down their neck.

“As a parent (and reader), I know that my love of literature came from being introduced to good literature early and often, so I worry that my children may not have the same opportunities in school to reinforce their experiences at home,” said Rod Spellman, visiting instructor of English, in an email interview. “My fear about the Common Core reading changes is that they are designed to make students better at regurgitating information and less able to think critically and to challenge ideas.”

During my time with public education, I vividly recall my world literature class as offering an oasis of perspective and imagination, away from the cut-and-dry informational rhetoric I was otherwise battered with. To look back now and think that even this class would have been burdened with meeting this 70 percent quota is troubling to me.

Another argument being made for the new standards is that non-fiction challenges students at a level that fictional texts are incapable of doing.

“I disagree that non-fiction texts are more rigorous,” said Rachel Warzala, a high school English teacher in Newark, NJ. “I fundamentally believe in the difficulty and power of literature to change lives.”

Working through Teach for America, Warzala finds interesting ways to incorporate both fiction and non-fiction into her English classes in a way testifying to her unique capabilities – with or without a state mandate.

“As a high school English teacher in a low-income community, I’ve found that mixing non-fiction into all of my units allows me to challenge preconceived notions my students have and address social issues in the community surrounding them,” said Warzala in an email interview. “I do a unit on gender roles and norms, and we intersperse fiction with complex non-fiction texts.”

How will public schools interpret these new mandates? Will teachers simply fill classes with irrelevant non-fiction “informational” material just to meet these new quotas, or will they be given the space and encouragement to be innovative like Warzala?

Only time will tell, but until these mandates come into full effect, I recommend that schools and faculty remain cautious of their potentially harmful consequences.