Anonymous wrote:When kids don't come to school, don't respect teachers, don't listen, don't know how to follow basic instructions, no amount of quality of standards is going to make one iota of difference. The standards are not worth the paper they are written on.

That has nothing to do with the standards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

This has been repeated constantly on CC threads. The standards do not exist in a vacuum.

Again, the standards DO NOT dictate or specify the implementation flaws that were noted above, like skipping prerequisites. If prerequisites are being skipped, it's because schools are skipping them, not because of the standard. If you want to suggest anything to the contrary, you'll have to provide a specific citation from the actual standard to support it. http://www.corestandards.org/

What you fail to realize is the standards are just one part of the scheme. It's all about testing and conformity and punishing teachers and school districts. The creators of the Common Core aren't interested in the standards unless they can use them to whip schools and districts into their narrow type of thinking.


They've blatantly said this, in fact, and yet CC supporters insist on this unicorn and rainbow vision of the standards. They are counting on the teachers' fear of the standardized tests to have them all teach in the same fashion. They are alarmed that so many states are dropping out of the PARCC and the Smarter Balanced. And once the test results come out, more states will follow.

That's utter and complete bullshit. It's not a "narrow" way of thinking, nor is it a "way of teaching" - it's a minimum standard. If teachers have something nifty, creative and wonderful that they'd like to add into the mix, they are still PERFECTLY FREE TO DO SO.

Also, PARCC and Smarter Balanced are just two things being developed to align to Common Core. Common Core did not dictate or mandate either of them, again all Common Core does is define a minimum standard, and they left it up to state consortia like Smarter Balanced to figure out how they wanted to deal with it. PARCC is supposed to assess students, not teachers. Where it's being used to assess teachers, that's strictly a local decision, not a Common Core requirement.

Ultimately, getting rid of Common Core is a huge step backward. If you have a problem with Common Core, it should be addressed at the specific elements and standards, to fix them, not just wholesale, vague and generalized trashing and randomly jumbling and commingling what are SEPARATE issues. If you have a problem with crappy materials, that's a problem with your textbook vendor, it's a SEPARATE issue. If you have a problem with PARCC or Smarter Balanced, those are SEPARATE issues. If you have a problem with teacher assessments, that is a SEPARATE issue.

When kids don't come to school, don't respect teachers, don't listen, don't know how to follow basic instructions, no amount of quality of standards is going to make one iota of difference. The standards are not worth the paper they are written on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

This has been repeated constantly on CC threads. The standards do not exist in a vacuum.

Again, the standards DO NOT dictate or specify the implementation flaws that were noted above, like skipping prerequisites. If prerequisites are being skipped, it's because schools are skipping them, not because of the standard. If you want to suggest anything to the contrary, you'll have to provide a specific citation from the actual standard to support it. http://www.corestandards.org/

The standards don't say anything about the problem of kids walking into a class and not having had the prerequisites because the standards were totally different the year before and money desperate schools grabbed the race to the top cash first and thought they'd firgure out the details later. The standards are cold and bloodless and totally impractical, especial for kids in middle and high school who have this big load of shit dumped on them.

What would warm bloody standards look like?

I feel like one of the arguments against Common Core is that change is bad, and therefore the standards should stay the same forever. Does that mean they can never be improved? What if they suck? What if research shows that kids who are taught using them aren't ready for college or career. Is that OK?

Yes, there are some school districts who waited until the last minute to make changes. There are other districts who started the planning process as soon as the standards were published 4.5 years ago. Plenty of districts rolled out the standards in a thoughtful way, with transitions happening for kids over time, or at certain grade levels. MCPS, for example, is still in the process of rolling them out in math, having started with a couple key years, and then adding a grade a year until the whole K - 12 was covered.

http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/common-core-standards-shift-the-look-of-learning-20150103

More teachers take apart the Common Core:

"Russo supports some aspects of the Common Core standards. But like many teachers, she has concerns about the pace in which they’ve been rolled out.

The standards set out a narrowly focused framework for what students should learn from kindergarten until they graduate high school. Each grade builds on what students have learned in earlier grades. But middle and high school students who are switching to Common Core in recent years didn’t have the benefit of starting in kindergarten. As a result, teachers have had to play catch up with concepts that would have been taught in later grades.

“You wouldn’t give a 16-year-old a driver’s license and then put him on the NASCAR track to start,” Russo said. “And that’s what it feels like.” "

and

"The link between Common Core standards, new state tests and teacher evaluations hastened the backlash against the Common Core in New York. Critics argue that you can’t separate the three.

“The truth of the matter is, a teacher can look at a standard and say, ‘gee whiz, that sounds pretty good,’?” said Carol Burris, a Long Island principal who has been one of the state’s most outspoken critics of Common Core. “But the translation of that standard is in the test items. So if you don’t like the New York State Common Core tests, you’re really saying you don’t like the standards. They don’t exist outside the realm of testing.”

All three reform efforts – the new standards, new state tests and teacher evaluations – were tied to the state’s winning federal Race to the Top money.

“They came out like a trinity, like the three-in-one,” McKenna said. “So it’s very difficult to separate them, because they were created and rolled out together like a package deal, and I think that that’s why there’s so much angst.”

Again, the standards DO NOT dictate or specify the implementation flaws that were noted above, like skipping prerequisites. If prerequisites are being skipped, it's because schools are skipping them, not because of the standard. If you want to suggest anything to the contrary, you'll have to provide a specific citation from the actual standard to support it. http://www.corestandards.org/

LOL! Just sprinkle some magic fairy dust on your CommonCore standards wand. Wave it over the US, and everyone will succeed!

What you fail to realize is the standards are just one part of the scheme. It's all about testing and conformity and punishing teachers and school districts. The creators of the Common Core aren't interested in the standards unless they can use them to whip schools and districts into their narrow type of thinking.


They've blatantly said this, in fact, and yet CC supporters insist on this unicorn and rainbow vision of the standards. They are counting on the teachers' fear of the standardized tests to have them all teach in the same fashion. They are alarmed that so many states are dropping out of the PARCC and the Smarter Balanced. And once the test results come out, more states will follow.

Excellent post! You nailed it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

This has been repeated constantly on CC threads. The standards do not exist in a vacuum.

Again, the standards DO NOT dictate or specify the implementation flaws that were noted above, like skipping prerequisites. If prerequisites are being skipped, it's because schools are skipping them, not because of the standard. If you want to suggest anything to the contrary, you'll have to provide a specific citation from the actual standard to support it. http://www.corestandards.org/

What you fail to realize is the standards are just one part of the scheme. It's all about testing and conformity and punishing teachers and school districts. The creators of the Common Core aren't interested in the standards unless they can use them to whip schools and districts into their narrow type of thinking.


They've blatantly said this, in fact, and yet CC supporters insist on this unicorn and rainbow vision of the standards. They are counting on the teachers' fear of the standardized tests to have them all teach in the same fashion. They are alarmed that so many states are dropping out of the PARCC and the Smarter Balanced. And once the test results come out, more states will follow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

This has been repeated constantly on CC threads. The standards do not exist in a vacuum.

Again, the standards DO NOT dictate or specify the implementation flaws that were noted above, like skipping prerequisites. If prerequisites are being skipped, it's because schools are skipping them, not because of the standard. If you want to suggest anything to the contrary, you'll have to provide a specific citation from the actual standard to support it. http://www.corestandards.org/

The standards don't say anything about the problem of kids walking into a class and not having had the prerequisites because the standards were totally different the year before and money desperate schools grabbed the race to the top cash first and thought they'd firgure out the details later. The standards are cold and bloodless and totally impractical, especial for kids in middle and high school who have this big load of shit dumped on them.

Anonymous wrote:

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

This has been repeated constantly on CC threads. The standards do not exist in a vacuum.

Again, the standards DO NOT dictate or specify the implementation flaws that were noted above, like skipping prerequisites. If prerequisites are being skipped, it's because schools are skipping them, not because of the standard. If you want to suggest anything to the contrary, you'll have to provide a specific citation from the actual standard to support it. http://www.corestandards.org/

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

This has been repeated constantly on CC threads. The standards do not exist in a vacuum.

^ result of too much focus on pedagogy and not enough focus on content. Schools and teachers should know the content well enough to know there are prerequisites. But instead, for the last several decades too many teachers have come out of education schools knowing all about education theory and pedagogy but weak on the content that they are supposed to be teaching. Math and English, for example, need to be much stronger, because they are foundational to so many other subjects. You won't get far in science without a strong basis in math. You won't get far in history or many other subjects without strong reading and comprehension skills. Schools and teachers should know better, but unfortunately they don't.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/tanis

Here's a great post from a special education teacher:

"As our school and state have embraced the Common Core, it has been challenging to bridge the gap between what my students know and can do and what the standards require. The implementation of the Common Core across all grades has resulted in many students receiving instruction without being taught the necessary prerequisite skills. The situation is especially problematic for students with learning challenges who are sensitive to change and depend on sufficient scaffolding of information and skills to learn. Students struggling prior to the implementation of the Common Core suddenly find themselves significantly further behind.

The problem has only been exacerbated by the advent of test-based teacher accountability required for states participating in the Race to the Top initiative.1 My colleagues and I have found it increasingly difficult to differentiate instruction for our students while keeping up with the curriculum so they will be prepared to take Common Core–aligned tests. Throw in the threat of a poor evaluation and the loss of teacher job security, and you have a recipe for disaster."
- See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/tanis#sthash.KfPj8yvM.dpuf

That's not a standards problem, that's a problem with how schools and teachers have chosen to implement the standard. The standard did not tell them or force them to teach content without prerequisite skills.

http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/tanis

Here's a great post from a special education teacher:

"As our school and state have embraced the Common Core, it has been challenging to bridge the gap between what my students know and can do and what the standards require. The implementation of the Common Core across all grades has resulted in many students receiving instruction without being taught the necessary prerequisite skills. The situation is especially problematic for students with learning challenges who are sensitive to change and depend on sufficient scaffolding of information and skills to learn. Students struggling prior to the implementation of the Common Core suddenly find themselves significantly further behind.

The problem has only been exacerbated by the advent of test-based teacher accountability required for states participating in the Race to the Top initiative.1 My colleagues and I have found it increasingly difficult to differentiate instruction for our students while keeping up with the curriculum so they will be prepared to take Common Core–aligned tests. Throw in the threat of a poor evaluation and the loss of teacher job security, and you have a recipe for disaster."
- See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/tanis#sthash.KfPj8yvM.dpuf

Anonymous wrote:

You seem to be confusing multiple posters. But at this point, it seems the critic(s) of standards seem to be the ones talking themselves in circles, first having bashed and trashed the standards, saying they were not age appropriate, but then backpedaling and saying no when asked if the standards should be watered down.

Read what you just wrote. You don't see a conflict in this statement?

So what's the answer? Should the standards be watered down? Still think it's not appropriate for the average, typical kindergarten kid to know their numbers from 1-10 and to be able to count out how many more M&Ms it would take to make 10 when you start with 4?