Why are people so upset about Common Core?

[Anonymous]

Ya know, all the people criticizing, bitching and whining about Common Core have been perfectly free to come up with something better.

But, they haven't managed to do so, despite the fact that the whole Common Core dialog started a couple of years go.

That tells something in and of itself - that all of the anti-Common-Core rhetoric really is just more just about attack than actually caring about doing something productive and useful for our kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Just wondering. What do you propose for the teacher of a class of kids like that poor little girl that disappeared. The one who missed so much school and had so many awful things going on in her life. You do know those teachers will be held to the same standards?

No, the CHILDREN will be held to the same standards. Because we don't have lower expectations for kids, just because we think they have suffered enough already.

We cannot just say, "Well, you are poor, and black, and your mommy doesn't love you, so we don't expect that you can learn to read and do math at grade level."

No we don't, we don't say that to kids.

If you are running a race and have to start 200 yards behind everyone else, do you think you are going to get to the finish line with everyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just wondering. What do you propose for the teacher of a class of kids like that poor little girl that disappeared. The one who missed so much school and had so many awful things going on in her life. You do know those teachers will be held to the same standards?

No, the CHILDREN will be held to the same standards. Because we don't have lower expectations for kids, just because we think they have suffered enough already.

We cannot just say, "Well, you are poor, and black, and your mommy doesn't love you, so we don't expect that you can learn to read and do math at grade level."

No we don't, we don't say that to kids.

If you are running a race and have to start 200 yards behind everyone else, do you think you are going to get to the finish line with everyone else?

As long as you get there eventually. If you lie about where the true finish line is, you aren't really helping anyone.

[Anonymous]

You can't water down the standards and pretend they don't exist, just because you think kids won't be able to reach the standard.

[Anonymous]

So, you are going to have the kids sit in first grade until they meet the first grade standards?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:


70 percent of the white student body will fail this test, and up to 95 percent of black, Hispanic and special needs students will fail.

How can you possibly know these numbers about a test that is only in pilot form? And what a sad statement about public education in America if this was true.

Because that is what has happened in every state that rolled out Common Core, then tested their kids on it.

Every state = 2. Kentucky and New York. Neither of the states used the two main Common Core-aligned tests (PARCC and Smarter Balanced), because those tests won't be ready until next year (this year they're getting field-tested). In Kentucky, it's pretty clear that one of the reasons so many kids failed is because their education was not as good as it should be. And the New York so-called "Common Core" curriculum is full of stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Common Core.

Add North Carolina to the mix. Their results were the same as Kentucky and New York.

One person who worked on the Common Core ELA standards said they were designed for the top 30 percent of students, not the entire student population. And that is exactly the percentage who passes them. Hardly a coincidence.

Seems like you've made up your mind prior to the standards even being put into place (and certainly before the national standardized tests are in place)). That's fine, but own up to it. Frankly I don't think higher standards are bad, clearly you do. I think more kids lose interest in school out of boredom than too much challenge. But I don't think you can judge common core on the data that is currently available -- it will take 5 to 10 years to have a clear picture



5 to 10 years -- and an entire generation's education down the toilet.

You act like the standards are any good. There is ZERO PROOF that they are better. And for kids with language disabilities, they make every party of the curriculum unattainable. That is what my child is experiencing right now.


Why are you such a gullible believer? They trot out standards, and you are immediately on your knees worshipping them. They are a fad, just like Everyday Math and New Math.


Have you actually read the standards? I have. There really isn't much to criticize there in my opinion. As I said before, my kids are in a common core district. It isn't really that different that the curriculum before (in Maryland but not Montgomery county). I think that the standards should be geared towards what the majority of the kids can do and they will need to find to make it work for those with learning disabilities via exceptions or otherwise. However, I don't think you bore the other seventy five percent of the class No Child Left Behind style.

[Anonymous]

You can't water down the standards and pretend they don't exist, just because you think kids won't be able to reach the standard.

So, you don't want to follow the basic education principle of starting where the kids are as a baseline?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You can't water down the standards and pretend they don't exist, just because you think kids won't be able to reach the standard.

So, you don't want to follow the basic education principle of starting where the kids are as a baseline?

You start where kids are, for instruction.

But the grade level standard is set, as a basis of expectation; it isn't altered because some kids can't reach it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


70 percent of the white student body will fail this test, and up to 95 percent of black, Hispanic and special needs students will fail.

How can you possibly know these numbers about a test that is only in pilot form? And what a sad statement about public education in America if this was true.

Because that is what has happened in every state that rolled out Common Core, then tested their kids on it.

Every state = 2. Kentucky and New York. Neither of the states used the two main Common Core-aligned tests (PARCC and Smarter Balanced), because those tests won't be ready until next year (this year they're getting field-tested). In Kentucky, it's pretty clear that one of the reasons so many kids failed is because their education was not as good as it should be. And the New York so-called "Common Core" curriculum is full of stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Common Core.

Add North Carolina to the mix. Their results were the same as Kentucky and New York.

One person who worked on the Common Core ELA standards said they were designed for the top 30 percent of students, not the entire student population. And that is exactly the percentage who passes them. Hardly a coincidence.

Seems like you've made up your mind prior to the standards even being put into place (and certainly before the national standardized tests are in place)). That's fine, but own up to it. Frankly I don't think higher standards are bad, clearly you do. I think more kids lose interest in school out of boredom than too much challenge. But I don't think you can judge common core on the data that is currently available -- it will take 5 to 10 years to have a clear picture

5 to 10 years -- and an entire generation's education down the toilet.

You act like the standards are any good. There is ZERO PROOF that they are better. And for kids with language disabilities, they make every party of the curriculum unattainable. That is what my child is experiencing right now.


Why are you such a gullible believer? They trot out standards, and you are immediately on your knees worshipping them. They are a fad, just like Everyday Math and New Math.


Have you actually read the standards? I have. There really isn't much to criticize there in my opinion. As I said before, my kids are in a common core district. It isn't really that different that the curriculum before (in Maryland but not Montgomery county). I think that the standards should be geared towards what the majority of the kids can do and they will need to find to make it work for those with learning disabilities via exceptions or otherwise. However, I don't think you bore the other seventy five percent of the class No Child Left Behind style.




Yes, I've read the standards, and they are rife with problems. Close reading is totally unproven -- Good God, the clueless children that will come out of that curriculum!


Most of the math standards are problematic because they insist on explaining in great detail in abstract terms at young ages with writing skills well beyond their ability. Until middle school, kids are concrete thinkers. These standards insist they be abstract thinkers well before the time that they are biologically wired to do so. It's like asking a fish to fly.


Many of the issues are in the "fine print" of the appendixes. Those rachet up the reading levels sky high. There are reports of the PARCC test for 3rd graders being at an S, T, U reading level --- even though they should be at about N-O.

The other thing is, all bets are off the table for your district's curriculum next year. Here's how this is going to go: Kids will take the PARCC next year. Almost everyone will fail. There will be an uproar. Your school district will panic and buy Pearson's curriculum -- because it's also been well reported that Pearson is inserting its prefab curriculum as the basis for its tests. And on the cycle goes, until parents go to the polls and vote out the politicians who signed up for this boatload of crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, you are going to have the kids sit in first grade until they meet the first grade standards?

No.

Are you under the impression that if kids can't meet the standards, they will have to repeat that grade until they can?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I've read the standards, and they are rife with problems. Close reading is totally unproven -- Good God, the clueless children that will come out of that curriculum!


Most of the math standards are problematic because they insist on explaining in great detail in abstract terms at young ages with writing skills well beyond their ability. Until middle school, kids are concrete thinkers. These standards insist they be abstract thinkers well before the time that they are biologically wired to do so. It's like asking a fish to fly.

NO THEY DON'T. We have been over and over this. That is NOT what the math standards require.

[Anonymous]

Have you ever tried teaching "missing addend" to first graders? It might work for the sophisticated ones, but it doesn't for a lot of them. It frustrates them. Sure, you teach it--but it is not a value we should be testing.

[Anonymous]

For starters, the standards were written in total violation of accepted protocol. Pretty funny -- and sad and twisted -- for such alleged "rigorous" standards.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/common-core_b_5016877.html

The Fatal Flaw of the Common Core Standards

They were written in a manner that violates the nationally and international recognized process for writing standards. The process by which they were created was so fundamentally flawed that these "standards" should have no legitimacy.

Setting national academic standards is not something done in stealth by a small group of people, funded by one source, and imposed by the lure of a federal grant in a time of austerity.

There is a recognized protocol for writing standards, and the Common Core standards failed to comply with that protocol.

In the United States, the principles of standard-setting have been clearly spelled out by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

On its website ANSI describes how standards should be developed in every field.....



"The Common Core standards cannot be considered standards when judged by the ANSI requirements. According to ANSI, the process of setting standards must be transparent, must involve all interested parties, must not be dominated by a single interest, and must include a process for appeal and revision.

The Common Core standards were not developed in a transparent manner. The standard-setting and writing of the standards included a significant number of people from the testing industry, but did not include a significant number of experienced teachers, subject-matter experts, and other educators from the outset, nor did it engage other informed and concerned interests, such as early childhood educators and educators of children with disabilities. There was no consensus process. The standards were written in 2009 and adopted in 2010 by 45 states and the District of Columbia as a condition of eligibility to compete for $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funding. The process was dominated from start to finish by the Gates Foundation, which funded the standard-setting process. There was no process for appeal or revision, and there is still no process for appeal or revision."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I've read the standards, and they are rife with problems. Close reading is totally unproven -- Good God, the clueless children that will come out of that curriculum!


Most of the math standards are problematic because they insist on explaining in great detail in abstract terms at young ages with writing skills well beyond their ability. Until middle school, kids are concrete thinkers. These standards insist they be abstract thinkers well before the time that they are biologically wired to do so. It's like asking a fish to fly.

NO THEY DON'T. We have been over and over this. That is NOT what the math standards require.

It's been reported on the PARCC, the Smarter Balance, and the Pearson NY tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever tried teaching "missing addend" to first graders? It might work for the sophisticated ones, but it doesn't for a lot of them. It frustrates them. Sure, you teach it--but it is not a value we should be testing.

Yes, I have taught it to my ESOL students. Very easy.