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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis Teacher's Alarming Resignation Letter Shows How Much Schools Have Changed Since You Were A Kid
http://www.businessinsider.com/susan-sluyters-resignation-letter-sums-up-common-core-concerns-2014-4***SNIP
Massachusetts, where Sluyter taught, has adopted new state curriculum frameworks aligned with the Common Core. Sluyter said her position came to rely more on data collection than teaching:
When I first began teaching more than 25 years ago, hands-on exploration, investigation, joy and love of learning characterized the early childhood classroom. I’d describe our current period as a time of testing, data collection, competition and punishment. One would be hard put these days to find joy present in classrooms.
In addition to her published resignation letter, Sluyter has written a more extensive account listing issues she claims are negatively affecting public school classrooms as a result of new federal and state educational requirements. Her claims include:
Increased kindergarten assessments requiring teachers to leave the classroom.
Challenging literacy goals for kindergarteners, such as forming persuasive arguments from stories and giving examples in the text, which suck the joy out of reading.
Increasing academics in early childhood classrooms in place of playtime.
A teacher assessment system requiring teachers to document their success, which is time-consuming and involves arbitrary ratings.
Adoption of a new math curriculum more aligned with national standards, requiring many hours of additional teacher training although teachers are skeptical whether the new curriculum is an improvement over the previous one.
While Sluyter is certainly not alone in her concerns, there are some people who say universal standards for American schoolkids are not necessarily a terrible goal.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/susan-sluyters-resignation-letter-sums-up-common-core-concerns-2014-4#ixzz2y16wCMni
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Agony
(2,605 posts)until we fix our problem with poverty and income/wealth inequality. Parenting and the family security that economic justice fosters are critical to a functioning educational system.
...
Triana
(22,666 posts)
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)
chervilant
(8,267 posts)the pontificating "experts" (here: Toner) use poor grammar in supporting this vile education model euphemistically called "Common Core." Cannot they see the irony?
ProfessorGAC
(65,013 posts)People who support simple answers to complex issues and then are smugly satisfied that they have everything figured out are not capable of seeing irony.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)often have their wee panties in a twist if you suggest that they've made an error.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Having done hundreds of hours of transcriptions and having listened to recordings of myself, I can easily say that speech errors abound. The more you have to think, the slower you speak, the more complex your sentence, the richer your lexicon, the more likely it is that you'll err in number agreement, in tense agreement, etc.
Once had a boss stupidly tell me to not change anything. He had said things exactly as he had intended, and wanted an absolutely faithful transcription of every syllable. He got what he asked for. Every "uh," "um," "you know" was carefully included. Every place where he began with a singular and ended with a plural, started with a past tense and ended in the present, every place where he lost his train of thought and spliced sentences together or failed to use the subjunctive properly was, to him, a glaring act of sabotage, an instance of calumny hurled at his polished speaking style. So I had him read the transcript as he listened to the recording. Nearly got myself fired but I learned my mistake: Always correct the speaker's mistakes.
That said, dysfluencies are valuable in providing not only insight into how language works, but the thinking of the person involved. And last I heard, there was a decent bit of evidence that some dysfluencies also served a communicative purpose: A speaker unconsciously alters the type and rate of dysfluencies as the audience changes its characteristics.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)
DhhD
(4,695 posts)are like business men making medical decisions for a Medical Doctor as in the HMO system of compensation for the Practice of Medicine. This means moving children/ill people to a, State of Risk, supported by the taxpayers/premium payers managed by Profiteers.
America is well on its way into its sickness in capitalism, in every institute that was established through the socialism of democracy; deteriorating health care and life expectancy, education, and many other types of infrastructures. America is not for the 90% of We the People anymore.
Elementary school children will become detached. Privatization means a new teacher is on the block; a sociopathic detached facilitator, just what the GOP Platform ordered.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)retirement from universities they are so fed up with the new teaching environment. They feel the educational system is turning out mediocre students and educational focus is woefully misdirected.
And, in many schools of learning, the focus is on more and more money and too much emphasis on sports, for example. They feel they are no longer working for an educational system, but rather another sucking capitalistic outfit whose main goal is profit and not education.
They also feel many students are pushed into universities who would be better served with more rewarding careers in top notch vocational institutions.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Are you really opposed to setting minimal standards for what our children should learn? Standards that would bring our education systems UP to the levels of the top tier nations?
New Math: every time the math curriculum changes its methodology the wreckers and merchants of FEAR UNCERTAINTY AND DOUBT exploit the confusion of parents who don't understand the new methods. Every Time.
Not necessarily a terrible goal? Really? Raising educational standards is a great idea. The RIGHT wants it both ways: "our schools are failing" and any attempt to make our schools better is "communism". (Literally, that exact statement was made at our town meeting about common core.)
ProfessorGAC
(65,013 posts)I'm guessing no and you seem to have turned out to be an educated and aware person.
OK, so i took new math, but we weren't tested by the state to see how we were doing vs. the other states and somehow i made it through graduate school in 3 different disciplines. So, i seem to have turned out ok too.
I think the issue isn't whether new approaches to educating kids should be pursued and utilized when they appear better. I think it's the fascination with testing and pressurizing the system based upon these tests rather than let people who know both the material and how to teach do what they do.
This is a simple minded attempt to absolutely quantitate a dataset that is only maringally quantifiable.
Better education sure is a fine idea. Quetsion is, does the emphasis on testing actually do that?
malthaussen
(17,194 posts)... the trauma was almost crippling.
-- Mal
DhhD
(4,695 posts)using story problems without first learning the basic multiplication tables. In other words you start in the middle hoping to pick up the basis on your own, which usually means finishing up the assignment at home with a Mom and/or Dad that is responsible for the underlying fundamentals. Can you imagine starting children out in reading after hearing some one else read instead of learning the letters, letter groups and sounds?
IMO, the resulting report card will have about 2 passing averages with 5 more failing ( in a 7 subject day).
snot
(10,524 posts)And it sounds like things have gone from bad to worse.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)has been around for around 50 years.
You never took one? Really? Not even the Standard Acheivement Test ?
We had statewide testing in elementary schools in the early 60s.
malthaussen
(17,194 posts)The Minnesota was optional too -- at least, I told my guidance counsellor where she could put it.
SAT was used to filter potential college graduates, not to evaluate the efficiency of the school system, many of the graduates of which were not in those days interested in a college education. In fairness, though, I will say that even then school districts liked to brag about how high their SAT averages were compared to others.
-- Mal
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Where I grew up, as I said, we had standardized testing in elementary school.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)It's used along with a battery of Michigan-specific tests to evaluate schools and high school teachers.
malthaussen
(17,194 posts)I've always done very well on standardized tests. Which to me simply serves to show that they must be terribly flawed.
In elementary school, we must have taken the standard IQ test, since one of my teachers commented on my score, but I have no recollection of it.
Hell, McGeorge Bundy famously scored perfectly on his SAT. What more need be said?
-- Mal
ProfessorGAC
(65,013 posts)I suppose the entrance exam to the HS i went to could be called that as well, but it's not intended to be statewide or national test.
And, i take it you retract your prior sentiment since the age of standardized testing is all you could mention.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)In elementary schools. Enacted by that horrible tool of whatever boogeyman you think is behind CCS, LBJ.
ProfessorGAC
(65,013 posts)No standardized testing was done. You don't know what you think you know.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)questionseverything
(9,654 posts)testing was not tied to funding of schools
it is too early to know if cc is a good program or not (as far as how it teaches) but it is being used to defund public schools...that seems to be the neocon mission and I do not understand any dem supporting it
I am raising a bright capable grandchild, in kindergarten, her teacher apologized for the coming tests which will expect my 5 year old to read a simple story and write 3 sentences about it, complete with caps and punctuation .
it sets them up to fail
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)then when I pointed out we've been testing for 50 years, it was "well not the SATs", then when I pointed out that it wasn't just SATs, there has been standardized testing at various grade levels including elementary levels for at least 40 years, it was "no there wasn't" then when I documented that in fact there most certainly was, it was "well not in private school", and then when I pointed out that that was dishonest bullshit, the new claim is "but there is funding tied to it".
Sorry if I think not so much of the latest attempt to shore up the argument.
questionseverything
(9,654 posts)as I understand it unless a certain percentage of students pass the tests, the school gets a failing school grade and after so many years of that the state comes in and "decides" what remedy to use...including shutting down the neighborhood school and giving the funding to charter schools....and the charter school can pick and choose who to accept
ipaint
(3,270 posts)It's just about another major taxpayer money grab.
Everyone wants the best public education system. The people behind common core are not going to get us there. Their goals are not our goals, they are not democratic nor are they in the public good.
"But while the corporate-funded technocrats of the Democratic party are pushing their education policies down the throats of as many Americans as they can, inspiring more mobilization from the right, what is left of the union-supported Populist wing of the party is steaming mad. The Tea Party has been successful in its Grover Norquist inspired strangulation of government at all levels, and the Democratic Party is cooperating with corporate-led attempts to break public unions. The Obama administration has gone after teacher unions with a vengeance.
According to Head, most Americans can’t see the big picture because “CBSs (Computer Business Systems) are the semi-discovered black holes of the contemporary economy.” (3) He argues that Information technology is creating income inequality by driving down wages in the white-collar professions that could not be previously “Taylorized.” “By making us dumber, smart machines also diminish our earning power.” (3) In other words my doctor and I face the same set of issues: as machines and algorithms take over, our work can be divided into units and our efficiency can be statistically measured. We are in the same boat as weavers who worked the “putting out” system in the late eighteenth century—they were paid for each piece produced. In other words, corporate bosses are trying to push teachers, doctors, and all white collar-service workers into a work structure that is increasingly deskilled to justify lowering salaries and benefits, busting unions and professional organizations, increase productivity, and forcing all white collar workers to compete through the use of digitalized efficiency reports and student and student test data banks. This data will be shared with consulting firms like McKinsey to evaluate potential and current employees world wide. Troublemakers, union organizers, and those with low productivity and test scores will be funneled into the lowest-paying service jobs.
"The reason Mr. Gates and Mr. Duncan become very upset when states want to drop the Common Core, PARCC, data collection, or standardized testing is that all of these components are required by CBS. Pearson Education, a British company that gave ninety-four percent of its campaign contributions to the Obama campaign, is working with Microsoft and InBloom to scale up data collection. All of these companies are scaling up the de-skilling of the education workplace and they are breaking what is considered learning down to discrete, easily measured units. The global teaching profession at the school and university levels is being set up for work speed-ups with productivity gains going to management and investors. Assessment data for all teachers will be stored to determine salaries based on effectiveness as measure by student test scores. Students will also have their data collected and evaluated at each stage of their academic and professional careers. Based on McKinsey’s model of employment disruption, CBS and data analysis will be used to force white-collar employees to compete with employees around the world. Layoffs will be frequent to motivate greater productivity…."
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/27/paul-horton-common-core-standards-are-not-about-education-but-about-profits/
" Let me say for the record, if it need saying,
that I have no sympathy for the Tea Party. I want more government
support to alleviate social and economic problems. I want the
federal government to return to its role as a guarantor of equity,
not a force to compel states to enact policies that are harmful to
children and to public education. I want more funding for programs
that benefit needy children. I think their obsessive hatred for
everything associated with President Obama is absurd. I disagree
with President Obama about education, but I voted for him, and I
support him in other areas, especially if he is serious about
inequality, which is the cancer of our society. I oppose the Common
Core in its present form because I fear that it was designed to
make public education look bad, that it was designed as part of a
larger plan to measure every child and every teacher, and that it
was designed to enrich big corporations like Pearson and the dozens
of other entrepreneurs now sucking public money out of the schools.
Until teachers in every state have a chance to revise the Common
Core and make it developmentally appropriate, I will continue to
oppose it. Until the Common Core is decoupled from the Common Core
testing, I will continue to oppose it. The passing marks on the
federally-funded tests were set far too high for most students, and
we will see massive failure rates among our neediest students if
the cut scores are not readjusted to align with the reality of how
children learn and what they know and should know. The Common Core
will die a natural or unnatural death at the hands of parents,
teachers, school boards, and citizens if it is not open to
criticism and revision."
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/27/karen-wolfe-why-liberals-dont-like-the-common-core/
FourScore
(9,704 posts)I do. Common Core is a DISASTER!!!!
Codeine
(25,586 posts)We call it Core Knowledge here, and it's transformed her academic performance. She barely made it out of the 1st grade in a non-Core school, and by the end of 2nd grade on a Core curriculum she was a top student with rapid skill improvements in every learning category.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)THAT probably had more to do with her improvement than CC.
cannondale
(96 posts)What do you think the difference is between a school that is excelling and one that is faltering? How is it possible that one school would excel using CC?
Maybe a list of items that should be taught per subject isn't such a bad idea by itself. Maybe some schools implement it well, others not so well. Maybe some teachers implement it well, others not so well.
The schools and teachers who had no problem with Outcomes have no problem with Common Core. The teachers who had no problem cross-listing their classes with a list of items them should be teaching had no problem, and have no problem.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)When you control for poverty, our schools are among the best in the entire world, outperforming pretty much everyone in every category. When you don't, that's when you get the numbers we're used to seeing, though we did really well on the new problem-solving international test and beat everyone else.
Take those teachers getting amazing outcomes, and put them in a poor school. They'll raise outcomes, probably, but they won't have anywhere near the numbers they had before. That's been proven again and again in the research. While school culture has a huge part in outcomes, the most important indicator will always be the poverty level.
joeglow3
(6,228 posts)If you only take out gun deaths and traffic accidents, we have the number one health care in the world.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)I'm not saying we are to leave anyone behind or have lower standards. Quite the opposite, actually. Still, the data is very clear: poor students repeatedly do worse on standardized tests the world over, and most countries weed them out before the tests hit.
senseandsensibility
(17,026 posts)We need more voices like yours.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)We have supported the Common Core concept from the beginning. What we're all seeing is NOT GOOD. It sort of reminds me of the philosophy of Karl Marx -- great in theory, disastrous in real world.
It' bad. Really, really bad.
I have 3 kids in school at different levels. They are the guinea pigs and they are REALLY suffering from this.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)is also one of the most liberal towns (cities) in America. Not to mention one of the best-educated. Until now, anyway. 
7962
(11,841 posts)cannondale
(96 posts)Do you have a specific Common Core example or two that you don't like. If so, I'd be interested in knowing what those examples are. I've seen an extensive list (not very different than Outcomes or anything that has been around for decades) and some optional examples and worksheets which in many cases are really helpful.
The PA online reference to Common Core is a pretty good website, and I've read through most of the CC descriptions. They're fine. I've seen a relatively small sample of the attached worksheets, and they range from fine to great. I've seem some I personally wouldn't use to teach a specific concept, and in my school I wouldn't have been forced to teach in a specific way using a specific worksheet.
Common Core does not mandate that you teach in a specific way. If a lazy administration insists that a specific worksheet be used or a lazy teacher decides to use only a specific worksheet whether they believe its use helps their class, then the problem lies elsewhere.
When I taught HS Calculus, I has a generic list from the school that I should cover. OH NOES! They're telling me what and how to teach. Not really. When Outcomes Based Education came into the picture, there was another very similar list. OH NOES! They're telling me... no, they never told me to change what or how I taught. In fact, nothing changed for me, but that was an administration that understood that I already had the topics checked off.
Now there is Common Core. OH NOES!! There's a YouTube example of a math worksheet that some teacher may have used in a classroom that was picked up by some parent who didn't understand it, so Common Core must suck.
Now if an administrator tells you what examples you must use or interrupts your class time with too many tests, then we could agree that an implementation based off of a new standard is causing harm.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)The tests do.
RTTT mandates testing for teacher evaluations that shows improvement, so that's at least two tests a year. NCLB (that's still the law--never repealed) mandates annual testing for school evaluations. In addition to the RTTT test, most states also require, per the CCSS recommendations, pre/post-testing in each subject, each term. For our teacher evals, we lose 9 days of instruction every year to the MAP test, 3 days for the state testing, and then 6 days each class for the pre/post-testing. In some schools, it's far more than that.
Common Core (CCSS) requires testing, and all of the materials with it require very expensive tests. We're supposed to be ready to implement next spring whatever our state decides on (still hasn't picked a test yet), and the leading one is a computer test that requires equipment and bandwidth we don't have for a test that, so far from the beta testing, doesn't yield good data but sure makes Pearson a ton of money.
7962
(11,841 posts)FourScore
(9,704 posts)'Cuz I sure can't find anything great about it.
cannondale
(96 posts)You've got to be kidding. How can we have a discussion if you throw out crap like that.
What is the measure of an interior angle of a regular octagon?
(1) 45º
(2) 60º
(3) 120º
(4) 135º
Ooooh! How's that for scary new math? I still think most posters are having problems describing what they dislike about the trends in education because they don't understand the history and nomenclature. Common Core is not the problem, but there are some serious problems in how some schools are choosing to implement a program that uses CC.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)I know exactly what I am talking about. Also, I provided examples in post #47.
May I remind you, you were the one who asked someone to provide examples.
If your silly math question is your example of what you think CC is all about, you really don't know what you are talking about.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)It sets minimal standards at various grade levels.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)To a large degree, those standards are NOT age-appropriate.
My daughter is in the 7th grade -- a straight A student. She has won multiple writing contests, and English is her favorite subject. Thanks to the "rigor" of Common Core, she has a B- or C+ this year, and hates English now. I don't know of a single child in her class making an A in English, and only a couple of them are in the B range. The reading material provided is NOT age appropriate; it is dark and sad. Here's an example:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/rprnts.omelas.pdf
The students were then given the assignment to write a paper using quotes from the story to substantiate their position. They had to take a position on "being an active participant" in the abuse of the child of Omelas, a "willing" participant (one who is not actively abusing, but still reaps the benefits), a protester (one who disagrees with the abuse and refuses the benefits), or one who fights to free the child from abuse. The stance the student took would also need to be compared to life in our society and how we (as a society) view child labor and sweat shops. They were given reading material on fruit farms and sweat shops and had to draw comparisons from that. The kids in the classroom range between 12-13 years old. That's only one example.
My 6th grader was given a book that was age appropriate, but also read Rudyard Kipling's poem "If". Then he was given the assignment to write a comparison contrast paper on them. He's 11. (I think I wrote my first comp-con paper in the 10th grade.)
It's too much!
The math curriculum isn't much better. Common Core was not written by educators. Let's be clear. It's a money machine and they are laughing all the way to the bank while kids are being harmed.
eridani
(51,907 posts)High school juniors would probably get a lot out of discussing it. The canned approach would probably ruin it even for them, though.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)Igel
(35,300 posts)It doesn't matter who's attacking Common Core. The question is, "Does Common Core deserve to be attacked? If so, what aspects deserve attack?"
The answer is yes. I don't care if Hitler and Goebbels, with wingmen Mao and Stalin and clerical assistant Pol Pot are doing the attacking. Or defending.
Some of it is developmentally inappropriate. Most of it, though, is not.
The problem with Common Core is implementation: Do we implement the standards in a reasonable curriculum or do we have a harsh, over-rigorous curriculum? Do we include a set of onerous standardized tests? Are the tests used for data to help teach or for data to punish teachers?
The other problem with Common Core is that having one-size-fits-all standards for kids is hare-brained. Let's try it with underwear and shoes, why don't we? That low SES kid whose EC intervention petered out in 4th and 5th grade and helped provide daycare for minimum-wage service-industry worker-parents, as is the norm, doesn't stand a chance against the top 10% of the student body whose parents helped design the EC interventions and work as researchers and executives. Each year they're farther behind, each year it's harder to keep them from falling farther behind. The result is a huge achievement gap that's papered over in GPAs but not in standardized test scores, a real "teach not to the teach, but teach the test" mentality where only those standards on the test actually find their way into some classrooms, or a kind of self-selected tracking where smart slackers take easy classes with low-achievers while some high-aspiring low-achievers fail miserably in pre-AP and AP classes with high-achievers.
"Common Core" needs a re-parsing. What should be "common" is the minimum standards all students should master. Look at some CC course standards for high school and compare them with a college syllabus and you'll see that they're the same. There's no good indication as to how much depth and detail are to be included. If it's just the minimum, there's room for being explicit about the depth. As it is, CC is really open-ended and its the test materials that determine the required depth. It's sort of an open secret: You need released test questions, you need people violating their oath and looking at current test questions. That's what determines the level of rigor.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)They're wrong. They were written by the testing corporations and those who stand to profit, not by educators, and the elementary standards fly in the face of all the brain research of the last ten years. Those who wrote them have laughed about how they didn't need any experts helping them write the standards (and they didn't have any experts helping). The standards themselves are copyrighted, and much of the information on them is spotty at best.
Most states had good standards in place before these came along. In many areas, Michigan's were higher and better written. To get RTTT money, we had to throw out our better standards and the tests we've written (as well as the ACT that all of our juniors take), and get on the Common Core board to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. Make no mistake--this isn't about better education but instead about better funding of private corporations.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)I'm not sure why any DU'er would support Common Core.
senseandsensibility
(17,026 posts)This is all about the money, and I am just sick that it is being implemented by a Democratic president.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)Thank goodness Mark Shauer gets it. He's got my support for Michigan governor.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)My son is autistic and in special education and is being forced to try and keep up with the general education students. I will never support Common Core.
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)not so distant future. The very young will have it but as they learn about "life", it will disappear quickly. Reversing this will take a miracle, and I don't see any Elmer Gantrys in our future. Maybe an alien will teach us what went wrong.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)to be a citizen in a representative democracy capable of making a living. Throwing tests at kids is not the way to do it.
"Challenging literacy goals for kindergartners, such as forming persuasive arguments from stories and giving examples in the text, which suck the joy out of reading. "
When my kids were in kindergarten, the goal was to ensure that all the kids could learn to follow a story. That is, did they understand that Johnny went outside and then climbed a tree. There were kids in my children's classes who had trouble grasping this concept. Clearly, there is a greater need for early childhood education than more testing!
The other problem with all the multiple choice tests is that they miss a huge facet of proper education. Children in kindergarten don't need to be doing textual analysis. They need to be playing with sand tables and finger paints. They need to be able to go over in the corner and build a spaceship out of a couple cardboard boxes. They need to have toys that illustrate simple physics. They need to learn how to wash their hands and hang up their coats. Most of all, they need to learn that learning is fun, so they want more.
Get real teachers involved in setting Common Core standards. Then, put off any testing for 18 years. Put all the money into pre-K through 3rd grade. Miss that window and you lose the kid.
eridani
(51,907 posts)What do you think that 3D printing is going to do to manufacturing productivity, which has already increased by a factor of 4 since the end of WW II?
BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)Jesus Christ! I thought that was the time to learn the basics and some socialization and stuff like that. Forming arguments from stories? And what happens to the kids who are not necessarily dumb but can't grasp the concept that they need to form an argument from a story written for a 5 year old? Setting them up to fail!
ctsnowman
(1,903 posts)cannondale
(96 posts)Common Core is not testing. There is some testing that is based off of Common Core standards, but that is not CC. If I devise a great list of what should be taught in a HS Calculus class, and then the school decides to test based on my list, are people going to be upset at my list? Of course they are, because they haven't looked into what they disagree with or are angry about.
Common Core is nothing more than Outcomes Based education, which is nothing more than some previous lists of what we expect from students. The CC in PA seems to be a great list to me, although I'm very familiar with the math and science standards but have not had time to research other subjects.
Over testing is something almost all of us agree is a bad idea. CC does not tell anyone how to test, when to test, or what to test. And it certainly does not tell teachers how to teach. It can and has become a way for test makers to change their tests, and again we can agree that lazy administrations will take the easiest route to getting state funding (another bad idea that PA uses for a race to the bottom.)
But Common Core is unfairly used as the bundled "we don't like all the testing" and sometimes "we don't like that many schools are now telling teachers how to teach." If I made a list of subjects that should be taught in a Calculus class and everyone agreed that it was a fair and extensive list, I'd get applause. If some school decided to test their students using my list, I'd become an instant pariah.
ipaint
(3,270 posts)"Why do New York State Education Commissioner John King and [Board of Regents' chair] Tisch refuse to slow down New York’s rushed Core implementation, despite outcry from the public?
If parents, teachers and taxpayers had the time to critically examine the curriculum, they would ask the hard questions that would lead to its unraveling. This is not just a math problem. There are English/Language Arts vendors producing $14 million worth of New York curriculum as well. Recently ELA modules were ridiculed at a local school board meeting in upstate New York.
There are big questions that the press needs to ask about Common Core Inc. and all of the vendors that are receiving public money. There is also an overarching question that should be asked: Is this an attempt to create a national curriculum by having federal tax dollars flow to New York State and then out again to an organization committed to Common Core curriculum development? And to all of the business leaders who so enthusiastically support the Common Core—do you want your future workers to count like Sally? Is this the best curriculum that more than $28 million can buy? I think not. It is time we take a look with eyes wide open."
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/11/25/carol-burris-follow-the-money-for-common-core-implementation/
A team of two dozen well-paid analysts embedded in the State Education Department is having a dramatic impact on a reform agenda that's causing controversy throughout New York.
None are public servants.
Supported with $19 million in donations from some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropists, the Regents Research Fund team makes up a little-known think tank within the education agency. It is helping drive reforms that affect the state's 3.1 million public school students and employees of almost 700 school district...
Barely heard of outside education circles and a mystery even within them, the "Regent fellows" are paid from entities such as the Gates Foundation and some salaries approach $200,000 a year. The arrangement is stirring concern in some quarters that deep-pocketed pedagogues are forcing their reform philosophies on an unwitting populace, and making an end run around government officers.
"We're a public education system," said Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Long Island's Rockville Centre. "Having the wealthy pay for it, you're seeing an agenda that is being pushed ... at a rapid pace, and outside the system of public accountability."
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Education-reform-backed-by-the-wealthy-5006670.php
Is common core that wonderful and groundbreaking that we give up the "public" in public schools in order to funnel yet more billions into the coffers of the top .05%?
Is really that benign and unfairly maligned?
The testing goes hand in hand. This is just the beginning.
http://www.testprepreview.com/common-core-test-prep.htm
http://www.smarterbalanced.org/practice-test/
cannondale
(96 posts)So you're going with the "but people are making too much money off of them" discussion. That's an OK complaint. And any school that over tests is wrong. Agreed.
Did you look into the standards themselves? Do you like them more or less than OBE standards? Are they better or worse than the index on your math book?
I see you that at least agree with me on the important "implementation" issue. Your links are for implementation. I no longer teach HS math, but I am am touch with current teachers and administrators, and I can assure you that my classes would not change much, with the possible exception that I may teach one subject in Alg I and not Alg II, or that I would hand out a few more worksheets that I found on the PA site.
Damn, I can't believe that the new standards include such crazy ideas such as:
What is the measure of an interior angle of a regular octagon?
(1) 45º
(2) 60º
(3) 120º
(4) 135º
I am saying that public accountability (public power) is not an item to be traded-off no matter how wonderful the supposed advancement. Public education is not a prize to be won by whatever billionaire can bid highest and saturate the media with the necessary barrage of PR and feel good "it's no different than any other standard" propaganda.
I am truly amazed that people will willingly jump a cliff for such small immediate gains. You are looking at the final chapter in the history of public education.
Common core is a means to an end. Testing. That's the goal. That's where the money is.
And I am not referring to "people making money at it" as if I were criticizing a mom and pop entrepreneur. The people I'm am referring to own the supreme court, most politicians and increasingly your profession.
They want to own, control and corruptly profit from your kid's lifetime of work productivity.
The attack began with Reagan's "Nation at Risk" report that said public schools where failing and the Sandia study that proved scientifically just the opposite but was never publicized and has continued non stop until today. Now we have democrats declaring that the a few billionaires setting national education standards (by buying off states one by one) for profit is o.k. with me because my kid learns fine or my school is coping or the standards are good enough so what could be wrong?
There is a history, they lied then, they have lied since then and they are lying now.
"One section, for example, analyzed SAT scores between the late 1970s and 1990, a period when those scores slipped markedly. ("A Nation at Risk" spotlighted the decline of scores from 1963 to 1980 as dead-bang evidence of failing schools.) The Sandia report, however, broke the scores down by various subgroups, and something astonishing emerged. Nearly every subgroup -- ethnic minorities, rich kids, poor kids, middle class kids, top students, average students, low-ranked students -- held steady or improved during those years. Yet overall scores dropped. How could that be?
Simple -- statisticians call it Simpson's paradox: The average can change in one direction while all the subgroups change in the opposite direction if proportions among the subgroups are changing. Early in the period studied, only top students took the test. But during those twenty years, the pool of test takers expanded to include many lower-ranked students. Because the proportion of top students to all students was shrinking, the scores inevitably dropped. That decline signified not failure but rather progress toward what had been a national goal: extending educational opportunities to a broader range of the population.
By then, however, catastrophically failing schools had become a political necessity. George H.W. Bush campaigned to replace Reagan as president on a promise to confront the crisis. He had just called an education summit to tackle it, so there simply had to be a crisis.
The government never released the Sandia report. It went into peer review and there died a quiet death. Hardly anyone else knew it even existed until, in 1993, the Journal of Educational Research, read by only a small group of specialists, printed the report."
http://www.edutopia.org/landmark-education-report-nation-risk
You really want to let the same people who have attacked public education for 3 decades buy the system, set the standards and profit from the results. All because the standards are ok.
There is a 500 billion pot of taxpayer money out there and the vultures are circling.
"Although the marketplace for education services and products is strong on the margins, the structure of the American educational system creates considerable obstacles for companies that would like to offer complete kindergarten through 12th grade services: entrepreneurs attempting to open schools face regulatory barriers and competition from “free” government schools supported by state funds.
Policymakers interested in improving America’s education system should eliminate financial biases against edupreneurs by adopting policies, such as tax cuts and universal tuition tax credits, that would return education purchasing power to individuals. Such policies would begin to loosen the government’s monopoly on education and allow the natural growth of a vibrant education marketplace."
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/edupreneurs-survey-profit-education
FourScore
(9,704 posts)but those schools won't see the state funding that was promised. Why? Cuomo is giving it to fund more charter schools. Schools are being forced to slash arts, sports and library budgets. Class sizes will increase astronomically as all new-hires over the last 2 years will be cut. Pre-school programs will be eliminated. It's drastic. But the private industry is profitting!!!
Don't be fooled. It's all moving toward making money on education and pushing for charters. Some day, in the not-so-distant-futuure, there will be no more public education in NY.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)The Common Core situation in theory is great. In practice it is terrible.
For a while, I was tutoring kids in math. There were problems assigned to kids in seventh grade under Common Core that I never saw until I was a HS junior or senior. And I took all AP classes, so this is strange. These days, there is no prep for getting involved in the advance stuff - you turn the page and go from the normal seventh grade work straight into very difficult stuff, without the preparation we got back in the day.
It seems like one aspect of Common Core is to sabotage the ability of teachers and students to have the "success" that is demanded. If the public school kids can't cope with knowing answers to complicated problems, far above their grade level, then the public school 's money is funneled over to a "charter school" where tons of money is poured in the school.
A recent cartoon in our local newspaper showed a traditional school being stripped of its lumber(the walls) and even the flagpole, while all its resources were then being carted off to the "new and improved charter school."
Here is one dad's response to a ridiculous item in his kid's textbook:
http://hechingerreport.org/content/common-core-math-problem-hard-supporters-common-core-respond-problematic-math-quiz-went-viral_15361/
cannondale
(96 posts)And yes, CC hasn't changed a thing. Teachers in our area are still teaching the same stuff from the same book, and in the same order and pace for the most part. Not all schools micromanage the classroom, hence CC is not the problem.
cannondale
(96 posts)Worksheet and Textbook: Expand these. No wait, simplify these. Lots of these, and without any explanation as to why you'd ever want to do something like this.
Me: I can't believe that you're still teaching my daughter to expand and simplify polynomials without any logic behind why you'd want to perform one over the other. Do we still simplify because we think there is a room full of women calculating projectile paths for WWI, and it would be faster if we did so? What about computers? What about the loss of meaning in a problem when we "simplify" it?
Are we expanding because there is a real reason to do so? There are reasons, but why no explanation? Why not 10 well thought out problems with explanations instead of the 50 problems you make them rush through?
I watched you push rote memorization of multiplication tables into her head, and I had to cover concepts and methods with her. She explained that she had a test coming up with 50 such problems, and couldn't be bothered to understand what she was doing.
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This was before Common Core. The above is how I was taught by all but the best math teachers. This is how my father was taught. This is how my daughter was thought. This is ALSO how some parents would like their children to be taught because the parent can possibly follow the directions "Simplify" and get their child started with the chore.
Add an explanation or a creative method and many parents go wild Some even present the method to the school board and mock the lesson plan.
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Not sure if you agree with the link you sent, but I agree with it. Not the parent, but the explanation as to why CC is not the culprit.
http://hechingerreport.org/content/common-core-math-problem-hard-supporters-common-core-respond-problematic-math-quiz-went-viral_15361/
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)
Kindergarten in the 1970's
Kindergarten in 2013
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)"A teacher assessment system requiring teachers to document their success, which is time-consuming and involves arbitrary ratings."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/susan-sluyters-resignation-letter-sums-up-common-core-concerns-2014-4#ixzz2y2G1ZemH
I would add that the evaluation system is conducted by clueless bureaucrats who in some cases have never taught in a classroom.
The schools are really f*cked up, people! I'm glad I don't have young children anymore.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)We did have a couple of aptitude tests here and there, but just to assess where we were and it had nothing to do with our grades. If we missed snow days nobody worried about it, we just went a bit faster the other days. We had carefree recesses, we had occasional fascinating field trips.
The move to more standardized testing, the move to more for profit charter schools is beyond troubling. The Robber Barons hate free public education, they want their grubby hands on as much money as possible, to Hell with the children.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,760 posts)evil socialist things like sharing and caring. So, they're taking a slightly different path to the same goal.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)THAT IS ALL!!!!
Everything else is local implementation.
I've been posting this, but people are having a serious problem with the difference between a list of standards and any incentives and implementations that follow. Some schools looked at the list, shrugged and said "we're pretty much doing this already, here's our checklist" and continued to teach as they always have. Other school administrators panicked, wanted to change course, and caused havoc. I think people are upset at their administrators and/or teachers, and not CC, but can't be bothered to look up what they're (understandably) upset about.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Soon our education system will be on par with the healthcare. Dead last
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)that way kids can go from one school to the next, on the other side of the country and not see variation in what is expected.
Common core is not testing.
And kids learning how to read in Kindergarden. critically mind you... where else have I seen that? MEXICO CITY, and the kid is far from traumatized and HE LOVES school.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Common Core itself is not the problem. It's the testing.
And I'm not even opposed to testing, when it's used by teachers and parents to determine where and when a kid needs additional help.
Using tests as a bludgeon is just plain sick and wrong.
questionseverything
(9,654 posts)eom
