Why are people so upset about Common Core?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And to the teachers out there - how much control do you want over your students? Do you believe that parents have no idea how to teach, what their kids need, and should simply shut up, like they wanted Mr. Baer to do, because he clearly has no right to be upset that his 9th grade daughter was assigned porn?

They wanted Mr. Baer to shut up because he had already been heard, his issue had already been addressed by the school district on the day it was brought up, and it was someone else's turn to express their thoughts and feelings on their own child's education.

As far as him having the right to "be upset", as a teacher I can't tell you how many times I have explained to children that they have the right to feel however they feel, but that right doesn't excuse them from adhering to rules of civil discourse including waiting for your turn to speak.

If it was not addressed to his satisfaction, it's his parental duty to take it further

It's his parental duty to take it further, by disrupting a public meeting? Well, ok. If he wants to disrupt a public meeting, he can disrupt a public meeting. And then he can accept the consequences for disrupting a public meeting, which include getting arrested.

And this has what, exactly, to do with the Common Core?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Not the PP, but you can go back to my long post and read what the TX Education Commissioner said - they wanted him to sign onto acceptance before the standards were even written. Would you sign a contract without knowing the terms? Now ask yourself why not.

And so he didn't sign it. Yay. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And to the teachers out there - how much control do you want over your students? Do you believe that parents have no idea how to teach, what their kids need, and should simply shut up, like they wanted Mr. Baer to do, because he clearly has no right to be upset that his 9th grade daughter was assigned porn?

If you consider that "porn", then you must be even more unfamiliar with real actual porn than I am.

And if you think it's the fault of the Common Core that in 2007 a local school district put a book on its list of suggested reading, then I really don't know what to say.

[Anonymous]

The book has zero to do with Common Core.

[Anonymous]

The book has zero to do with Common Core.

I'm strongly against Common Core, and I agree. This is not about CC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I posted the information a page or two back. Go back, read, and then let me know if you have any additional questions.

Oh I read your posts. They added no additional information. So no, I have no further questions, because I realize you have nothing to add to the discussion. Thanks for your time!

No additional information you wanted to admit was an issue. Just wait

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And to the teachers out there - how much control do you want over your students? Do you believe that parents have no idea how to teach, what their kids need, and should simply shut up, like they wanted Mr. Baer to do, because he clearly has no right to be upset that his 9th grade daughter was assigned porn?

If you consider that "porn", then you must be even more unfamiliar with real actual porn than I am.

And if you think it's the fault of the Common Core that in 2007 a local school district put a book on its list of suggested reading, then I really don't know what to say.

Are you stating that CC does not have, on its list of recommended books, any book with graphic sexual material? hint: 'The Bluest Eve'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And to the teachers out there - how much control do you want over your students? Do you believe that parents have no idea how to teach, what their kids need, and should simply shut up, like they wanted Mr. Baer to do, because he clearly has no right to be upset that his 9th grade daughter was assigned porn?

If you consider that "porn", then you must be even more unfamiliar with real actual porn than I am.

And if you think it's the fault of the Common Core that in 2007 a local school district put a book on its list of suggested reading, then I really don't know what to say.

Are you stating that CC does not have, on its list of recommended books, any book with graphic sexual material? hint: 'The Bluest Eve'

Yes, I am stating that the Common Core does not have, on its list of recommended books, any book with graphic sexual material. That is because the Common Core does not have a list of recommended books.

What the Common Core does have is passages from books that illustrate a given reading level. For Grade 11, one of these passages is one paragraph from "The Bluest Eye", by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. Here is that paragraph:

One winter Pauline discovered she was pregnant. When she told Cholly, he surprised her by being pleased. He began to drink less and come home more often. They eased back into a relationship more like the early days of their marriage, when he asked if she were tired or wanted him to bring her something from the store. In this state of ease, Pauline stopped doing day work and returned to her own housekeeping. But the loneliness in those two rooms had not gone away. When the winter sun hit the peeling green paint of the kitchen chairs, when the smoked hocks were boiling in the pot, when all she could hear was the truck delivering furniture downstairs, she thought about back home, about how she had been all alone most of the time then too, but that this lonesomeness was different. Then she stopped staring at the green chairs, at the delivery truck; she went to the movies instead. There in the dark her memory was refreshed, and she succumbed to her earlier dreams. Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another—physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit. It would be for her a well-spring from which she would draw the most destructive emotions, deceiving the lover and seeking to imprison the beloved, curtailing freedom in every way.

Is that what you consider "graphic sexual material"?

(You can find it on p. 152 of Appendix B Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks for the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts & Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, here: http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I posted the information a page or two back. Go back, read, and then let me know if you have any additional questions.

Oh I read your posts. They added no additional information. So no, I have no further questions, because I realize you have nothing to add to the discussion. Thanks for your time!

No additional information you wanted to admit was an issue. Just wait

((Deep sigh)) No, it is just such an exercise in futility. You repost something you have read elsewhere, some catchy soundbite that seems to fit into your preconceived worldview, then someone goes and dutifully fact checks, and finds that pretty much it's all misinformation.

Very well, I'll look something up and "get back to you".

OK how about that bit about the former Texas Education Commissioner being told he had to agree to adopt to Common Core standards, before they had been written? Was that something you had posted?

[Anonymous]

You can find it on p. 152 of Appendix B Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks for the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts & Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, here: http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf )

Thanks for posting that. I went through and skimmed some of the selections. Poor kids. All that dull reading ahead of them.

[Anonymous]

I don't care for some of the standards. However, my biggest problems is that Common Core is being used as the instrument for the federal government to control education in every state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't care for some of the standards. However, my biggest problems is that Common Core is being used as the instrument for the federal government to control education in every state.

Which standards, specifically, don't you like?

And what do you mean by "control education"? How will the federal government use the Common Core standards to control education? And what about the states that did not adopt the Common Core?

[Anonymous]

Which standards, specifically, don't you like?

And what do you mean by "control education"? How will the federal government use the Common Core standards to control education? And what about the states that did not adopt the Common Core?

I have problems with lots of the math standards. Also, with 60% of the reading be non-fiction. I think that is an arbitrary requirement.

[Anonymous]

The federal government is already using CC as a means to control education in the states. It is called "Race to the Top".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Which standards, specifically, don't you like?

And what do you mean by "control education"? How will the federal government use the Common Core standards to control education? And what about the states that did not adopt the Common Core?

I have problems with lots of the math standards. Also, with 60% of the reading be non-fiction. I think that is an arbitrary requirement.

Which math standards?

And what do you think that the percentage of non-fiction should be? Keeping in mind that the idea is not that 60% of reading in English class should be non-fiction, but rather that 60% of the student's entire reading, in all of the classes together, should be non-fiction. Or do you not think that there should be any requirements for fiction and non-fiction?