Common Core's epic fail: Special Education

[Anonymous]

Yes, the CC standards do not dictate whether a school can deviate from a lesson plan. That decision is made by the Principle of the school district.

The principal is your PAL.

[Anonymous]

Any teachers that would stoop to just teaching to the test or trying to game the system, rather than delivering content probably SHOULD lose their jobs.

Sadly, it doesn't work that way. I read a great article about this the other day. I'll have to find it. Might have been Valerie Strauss in WAPO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Any teachers that would stoop to just teaching to the test or trying to game the system, rather than delivering content probably SHOULD lose their jobs.

Sadly, it doesn't work that way. I read a great article about this the other day. I'll have to find it. Might have been Valerie Strauss in WAPO.

If schools and teachers get evaluated by test scores, then schools and teachers will do their best to get the test scores to come out the way they're supposed to. That is a basic performance measurement issue, and everybody behaves that way.

But this is not a problem with the Common Core standards. It's a problem with evaluating schools and teachers by test scores.

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/01/teacher-evaluation-going-from-bad-to-worse/

This isn't the article about the problem with CC, but this does tell about the problems of tying standards/testing to teacher evaluation.

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/23/kindergarten-teacher-my-job-is-now-about-tests-and-data-not-children-i-quit/

Someone wrote about the wonderful standards in Massachusetts and how much better their education must be than those in Oklahoma. Here's another opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/23/kindergarten-teacher-my-job-is-now-about-tests-and-data-not-children-i-quit/

Someone wrote about the wonderful standards in Massachusetts and how much better their education must be than those in Oklahoma. Here's another opinion.

I read a lot (a lot a lot) about paperwork and assessments. I didn't read much about the Common Core standards, besides that she likes the old math curriculum (TERC) and doesn't see the need for a new math curriculum (Singapore Math). (I suspect that Singapore Math is "more aligned" to the Common Core standards because the writers of the Common Core standards used Singapore Math. I also think that the TERC math curriculum looks quite Common Core-ish. You can see for yourself here: https://investigations.terc.edu/library/curric-gl/math_content_gk_2ed.pdf )

In any case, I didn't say that the standards in Massachusetts were wonderful. I said that opponents of the Common Core standards have said so. I don't know anything about the standards in Massachusetts, besides what I have heard about them from opponents of the Common Core standards.

What's more, nobody has said that the only thing you need for a good public education system is good standards. The question is whether you can have a good public education system with bad standards. I think that the answer to this question is probably no. (If you know of some good public education systems that have bad standards, please tell me what they are.) Good standards are necessary for a good public education system, but there are also other factors that are also necessary.

[Anonymous]

Frankly, I have worked in three systems--due to a mobile spouse. I never saw bad standards. They were all pretty straightforward, unlike Common Core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, I have worked in three systems--due to a mobile spouse. I never saw bad standards. They were all pretty straightforward, unlike Common Core.

Which standards were in those three systems?

Could you give some examples of Common Core standards you find unstraightforward?

[Anonymous]

Which standards were in those three systems?

What does it matter? It's not the standards, it's the teaching and the students.

[Anonymous]

How many people believe that the "good" teachers that they had were the result of the "standards" that were in place?

Were those teachers "good" because they were in districts that had "great standards" or would they have been "good" anywhere that they were teaching?

I believe that the teacher>the standards>the standardized test. The standards do not drive the teacher. The truly good teacher is driven by an intrinsic motivation to help students learn. Can a teacher improve scores on a test by drill and kill? Sure. But do those scores tell us that she/he is a "good" teacher?

[Anonymous]

I believe that the teacher>the standards>the standardized test. The standards do not drive the teacher. The truly good teacher is driven by an intrinsic motivation to help students learn. Can a teacher improve scores on a test by drill and kill? Sure. But do those scores tell us that she/he is a "good" teacher?

Good teachers are extremely important, but, unfortunately the tests are driving the teaching methods. The principals want lots of practice on the tests. Fact.

[Anonymous]

I taught before NCLB. I gave standardized tests and liked to see the results. However, no one really cared about them but me. I used them for diagnosis--to see where the kids were and what I needed to teach.

[Anonymous]

I believe that the teacher>the standards>the standardized test. The standards do not drive the teacher. The truly good teacher is driven by an intrinsic motivation to help students learn. Can a teacher improve scores on a test by drill and kill? Sure. But do those scores tell us that she/he is a "good" teacher?

NCLB started when my daughter was in fifth grade. Huge difference in the teaching methods and the atmosphere once it kicked in. Things were better before NCLB --hands down.

[Anonymous]

I taught before NCLB. I gave standardized tests and liked to see the results. However, no one really cared about them but me. I used them for diagnosis--to see where the kids were and what I needed to teach.



But you weren't surprised by the results of those tests, right? You already knew where kids were based on your own testing and interactions with students, right? The tests just verified what you already knew.

[Anonymous]

But you weren't surprised by the results of those tests, right? You already knew where kids were based on your own testing and interactions with students, right? The tests just verified what you already knew.

The surprises were usually the kids who did better than I expected. That's when I knew that I was missing something and needed to challenge them more. The strugglers, I already knew about.