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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Perhaps you should take a look at the actual standards? Here they are: [/quote]

A PP explained the problem well.  Common Core standards are part of the problem.  [b]Having to "explain" everything gets tiresome and is not always effective.[/b]  Suggest you spend some time in an elementary classroom.  It's about kids--not standards.  You obviously don't get that.  Go look at the list of people who were on the teams.  Hardly anyone from a classroom: Instructional coaches; state directors; consultants; professors; authors; executive directors; policy consultants; advisors; administrators; principals; curriculum coordinators; research scientists; assessment managers; supervisors; facilitators; deans; etc.  A very small number of teachers compared to the rest.  And, you claim these were developed by teachers?  Not sure if there are any early childhood teachers, and certainly almost no elementary teachers. 
The committees are listed on the Common Core website.  I've begun researching the backgrounds of some of them and it is worse than I thought.  These people are not the best qualified.  My question is, who selected them?

Who has to work with these standards and develop teaching materials to go with them?  Teachers.  Who has to test these kids? Teachers.  Who is NOT making money off of these standards? Teachers.

[/quote]

But the Common Core standards do not require everybody to "explain" everything.[/quote]

Do you actually have kids in a school using Common Core?  I'm doubtful that you do if you haven't heard about the immense amount of explaining kids are being asked to do.  I have talked to teachers and administrators at school and at a HS open house and EVERYBODY says there is a HUGE emphasis on explaining everything.  It is usually described in terms of a warning.  Like "such a so math class is nothing like the such and so math you grew up with--everything requires an explanation of the concept, there is a lot of writing involved, it's much harder, the skills kids are being asked to learn are different..."  Schools are nervous about it.  They are afraid of it.  They don't own it.  They don't agree with it.  And yet they have to use it.  This becomes a huge problem of taking responsibility, because any concern that is raised is met with, "yeah, I know, we didn't write the standards."  No accountability.  Disengaged resentful teachers.  Inauthentic teaching.  Alienated students.

Now I think the ability to explain the concept is important for TEACHERS, and ultimately it's probably a good thing to ask of older students getting ready for college (but even then....), but asking kids to do this before they have routines down pat and spent time exploring over the early years is absurd.  There are perspective-taking skills involved in teaching, which is essentially what is being tested in asking kids to explain what they did, that don't develop until later.  It's good to exercise these skills but not to the nitty-gritty level before high school and not with the frequency asked.

Another objection I have is that the PARCC is an incredibly inefficient way of sampling a student's true mathematics ability.  Because so many questions require verbal explanation they are taking time away from offering more math problems so there is a wider sample from each student to average across.

Another problem is that when kids are asked to justify their answers when they don't necessarily have the maturity to understand what they did, or if they are not sure their solution is correct, they are essentially being asked to guess and write bullshit and hope for the best.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not ALL bad, and there are some good things.  But it's too much developmentally inappropriate college-ready stuff at young ages.  I saw the same types of English questions on middle school PARCC practice test as on a practice PSAT--question after question about using evidence to support your answer.  Maybe it's all 10 yrs of practice for the SAT.  Maybe that will solidify the relevance of the SAT relative to the ACT....? Perhaps this was David Coleman's mission??

Many problems with this.  [/quote]

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