Why are people so upset about Common Core?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Common Core is a set of standards.

CPM is a curriculum that was designed years ago. Schools can implement it, and teachers can teach it, and they can say they are adopting it to meet Common Core standards.

CPM may help students reach the standards set by Common Core or it may not. But the standards themselves do not require your child's teacher to refuse to speak with children, or require your child's school to provide an 8th grade text book in 5th grade. Those are school decisions.

Keep telling yourself that. You'll just have to find out the hard way.

I have two kids in PG County schools. They switched to a new textbook this year - don't know what the name is -- but it seems much better than past years. We aren't having tons of problems like you seem to be having. The kids are developing basic number sense, are mastering facts fluently, and are spending more time on fewer subjects. They don't have to do 5 page word problems.

[Anonymous]

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative Issued by the Alliance for Childhood March 16, 2010

WE HAVE GRAVE CONCERNS about the core standards for young children now being written by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The proposed standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Common Core is a set of standards.

CPM is a curriculum that was designed years ago. Schools can implement it, and teachers can teach it, and they can say they are adopting it to meet Common Core standards.

CPM may help students reach the standards set by Common Core or it may not. But the standards themselves do not require your child's teacher to refuse to speak with children, or require your child's school to provide an 8th grade text book in 5th grade. Those are school decisions.

Keep telling yourself that. You'll just have to find out the hard way.

I have two kids in PG County schools. They switched to a new textbook this year - don't know what the name is -- but it seems much better than past years. We aren't having tons of problems like you seem to be having. The kids are developing basic number sense, are mastering facts fluently, and are spending more time on fewer subjects. They don't have to do 5 page word problems.

And the new textbook is aligned with Common Core objectives, as well. So CPM isn't the only one out there. Your school could have chosen differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Common Core is a set of standards.

CPM is a curriculum that was designed years ago. Schools can implement it, and teachers can teach it, and they can say they are adopting it to meet Common Core standards.

CPM may help students reach the standards set by Common Core or it may not. But the standards themselves do not require your child's teacher to refuse to speak with children, or require your child's school to provide an 8th grade text book in 5th grade. Those are school decisions.

Keep telling yourself that. You'll just have to find out the hard way.

I have two kids in PG County schools. They switched to a new textbook this year - don't know what the name is -- but it seems much better than past years. We aren't having tons of problems like you seem to be having. The kids are developing basic number sense, are mastering facts fluently, and are spending more time on fewer subjects. They don't have to do 5 page word problems.

And the new textbook is aligned with Common Core objectives, as well. So CPM isn't the only one out there. Your school could have chosen differently.

I do agree, they chose about the worst math curriculum possible for the lousy Common Core math standards.

[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.


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.

Which math standards, specifically, require "explaining in great detail in abstract terms at young ages"? Please link to at least one or two specific math standards.

(And as for the PARCC tests -- you seem to think you have a crystal ball. I think you have a Magic 8 Ball.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative Issued by the Alliance for Childhood March 16, 2010

WE HAVE GRAVE CONCERNS about the core standards for young children now being written by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The proposed standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.

The Alliance for Childhood seems to represent the lefty (lots of Waldorf people) attack on the Common Core -- the Common Core is bad because children need to learn through play; there shouldn't be standards, there should be natural curiosity and exploration. Not liking the Common Core may be the only thing that Alfie Kohn and Michelle Malkin agree on.

[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.


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.

Which math standards, specifically, require "explaining in great detail in abstract terms at young ages"? Please link to at least one or two specific math standards.

(And as for the PARCC tests -- you seem to think you have a crystal ball. I think you have a Magic 8 Ball.)

Different poster, but on the issue of explaining in detail in abstrict terms, scroll down to "Math Practices".
http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/3/introduction/

Since you probably work for some core-related entity, no doubt ths language will be expunged/revised by noon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here, shaking my head over pages of discussion of 7 + __ = 10

Haven't any of you ever heard of using techniques like math manipulatives?

Holy crap, this is not rocket science, people. You are all acting like this stuff is bizarre and alien when it's actually all pretty common and logical.

You can use the manipulatives at first, but it needs to be automatic.

You shouldn't have to have kids counting on their fingers (or in their heads) to solve that problem.

Manipulatives are an illustrative concept, one among many. No, obviously kids will not go through life with manipulatives. But the fact that people are acting bewildered and stumped about how these basic things can be demonstrated by kids really makes me wonder if they have any experience with math education at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, I'm sorry, you don't get any choices in our new totalitarian regime. You will take an engineering test in Chinese because that's what the regime has decided you must do. It doesn't matter that you don't want to be an engineer or have ever been taught Chinese. You must know the material anyway. There are no changes and no exceptions or exemptions.

You will sit in room for 10 to 20 hours and take an engineering test in Chinese. No excuses. Just work harder, read "closer." You will do this year after year, for at least 6 years.

?? You are really sounding unbalanced now.

I do, huh? Well too f*cking bad.

This impossible scenario is exactly what learning disabled children are facing. They walk into a new school year, and find the 8th grade science book is now the 5th grade science book. But they are reading on a second grade level, so they have no idea what's going on. The school district says the book cannot be adapted for the child. Next, the child finds his math class is now group math, and even though he has the verbal skills of a 5-year-old, he is expected to work in a group and be fully conversational -- only one child in the group is allowed to ask the teacher anything -- and the four kids work on 5-page long word problems. No direct teacher instruction. No other curriculum options but "autism" math, where they are adding 0 + 3, even though your child is well into fractions, decimals, etc. But they've poured all their money and training into their new curriculum, and everybody must take it.

This snippet is one of hundreds and hundreds going on around the country because of Common Core, and is worshipping minions.

I'd wager that 70% of the "reading disability" in DCPS schools is parents not reading to their kids and parents not encouraging reading. I'd also wager that 70% of the "dysgraphia" is actually schools not properly teaching handwriting.

[Anonymous]

NP here, shaking my head over pages of discussion of 7 + __ = 10

Haven't any of you ever heard of using techniques like math manipulatives?

Holy crap, this is not rocket science, people. You are all acting like this stuff is bizarre and alien when it's actually all pretty common and logical.

It's a long way from using manipulatives to going to a paper test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

NP here, shaking my head over pages of discussion of 7 + __ = 10

Haven't any of you ever heard of using techniques like math manipulatives?

Holy crap, this is not rocket science, people. You are all acting like this stuff is bizarre and alien when it's actually all pretty common and logical.

It's a long way from using manipulatives to going to a paper test.

A long way? Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which math standards, specifically, require "explaining in great detail in abstract terms at young ages"? Please link to at least one or two specific math standards.

(And as for the PARCC tests -- you seem to think you have a crystal ball. I think you have a Magic 8 Ball.)

Different poster, but on the issue of explaining in detail in abstrict terms, scroll down to "Math Practices".
http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/3/introduction/

Since you probably work for some core-related entity, no doubt ths language will be expunged/revised by noon.

Ok, I went to "Math Practices". This is what it says:

Mathematical Practices
1)Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2)Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3)Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4)Model with mathematics.
5)Use appropriate tools strategically.
6)Attend to precision.
7)Look for and make use of structure.
8)Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Which parts of this illustrate explaining in detail in abstract terms, in ways that are developmentally inappropriate for third-graders? Which of these practices do you think it's wrong to expect third-graders to be able to do?

[Anonymous]

Read them again. Then design a test that accurately measures those standards. The proof is in the pudding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read them again. Then design a test that accurately measures those standards. The proof is in the pudding.

I read them again. They're not standards. They're practices. You can tell that they're practices because the title is "math practices".

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/07/common-core-test-gives-students-no-time-to-think-teacher/

Okay. Then read the standards and design a test. It is not instant and it is not working.