How do you feel about the Common Core Curriculum?

[mfcorey1]

[gopiscrap]

1. My wife is a teacher and she says fuck that shit

and get rid of NCLB while you're at it.

[Initech]

19. Pretty much the exact sentiment of every teacher I know.

[Blue Idaho]

2. As a teacher with 31 years of experience I say its a disaster waiting to happen.

Please take a look at "Reign of Error" by Diane Ravitch, former US assistant secretary of education. She was once a supporter of standardized testing schemes and charter schools, that is until she did the research.

Almost all "standardizing" schemes will guarantee the quality of education goes down while some corporation gets wealthy. If you care about poverty and inequality - you need to care about the conclusions she draws.

[lunasun]

32. Thanks I will read this as I too have come to that conclusion !

Almost all "standardizing" schemes will guarantee the quality of education goes down while some corporation gets wealthy
yep

[cbayer]

3. I could be wrong, but I thought the upside to this was to combat

the power that Texas has had over textbooks.

That seems like a good thing.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. I'm against it. For a lot of reasons...

... including all those expounded by Diane Ravitch here:

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/


Plus I watched them ( school administrators) trying to force them (CCSS) on a severely-hanidcapped population .... during the last two years before I retired ....with consequences that were both tragic and ludicrous.

There is nothing quite so ugly and depressing as a brain-dead educational bureaucracy operating on automatic.

[liberal_at_heart]

14. They are trying to force special education kids to perform at the same level as their general

education peers. I know. They've been trying to do this with my son. We have had to go back and try and fill the gaps they have made in his math comprehension by trying to force him ahead of where he should have been.

[Smarmie Doofus]

29. Algebra for kids because they are 15 years old even if they have Down Syndrome....

... an IQ of 35, and need to be learning how to tell time and count money.

Once you get big $$$$ and money-grubbing, idiot politicians involved w. school policy you are opening up a pandora's box of mindlessness.

Mind. Less. Ness.

[liberal_at_heart]

30. exactly.

[BluegrassStateBlues]

5. Forced textbooks in Kentucky to contain climate change and evolution...

So for Kentucky and other Bible Belt states, at least, I am strongly in favor.

[frazzled]

6. I doubt most of us are familiar enough to have a truly valid opinion

I know that's the case for me. However, there are a few things I can think to say on the positive side, from what I've read. (Of course, there are inevitable negative sides, but since I haven't seen this curriculum in action, I'm not sure what they are yet).

1) I like the focus on reading and writing skills, with increasing complexity through the grade levels. Also, that teachers and districts and states will decide the actual reading curriculum. Aside from some foundational texts expected for everyone (from myths to Shakespeare), reading lists for the curriculum will be decided at the local level. Of course, this means that kids in Mississippi will most likely get inferior readings to kids in, say, Massachusetts. But the common standards will hopefully lead to some gains for those kids in less educationally oriented states.

2) I like that research projects are emphasized for writing, even at the early elementary levels. My kids had this as early as first grade--choosing an animal and researching and writing a brief paragraph about its habitat; they learned to use a topic sentence and structure a clear argument on a very narrow topic that engaged them at that age.

3) I like that media analysis is part of the core curriculum. Heaven knows we need all kids to learn to think about what they are watching and hearing in the various media.

4) I'm super dumb at math, so I'll ask my son the mathematician to see what he thinks of the standards.


I like the idea that at least we're trying to insure that kids all over are exposed to high-level curriculum, and that the focus is not on testing or on learning a particular set of facts (as in many of the state standards that arose from NCLB) but on comprehension and skills. Maybe we'll have a bit more national unity if we raise our critical analysis skills and expose our kids to a slightly higher level of content. Maybe that's why conservatives and libertarians particularly seem to hate this.

In summary: I think we should give it a try before we decide how well it's working ... or not. I've learned a lot from Green Eggs and Ham lately.

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. One of the objections to CC is that it has been adopted without any field testing or pilot program.

>>In summary: I think we should give it a try before we decide how well it's working ... or not. I've learned a lot from Green Eggs and Ham lately.>>>

We don't know if it will "work" ( whatever this means) or not. In the meantime much time and $$$ is being spent dismantling all the old state curriculums and investing in CC material, training manuals, textbooks, work books,inservice training,, technology, etc, etc, etc.

Wouldn't it have been prudent to test drive it somewhere ( pilot program) before the fed gov't, in effect, *required* the states to adopt it?

[lunasun]

33. +1 follow the money

No field testing or pilot program.

[d_r]

7. today my 4th grader had a social studies test

They have been studying the European explorers, pre-columbian Native American cultures, up to the American Revolution. So the 13 colonies etc. So a lot of information, a lot of places, geography, names they could learn.

My favorite question on the test:

"Why do people take risks?"

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. This is exactly what I studied in 4th grade in 1964.

*Exactly.* ( Minus the details about the Native American cultures. )

What's ( not?) going on here?

[d_r]

10. me too, but

one of my questions wasn't an open-ended "why do people take risks?"

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. A goal of common core is more writing

and critical thinking, not just right or wrong answers.

[liberal_at_heart]

13. risk taking behavior has to do with biology and psychology. What 4th grader is going to know why

people take risks? Brain chemistry, hormones, the rush you feel when you are rewarded for taking a risk. 4th graders are going to know this?

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Perhaps my experience is colored by having grown in a system

That asked a lot more of us students, and essays, as much as you can call it an essay at third grade, were not uncommon in social science classes. It was not in the US. Since they have adopted the American system and for some odd reason kids are not well prepared for college.

I am just repeating here what the local head of San Diego Unified said. In my mind it was a good move away from no child left behind and towards national standards. None is a bad idea if well implemented. FYI I understand your concerns, and there is another change I would love to see in the US. We were not allowed to use calculators until pre calc. And I hate math by the way.

Some of what I read is quite frankly fear of a loss of local control. This is as old, almost, as the country. Webster wanted a national curriculum as early as the early 19th century.

[liberal_at_heart]

18. They have the wrong people in control. They are putting people who want to profit off of our kids

in charge of their learning. That can only spell disaster. Other countries take into account that children learn at different speeds. They take a more holistic approach and treat the child like a real person. The people in control of our education system look at our children as numbers on a spread sheet and as dollar signs. This whole little experiment they have going here is not going to work.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Same as it has always been in the US.

There was a similar critique of Webster's little experiment.

If the US will remain competitive as an advanced economy it will need to figure this shit out, finally.

For the record I am not expecting that to happen. In fact, quite the contrary.

[liberal_at_heart]

11. I can't come up with a strong enough word for how much I hate it.

[frazzled]

15. It's not a curriculum

I just reconsidered this whole topic and realized that we're really wrong to be calling the Common Core Standards a curriculum.

Myth: These Standards amount to a national curriculum for our schools.

Fact: The Standards are not a curriculum. They are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for what knowledge and skills will help our students succeed. Local teachers, principals, superintendents and others will decide how the standards are to be met. Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.

http://www.corestandards.org/resources/myths-vs-facts

[liberal_at_heart]

17. that is not how it is being implemented. Especially since they are tying teacher

pay to test scores. My special education student was at a 3/4th grade comprehension level in math when he was in 5th grade. In 6th grade they decided that all 6th grade students had to take grade level math. My son skipped about 2 years of math because they wanted these kids to leap light years in comprehension with the snap of a finger. Look, not all kids learn at the same speed. To expect them to is unrealistic and is setting them up for failure.

[frazzled]

21. You're mixing up very many different things

Sorry, I can't help you with that.

[liberal_at_heart]

22. you believe what you want. I know better. Common Core, Race to the Top, and the defunding of

our public school systems has destroyed our education system. Seeing my son suffer is why I became an independent. I will only vote for democrats who are willing to repeal Common Core, Race to the Top, and who fight to fully fund our public schools system. If I can't find democrats willing to do that then I either won't vote or I will evaluate my alternative options.

[politicat]

23. As it's applied in my school district... Kill it with fire.

I think it would be a reasonable foundational document if our schools were 8-5 with a long midday break, had 50% more teachers and 200% more para-teachers, if the curriculum used a benchmark system instead of the current testing system, and our school year ran mostly year round.

I like the idea of increasing complexity, integrative lessons, and goals focused on student comprehension. But given our short school days that don't even allow sufficient time for performing and studio arts, play, or experimentation, much less the paperwork CCC generates, and short school years that don't allow for time to integrate the lessons (this is most obvious in history and literature) and the pressures already on too-limited staff, even in my wealthy and educated school district... It's a miserable failure.

[liberal_at_heart]

24. They have decreased the funding and increased the accountability, and they expect positive results

from doing this?

[politicat]

25. Effectively decreased funding.

The dollar amount remained fixed. Inflation didn't.

I live in a very blue county so we do treat teachers better than the mean, but the performance for pay meme goes around like mono after Homecoming. And there are some people who seem to think teachers have the ability to download reading into their students' heads like Neo learning Kung-Fu. Superheroes our teachers are. Super powered... Not so much.

So, yes.

[liberal_at_heart]

26. well yeah. Not keeping up with inflation is in effect defunding. Not keeping up with inflation is

also what is killing our wages. So whether they are actively defunding it or passively defunding it, it is being defunded non the less.

[lunasun]

27. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation $$$$$$$$

[liberal_at_heart]

28. George W. Bush, Arne Duncan, Obama, and Bill Gates. These are the people we are entrusting our

children's education to.

[lunasun]

31. and our tax $$$$ too = big profit maker

.They sold us on CC for a while because a couple of our kids test at the top score and claimed it would give a clearer picture of where they really place when standards are raised.
Biggest dog and pony show on the planet for pure profit
B+MG may try to take our seeds but not screwing with our kids brains if we can do it . Currently seeking financial aid at private non sect schools and will move them mid year if possible. They are sick of spending part of summer learning what should of been taught at their public schools but we could see it wasn't so we were sending and spending to make sure they got what was needed .(They all got As @PS but we felt they were not learning fundamentals properly)
We give up !
It gets worse every year ( see prior posts on education for which I have been DU razed over the years and if you do not get it yet - wait!!! )
It hurts to see what the kids are not learning even though they are supposedly "above grade"....nope not entrusting PS with education if I can do it
Sad but we are thinking of their future- can not support the me$$ and hope they do not have to welcome anyone to Walmart as a young adult if we can help it