Common Core's epic fail: Special Education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not if they give up and drop out, which even the Common Core advocates agree is about to happen.

You're now arguing that it's better for schools not to require critical thinking and more rigorous learning, because then fewer students will drop out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My child has no problem with word problems, it's when they purposely make things difficult by making word problems something where a child needs to be an abstract thinker before she or she is developmentally ready and able is frustrating to me. The article about the NY common core applies to the thinking behind the abstract of this type of math, when math is a straightforward subject.

I disagree -- both about the subject of the article, and about the Common Core math standards requiring abstract thinking before children are developmentally ready. I think that the Common Core math standards are appropriate to the development of most children. Could you cite some Common Core math standards that you think are not appropriate?

Why bother? You'll just try to explain it away with a bunch of BS.

I know this: The teachers in my son's school say the standards are wordy, confusing and unclear in many areas. They hyperfocus on language. And on a national level, there's a blistering debate going on about the inappropriateness of the the standards for kids in lower grades. This is a fact. More than 500 experts have signed on to this.

Of the 24 people who wrote the standards, four have now disowned them. Most of the others who wrote them refuse to be named or to defend them. That says all I need to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not if they give up and drop out, which even the Common Core advocates agree is about to happen.

You're now arguing that it's better for schools not to require critical thinking and more rigorous learning, because then fewer students will drop out.

Just because people use the trendy buzzword "rigorous" doesn't mean that it's appropriate for young children -- or even accurate.

You could try to require infants walk at 9 months. A few will be able to. The majority won't, no matter what you do to them. Should they be deemed failures?

Common Core is similar. The people who wrote said it was for the top 30 percent of learners -- not the majority of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a special educator and I was first excited about common core. There is more overlap between subjects, which means more exposure and review. However, the end expectation is for the student to synthesize information and explain reasoning. For students who are just grasping the facts, they are not ready for the next step.

Math is difficult because there are many students who can do the rote algorithm and show understanding in that way. Ask them to explain why and they are totally lost. That is 50% of the curriculum!

There are still many answers sought and not a lot of guidance from higher ups. There is more curriculum development for those students who are not on the diploma track, and it is leaving those students behind who are in the regular curriculum. Not to say the old curriculum was perfect, but this has presented more challenges.

Yes, of course; it is particularly hard for my dyslexic child. It assumes language is an area of strength for every child. This WP article explains it further:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/30/a-dissection-of-common-core-math-test-questions-leaves-educator-appalled/

That post is not about the Common Core standards, or about the tests aligned to the Common Core that most students will take. It's about New York's tests, which are specific to New York. I think that everybody has acknowledged that New York's tests were bad.

Also, while I understand that word problems may be difficult for children who are dyslexic, I think that word problems are crucial for demonstrating understanding. I don't think it would be a good thing to throw out word problems on grounds that children who are dyslexic may have problems with them.

I love people that don't understand that standards need to be implemented, or standards are worthless. The separation of standards from testing, state or otherwise, is simply a blame game.

Standards don't get implemented. Policies get implemented. In this case, it's the policy of the school governing body to switch to a curriculum that aligns with the Common Core standards.

And no, it's not a blame game. New York's Common Core stuff was apparently awful. I don't think that means that the Common Core is awful, any more than Plessy vs. Ferguson means the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was awful.

Are you familiar with real world business and how specs get implemented?

[Anonymous]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/23/the-science-of-the-common-core-experts-weigh-in-on-its-developmental-appropriateness/

The Science Of The Common Core: Experts Weigh In On Its Developmental Appropriateness

According to experts, a poorly conceived set of standards has the potential to be, at best, fruitless and, at worst, detrimental to the youngest kids who are on the frontline of the Common Core. In the long run, the argument goes, it might be associated with a lot more cost than benefit.

David Elkind, long-time child development expert at Tufts University and author of The Hurried Child, says that a related problem with the Common Core standards is that “children are not standardized.” Between ages 4 to 7, he says, kids are undergoing especially rapid changes in cognitive ability, but this neurological and psychological development occurs at all different rates. “Some children attain these abilities—which enable them to learn verbal rules, the essence of formal instruction—at different ages. With the exception of those with special needs, all children attain them eventually. That is why many Scandinavian countries do not introduce formal instruction, the three R’s until the age of seven. In these countries children encounter few learning difficulties. Basically, you cannot standardize growth, particularly in young children and young adolescents. When growth is most rapid, standardization is the most destructive of motivation to learn. To use a biological analogy, you don’t prune during the growing season.”

[Anonymous]

and more from Forbes:

Of course, it’s hard to get a valid measure of whether the Common Core is helping kids “catch up,” if it uses its own tests as a measure. Kornhaber says that new standards typically lead to a drop in test scores and then an uptick as schools figure out how to teach to them. “The usual course of standards-based reform testing shows what the psychometrician Robert Linn called ‘a saw tooth pattern’: every time a new test comes in, student achievement drops. As teachers and students get familiar with the new standards and tests, scores go up. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean students’ understanding or skills increase—tests of the same content but external to the actual reform commonly show students’ knowledge and skills haven’t grown nearly as much as the reform’s ‘official’ test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/23/the-science-of-the-common-core-experts-weigh-in-on-its-developmental-appropriateness/

The Science Of The Common Core: Experts Weigh In On Its Developmental Appropriateness

According to experts, a poorly conceived set of standards has the potential to be, at best, fruitless and, at worst, detrimental to the youngest kids who are on the frontline of the Common Core. In the long run, the argument goes, it might be associated with a lot more cost than benefit.

David Elkind, long-time child development expert at Tufts University and author of The Hurried Child, says that a related problem with the Common Core standards is that “children are not standardized.” Between ages 4 to 7, he says, kids are undergoing especially rapid changes in cognitive ability, but this neurological and psychological development occurs at all different rates. “Some children attain these abilities—which enable them to learn verbal rules, the essence of formal instruction—at different ages. With the exception of those with special needs, all children attain them eventually. That is why many Scandinavian countries do not introduce formal instruction, the three R’s until the age of seven. In these countries children encounter few learning difficulties. Basically, you cannot standardize growth, particularly in young children and young adolescents. When growth is most rapid, standardization is the most destructive of motivation to learn. To use a biological analogy, you don’t prune during the growing season.”

But pre CC, we still had standards; they were just different. Kids still had benchmarks that had to be met.

In bolded, "That is why many Scandinavian countries do not introduce formal instruction, the three R’s until the age of seven", so does that mean that for K kids, we shouldn't have standards, but for 1st or 2nd graders and up, it's ok? Well, K is just one year, and I think the standards in K are not all that rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not if they give up and drop out, which even the Common Core advocates agree is about to happen.

You're now arguing that it's better for schools not to require critical thinking and more rigorous learning, because then fewer students will drop out.

+1 yea, I don't get that logic.

ES kids are not going to drop out of school. They may complain that school is harder now because they now have to think a lot more, but I seriously doubt you will see a high dropout rate for ES kids.

As parents we complain that our kids won't be ready to compete with kids from foreign countries, so most of the states implement a set of standards that push critical thinking which, in theory, should make our kids much more competitive in the work place. Then, some parents turn around and complain that the standards are not age appropriate (which is basically saying that even for HS kids, CC standards are too hard), so we need to make them easier, so they don't feel bad about themselves.

For SN kids, if the standards are too difficult, then they either will need 1. more support or 2. a different set of standards

But it's also ridiculous to say that standards for all kids should be changed because SN kids cannot meet them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/23/the-science-of-the-common-core-experts-weigh-in-on-its-developmental-appropriateness/

The Science Of The Common Core: Experts Weigh In On Its Developmental Appropriateness

According to experts, a poorly conceived set of standards has the potential to be, at best, fruitless and, at worst, detrimental to the youngest kids who are on the frontline of the Common Core. In the long run, the argument goes, it might be associated with a lot more cost than benefit.

David Elkind, long-time child development expert at Tufts University and author of The Hurried Child, says that a related problem with the Common Core standards is that “children are not standardized.” Between ages 4 to 7, he says, kids are undergoing especially rapid changes in cognitive ability, but this neurological and psychological development occurs at all different rates. “Some children attain these abilities—which enable them to learn verbal rules, the essence of formal instruction—at different ages. With the exception of those with special needs, all children attain them eventually. That is why many Scandinavian countries do not introduce formal instruction, the three R’s until the age of seven. In these countries children encounter few learning difficulties. Basically, you cannot standardize growth, particularly in young children and young adolescents. When growth is most rapid, standardization is the most destructive of motivation to learn. To use a biological analogy, you don’t prune during the growing season.”

Yes, a poorly-conceived set of standards has the potential to do harm. The question is, are the Common Core standards poorly conceived? I've read a lot of them, and I think that they are, overall, very reasonable.

I don't think that the fact that children are not standardized means that we should get rid of standards.

I think it's a misunderstanding that "many Scandinavian countries do not introduce formal instruction until the age of seven". (What is "many Scandinavian countries" anyway? There are only three of them; or five if you include Finland, Iceland (population 323,000), and the Faroe Islands (population 50,000).) Also, the standardized tests don't start until third grade, when children are 8 or 9.

[Anonymous]

^^^whoops, six: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Faroe Islands. I couldn't decide whether or not to include the Faroe Islands as their own country.

[Anonymous]

The teachers in my son's school say the standards are wordy, confusing and unclear in many areas.

The standards were written with minimal to no input from classroom teachers. We have someone on this board who thinks they are great. I think her job depends on CC<

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The teachers in my son's school say the standards are wordy, confusing and unclear in many areas.

The standards were written with minimal to no input from classroom teachers. We have someone on this board who thinks they are great. I think her job depends on CC<

And some teachers probably couldn't master the standards, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The teachers in my son's school say the standards are wordy, confusing and unclear in many areas.

The standards were written with minimal to no input from classroom teachers. We have someone on this board who thinks they are great. I think her job depends on CC<

There are many people on this board who think they are pretty good -- including me. My job does not depend on the Common Core standards in any way whatsoever. But maybe all those other people's jobs do, I don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The teachers in my son's school say the standards are wordy, confusing and unclear in many areas.

The standards were written with minimal to no input from classroom teachers. We have someone on this board who thinks they are great. I think her job depends on CC<

There are many people on this board who think they are pretty good -- including me. My job does not depend on the Common Core standards in any way whatsoever. But maybe all those other people's jobs do, I don't know.

Based on what? These are untested, unproven standards, and children all across the country are suffering because of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The teachers in my son's school say the standards are wordy, confusing and unclear in many areas.

The standards were written with minimal to no input from classroom teachers. We have someone on this board who thinks they are great. I think her job depends on CC<

There are many people on this board who think they are pretty good -- including me. My job does not depend on the Common Core standards in any way whatsoever. But maybe all those other people's jobs do, I don't know.

Based on what? These are untested, unproven standards, and children all across the country are suffering because of them.

because it forces the kid to really think and not just memorize and regurgitate answers?

I do see my kids struggling sometimes with how to answer a question because they are forced to really think, and my kids are pretty bright. So, I can well imagine not-so-bright kids struggling to achieve these standards. They are difficult, no doubt. But I don't think we should make our curriculum less difficult because it's hard. I think having high standards is good. We should push our kids to really think. But, the teachers should also be equipped better to teach the kids. With new standards, we need new teaching methods and time for the teachers to develop lesson plans. This is where I think most schools are failing.