Discussion for article #222120
Itās hard to even know how to respond to this stuff anymore. A sizable segment of our population is clearly cognitively impaired, and prone to both paranoid and grandiose delusions. And thereās no medication for what ails them.
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When I clicked on the reading list for the common core the porno music immediately came on and I found myself uncontrollably blurting out āFuck yeah! Fuck yeah!ā Folks, this is dangerous stuff.
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All the weird Tea Party stuff has made for strange bedfellows, but to pretend like CCSS is good for our students is an outright lie. Liberals, youād be against it if you understood how it corporatizes our classrooms. Thereās huge business in the CCSS. I see where itās coming from and what itās meant to do. Donāt blindly believe the propaganda that this is the left vs. right issue. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/24/its_not_just_wing_nuts_slate_gets_liberal_opposition_to_the_common_core_all_wrong/
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Although the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) may initially have been ājust a way to raise expectationsā, they have morphed into much more. They have taken on a sort of Holy Grail aspect to ed reformers and educators who seriously [in other words, not the conspiracy nuts] dare question their origin or implementation are āagainst changeā and āagainst accountabilityā and āagainst better educationā (such as the author here).
I suggest the author
- Read Curmudgucation or Diana Ravitch or Bob Shepard.
- Understand that the CCSS only include English-Language Arts and Math, no Science or History or World Languages.
- Acknowledge that the CCSS were developed without much input from actual classroom teachers.
Then weāll talk.
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I agree with you, although the main issue for me is the standards driven approach itself. Iām sure there may be some corporatization of the classroom involved, but basically this whole approach is a stupid personās idea of what it means to have a good educationāa bit of lofty rhetoric and lots and lots of testing. I wouldnāt expose my kid to it if I could help it (and mercifully I can).
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Oh there are plenty of good reasons to oppose it, donāt misunderstand me. Yours is equally important to remember in all of this. Iām just stunned by how the propaganda has been focused on maligning everyone who disagrees with CCSS as some kind of wingnut lunatic. Itās scary that āour sideā is adopting these crypto-fascist tactics to win wide appeal, a la āThe Tea-Partiers sure are stupid!ā Yeah, theyāre nuts. But for once, regardless of the lunacy of their reasoning, theyāre on the right side of the debate.
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Our own abilities to think critically will render this whole effort useless, thank god. But thatās what I donāt want removed from the classroom, the encouragement of students to think differently.
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Precisely, Nancy. Well said. āReign of Errorā has been nothing short of illuminating, I might add.
Yes, the coinciding of the Tea Party view with a more considered one on the issue of the common core is, of course, accidentalāa stopped clock and all that. But I am hoping that politically it plays out in the same way as Obamaās attempts to strike a Grand Bargain. That requires that more people on the left become informed about the common core idiocy. Diane Ravitch should be required reading.
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More Bircherism, essentially.
These fuckers just need to hurry up and put a shotgun in their mouth already.
Ah, the horror of Common Core standards - Communist, Facist, Agenda 21! Just look at an example from the K-2 Common Core standards (1=Kindergarten, 2=Grade 1, 3=Grade 2). Surely we should all rise up and twist ourselves in knots opposing this abomination!!!
- Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
a. Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.
b. Recognize and name end punctuation.
c. Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).
d. Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.- Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
a. Capitalize dates and names of people.
b. Use end punctuation for sentences.
c. Use commas in dates and to separate single words in a series.
d. Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words.
e. Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.- Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
a. Capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic names.
b. Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.
c. Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.
d. Generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words (e.g., cageļ badge;
boy ļ boil).
e. Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.
If we allow this to go on, OMG!, the trolls might learn to express themselves in Standard English! Noooooo!
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This week, Indianaās State Board of Education caved to conservative pressure and voted to withdraw from Common Core.
You donāt have to resort to crazy conspiracy theories to believe that, while well-intentioned, Common Core is a mess. It was developed without any input from child psychologists, and the expectations for Kindergartners (of which I have two) are ridiculously aggressive. It ignores the fact that (especially at very earlier ages) kids learn at different speeds and in different ways. And when you add to this the fact that in many states it is being implemented in a draconian manner that stresses out both teachers and students, you have to question whether it is wise.
But the thing that makes me nuts is the fact that this major overhaul of the nationās educational system has never been empirically tested to improve student performance. Youād think that, before you started shaking things up so much, youād run a few pilot programs. No. Itās never happened. This is change for changeās sake, based upon the lie (spread by corporate fear-mongers) that if we donāt do something in the next three seconds our entire future will be a disaster.
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These people do know that common core is a republican idea right??? Jeb Bush is Hitler according to these bananas because common core ideas came from his wing of the republican party.
The Tea Party is against Common Core because any movement of the center-of-the-textbook-standard-setting-universe out of the Texas BoE is a huge loss for the ultra-conservatives who dominate that board.
That said, there is a lot of disinformation out there about what the Common Core Standards are and are not (hint: standards can be changed, and these require a larger geography to agree to changes), and what the accompanying tests and learning materials are and are not (I wonāt comment on that because Iām employed by a company with a division which has a hand in the creation of test materials, other than to say that a lot of the folks against the materials appear to be against the use of technology more advanced than a #2 pencil in any form). I think that there are definitely flaws here, both in the standards and in the rollout, but that as a whole, moving to a common national standard will allow us to much more effectively teach children what they need to know to function in society.
The Common Core materials do allow students to learn at their own pace, far more than most textbooks, from what I have seen. They offer far more ways to learn materials than textbooks do as well (Iāve never seen a textbook which interacts with the learner in any meaningful way). Those first bits make it seem like you have a very warped misconception of what the CCS is, as really those are two significant arguments for Common Core.
Iām not sure what kind of pilot program you are expecting here, but these standards are based on existing state standards where they have proven to work, and all indicators are that standards-based education is far more effective than strictly course-based education.
It is not change for changeās sake. It solves the problem of different areas using wholly different terminology for the same concepts, some areas of the country not teaching concepts that others expect, and allows for more effective teaching practices. Solving these problems improves student mobility, teacher mobility, opens the door for much more competition in teaching materials, and reduces the need for remedial college courses for students whose high school curriculum and terminology doesnāt match perfectly with their collegeās curriculum and terminology. It is a pressing concern, albeit not one that has to be done āin the next three secondsā etc.
Now, I will accept that there are flaws in the rollout. Any large program will have flaws. In this one, you (yes, you!) can help out by volunteering at the school or district level, and could have spoken up earlier on if you thought this was going too fast. A longer transition would actually have benefitted the ācorporate fear-mongersā as longer rollouts of programs are generally much more expensive, so you can put that particular straw man away, but it is quite possible that a longer rollout would have gone smoother than this has so far / will going forward.
In the end, though, where the CCSoC is leading is a huge improvement over the status quo where the Texas BoE defines the āstandardsā for a huge swathe of the country. Utilizing more technology in the classroom opens the door to learning for a lot of students who just donāt āgetā traditional textbook-based lessons (and, yes, that has been studied and piloted and proven out). Allowing students to work on individual standards at their own pace rather than āthis kid is failing English; take it again over the summer!ā is a demonstrably positive movement.
As with all large programs, you have to forgive the hiccups that happen at the start. Keep your eyes on where it is heading, and the benefits thereof. If we arenāt in a better place two years from now, then you can start complaining. But, if all goes remotely close to as planned, the US educational system will be in much better shape a few years down the road, and dramatically better shape a decade down the road.
Tom, my kindergartners are being expected to read under the common core standards by the time they are through with the school year, and by the time they finish first grade they are being expected to write full page essays. First grade. This bears no relationship to the first grade education that I had, and according to their teachers, it bears no relationship to the educational standards of three years ago or the appropriate child development models that the teachers learned when they were obtaining their post-graduate degrees in teaching. My little girl gets stomach aches when she goes to school - she is so stressed out by the regimentation in kindergarten. And the teachers are worried that, once kindergarten testing begins next year, these crazy standards are going to ruin their evaluations.
Let me reiterate, because I may have buried the lede: kindergarten testing begins next year. What kind of fāed up world do we live in where we test kindergartners? You think I should be more active in my community? Iāve been to every school board meeting in my district for the past year. These days, they start at 7:00 pm and last until 1:00 in the morning. My town - a very small community of less than 15,000 residents - is being torn apart by this shit. Neighbors are screaming at neighbors. Teachers in our district have now had separate votes of no confidence against the superintendent and the assistant superintendent, but are prohibited from going on strike by state law.
Looking at the standards for middle school, I donāt have big problems. But my kids arenāt in middle school. This is their first exposure to education, and the expectations placed on them are turning them into little buckets of stress. I donāt have the luxury of waiting āa few years down the roadā for everything to get to āa better placeā before I āstart complaining.ā My very young children are suffering the consequences of misplaced expectations today.
So Tom, you work for Pearson or some such? Iām glad to hear it, because before today I wasnāt able to personalize the hatred and anger that I have for the educational testing establishment. Tom, I blame you for my daughterās stomach aches.
First, yes, as I alluded to above, I work for Pearson, although a completely different division than the one working on common core materials. I guess if you psychologically need to hate someone personally instead of an entity, Iām here for you. I have nothing at all to do with the CCSS standards, materials, testing, or administration, but if you need a random dude on the internet to fume at, feel free.
Second, that is not at all what the Kindergarten CCSS say, unless you squint really hard. Those standards are online for anyone to read. If your district is increasing the standards for their own kids, that is on your district, not the CCS. If you are talking about being able to identify parts of text which are read to them, you are simply misunderstanding the standards. I havenāt gone back to look at the first grade standards, but what you are saying sounds like a gross mischaracterization there as well.
Third, I have six kids, aged 7 through 17. The youngest two went through kindergarten in California after the CCSS (not the testing and learning materials, but the standards) were adopted for use in California, and so saw some of the standards in place (they were phased in, but looking at the standards online I donāt see anything completely different from what they were taught a few years ago).
All of them had tests of some sort in Kindergarten, and that is going through kindergarten in two different states and three different districts in those states. I donāt know what kind of world kindergartners have tests, but itās the one large swathes of the country have been living in for a long time. I have never, ever heard of kindergartner testing being a source of stress.
If this is causing stress and illness, something is seriously wrong with the local implementation. I know teachers and parents of kindergartners here, and none of them are reporting any such stress. Maybe there is somehow more stress in the CCS testing than in the previous state testing, but I donāt see how that is the case. If the CCS testing is causing stress, I really think that it is coming from adults, not from the fact that the students are taking tests. Again, large swathes of the country have been giving tests to kindergartners for years without physical discomfort and stress resulting from it.