Common Core's epic fail: Special Education

[Anonymous]

Alternatively, maybe it's taking Kentucky a while to begin teaching the right things in the right way. Maybe Kentucky never will begin teaching the right things in the right way. That doesn't mean that the standards make no sense. It means that improving education is complicated and depends on a lot of different factors.

Then, maybe you can explain that K standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Except for Kentucky has been giving Pearson tests, the forerunner of PARCC, for three years now, with little change in test scores. 3 years, a quarter of a child's education, is a long time to waste on standards that aren't making sense.

Agree. I'm interested to see the explanation of that K standard posted above. I'm beginning to understand why people hate this so much.

Some patience would be nice.

Here is the K standard posted above:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.8
With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.

It's part of a set of standards related to informational text. The general skill is integrating knowledge and ideas. The complete set of standards for this skill is:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.7
With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.8
With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.9
With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

So let's suppose the informational text is a picture book about plants. One of the points in the book is that plants need certain things to grow. As I understand it, to achieve this standard, the kindergartener would be able, with prompting and support, to say that the book says that plants need water to grow, and they need air to grow, and they need sunlight to grow.

[Anonymous]

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1.a
Print many upper- and lowercase letters

Wonder if "many" is the same in Arlington as in Loudoun?

[Anonymous]

It's becoming more and more clear that these standards are going to be flushed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1.a
Print many upper- and lowercase letters

Wonder if "many" is the same in Arlington as in Loudoun?

Do you think that the standard is bad unless it specifies exactly how many upper-case letters and how many lower-case letters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's becoming more and more clear that these standards are going to be flushed.

Only to the deluded who only live in their own echo chamber.

Again, if you want to flush them, you have to come up with some CONCRETE reasons why. So far all anyone has come up with is either vague "the standards just suck" with no real specificity beyond that or similarly vague and generalized criticisms of other things like testing which don't necessarily say a blessed thing about what's wrong with the standard.

You're going to have to do a whole lot better, because so far you have not made ONE single compelling argument whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's becoming more and more clear that these standards are going to be flushed.

Only to the deluded who only live in their own echo chamber.

Again, if you want to flush them, you have to come up with some CONCRETE reasons why. So far all anyone has come up with is either vague "the standards just suck" with no real specificity beyond that or similarly vague and generalized criticisms of other things like testing which don't necessarily say a blessed thing about what's wrong with the standard.

You're going to have to do a whole lot better, because so far you have not made ONE single compelling argument whatsoever.

No, we just have to vote in politicians who will kill it, and that process has already started. Common Core has already been defunded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1.a
Print many upper- and lowercase letters


Wonder if "many" is the same in Arlington as in Loudoun?

Do you think that the standard is bad unless it specifies exactly how many upper-case letters and how many lower-case letters?

Yup. It is vague. It cannot be measured.

[Anonymous]

So let's suppose the informational text is a picture book about plants. One of the points in the book is that plants need certain things to grow. As I understand it, to achieve this standard, the kindergartener would be able, with prompting and support, to say that the book says that plants need water to grow, and they need air to grow, and they need sunlight to grow.

Someone should not have to qualify a standard with "as I understand it."

Fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1.a
Print many upper- and lowercase letters


Wonder if "many" is the same in Arlington as in Loudoun?

Do you think that the standard is bad unless it specifies exactly how many upper-case letters and how many lower-case letters?

Yup. It is vague. It cannot be measured.

One "vague" element out of a standard that consists of hundreds of elements is hardly a valid reason for scrapping the entire thing. Not even remotely. Plus, the corresponding element for the following year is that they be able to print ALL upper and lower case letters, so it would stand to reason to any rational and thinking person trying to implement it that what K.1.a is referring to is some reasonable amount of progress toward that subsequent goal.

[Anonymous]

One "vague" element out of a standard that consists of hundreds of elements is hardly a valid reason for scrapping the entire thing. Not even remotely. Plus, the corresponding element for the following year is that they be able to print ALL upper and lower case letters, so it would stand to reason to any rational and thinking person trying to implement it that what K.1.a is referring to is some reasonable amount of progress toward that subsequent goal.

One vague standard? This is a standard that should have been among the simplest to write. My graduate professors would have failed me had I written a standard like that. Sloppy work.

[Anonymous]

Still haven't seen a post of the list of classroom teachers who participated in writing the standards. Or, the ones who vetted them. The website claims they were vetted. Who vetted them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1.a
Print many upper- and lowercase letters


Wonder if "many" is the same in Arlington as in Loudoun?

Do you think that the standard is bad unless it specifies exactly how many upper-case letters and how many lower-case letters?

Yup. It is vague. It cannot be measured.

I'm guessing that you use "many" quite often in regular life. Like this, for example, "Many states have rejected the Common Core standards!" How many?

If the standard said, "Print 12 upper- and 10 lowercase letters", you would say that the standard was bad because it didn't allow for flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No, we just have to vote in politicians who will kill it, and that process has already started. Common Core has already been defunded.

No. What got defunded is the Race to the Top grants, in the 2015 federal budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So let's suppose the informational text is a picture book about plants. One of the points in the book is that plants need certain things to grow. As I understand it, to achieve this standard, the kindergartener would be able, with prompting and support, to say that the book says that plants need water to grow, and they need air to grow, and they need sunlight to grow.

Someone should not have to qualify a standard with "as I understand it."

Fail.

I said, "As I understand it" because I am not a classroom teacher. Classroom teachers are the experts on teaching, right?

Do you disagree that this is what the standard says, or are you just quibbling that I qualified my statement with "As I understand it"?

If you disagree that this is what the standard says, what are the grounds for your disagreement?