Please read this piece of much misinformation first and then
you can read my thoughts. I am just answering 14 questions today, more for
tomorrow. I can probably write a whole blog entry on question #15.
The educators that supposedly wrote the CCSS had not spent
much time teaching school. None were current school teachers. College
experience doesn’t count. The two profs when were experts in their fields
refused to sign off on the standards because they felt they needed tweaking. They forgot in mention that among the
“experts” were 16 representatives of the standardized testing industry. No
elementary/middle school teachers were involved in writing the standards, only
approving them. No early childhood ed teachers were involved in either writing
or approving them.
1) What is the Common Core? Yes the states adopted them because they were told it was
the only way to get the Race to the Top Money. They were written because the corporate education big-wigs decided they were needed. Same reason why they adopted
VAM, PARCC, etc. Can’t get federal money without paying the bribe of approving
the CCSS, which includes the VAM evaluation of teachers and the standardized
testing.
2) OK, so what is the relationship between Common Core and my kid's math homework? New math standards have been on place for 40 years. The
NCTM standards are good. The new math is not new, indeed, some methods have
been around for centuries, just not here in the USA. The problem with the math
standards are that many of them are totally inappropriate for the K to 3 kids.
They just don’t have the brain maturity to think in the ways the CCSS wants
them to think. This is why Early Childhood Ed teachers should have been on the
committee that established the standards. The math questions are like those on
the standardized tests associated with the CCSS. The same people who made the
standards, make the tests and are in charge of the computer programs connected
to the CCSS.
3) Why do we need the Common Core? In the grand scheme of things, not that many students are
moving state-to-state, most move in-state. Not speaking against the military
kids, just pointing out that it doesn’t justify a whole new set of standards
and therefore a whole new curriculum. And the federal government is supposed to
leave the standards up to the states, not make money contingent on their
adoption of standards that they really had no big part of. States already had
standards in place and in many cases replaced superior standards with inferior
CCSS ones.
4) Where did the Common Core come from? They came from many CORPORATATIONS, the ones that are
trying to close public schools and privatize education with charters and
vouchers. The so-called “reformers” who have done nothing more than DEform
public schools. Notice in the Family Tree, how big a part educators played.
Hardly any input was from K-12 educators who know their students’
psychological, physical, and maturational abilities. And, as mentioned before,
there was NO input from current teachers of grades K-3. The union heads
approved the standards without seeking opinions about them from their union
members. They have since changed their minds about much of the CCSS since their
membership is up in arms about them.
5) What was the federal government's role in creating the Common Core? The Federal government made sure all the players
understood that approving the standards would get the states’ money. That the
people they appointed to the committee would rubber stamp the standards is a
given.
6) What do "standards" mean? Are they the same as curricula?New standards begot new curricula written by the people
who wrote the standards. New standards begot new standardized tests written by
the writers of the standards. Schools’ performance depends on test results of
the new standards, and so new curricula aligned with them. Which came first,
the chicken or the egg? New curricula would not have been necessary if the
standards and tests remained the same.
7) What are the standards replacing? The standards are replacing other standards previously
written by educators in each state. Yes, some states had “inferior” standards,
but others had to give up their superior ones to comply with the “incentive”
for federal money. It is true that some states adjusted their standards to have
some way to make the impossible No Child Left Behind goal of 100% of the kids
scoring at proficient and advanced levels. The current addendum to NCLB, Race to
the Top, has the same impossible goals, especially for ESL, Learning Disabled,
and Pervasive Developmentally Disabled kids.
8) Are the Common Core standards harder than my state's old standards? See above.
9) Do other countries do this? Not all high performing countries do this. In fact, you
really cannot compare the PISA scores of kids in other nations whose poverty
level can be only 4%, while ours is 23%. When you remover the schools with more
than 10% poverty levels, the USA is either first or second in all categories.
In fact Singapore is talking about pulling out of the PISA tests because of the
pressure associated with the tests.
10) What do the standards mean for math? For math, the CCSS mean that everyone will now be
totally confused about what the kids are learning in math. Like I said above,
“reform” math programs and methods have been around for at least decades, the
idea being that each child should have the opportunity to take calculus in high
school, and algebra by 8th grade. A lofty goal, but it is possible
for those who have been taught to think like a mathematician. You cannot
implement these methods and strategies for solving in one year, or even in 5.
Each year, another layer should be added, with the teachers in elementary and
middle school given extensive, intensive, on-going professional development. At
the same time, parents should also be given opportunities to be taught new
methods and invited to attend their children’s class during math.
11) What do the standards mean for English? The writing portion of the CCSS is the most troubling to
me. Elementary students are very egocentric. It is perfectly normal for them to
be like this. They find it hard to be understanding of someone else’s point to
view. Maturation will take them there, but certainly not at third grade age.
Children should learn to write what they know first, to form coherent thoughts
and expound on them through telling their own experiences. Third graders are
still learning how to read, not reading to learn yet. Same with writing,
learning how to form a story of several paragraphs which has a sequence, a
beginning, middle and an end. To ask them to write an argumentative essay is
asking too much according to ther child development milestones. The books that
they list for children to read are also ridiculously hard for the younger
grades. The words may not be too difficult, but the themes are meant for older,
more mature kids. To require a 2nd grader to read and understand the
nuances of Charlotte’s Web is ridiculous. And although Dr. Seuss books are
popular with the younger set, the vocabulary in them is not at a first grade
level. Most picture books are actually written at a 4th-5th
grade level, but meant to be read to young people. A 50-50 balance of fiction
and non-fiction is probably not going to make smarter kids, but ones that are
reluctant to read for pleasure.
12) What's an "informational text"? Kids have been reading informational for centuries,
especially Science and Social Studies texts.
13) How are Common Core standards affecting state tests? CCSS is affecting the state tests in hat it will be
replacing them, except ion those states that have backed out of it for 2014-15.
The two new tests, PARCC and Smarter Balance, are meant to be taken on the
computer and/or computer graded. Many problems have arisen this year with
states administering the tests via computer. Some crashed, some did not perform
the way they were supposed to, some of the tests required computer skills which
many kids did not have. The length of the tests were not developmentally
appropriate for young children – some kindergarteners spent FIVE HOURS
completing their computer tests. Almost all of the grades spent more time on
the tests than are asked of the bar exam, medical boards, etc.
14) What is the "assessment cliff"? The assessment cliff is a totally arbitrary line of
proficiency, drawn so the results would show failure in the beginning to prove
that schools were not doing their jobs. It’s very strange that they were able
to predict how many would fail. How can you do that with a test no one has
taken yet? Unless you have rigged it that way...
Still learning!
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