Common Core is going to make my autistic child unemployable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem and managed to amend his IEP to skip the written/explanatory assignments. We added a broad "adapted assignments" section and work individually with the teacher to decide which assignments he can skip or answer verbally.

OP, you need to get the IEP accommodations written and enforced. Frankly that will help your child far sooner than working to change common core requirements, which by the way do not require lots of lengthy written explanations. SOmeone in your child's school or the textbook curriculum writers have interpreted it that way.

teachers will calm down about all the paragraphs of explanation required once they see the PARCC a few times and realize kids need to actually do math to pass the PARCC... not write explanations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

CCSS.Math.Content.2.MD.A.1
Measure the length of an object by selecting and using appropriate tools such as rulers, yardsticks, meter sticks, and measuring tapes.

Do you think that's a bad thing to expect a second-grader to be able to do?

No. In fact, I taught that in first grade and K. You don't need a spelled out standard for that. It has been done for many,many years.

OMG. "I did it in my class, so there's no need for a standard!" Ooooooooookay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm a parent and have a STEM degree. My brother is a double PhD in chemistry and genetics. We've both looked at the CC math standards. They are excellent for teaching math reasoning, which is the most important part of math.

I find that the parents who are bitching about the CC math standards are generally poorly educated in math. They don't understand math. They don't understand math reasoning. They are completely baffled by the math reasoning that their children are learning. I find that encouraging, because US training in math has been really terrible until now. I think the CC standards are excellent for teaching good math skills in a way that matches US culture (emphasis on critical thinking and outcomes, rather than rote learning) and creates the skills that STEM employers value (creative problem solving).

+1 to the bolded. People keep complaining how the CC is ruining math instruction-- guess what? Math instruction has been horrible in this country for decades. I was a kid who was good at math, always got As in math, and sailed through standardized tests in math. When I tried to do calculus in college, I hit a complete brick wall. I had no idea what any of it meant. Statistics? Forget it. I had learned to plug numbers into algorithms just fine, but had never learned any math reasoning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm a parent and have a STEM degree. My brother is a double PhD in chemistry and genetics. We've both looked at the CC math standards. They are excellent for teaching math reasoning, which is the most important part of math.

I find that the parents who are bitching about the CC math standards are generally poorly educated in math. They don't understand math. They don't understand math reasoning. They are completely baffled by the math reasoning that their children are learning. I find that encouraging, because US training in math has been really terrible until now. I think the CC standards are excellent for teaching good math skills in a way that matches US culture (emphasis on critical thinking and outcomes, rather than rote learning) and creates the skills that STEM employers value (creative problem solving).

Well said, agree 100 percent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm no expert on the subject (my kids are not yet school-age), but the first thing I said when I saw my niece's homework was that it was done by and for people who don't like math. As someone who liked math in school (ended up with an engineering degree), that made me sad.

You could start by looking at the Common Core standards for math, here:

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

Do you see anything you disagree with? For example, here is a fourth-grade standard:

CCSS.Math.Content.4.OA.A.1
Interpret a multiplication equation as a comparison, e.g., interpret 35 = 5 × 7 as a statement that 35 is 5 times as many as 7 and 7 times as many as 5. Represent verbal statements of multiplicative comparisons as multiplication equations.

Is there something bad about this?

Honestly, that sounds torturous. I'd want kids to quickly know what 7x5 is, what 35/5 is, to recognize that multiplying a number by 5 always ends with a 0 or a 5. I'd want them to enjoy playing with numbers and number facts, not have to write out long explanations about how they got there. I think current math education puts the cart before the horse - prioritizing the ability to use words to explain numbers over the idea of making numbers and number play (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) second nature and instantly accessible.

CCSS.Math.Content.4.OA.A.1 says that a fourth-grader should know that 35 is 5 times as many as 7 and that if you get a story problem asking how many miles Alfred walked altogether if he walked five miles a day for 7 miles a day, you solve the problem by writing 5 x 7 = 35. You don't want your fourth-grader to know these things? What part of this is using words to explain numbers?

Keeping in mind that this is only one of many math standards, and that one of the math standards for third graders are:

CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.C.7
Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division (e.g., knowing that 8 × 5 = 40, one knows 40 ÷ 5 = 8) or properties of operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers.

So in fact your fourth-grader would already have learned to quickly know what 7x5 is and what 35/5 is, the year before, just as you'd like.

Please do take a careful look at the actual Common Core math standards. Not the various curricula, not the many and varied complaints, not the stuff that people have written about them who have never looked at them. The actual Common Core math standards.

So you are suggesting that with the same amount of time and resources in schools, Johnny will not only be able to quickly recite his multiplication facts (as before) but will also know how to represent verbal statements of multiplicative comparisons as multiplication equations? Oh and he'll learn to solve said multiplication problem in 5 different ways in order to demonstrate his now superior mathematical reasoning, correct?

Good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Common Core math is a disaster for kids with any type of language disability. I'm hearing it from parents on every message board I'm on.

The problem is that it locks math behind a wall of language, even in Kindergarten. So children who would have learned to love math now cannot access it at all, even in the earliest grades.

Common Core standards themselves are BAD because of their endless insisting on explaining and explaining when for many DOING math leads to understanding it. It's conscripted thinking: it wants you to think about math in only ONE way, and if you don't you fail -- even if you get the right answer.


Five or 10 years from know, COmmon Core will be looked at as the biggest boondoggle in education. The roar in the country next fall when 70 percent of regular students and 95 percent of special education students don't pass the standardized testing is going to be huge.

[Anonymous]

It is ridiculous to require students who are fluent in math to require them to explain everything they do. It is kind of like requiring a child to pick out every verb in a foreign language and conjugate it rather than translate it.

[Anonymous]

I'm a parent and have a STEM degree. My brother is a double PhD in chemistry and genetics. We've both looked at the CC math standards. They are excellent for teaching math reasoning, which is the most important part of math.

I find that the parents who are bitching about the CC math standards are generally poorly educated in math. They don't understand math. They don't understand math reasoning. They are completely baffled by the math reasoning that their children are learning. I find that encouraging, because US training in math has been really terrible until now. I think the CC standards are excellent for teaching good math skills in a way that matches US culture (emphasis on critical thinking and outcomes, rather than rote learning) and creates the skills that STEM employers value (creative problem solving).

Yes! This is it.

Frankly, if a child can't explain how they arrived at an answer, then they don't understand math and math reasoning. Adaptations can be made for students with language based disabilities, and absolutely be made, but in the end, understanding of math is essential to be proficient in math.

Education shouldn't be about churning out robot plug and play students. It should turn out mathematical thinkers.

[Anonymous]

Yes! This is it.

Frankly, if a child can't explain how they arrived at an answer, then they don't understand math and math reasoning. Adaptations can be made for students with language based disabilities, and absolutely be made, but in the end, understanding of math is essential to be proficient in math.

Education shouldn't be about churning out robot plug and play students. It should turn out mathematical thinkers.

BS. The true thinkers will be slowed down by having to stop and explain everything. Kind of like saying visual learners are better than auditory learners. One is not better, it is just different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes! This is it.

Frankly, if a child can't explain how they arrived at an answer, then they don't understand math and math reasoning. Adaptations can be made for students with language based disabilities, and absolutely be made, but in the end, understanding of math is essential to be proficient in math.

Education shouldn't be about churning out robot plug and play students. It should turn out mathematical thinkers.

BS. The true thinkers will be slowed down by having to stop and explain everything. Kind of like saying visual learners are better than auditory learners. One is not better, it is just different.

Why? If they understand it, they can explain it. If they can't explain it, they don't understand it. Note that explaining does not have to be done in complete written sentences.

For example, please explain, when you're doing 27 x 35 using the standard algorithm, why you put a zero in the ones column for the second line of multiplication (the 27 x 3 part).

[Anonymous]

Actually, most children will not pass the Common Core, will not graduate from high school and will not be able to find jobs.

This is borne out in every test so far of the Common Core, where 70 percent of children fail the tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, most children will not pass the Common Core, will not graduate from high school and will not be able to find jobs.

This is borne out in every test so far of the Common Core, where 70 percent of children fail the tests.

The Common Core is standards. You can't pass the Common Core, and you can't fail the Common Core, because the Common Core is not a test.

I'm also not quite sure what the point is. Maybe that the Common Core standards are going to ruin education, because children are not learning what the Common Core standards call for them to know, which means that they're not actually getting educated, in which case how are the Common Core standards are going to ruin education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, most children will not pass the Common Core, will not graduate from high school and will not be able to find jobs.

This is borne out in every test so far of the Common Core, where 70 percent of children fail the tests.

The Common Core is standards. You can't pass the Common Core, and you can't fail the Common Core, because the Common Core is not a test.

I'm also not quite sure what the point is. Maybe that the Common Core standards are going to ruin education, because children are not learning what the Common Core standards call for them to know, which means that they're not actually getting educated, in which case how are the Common Core standards are going to ruin education?

You should take a lesson in "close reading" that is require by the Common Core.

Race to the Top Funds, the only reason Common Core is in existence, DEMAND TESTING.

These tests have commenced in several states and the result in universal, massive failure.

The universal failure will be almost nationwide next year, when the results of this springs Armegeddon tests are released.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You should take a lesson in "close reading" that is require by the Common Core.

Race to the Top Funds, the only reason Common Core is in existence, DEMAND TESTING.

These tests have commenced in several states and the result in universal, massive failure.

The universal failure will be almost nationwide next year, when the results of this springs Armegeddon tests are released.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires testing. Where do the Race to the Top grants require testing? Please provide a link. Also, the Common Core standards come from the states. They do not come from the federal government.

But, in any case, so what? If children do not do well on the tests, then that means that they are not learning what they should be learning. And if children are not learning what they should be learning, then that is the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You should take a lesson in "close reading" that is require by the Common Core.

Race to the Top Funds, the only reason Common Core is in existence, DEMAND TESTING.

These tests have commenced in several states and the result in universal, massive failure.

The universal failure will be almost nationwide next year, when the results of this springs Armegeddon tests are released.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires testing. Where do the Race to the Top grants require testing? Please provide a link. Also, the Common Core standards come from the states. They do not come from the federal government.

But, in any case, so what? If children do not do well on the tests, then that means that they are not learning what they should be learning. And if children are not learning what they should be learning, then that is the problem.