"He is promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by using power the president doesn’t have."
That says it all. You can be for or against Common Core but the level of ignorance displayed by this president-elect is astounding. Trumpy is not a detail-man and as such facts do not matter to him.
That says it all. You can be for or against Common Core but the level of ignorance displayed by this president-elect is astounding. Trumpy is not a detail-man and as such facts do not matter to him.
3
roasted @donaldtrump
Keep in mind 'A Nation at Risk' was a political tool with zero research-based legitimacy.
1
Common Core should stay, but should be changed
Common Core is a long list of skills in all subjects that all students should know and understand. It is a voluminous amount of work without textbooks that correspond to common core. Teachers need materials in order to teach these skills, and the text book companies need to get on board with this.
1
No, it's ELA and math only.
"His plan be have the .....unintended effect of stultifying American greatness." What? Any research done here? Americans have a 91% high school graduation rate but only 34% attain a bachelor's degree. The 2012 PISA results placed U.S. teens 27th in math literacy and 20th in science. That appears far from great to me.
2
On March 8th Tom wrote:
"wys, perhaps in your sate. State standards here were written by educators (and the state department of education) and Common Core was implemented (no think tanks were used). I am not arguing that states did not have preexisting standards, and here, they updated the existing standard to meet Common Core. Don't assume what happened in your state is applicable elsewhere, learn the facts about your own state."
___
Having been involved on the NYS committee reviewing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts when they were forcibly implemented, I am well aware of the "facts in my own state." Moreover, no actual K-12 educators/administrators were involved in the writing of the National CCSS; they were written primarily by five people. All five were associated with educational technology/assessment organizations; David Coleman, Susan Pimentel & Jason Zimba were colleagues at Student Achievement Partners, which advises many think tanks, & is funded in large part by Bill Gates, a champion of charter schools. In addition, Mr. Coleman began his career with McKinsey & Co., that published "Why US education is ready for investment" in July 2015:
http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/social-sector/our-insights/why-us-edu...
Apparently, the CCSS were designed to create "student failure" on the standardized tests associated with them, further supporting the privatization of public education. Connect the dots...
"wys, perhaps in your sate. State standards here were written by educators (and the state department of education) and Common Core was implemented (no think tanks were used). I am not arguing that states did not have preexisting standards, and here, they updated the existing standard to meet Common Core. Don't assume what happened in your state is applicable elsewhere, learn the facts about your own state."
___
Having been involved on the NYS committee reviewing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts when they were forcibly implemented, I am well aware of the "facts in my own state." Moreover, no actual K-12 educators/administrators were involved in the writing of the National CCSS; they were written primarily by five people. All five were associated with educational technology/assessment organizations; David Coleman, Susan Pimentel & Jason Zimba were colleagues at Student Achievement Partners, which advises many think tanks, & is funded in large part by Bill Gates, a champion of charter schools. In addition, Mr. Coleman began his career with McKinsey & Co., that published "Why US education is ready for investment" in July 2015:
http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/social-sector/our-insights/why-us-edu...
Apparently, the CCSS were designed to create "student failure" on the standardized tests associated with them, further supporting the privatization of public education. Connect the dots...
5
Thank you for pointing this out. I'm no Trump supporter but I do teach science to college students. Students coming out of the common core and assessment atmosphere (i.e., teaching to the test) can do no more than memorize. The publishers with their tutorials, the tech people with their computers have come to dictate the curricula. Of course it's Wall Street's last uncharted frontier.
3
As I posted before, it's simple to understand right-wing opposition to the Common Core. They expect to win control of local school boards, allowing them to push their views. They don't want standards to get in their way.
Just today the NY Times published the following:
" On Super Tuesday, Dale Clark voted for a local Republican who claimed on social media that President Obama had worked as a gay prostitute in his youth, that the United States should ban Islam, that the Democratic Party had John F. Kennedy killed and that the United Nations had hatched a plot to depopulate the world. Ms. Bruner was a relative political newcomer when she started her campaign to represent a 31-county section of northern East Texas on the 15-member board that sets curriculum standards, reviews and adopts textbooks, and establishes graduation requirements"
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/us/politics/a-texas-candidate-mary-lou...
And how is she doing?
"Ms. Bruner was the top vote-getter in the Republican primary, winning 48 percent of the 220,000 ballots cast, and now faces Keven M. Ellis in a Republican runoff on May 24."
Now you know why the right detests the Common Core.
Just today the NY Times published the following:
" On Super Tuesday, Dale Clark voted for a local Republican who claimed on social media that President Obama had worked as a gay prostitute in his youth, that the United States should ban Islam, that the Democratic Party had John F. Kennedy killed and that the United Nations had hatched a plot to depopulate the world. Ms. Bruner was a relative political newcomer when she started her campaign to represent a 31-county section of northern East Texas on the 15-member board that sets curriculum standards, reviews and adopts textbooks, and establishes graduation requirements"
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/us/politics/a-texas-candidate-mary-lou...
And how is she doing?
"Ms. Bruner was the top vote-getter in the Republican primary, winning 48 percent of the 220,000 ballots cast, and now faces Keven M. Ellis in a Republican runoff on May 24."
Now you know why the right detests the Common Core.
5
You live in LA - typical nut job.
1
...so says the product of the American educational system and a society that hates critical thinking.
1
It's marvelous, as always, to hear on the campaign trail and read in these letters how easy it is for people ignorant of the facts to be opposed to anything that sounds "federal". The Common Core was created bottom up by the very states that the opponents of it claim should be in control. But it has the word "common" in the title, and for those who oppose doing anything in concert with others, it immediately requires opposition. It has been sad to see that in a number of states standards that were developed by, agreed to and remain supported by their very own departments of education were opposed by reactionary citizens of the states and their reactionary state legislatures.
One of the interesting requirements of the Common Core is that it asks state boards of education to develop standards for critical thinking instead of rote learning and mindless repetition of indoctrination. Would that the reactionaries had been the beneficiaries of such educations.
One of the interesting requirements of the Common Core is that it asks state boards of education to develop standards for critical thinking instead of rote learning and mindless repetition of indoctrination. Would that the reactionaries had been the beneficiaries of such educations.
11
I equate Common Core with a national trend to reel in the high achievers and focus on bringing up the bottom performers.
It's an absolute disaster for Americas bright young people.
It's an absolute disaster for Americas bright young people.
1
Upon what facts do you base your judgment?
5
I suggest that you read the standards and maybe even apply them to some bright young people that you know. I think you'll be amazed to find that they are exceeding those standards.
1
Wow, thank you for writing this. Your point about standards ultimately coming from society is an important one, though I think you might get a lot of argument about that from many sides. It is certainly a very indirect connection at best.
1
It is so obvious that Donald Trump doesn't understand Common Core(for that matter he doesnt understand a lot of things). Students, many parents and teachers equally hate Common Core, but they all are wrong, it is not the standards, stupid, it is the implementation of them which is so poorly planned and executed. Lack of teacher training and tools is the biggest culprit, as teachers, specially those who have been teaching these subjects the traditional way are now told to teach them in a completely different way, but they are not told or taught what that different method looks like. Plus, throwing common core at 7th and 8th graders, who for the better part of their student lives knew how to do things in a particular way are now "forced" to think critically, and do things in a completely different way, is what is causing the anxiety among students and parents.
9
Any intelligent man knows the "core" values. Just because Trump is a Republican doesn't mean he;s a bigoted snob with a small, one track mind - money. That sort of hype only fools those of low intelligence, who vote for Socialist because they actually believe that money will be taken from the rich and shared-out among the poor. And does it? Not on your nelly. If the poor and the colourds want to prosper then the COUNTRY has to be in a healthy state, financially, and that takes brains and clever handling - which businessmen and women do well.
1
It puzzles me why a British person would feel informed enough to comment on our education or political system. Here in America, most of us are smart enough to know that being a "businessman" doesn't equal doing finances well. We also know that knowing finance doesn't make one qualified to be president, and that no evidence exists showing that having a president with a business background would improve our economy or balance budgets.
If people want to believe that teaching kids how to take tests is the marker of a successful education system, then the CC is doing its job. But I, like most people I know live and work in the real world, where everyone has diverse skills and abilities, which are fluid and develop at different rates over a lifetime.
Our 4th and 5th grader struggle with math. Maybe that's because they are trying to reinvent the wheel and teach it in such a different way that even the teachers have admitted their confusion with the material. We have had college level tutors quit because they could not figure out the "new" way to do 4th grade math. How can you teach something you don't understand? This year my daughter started at a charter school, where they have a special math teacher who works with the kids separately. Why? Because their regular teachers (one of whom used to work in finance) need assistance. Let's own that not all of this is working.
The only thing common about education in this country is the vast inequality. You have to either pay for private school, be fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood with good local schools, or win a lottery/scholarship to a better school. Trump falls into the private school category and has no clue what he is talking about as usual. CC needs drastic changes and to be less adversarial and more collaborative bet state/local/fed govt. But to dismantle it all together is extreme and would do more harm than good.
Our 4th and 5th grader struggle with math. Maybe that's because they are trying to reinvent the wheel and teach it in such a different way that even the teachers have admitted their confusion with the material. We have had college level tutors quit because they could not figure out the "new" way to do 4th grade math. How can you teach something you don't understand? This year my daughter started at a charter school, where they have a special math teacher who works with the kids separately. Why? Because their regular teachers (one of whom used to work in finance) need assistance. Let's own that not all of this is working.
The only thing common about education in this country is the vast inequality. You have to either pay for private school, be fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood with good local schools, or win a lottery/scholarship to a better school. Trump falls into the private school category and has no clue what he is talking about as usual. CC needs drastic changes and to be less adversarial and more collaborative bet state/local/fed govt. But to dismantle it all together is extreme and would do more harm than good.
4
Wcdessert Girl,
I have to disagree. As the article stated, the common core is just a set of standards. Standards of what a 4 or 5th grader should be able to do in math. How they achieve that goal is the curriculum. If the admin wants to force teacher to teach math a certain way then it is up to the teachers to learn the new way, or challenge the admin. I think the issue is what the environment where the student comes from that is a bigger factor on how well the kid can learn. Oh there are lousy teachers for sure just as if there are lousy financial advisors, cops, dentists and doctors. And the union does provide protection from firing for unjust reasons, like when a principal wants to hire her friends.
I have to disagree. As the article stated, the common core is just a set of standards. Standards of what a 4 or 5th grader should be able to do in math. How they achieve that goal is the curriculum. If the admin wants to force teacher to teach math a certain way then it is up to the teachers to learn the new way, or challenge the admin. I think the issue is what the environment where the student comes from that is a bigger factor on how well the kid can learn. Oh there are lousy teachers for sure just as if there are lousy financial advisors, cops, dentists and doctors. And the union does provide protection from firing for unjust reasons, like when a principal wants to hire her friends.
5
Environment plays a significant role, but our situation is a perfect example of why it's not everything. Our family takes education very seriously and our willing and able to supplement our children's education with our own resources. That said, we know that if we were not able to provide such a foundation, our kids would be at an even greater loss. However, all the help we can give is not enough to mitigate the difficulty that we see many children going through and the fact that a disproportionate time of our kids curriculum seems to be spent on test preparation. And I am referring to different schools in different neighborhoods and boroughs.
I also have come across several teachers expressing their frustration with the CC, but have not to my knowledge challenged the administration.
I also have come across several teachers expressing their frustration with the CC, but have not to my knowledge challenged the administration.
1
Please try to separate the standards from the way those standards are being taught. If a teacher fails to teach to the standards that is not the fault of the standards, it is the teacher's fault.
Terrific summary and analysis of Common Core and American education.
And put another item down under the heading "The Ignorance of Donald J. Trump."
And put another item down under the heading "The Ignorance of Donald J. Trump."
7
And put another headline down under the headline: The Dumbing down of Americans, lagging considerably behind all other advanced nations in not only math and science, but reading.
They get their 'education' from the tele.
They get their 'education' from the tele.
4
Trump's position is just whatever sells to his audience is his position. But the reason his "audience" is angry with Common Core is the real issue.
18 yrs ago, I was transferred to the Training department of a large technological company right when a formalized program like Common Core was introduced. Being a "Field" guy, I was surprised at how folks who had been "trainers" for years had lost touch with our business. They were looking at academic papers about the best way to train and these were full of complex flowcharts and tables and various formulas. Fine, but they had no connection with the ultimate consumer of all of this magic - our employee.
So we launched what was billed as this splendid new Training program, and all it was was an extensive (I mean EXTENSIVE) database, breaking up every subject into minute tasks, each described in mind numbing detail, various levels to be achieved before one could move to the next step and so on.
And there was a RIOT!
Why? There was no training there! Just a laundry list of things you are supposed to know. You had to pass the step, but there were no standardized tests! No course material, no textbooks! Just a shiny website fronting the database!
They had a skeleton on which they needed to put the flesh and sinew, but did not. So there was a lot of anger, yelling, ... basically what we are seeing with CC. A smarter approach would be to leave the details to the school boards and standardize the tests and reading materials first.
18 yrs ago, I was transferred to the Training department of a large technological company right when a formalized program like Common Core was introduced. Being a "Field" guy, I was surprised at how folks who had been "trainers" for years had lost touch with our business. They were looking at academic papers about the best way to train and these were full of complex flowcharts and tables and various formulas. Fine, but they had no connection with the ultimate consumer of all of this magic - our employee.
So we launched what was billed as this splendid new Training program, and all it was was an extensive (I mean EXTENSIVE) database, breaking up every subject into minute tasks, each described in mind numbing detail, various levels to be achieved before one could move to the next step and so on.
And there was a RIOT!
Why? There was no training there! Just a laundry list of things you are supposed to know. You had to pass the step, but there were no standardized tests! No course material, no textbooks! Just a shiny website fronting the database!
They had a skeleton on which they needed to put the flesh and sinew, but did not. So there was a lot of anger, yelling, ... basically what we are seeing with CC. A smarter approach would be to leave the details to the school boards and standardize the tests and reading materials first.
2
The amount of ignorance on display here regarding the origin and nature of the Common Core standards - and companion tests - is overwhelming.
The very punitive NCLB act included the incomprehensible legal requirement for 100% proficiency in math and ELA testing (grades 3 to 8) by 2014. This impossible goal of course could not be met, and virtually every elementary and middle school in America was under the gun for failure to comply with this NCLB demand.
Enter Bill and Gates, David Coleman, and Arne Duncan.
Gates the financier, Colman the architect, and Duncan the extortionist.
Next, the USDOE under Duncan conveniently offers the states a way out of their NCLB violation: enter the Race to the Top contest and or file for an NCLB waiver! The RTTT contest/NCLB waiver was the carrot and the waiver package was the stick. This convenient 'get-out-of-jail-free' waiver was a package deal. States had to agree to 1) implement the Common Core standards, 2) administer companion tests: PARCC and SBAC, 3) evaluate teachers using said test scores, 4) expand charter schools caps, and 5) establish a system for mining student test data.
This offer that states could not refuse was one complete, five-part package deal. They were not free to pick and choose. It was all or none, with none being an illegal option.
Under the new ESSA, annual testing, 3 to 8, is still required, but states are now free to us their standards and their own tests. Trump obviously missed that memo.
The very punitive NCLB act included the incomprehensible legal requirement for 100% proficiency in math and ELA testing (grades 3 to 8) by 2014. This impossible goal of course could not be met, and virtually every elementary and middle school in America was under the gun for failure to comply with this NCLB demand.
Enter Bill and Gates, David Coleman, and Arne Duncan.
Gates the financier, Colman the architect, and Duncan the extortionist.
Next, the USDOE under Duncan conveniently offers the states a way out of their NCLB violation: enter the Race to the Top contest and or file for an NCLB waiver! The RTTT contest/NCLB waiver was the carrot and the waiver package was the stick. This convenient 'get-out-of-jail-free' waiver was a package deal. States had to agree to 1) implement the Common Core standards, 2) administer companion tests: PARCC and SBAC, 3) evaluate teachers using said test scores, 4) expand charter schools caps, and 5) establish a system for mining student test data.
This offer that states could not refuse was one complete, five-part package deal. They were not free to pick and choose. It was all or none, with none being an illegal option.
Under the new ESSA, annual testing, 3 to 8, is still required, but states are now free to us their standards and their own tests. Trump obviously missed that memo.
12
The key political problem with Common Core is that it's joined at the hip with the toxic "corporate reform" agenda of privatizing public schools. This means it gets attacked from both left and right. Those billionaires can't buy off school districts forever, and as soon as the temporary bribe money stops flowing, CC will be forgotten.
6
Common Core just specifies what students should know.
It doesn't specify how that is taught or how it is tested.
Some public schools are great (my two daughters attended one such) while others are terrible. Common Core is no more than an effort to specify the standards for all.
If some folks choose to consign their children to " educational hell" then should others mount an "Operation Rescue" ?? That's the issue here, folks. Hell or education.
It doesn't specify how that is taught or how it is tested.
Some public schools are great (my two daughters attended one such) while others are terrible. Common Core is no more than an effort to specify the standards for all.
If some folks choose to consign their children to " educational hell" then should others mount an "Operation Rescue" ?? That's the issue here, folks. Hell or education.
4
The public schools we call "great" are almost always the ones where most of the kids go home to stable homes with educated parents and then come back the next day ready to learn. The ones we call "terrible" are usually serving poor kids from unstable homes whose parents aren't educated and don't provide a model of how to be a good student.
There are other differences, funding being an obvious one, but that's the important one. There are kids at the "terrible" schools getting a great education. They're the ones that are trying. There are kids at the "great" schools that aren't learning anything. They're the ones that are refusing to learn. But in either case, we're talking about a minority, and that's why we label the schools as we do.
Common Core isn't a rescue. It doesn't even address the problems.
There are other differences, funding being an obvious one, but that's the important one. There are kids at the "terrible" schools getting a great education. They're the ones that are trying. There are kids at the "great" schools that aren't learning anything. They're the ones that are refusing to learn. But in either case, we're talking about a minority, and that's why we label the schools as we do.
Common Core isn't a rescue. It doesn't even address the problems.
6
I was shocked when I first looked at the Common Core web site. The key thing to understand is this: The Common Core is not about learning. It says absolutely nothing about how to teach anything or how to learn anything.
It is about testing. It is, as it says, "standards". It just specifies a list of subjects and at which time each subject is to be tested (after, presumably, it is taught or learned, without saying how).
The effect is to regiment schooling, making everybody go in lockstep. Since it uses up all the time, there's none for personalized learning, student or teacher interests, substantial project-based or experiential learning. It is the old, bankrupt, factory model of education. It treats students as products on an assembly line. Common Core is just the quality control standards for the assembly line.
Henry Lieberman
MIT
It is about testing. It is, as it says, "standards". It just specifies a list of subjects and at which time each subject is to be tested (after, presumably, it is taught or learned, without saying how).
The effect is to regiment schooling, making everybody go in lockstep. Since it uses up all the time, there's none for personalized learning, student or teacher interests, substantial project-based or experiential learning. It is the old, bankrupt, factory model of education. It treats students as products on an assembly line. Common Core is just the quality control standards for the assembly line.
Henry Lieberman
MIT
15
This article is written as if Common core were not joined at the hip by standardized tests. The testing movement is well documented as just another instance of corporate control of our public institutions. Pearson and PAARC, which produce most of the tests make money while schools are pressured to abuse children by having them tested, in some cases, a full quarter of the school year. The Common Core folks say teachers are free to use whatever methods they wish to prepare for the tests, but many districts are fearful to permit teachers to do that, so much of teaching becomes mere test-taking preparation. To add to this absurdity, teachers are evaluated on the basis of their students' scores on those tests. This model of education is more suited to a penitentiary than an educational institution.
16
It's a little disingenuous to suggest that the federal government didn't coerce states into adopting Common Core when the states couldn't even apply for certain federal funding (like Race to the Top) without having embraced it.
Tell us, Kevin, who is funding New America? The same people who want to end public schools and the unions that go with them, in favor of privatized charter schools?
More importantly, riddle me this: what is the purpose of education? Reciting facts and figures or learning how to think? Yes, many other countries have common standards, and how many patents do they write a year? How many films and Nobel prize winning novels, how many new approaches to the world do they produce?
Eduction in this country is tricky. There are many moving pieces and agendas. The tech community seems to think they can solve education with graphs and apps and they are wrong. There's an argument to be made that this version education is simply the modern day upgrade on the classic factory line. Today's tech workers are yesterday's manufactures.
Of course, another all-encompassing problem with education is poverty, but that's a whole other tangle, isn't it?
I've gone off-topic a bit, but the point is, you are being just as duplicitous as Trump, the only difference is you know you are doing it.
Tell us, Kevin, who is funding New America? The same people who want to end public schools and the unions that go with them, in favor of privatized charter schools?
More importantly, riddle me this: what is the purpose of education? Reciting facts and figures or learning how to think? Yes, many other countries have common standards, and how many patents do they write a year? How many films and Nobel prize winning novels, how many new approaches to the world do they produce?
Eduction in this country is tricky. There are many moving pieces and agendas. The tech community seems to think they can solve education with graphs and apps and they are wrong. There's an argument to be made that this version education is simply the modern day upgrade on the classic factory line. Today's tech workers are yesterday's manufactures.
Of course, another all-encompassing problem with education is poverty, but that's a whole other tangle, isn't it?
I've gone off-topic a bit, but the point is, you are being just as duplicitous as Trump, the only difference is you know you are doing it.
25
FYI:
New America Foundation
Per the Gates Foundation website
New America Foundation
Date: May 2013
Purpose: to conduct research on the effectiveness and utility of exit exams and develop and distribute policy options for states as they develop their Common Core assessment systems
Amount: $200,002
New America Foundation
Per the Gates Foundation website
New America Foundation
Date: May 2013
Purpose: to conduct research on the effectiveness and utility of exit exams and develop and distribute policy options for states as they develop their Common Core assessment systems
Amount: $200,002
Part of the problem with Common Core is not the standards themselves, but the ham-handed ways some states or districts started carrying them out, such as NY State's rush to test against them before most or all local districts had implemented them. Well, that might have provided researchers a nice baseline, but it made parents & teachers furious, and understandably so. These kinds of early adoption screw-ups have just played into the demagogues' hands and turned a promising, state-by-state approach to improve education into a political nightmare.
5
I would like to add, when education get politicized, and when the corporations realized all the money that was being allocated for educatin' the kiddies (Success Academy/GoldmanSachs) that is when problems are created. I teach and was around before Bloomberg broke up the big schools into smaller learning communities. The result was the same number of teacher or less in a building and yet 4 additional principals (probably from his leadership academy) who could not agree who would pay for the one or two librarian's salaries. This small leaning communities do not off the electives like journalism, astronomy, The Cold War, or other classes that tapped into the interests of the students and where taught by instructors who actually liked the content instead of scripted lessons from WAVE or the Aussie's.
1
Totally left out is an analysis of teacher evaluation. I once had a business meeting with a union rep for teachers. She oked a tangential question. I started with, that students know who the good and bad teachers are. Ask them to rate the teachers, 5 years after leaving the class. The rep, agreed, she, added the teachers also know. Why then do we hear no little concerning peer review? The insight into the students' knowing who is effective came from my college president. Who explained, he had a professor, the current students loathed, but the graduates consistently said, he really knew what he was teaching. I got lucky, my senior year in high school my teacher wanted to become a College English professor. We were treated to a college level year of highly motivated, and challenging lesson plans.
4
The decline of educational achievement by American students continues, and has nothing to do with Common Core. The standards are lower than ever and are a symptom not a cause. The problem began subsequent to WWII when ten million veterans of the war were afforded free college tuition. The massive unplanned increase in the student body entailed an immediate lowering of educational standards in the wake of overtaxed facilities and the level of instruction. University degrees became a social rather than an intellectual accomplishment. The system lost its sense of purpose and focused on providing a work certificate. The decay soon filtered down into the secondary and primary systems. The results speak for themselves. America was until 60 years ago a world leader in innovation and technical prowess. It presently is ranked 26th on the level of its students.
Mr. Carey says of Donald Trump, “His plan may also have the unintended effect of stultifying American greatness.” Unfortunately, America’s greatness is a thing of the past
Mr. Carey says of Donald Trump, “His plan may also have the unintended effect of stultifying American greatness.” Unfortunately, America’s greatness is a thing of the past
8
Your description of the degeneration of the American educational system, both K-12 and university, in unhinged from reality. Even if the GI Bill opened up many college educational opportunities to US veterans, how could that have lowered standards for primary and secondary schools? What mechanism is there that might explain that linkage? None that you have mentioned.
I will certainly agree that university education has become more of "a standard" than in mid-20th-century times. That's not just a US characteristic.
"The decay soon filtered down into the secondary and primary systems."
OK - quote some support for your premise.
"University degrees became a social rather than an intellectual accomplishment."
It is true that many more people have degrees than did in decades past. Now, please correlate that fact with your postulate. I doubt that you can.
Your criticism of Trump may be well deserved but unfortunately is misplaced. The threat to American education is not to be found at the Federal level, but in the States and local boards. I am sure that "Creationism" will not be found in any school texts in Israel, but it's very present in many Southern states.
All this happened well after the influx you describe.
I'm sorry, Yehoshua, but your lack of critical reasoning dooms your argument.
I will certainly agree that university education has become more of "a standard" than in mid-20th-century times. That's not just a US characteristic.
"The decay soon filtered down into the secondary and primary systems."
OK - quote some support for your premise.
"University degrees became a social rather than an intellectual accomplishment."
It is true that many more people have degrees than did in decades past. Now, please correlate that fact with your postulate. I doubt that you can.
Your criticism of Trump may be well deserved but unfortunately is misplaced. The threat to American education is not to be found at the Federal level, but in the States and local boards. I am sure that "Creationism" will not be found in any school texts in Israel, but it's very present in many Southern states.
All this happened well after the influx you describe.
I'm sorry, Yehoshua, but your lack of critical reasoning dooms your argument.
9
Common ore math is a complete disaster.
5
The resistance to Common Core is all about not teaching evolution or our complex history, folks. Or critical thinking.
6
common core bans thinking
Wanda: reststance to CC is all about a lack of critical thinking.
Complex history is - complex. Deal with it.
If you can't then go back to school. Or ask your kids. D'uh.
p.s. even the Roman Catholic Church admitted that its earlier position on "evolution" was incorrect. Read the text carefully - God created the world and set things in motion.
Even if you believe that the world was created ~ 6K years ago, that is NOT a counterargument for evolution. Whether your staring point is billions/millions/thousands of years ago, evolution IS happening.
p.p.s. sharpen up your critical thinking
Complex history is - complex. Deal with it.
If you can't then go back to school. Or ask your kids. D'uh.
p.s. even the Roman Catholic Church admitted that its earlier position on "evolution" was incorrect. Read the text carefully - God created the world and set things in motion.
Even if you believe that the world was created ~ 6K years ago, that is NOT a counterargument for evolution. Whether your staring point is billions/millions/thousands of years ago, evolution IS happening.
p.p.s. sharpen up your critical thinking
1
There are people who oppose CCSS because they're ignorant and have heard it'll make their kids gay or Muslims. There are people who oppose it because they're well-informed and object to untested standards, designed to justify sales of new tests and new technology rather than to improve education, being forced on states by techniques that are essentially extortion.
There are good reasons and bad reasons to oppose CCSS, but really no valid ones to support them.
There are good reasons and bad reasons to oppose CCSS, but really no valid ones to support them.
2
The problem with Common Core is that its most ardent supporters, those who fund Mr. Carey's New America and other so-called "grass roots" reform groups, are anti-union, anti-teacher, and anti-public education. These supporters of Common Core are truly interested in education reform as they are in politics. They want to use CC to show that schools are failing, so they can be defunded, thus cutting taxes for the wealthy, (who don't send their children to public school), and also setting up charters for the Eva Moskowitz's of the world. They are against unions in general and the teachers who tend to vote for progressive candidates.
18
That is pretty much just silly, Mike, yet it shows up as the first comment I see. Comments editor, please do your job.
1
What's silly about it? It's a combination of facts and reasonable interpretations of those facts.
1
I am an ardent supporter of CCSS. I have taught in NYC HS for 20 years, starting before Bloomie! The standards are just that standards. What the do is give expectation of where a student should be. Are all students at that point? no and that is to be expected, expecially in the largest school system in the country with a very large populatin that is quite poor. Poverty is a major factor in a student's ability in school. Think of swim lessons, what are the things the 'guppies" are suppose to be able to do? What are "minnow's" suppose to be able to do? Now if a kid gets passed because we will not fund for the extra teacher and classes then that is a different issue altogether.
When the Common Core math standards came out several years ago, they were not vastly different from the standards already being used, at least in the schools that I attended and that my children were attending at the time. In the years that followed, however, I saw an increase in standardized testing and a large number of poorly written workbooks being sold through teachers' stores. I also saw the changes in how my neighbors' children were taught. Let's stop pretending that Common Core is just a set of standards.
Can Donald Trump (or anyone) turn it back? This is a question to be asked of the millions of parents who have opted their children out of the PARCC and other standardized tests, or those who have sent their children to private school at great personal sacrifice. They might well be open to action at the Presidential level, especially if it resonated with their local needs.
Can Donald Trump (or anyone) turn it back? This is a question to be asked of the millions of parents who have opted their children out of the PARCC and other standardized tests, or those who have sent their children to private school at great personal sacrifice. They might well be open to action at the Presidential level, especially if it resonated with their local needs.
2
I am certified to teach Common Core in Calif and I do not understand why some Americans oppose Common Core....it is all about developing critical thinking skills which is a great ability....I suppose some people want kids to just do as they are told, not ask questions, and not be able to think and analyze for themselves. Do some people want kids/adults to be functionally illiterate so they can be easily manipulated and controlled?
14
Sandra, Common Core Math turns an easy subtraction problem into a multi-page monstrosity where getting the right answer isn't the goal. That is stupid. If a child has a method in math that works for them to get the right answer that is all that should matter. Making kids learn 50 different methods to solve 1 simple problem confuses the children and their parents.
6
I'm a trained school librarian with a high school teacher husband. We have two special ed kids. While Common Core is great at encouraging critical thinking skills, it's difficult for an Aspy kid who excels at math to have to explain how he got to the answer. I wish Common Core just focused on textual interpretation more in English and Social Studies and left math out of it. It's been good for school librarians, too, since we so often get left out of the curriculum. One other thing that is notable is that the kids at my husband's school told their WASC visiting committee that they are "project-ed" out - every class has group projects and they're finding it too overwhelming when they have five group projects in five classes all due around the same time.
But the larger issue is that so many Repubs think this is some sort of evil plot cooked up by liberals. The Repubs would actually prefer us to have illiterate non-thinking kids; makes it easier for them get votes since the kids won't know to do research to find out how they're being fooled. :)
But the larger issue is that so many Repubs think this is some sort of evil plot cooked up by liberals. The Repubs would actually prefer us to have illiterate non-thinking kids; makes it easier for them get votes since the kids won't know to do research to find out how they're being fooled. :)
2
i think the point of common core math is that you should understand math as well as be able to compute it. Actual real world math isn't calculating sums, it is figuring out how to derive the numeric answer to a problem, like how much bread to buy when you need to feed 20 people. If you understand the problem and understand math you can solve a real world problem.
1
Looking at the demographics supporting Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, it's easy to imagine why those two want Common Core done away with...
3
Yeah, they probably oppose education on principle. But there are lots of people who support and value education who oppose Common Core. Understanding that education is important doesn't mean a person will think that's a good way to do it. It's not.
Interesting, isn's it? So many people, who've never set foot in a classroom as a teacher, feel like they are experts on this subject just because they were once students. I've been to the doctor's office a few times. Would you like me to start passing laws to micromanage what a doctor does and how he or she does it?
15
They do that too.
8
Only insurance companies do that
Great discussion. Very sad how politicians misstate the facts and very troubling how voters have little if any interest in knowing the facts around issues. Trump's perfect storm.......
1
These two sentences from the second para apply to most Republican talking points, whether education, taxes, voting rights, military, immigration, etc
"He is promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by using power the president doesn’t have. His plan may also have the unintended effect of stultifying American greatness."
"He is promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by using power the president doesn’t have. His plan may also have the unintended effect of stultifying American greatness."
4
The actual standards are hard to argue with, if you've actually read them. In my experience, though there are three problematic issues in implementation: I'm not sure the standards adequately reflect child development -- which isn't linear -- in the K-4 standards. The first problem is compounded by the second problem of some inflexible school leaders mandating a kind of lockstep implementation of the entire set of standards during every period, which leads to nonsense. Finally, the implementation of standards is always shaped more by textbooks and standardized tests that claim to be aligned to standards than the text of the actual standards themselves. At least in New York State, Pearson's interpretation of the CCSS is ridiculous and wrong-headed. If our leaders had been educated under the Common Core, we might see more logic, reasoning and use of evidence in our public discourse. And more people might have actually looked at the text of the standards, rather than talking off some rumor about them.
28
This comment is spot on. Thank you for making this point so clearly.
3
You sound like a NYC public school teacher, as am I. You are absolutely, positively right, and I wish you were in a position to advise our politicians! But it's fairly clear that no one listens to the people most immediately involved in education.
5
I completely agree with you. The standards themselves are not the problem here it is the way they are implemented. We should not be teaching kids how to pass a test, we should teach them the skills that the standards support. Critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, etc. are all important 21st century skills that you cannot measure with a standardized test. The standards all support these skills and apply them to the curriculum that we teach.
2
While the central point of this piece is true - Trump and others don't know what they're talking about - there are serious problems with the rest of the article.
Carey claims that math scores have tripled since 1990 and provides a link to the NAEP scores. This statistical increase is due almost entirely to "teaching to the test," directed at poor students who show little or no increase in proficiency beyond the early years. As Carey notes, "high school students have not improved as fast." They are graduating, but ill-prepared for college or many vocations.
Most of all, Carey cites the catalyst for these decades of education malpractice: A Nation at Risk. This political report claimed to show a decline in educational outcomes and triggered a frenzy of bad policy. The report was discredited in 1992, when a more competent statistical analysis showed that there had been no such decline in educational outcomes.
Bad policy has prevailed ever since. Carey points out that Trump et al are proposing to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Starting in 1983, politicians have been proposing to solve a problem that doesn't exist, at least not in the way they claim. America's problems are poverty, inequality and the rapid commercialization and privatizing of public education. That has not been and cannot be solved by more tests and testing.
Carey claims that math scores have tripled since 1990 and provides a link to the NAEP scores. This statistical increase is due almost entirely to "teaching to the test," directed at poor students who show little or no increase in proficiency beyond the early years. As Carey notes, "high school students have not improved as fast." They are graduating, but ill-prepared for college or many vocations.
Most of all, Carey cites the catalyst for these decades of education malpractice: A Nation at Risk. This political report claimed to show a decline in educational outcomes and triggered a frenzy of bad policy. The report was discredited in 1992, when a more competent statistical analysis showed that there had been no such decline in educational outcomes.
Bad policy has prevailed ever since. Carey points out that Trump et al are proposing to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Starting in 1983, politicians have been proposing to solve a problem that doesn't exist, at least not in the way they claim. America's problems are poverty, inequality and the rapid commercialization and privatizing of public education. That has not been and cannot be solved by more tests and testing.
20
I'm no expert on Common Core, but I have seen examples of how the work on simple (At least formerly simple...) arithmetic problems is supposed to be demonstrated, with those boxes and all that. Frankly, this gets ME confused. And this from one with two degrees in Applied Math - a bachelor's and a master's (respectively from Brown and Harvard, if you're wondering) - whose stock in trade was solving ordinary and partial differential equations dealing with things like feedback controls, heat conduction and biologic cycles. My sympathy for those kids - and their parents. And their teachers, having to somehow master all this.
14
From looking at my nephew's math segment I too came to the same conclusion.
Like a good designer or programmer knows, the final product should be tailored to the abilities and interests of the end user. So the curriculum should read like a rational list of things, not a detailed "word-i-fication" of something that is conceptual or intuitive.
People deceive themselves into thinking that elaborately specifying something somehow guarantees excellence. It does not. The greatest painters, photographers, inventors, doctors, surgeons, lawyers, politicians, etc do not operate from a laundry list of skills - they have a basic outline which they then develop with practice and more practice. Testing is absolutely necessary, but it should be in context.
Our education system is outmoded, not due to the lack of intelligence of its participants, but due to the dramatic changes in science, technology and society in the last 100 years. We need a serious rethink of how we teach our kids and what we teach them at all. Having a laundry list of requirements that you can check off with a pointless test is not the same as teaching children important facts of life (physical, biological and social sciences) and critical thinking and creative thinking. That is an art, not an itemizable thing. It requires an artistic temperament, not an accountant mindset (which is good for specific things, no bashing here.)
Like a good designer or programmer knows, the final product should be tailored to the abilities and interests of the end user. So the curriculum should read like a rational list of things, not a detailed "word-i-fication" of something that is conceptual or intuitive.
People deceive themselves into thinking that elaborately specifying something somehow guarantees excellence. It does not. The greatest painters, photographers, inventors, doctors, surgeons, lawyers, politicians, etc do not operate from a laundry list of skills - they have a basic outline which they then develop with practice and more practice. Testing is absolutely necessary, but it should be in context.
Our education system is outmoded, not due to the lack of intelligence of its participants, but due to the dramatic changes in science, technology and society in the last 100 years. We need a serious rethink of how we teach our kids and what we teach them at all. Having a laundry list of requirements that you can check off with a pointless test is not the same as teaching children important facts of life (physical, biological and social sciences) and critical thinking and creative thinking. That is an art, not an itemizable thing. It requires an artistic temperament, not an accountant mindset (which is good for specific things, no bashing here.)
2
HS graduation rates are the highest in history. This has nothing to do with Common Core. Teachers are pressured to pass everyone who can breathe and threatened or given unsatisfactory evaluations if they don't meet this "standard."
10
Thanks for the scientific approach.
My experience (through my kids) of Common Core as far as math is concerned is that it emphasizes anaytical thinking and comprehension over learning by rote, and it forces students to see math problems from multiple perspectives. It is challenging to adults (including teachers) in part because most people probably didn't learn that way. To embrace some of Common Core's approaches is to recognize that perhaps we don't really understand math as adults as well as we thought. That doesn't make Common Core wrong; in fact, possibly the opposite.
What fraction of the adult population, for example, could explain coherently why we carry in addition?
What fraction of the adult population, for example, could explain coherently why we carry in addition?
21
Why do we carry in addition? Simple. If your digits in the ones column add up to 10 or more, then you've got one or more tens to add into the 'tens' column - the one immediately to the left. (That's how our conventional, or base ten, numbers work.) For this, you need a bunch of Common Core techniques and demonstrations that just seem to confuse a lot of people far more than the original problems ever did?
At least it's not 'New Math', as immortalised by Tom Lehrer: "I just noticed that this problem is supposed to be done in base eight. But don't worry. Base eight is just like base ten - if you're missing two fingers."
At least it's not 'New Math', as immortalised by Tom Lehrer: "I just noticed that this problem is supposed to be done in base eight. But don't worry. Base eight is just like base ten - if you're missing two fingers."
7
I can! And the math part of my brain is pretty-darn low-functioning. But I acquired great facility in mental arithmetic, estimating, & general number-sense simply by working daily with numbers in my work. And I doubt I could have done it without having had to memorize basic arithmetic tables. You could cast out all the silly-stuff from primary-school math (lengthy verbal & written 'explanations' for 'why' 2+2=4) & just replace it by putting an abacus into every home & classroom.
2
Probably the best we can do is allow for relatively untimed exams
that allow the students to show what they know and what they do not know.
Then provide parents of the students the option of vouchers in order to
provide the freedom to choose which school they think will benefit their children.
that allow the students to show what they know and what they do not know.
Then provide parents of the students the option of vouchers in order to
provide the freedom to choose which school they think will benefit their children.
i agree with this solution in theory, but in practice it will have the unexpected result of sending children to lousy schools that are good at advertising and selling and/or based on narrow ideologies. when I was looking at schools, one administrator told me it was challenging to teach biology since they wouldn't discuss evolution. in a matter of fact tone, he was stating that a big chunk of science would be omitted because it doesn't fit with preconceived notions, completely ignoring that this is exactly what science is about. the children at that school were short-changed for the modern world.
so the political impetus for this position (school vouchers/choice) draws its energy from something not quite related to "freedom to choose."
so the political impetus for this position (school vouchers/choice) draws its energy from something not quite related to "freedom to choose."
2
We have college students who have permission through our disability office to have double-time on tests, have tests read to them, have tests broken up into segments of no more than 20 questions, and so on.
One such student in my class was in the nursing program. If the goal is to prepare students for the real world, guess what? Tests are part of that. Nursing boards. PSAT. Two days of testing for the bar exam. We need to stop accommodating students' who have deficits, and we need to start helping them to learn strategies to deal with them. After all, we ALL have them, or most of us do.
On a trip to Oxford, I saw students worriedly checking public boards to see if they passed. If students can't pick our the best option for correcting a passage that has a non-parallel construction, how can we expect them to recognize these errors in their own writing? We have got to stop babying our students and raise our expectations. But of course this also means teaching. And if we don't have tests, how do we know what anyone has learned?
One such student in my class was in the nursing program. If the goal is to prepare students for the real world, guess what? Tests are part of that. Nursing boards. PSAT. Two days of testing for the bar exam. We need to stop accommodating students' who have deficits, and we need to start helping them to learn strategies to deal with them. After all, we ALL have them, or most of us do.
On a trip to Oxford, I saw students worriedly checking public boards to see if they passed. If students can't pick our the best option for correcting a passage that has a non-parallel construction, how can we expect them to recognize these errors in their own writing? We have got to stop babying our students and raise our expectations. But of course this also means teaching. And if we don't have tests, how do we know what anyone has learned?
3
I think I agree with you: double-time testing accommodation may not be appropriate for career-oriented college programs. It works best K-12 as a way for those w/processing LD's to demonstrate they have learned the material. Many of these kids have hi proficiency on computer, with music, with hands-on trades. Those w/good IQ but processing LD's-- if I can extrapolate from my own kids' experience-- will do just fine among the average-IQ kids who attend career-oriented, & community, & many state colleges, w/o accommodations beyond perhaps quiet study-spaces w/tutors available.
This column is from New America, which pretends to be a non-partisan policy organization, but not only cherry picks the "facts' it cites here, but is funded by the corporate and financial elites, those oligarchs who are trying to take over the nation and are what the current populist movement is responding to. Sadly, the writer cites studies that undermine local control. Local control is messy, but that is democracy. The article may cite rumors on who funded the Common Core, but fails to point out who actually funded the common core: the Gates Foundation. No evidence exists on the effectiveness of the common core and what should make us very skeptical about them is that the private schools, where the funders send their children, have rejected them.
11
You speak the truth. I think that the progressives behind the publication of this article are entering, ironically, a new era wherewith they aren't going to be able to push an agenda w/o US citizens calling them on that push. One of the premises of the article is that a corporatist/statist federalizing, quickening, and reinvention of education has been going on since the Reagan Years, so why should US citizens be resistant now, for resistance is futile. Such agenda-driven progs can't see beyond their own agenda toward a change that simplifies matters. Like the ACA/aka Obamacare, CC and other such technocratic edu-initiatives are extremely overcomplicated, making students', teachers', and parents' lives miserable, and each of those lives isn't that long. Another premise is that a POTUS can't repeal and replace CC or the like. But a POTUS certainly can influence such repeal and replace! If Cruz or Trump becomes POTUS, get ready for some change that matters, progs: education is going to get streamlined, in the direction of what worked in the past, not, that is, in the direction of Clinton/Rubio--toward some anti-intellectual, meritocratic, technological fit for the present or for somebody's flawed futurism.
Cue "Twilight Zone" music.
5
Dude, this has nothing to do with progressives. Progressives don't work with corporate-funded think tanks and their agendas.
1
Thanks for some clarity. Bottom line, the ignorant will remain so, and continue to be chattel for the monied class.
5
Thank you for a rational discussion on the topic. It is embarrassing in so many ways the way politicians twist facts and how lazy the public can be on the facts around such issues.
3
Having 2 kids in NY schools, 1 just in a very good Engineering school, I had my doubts about it. However, I don't think anyone objects against all students having a good and common education. I think most of the top of the list countries are fairly similar to our common core.
Problems with it are well stated by teachers (who are the ones who KNOW) in the comments.
1. Shoved on Teachres with no prep, at every grade level, rather than being phased in.
2. Parents are now kept out of School, CC is another way to remove parents.
(Back to school night is a 2hr whiz of 8 teachers). Thats it.!
3. NY governor and friends make BIG money off test.
4. Teachers not allowed to teach, both best teachers I ever had never followed curriculum. Thanks Mr O, Mrs Morrison.
5. CC seems designed to make a certain % of kids fail. Set the cut score and no matter how well you teach, x% fail. Gee thanks.
6. BIGGEST Problems, It doesn't make learning fun. It doesn't make more time for teachers to work with students. Kahn academy and other online tools seem to work well for both.
Problems with it are well stated by teachers (who are the ones who KNOW) in the comments.
1. Shoved on Teachres with no prep, at every grade level, rather than being phased in.
2. Parents are now kept out of School, CC is another way to remove parents.
(Back to school night is a 2hr whiz of 8 teachers). Thats it.!
3. NY governor and friends make BIG money off test.
4. Teachers not allowed to teach, both best teachers I ever had never followed curriculum. Thanks Mr O, Mrs Morrison.
5. CC seems designed to make a certain % of kids fail. Set the cut score and no matter how well you teach, x% fail. Gee thanks.
6. BIGGEST Problems, It doesn't make learning fun. It doesn't make more time for teachers to work with students. Kahn academy and other online tools seem to work well for both.
4
This is the classic mistake.
Common Core is a *standard* not a curriculum.
If a district changes curriculum without adequate prep time, or requires adherence to a curriculum, that is a local issue that likely existed before and is independent of Common Core.
Common Core says what, not how.
Common Core is a *standard* not a curriculum.
If a district changes curriculum without adequate prep time, or requires adherence to a curriculum, that is a local issue that likely existed before and is independent of Common Core.
Common Core says what, not how.
18
Pull back the curtain. The Wizard fabricates data!
1
Carey, I'm puzzled. Are you at all familiar with the Common Core, or spoken to an educator about it? Just when I thought the powers that be simply couldn't possibly water down a child's ability to achieve anymore, they came along with that utter nonsense. Two words: private education. An accident? I don't think so.
2
Pcela--I am an educator (college), my husband is an educator (elite private high school--math), my daughter will be attending college in fall to become an educator. And we have no problem with the common core standards. Elite private schools already do EVERYTHING in the standards plus more. I wonder if you have ever bothered to read them? Which standard do you disagree with, specifically, and why?
1
Large-scale national standardized tests such as the SAT already impose a de facto common core, and schools who do not prepare their students for them condemn many to a second-class life.
6
The complete ignorance of Republican candidates during this election cycle never ceases to amaze. From promises of mass deportation, carpet bombing, torture, closing down the Department of Education, wall building, etc, etc. Disgusting.
3
You have cherrypicked the diverse Republican POTUS candidates' positions and misrepresented some--which candidate is for torture, and what sort of torture? So closing the Dept. of Educ. and building a wall along some of our southern border are "disgusting" ideas? What if these two ideas make life in the USA better?
"What if these two ideas make life in the USA better?"
And what if Donald Trump and other pigs pigs learn to fly?
And what if Donald Trump and other pigs pigs learn to fly?
3
Dude, why bother with building a wall when planting antipersonnel mines would be far more effective and much cheaper? Think of the savings -- you'd barely even need to have border guards. The vultures would take care of the rest.
This is the one, and only one, policy area where I agree with Trump. First, Federal government has absolutely no business playing a significant role in the education of Americans. Anyone with an ounce of brains knows that Democrats (the Clintons in particular) only entered this policy area because they knew it would nicely tie into their message that America could only regain its premier status if its workers were more productive than their competitors in the third world. How could we be sure our kids were better than their kids (when PISA exams showed we were not). Solution. Have our kids study stuff that they all could pass! Dumb it down. Give a 6th grader's blurb equal worth with that of Madison and Hamilton. And suddenly our kids are equally bright (though actually dull).
Schooling is the one and indispensable responsibility that our people can collectively accomplish. There should be a great race to the top among the 50 states. The last I heard Massachusetts was number one. Does Mississippi want to compete. Of course they do. Let the competition begin. Let the feds do nothing but keep score. And be sure to double-check their results.
Schooling is the one and indispensable responsibility that our people can collectively accomplish. There should be a great race to the top among the 50 states. The last I heard Massachusetts was number one. Does Mississippi want to compete. Of course they do. Let the competition begin. Let the feds do nothing but keep score. And be sure to double-check their results.
2
Mississippi does not want to compete.
That would mean they would have to increase the funds for the public schools there. That would mean giving the poor kids textbooks or even worse, the internet!
That would mean they would have to increase the funds for the public schools there. That would mean giving the poor kids textbooks or even worse, the internet!
As a human being I am terrified of the prospect of a Donald Trump Presidency. As the parent of a three year old, and the husband and son of college professors, I am terrified of the Common Core.
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We're being told that American kids are improving. But are they really? The experiences of my father (who teaches at a private liberal arts college) and wife (who teaches at a community college) contradict that. If anything the academic readiness of kids in their Freshman year of college, has decreased since No Child Left Behind.
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I'm worried by the obsession that educators have developed with high stakes, standardized tests. I want my son to enjoy learning. I don't want him to constantly worry about how he'll do on a test.
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Finally what really scares me is that we aren't really solving the fundamental inequities in education. No child left behind and the common core fall woefully short of bringing the same academic rigor and success to poor urban schools that is enjoyed by their wealthy suburban counterparts. We moved to the suburbs because of this.
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Maybe Trump is actually right about the Common Core. It's got to go. It needs to be replaced with something better. Less testing and more creativity. Less money to the test writers and bureaucrats and more money to give urban schools and kids a fair shot. Every Child Forward instead of no child left behind.
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We're being told that American kids are improving. But are they really? The experiences of my father (who teaches at a private liberal arts college) and wife (who teaches at a community college) contradict that. If anything the academic readiness of kids in their Freshman year of college, has decreased since No Child Left Behind.
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I'm worried by the obsession that educators have developed with high stakes, standardized tests. I want my son to enjoy learning. I don't want him to constantly worry about how he'll do on a test.
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Finally what really scares me is that we aren't really solving the fundamental inequities in education. No child left behind and the common core fall woefully short of bringing the same academic rigor and success to poor urban schools that is enjoyed by their wealthy suburban counterparts. We moved to the suburbs because of this.
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Maybe Trump is actually right about the Common Core. It's got to go. It needs to be replaced with something better. Less testing and more creativity. Less money to the test writers and bureaucrats and more money to give urban schools and kids a fair shot. Every Child Forward instead of no child left behind.
8
again; common core is about standards. rigorous standards that are designed to get children college ready. It is not about testing. The testing predates common core, that is no child left behind, a GOP introduced initiative.
2
ZAW, relax and keep reading to your child. Try to include some non-fiction and do not get hung up on creationism. Go to parent-teacher conferences and be kind to hispanics and your child will have a great chance at becoming a critical-thinking member of society. That is if you are voting for Cruz. If he becomes President I would recommend putting your child in a religious school because that is where all the money will be going. But keep reading to S/he until 2nd grade.
As soon as Obama said he was for Common Core, it didn't matter that they had no idea what it was, they fell all over themselves trying to see who could be most against it.
19
Donald Trump hates the standards because he doesn't understand them. It's the reason behind most hate - a lack of understanding (called ignorance).
Trump doesn't understand the standards because he hasn't read them, and even if he did, he still wouldn't understand them.
Thus, the hate.
Trump doesn't understand the standards because he hasn't read them, and even if he did, he still wouldn't understand them.
Thus, the hate.
18
Citizen makes no empirical statement that can be proved or disproved yet says Trump is somehow responsible for her ignorance. She has a right to give her opinion, but that's about all.
1
Yes it is confusing but it teach the students to look at the broader picture, something many adults can't do. The students are being prepped for the more complicated mathematical studies and let's be honest here - many Americans can only do the basics. Yes, when you look at s simple math problem made into numerous steps it can be frustrating- Khan Academy has been a huge help for me.
4
They're not being prepped for anything. If you look at the entrance exam (diagnostic) of any college, it's still the same material that was taught in 1975. Politicians (and parents who don't care about anything but the grade that comes home) have watered down our standards and expectation in the name of "raising the graduation rate". The rates go up but the kids know less and less, damn the teachers who have been crying "FOUL" for years.
2
Common Core is simply a set of educational standards to guide teachers' instruction. The intent of Common Core is to create a consistent national standard for teaching objectives. As such, the controversy revolves more around whether the Federal government should set standards or whether state and local governments should set standards.
You are right. None of the candidates understand, or are in a position to evaluate, Common Core. Therefore, it is essential to elect a President who will delegate Educational policy making to a knowledgeable and competent Cabinet secretary.
Here is what's wrong with Education, and no one is addressing these issues: 1) Disrespect for teachers, individuals that are expected to be highly educated but are treated like children. 2) Poor management by educational leaders who gain their position by the "Peter Principle" i.e., do a good job as a teacher and they make you a manger. 3) Abandonment of well-researched teaching principles. Colleges teach these principles; school boards and Principals abandon them. 4) Teachers are denied time for planning. Teachers, therefore, are compelled to use excessive amounts of personal time for the essential task of lesson planning. 5) Pay is poor and school budgets are balanced on the backs of teachers while school boards invest more stock in technology and gimmicks than in the teacher-student relationship.
Rev. Jeremiah Caldon, M.A.T.
You are right. None of the candidates understand, or are in a position to evaluate, Common Core. Therefore, it is essential to elect a President who will delegate Educational policy making to a knowledgeable and competent Cabinet secretary.
Here is what's wrong with Education, and no one is addressing these issues: 1) Disrespect for teachers, individuals that are expected to be highly educated but are treated like children. 2) Poor management by educational leaders who gain their position by the "Peter Principle" i.e., do a good job as a teacher and they make you a manger. 3) Abandonment of well-researched teaching principles. Colleges teach these principles; school boards and Principals abandon them. 4) Teachers are denied time for planning. Teachers, therefore, are compelled to use excessive amounts of personal time for the essential task of lesson planning. 5) Pay is poor and school budgets are balanced on the backs of teachers while school boards invest more stock in technology and gimmicks than in the teacher-student relationship.
Rev. Jeremiah Caldon, M.A.T.
25
I am still waiting for someone to investigate the biggest scandal in education...incompetent principals. Teachers certainly get beaten to death over their flaws, but as one I never hired a bad teacher. So who does?
6
You are right. Not many people including politicians know what the Common Core is. I don't see this as a failure on their part, but a failure of the Common Core founders and the Department of Education. The Core Standards are excellent but because they have been conflated with high stakes testing, their reputation has been sullied. In addition, the media and government should make an effort to demystify the Common Core so that people understand what they are.
13
There are no short cuts to learning math - you need to know addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. Flash cards and memorizing times tables are essential. Once the foundation is understood then math reasoning can be demonstrated and learned. The same holds true for reading, teaching science, history, etc. Unfortunately, "common core" is big business and proponents are driven by corporate earnings. Selling books, computer programs, standardized test, etc. to teach math, science, and reading is more important for certain corporate sponsors who happen to be supporters of certain politicians. Those politicians then promote laws that force asinine tests and burdensome rules and regulations on school systems instead of relying on common sense in education. Get politics out of education and let true educators do their jobs.
12
I am quite sure nothing you mention here has anything to do with CCSS.
2
This is not a good time to try to get Americans to agree on anything. Whether an idea has merit or not, half the population is guaranteed to shoot it down on general principles. I hope I live long enough to see the day that we can all work together (again) on an idea and compromise enough to make it acceptable to everyone.
13
Especially for education. How can people hear glib cries of "Make America Great Again" and not realize that the key to everything is the education we give our children.
2
In my experience, when teachers show concern for developing curriculum, principals and higher administrators aren't interested in fostering it. As soon as a test score is attached to the issue, the suits who don't work in the classroom with the students are intently focused on every little curricular issue. Unfortunately, since they lack depth and experience, their involvement is mostly retrograde.
16
True for both myopic admins and the corporate clowns (e.g., Pearson) who've never taught nor done educational research. Harvard, Wineburg, or Ravitch are ignored so basketball player Arne Duncan can tell us what is important and for-profit buddies in testing.
1
I excelled in Math growing up and in college. I understand math principles very well but even I have trouble helping my kid with homework. I have to look up the questions because I don't understand what they're asking. It's ridiculous!
5
Why are so many adults standing up and saying they don't understand their children's math homework? This reflects much more on the poor math skills of parents than any non existent federal program. They should be embarrassed by their rigid thinking rather than trying to sabotage their children's education. We should not promote ignorance.
18
Eli, Cncrnd45 said he doesn't understand what they're asking. That's not because of poor math skills. Often the questions are phrased in odd ways or they involve drawing an obscure type of diagram or graph. Also, we used to learn a lesson and then do exercises. My son is supposed to do the exercises first so he can try to figure the material out on his own. So he's never heard of the obscure type of diagram either when he does his homework. An awful lot of kids are learning math from Google.
1
It is important to separate out a few key ideas in math instruction. First, "the standards," which are just a list of the concepts and key understandings that are expected of children at each grade level. This is what "Common Core"is. It does not say you cannot or should not do MORE than this. It's kind of a "minimum standard" if you will.
Then, "the curriculum," which are the materials and activities that children do in order to learn--hopefully these are largely aligned to the standards *and* go beyond it. Districts, schools, and teachers decide this. I suspect that this is what is causing you grief: The assignments your child brings home may not be well designed or described. There are plenty of people -- textbook publishers to teachers -- who make this stuff up. "Common Core" doesn't review or determine which ones are best. This is a personal and political decision. Find out where these assignments are coming from, why there were chosen, and how they are supposed to be developing specific understandings.
Next, "instruction" and "assessment" -- these two things each deserve their own paragraph, if not their own book, but the NYT comments section doesn't give me enough space.
Anyway, the point is, you should figure out which one of these four is the problem if any.
So which one is the problem?
Then, "the curriculum," which are the materials and activities that children do in order to learn--hopefully these are largely aligned to the standards *and* go beyond it. Districts, schools, and teachers decide this. I suspect that this is what is causing you grief: The assignments your child brings home may not be well designed or described. There are plenty of people -- textbook publishers to teachers -- who make this stuff up. "Common Core" doesn't review or determine which ones are best. This is a personal and political decision. Find out where these assignments are coming from, why there were chosen, and how they are supposed to be developing specific understandings.
Next, "instruction" and "assessment" -- these two things each deserve their own paragraph, if not their own book, but the NYT comments section doesn't give me enough space.
Anyway, the point is, you should figure out which one of these four is the problem if any.
So which one is the problem?
2
To be frank, judging by his Twitter feeds and his "speeches" Donald Trump is one of the very last people on the planet who should be advising anyone education. All of the money in the world at some of the most elite schools can't help some people.
19
Every parent, every constituency, every education pro, every casual observer, every paid hack... everyone in America wants the impossible: shared (i.e., common) services like education micro-curated to serve only our needs, our children, our politics, our own tiny universe.
The faults in Common Core aside — the hasty implementation, the corporate DNA, the messy testing battle — it's really okay. It's a step. It's a basic standard. A good thing. Have we have really lost the tolerance to take steps together as a citizenry?
The faults in Common Core aside — the hasty implementation, the corporate DNA, the messy testing battle — it's really okay. It's a step. It's a basic standard. A good thing. Have we have really lost the tolerance to take steps together as a citizenry?
14
There's no such thing as a "citizenry" in the US. We are a harshly divided class society. The US is as stifling as South Africa, a place I know well.
3
A good educational system would address that... but there is heat..
Standards are good. They are byzantine in wording and draconianly implemented. Altering curriculum solely to touch on random standards is a poor choice.
"Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand Common Core (and Neither Do His Rivals)." For that matter, neither do the majority of Americans, including most parents and a lot of teachers, curriculum developers, and test makers...
13
It is mystifying how the writer can still endorse the Common Core myth, despite the fact that it is been shown to be a complete failure (as seen below).
The author should be reminded of a few things:
1. Math, reading and science scores have remained flat for American students between 2000-2013 according to Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).
2. American student scores are at or below the international average (which is quite low indeed).
3. 29 countries do better than the US in math. Forget Asian countries that do well. Latvia, Poland and Slovenia best the US.
4. In science, the US is ranked 22nd. Vietnam and Poland do better than their American counterparts.
5. The US had fewer "top performing students". Only 2% of US students excelled at advanced math, compared to 31% of students from Shanghai, China.
6. 25% of US students performed at the lowest levels of math proficiency.
Common Core has been around since 1990 or so. Despite what the writer claims, it has NOT raised standards.
The reason for this is simple, the approach is asinine. It flouts the basic pillars of traditional math most of us grew up with and replaces it with "new wave" math that is both incomprehensible and unecessarily complex. Case in point:
"Old fashioned" way of 32-12=20
"Common Core" way:
12+3=15
15+5=20
20+10=30
30+2=32
Now take the 2nd addend of each equation and add them together, so 3+5+10+2=32
Yes - really. This is the absurdity that is Common Core.
The author should be reminded of a few things:
1. Math, reading and science scores have remained flat for American students between 2000-2013 according to Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).
2. American student scores are at or below the international average (which is quite low indeed).
3. 29 countries do better than the US in math. Forget Asian countries that do well. Latvia, Poland and Slovenia best the US.
4. In science, the US is ranked 22nd. Vietnam and Poland do better than their American counterparts.
5. The US had fewer "top performing students". Only 2% of US students excelled at advanced math, compared to 31% of students from Shanghai, China.
6. 25% of US students performed at the lowest levels of math proficiency.
Common Core has been around since 1990 or so. Despite what the writer claims, it has NOT raised standards.
The reason for this is simple, the approach is asinine. It flouts the basic pillars of traditional math most of us grew up with and replaces it with "new wave" math that is both incomprehensible and unecessarily complex. Case in point:
"Old fashioned" way of 32-12=20
"Common Core" way:
12+3=15
15+5=20
20+10=30
30+2=32
Now take the 2nd addend of each equation and add them together, so 3+5+10+2=32
Yes - really. This is the absurdity that is Common Core.
10
1. You seem confused about what the Common Core is. Can you find any citation that anything with the title "Common Core" has been around since the 1990s? The Common Core was started in 2008, when Janet Napolitano started her taskforce with other Governors. The standards were published in 2010. By 2011, six states had officially adopted Common Core.
You can't just take every standardizing effort of the last 30 years and lump them under "Common Core."
2. It's mystifying how you can read more into the article than is in it. What myths did the author endorse, specifically?
You can't just take every standardizing effort of the last 30 years and lump them under "Common Core."
2. It's mystifying how you can read more into the article than is in it. What myths did the author endorse, specifically?
5
But the second addends don't = 32
2
Your research might be totally correct, I'm not sure, but you are misinformed on one point: the new way they're teaching math has NOTHING to do with Common Core. It is NOT called "Common Core math." It seems confusing because that's not the way we learned it, but it makes total sense to the kids--they are learning to think mathematically. When it gets frustrating is when parents aren't taught about it, can't help with homework and then start railing about it! My daughter's teachers hosted a Math Night, and it was so eye-opening. Wish more people could learn about how their kids are learning so everyone would stop freaking out about it! It will help them so much in the long run and bring them up to the level of other countries.
16
thank god it is about time we get rid of it now
2
Now that the ACT and SAT are strongly influenced by Common Core standards, are students living in states not using Common Core at a disadvantage on these high stakes tests?
3
Have Mr. Trump or any of the rest of the Republican know-nothings ask any teacher or principal what a third grader in Connecticut should learn about mathematics that a third grader in Alabama shouldn't. Even Alabama voters would understand that.
14
Interesting photo of Reagan with story. And people call Trump a phony? That's an actor's smile.
3
They don't care, lying comes naturally to these republican candidates, and unfortunately your average voter is too uninterested to search for the truth.
1
Being generally idiotic and pushing randomly bad policies is still preferable to consistently, vehemently, openly or sneakily opposing anything that makes even remote sense.
That's why I see Trump as the best of the lot of the rest of the Republican crowd.
That's why I see Trump as the best of the lot of the rest of the Republican crowd.
2
My problem with the Common Core curriculum are the strange and awkward ways of teaching math and reading; the elimination or near elimination of teaching spelling, science, or history, and the endless, poorly written tests with ambiguous answers.
Students don't like it. Parents don't like it. Teachers really hate it.
Let's get rid of it.
Students don't like it. Parents don't like it. Teachers really hate it.
Let's get rid of it.
6
There is no such thing as a "Common Core Curriculum." There are textbooks that say they are aligned to the Common Core standards, and there might be some instructional professional development that says they help teachers convey Common Core concepts to students. If you don't like your textbooks or if you don't like the way your teachers are teaching, then that's kind of a different story...
2
Common Core is not a 'curriculum.' CCSS are a set of standards. Standards determine what topics are taught at different grade levels/ courses. Curriculum is the material used to teach it. Curriculum decisions are locally controlled.
3
Think there was a time when Republicans believed their own rhetoric. Not anymore. The results of Republican policies are now clear - to everyone. So it's just about power now. And the only way to keep people voting for policies that clearly don't work is to make them dumb(er). Hence, local educational control is no more than a euphemism for keep them dumb, down, and voting GOP.
6
Welcome to the party of I am dumb and proud of it.
17
I dislike the PARCC test because it interrupts time that could be used for actual education and because it stressed one of my kids out immensely. I can't really say I hate common core, since it seems to be working out OK for my kids.
6
Oh my God..I give this country one more generation before the US becomes Ukraine. Pretty soon we wont have the intellectual capacity to build a "strong military" since there wont be any engineers to design our weapons and no soldiers skilled enough in math to navigate a map.
6
Right now federal education funding dollars are tied to the Common Core. When Trump promises to abolish the standards, he means that he plans to sever the tie between federal funding and the Common Core standards.
2
Isn't education pretty common stuff? It's the teachers that are frequently uncommon.
1
Local control of schools? Creating little fiefdoms where tin-pot dictators run amok? Example: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/nyregion/a-school-board-that-overlooks...
I remember when local control came to NYC schools in the early 1970s. Next thing you know, pianos and other equipment designated for chools suddenly ended up in tin-pot dictators' living rooms.
I remember when local control came to NYC schools in the early 1970s. Next thing you know, pianos and other equipment designated for chools suddenly ended up in tin-pot dictators' living rooms.
7
Please let us not assign local control of schools to the trash just because Republicans mindlessly support it for everybody. It works dandy in my pricey NJ district where we pay 96% of the school budget with our local residential taxes. The least we can expect is full oversight. Which gets harder every yr w/Christie mandating this & that Ed-reform frivolity. And we also get to contribute a chunk to the poor schools, where we have to put up w/zero control & watch him run amok.
For someone who, as far as I can tell, never once sat in a public classroom chair, let alone attend classes in one, for Mr. Trump to display his deep and ignorant concerns on the subject of Common Core is merely in keeping with his agenda of minutely detailed policy on all subjects. Nothing less can be expected from a polymath such as Donald Trump. Certainly no one should expect more.
14
My kindergarten daughter loves going to school... The curriculum in Math is interesting (really...). The curriculum in reading and writing is... weird . As a parent, when I asked if there were a common core book in Math and English that a parent can follow with their kids at home, the answer is 'no, just follow homework and make them play on computer'. The partnership between parent and school should pop up in the presidential campaign . So I bought a french book in math which follow perfectly well the common core, a UK book for phonics and grammar which is astonishing. Is that normal ? no. Statistically 30% kids can't read or do their math properly in 3rd grade. Parents, your kids need you ; Donald, Ted, Hillary, Bernie... please could you design a plan to help/encourage parents to support their kids and then to support school. I have a name 'let's learn with our kids'...
11
Local control = local tax dollars = lower educational outcomes
8
Not a causal relationship. Apparently you champion unfunded mandates.
1
Common core needs to be revamped. Has anyone on this comments board tried to solve some of the math problems in the way prescribed by Common Core standard? I did this weekend, and I was thoroughly confused by the end of it. I am engineer and have an undergrad and 2 graduate degrees, and yet the way the Common Core teaches a student to think about math problems like 43 - 17 is mind boggling.
How would a normal person solve this? By carrying 1 from the tens column to the singles column and then subtracting 7 from 13 to get 6 in the singles column, and then repeat the process moving to the left.
How does Common Core solve this? By trying to round numbers up and then add all the rounding elements to determine the answer. Longer and more complicated than the traditional approach ... and this is supposed to improve our kids abilities in math??
Common Core needs to be rethought, at least the math part of it.
How would a normal person solve this? By carrying 1 from the tens column to the singles column and then subtracting 7 from 13 to get 6 in the singles column, and then repeat the process moving to the left.
How does Common Core solve this? By trying to round numbers up and then add all the rounding elements to determine the answer. Longer and more complicated than the traditional approach ... and this is supposed to improve our kids abilities in math??
Common Core needs to be rethought, at least the math part of it.
8
You might need to be a bit careful. The way you are describing the math, the solution is more amenable to pencil and paper. The way you say Common Core describes the math, the problem can be done in your head. Developing a facility with numbers in your head may in the end be more valuable than memorizing a mechanical operation.
14
Clearly you've never had a retail or service job. It's just making change.
7
Common Core suggests what to teach. How to teach is up to the teachers. Some have had to adopt methods because it may be new material they have never taught before. Some of these methods come from educational consultants academics who should perhaps know better.
But the bottom line is - Common Cause does not tell you how to teach, only what. Some teachers teach better, some worse, same as with any curriculum.
But the bottom line is - Common Cause does not tell you how to teach, only what. Some teachers teach better, some worse, same as with any curriculum.
1
Trump stood up in front of a Nevada audience and exclaimed "I love the poorly educated." And the crowd cheered him! So by his own admission he has no interest in educating himself about Common Core because he has no interest in raising the education level. After all if populace could read, write, and think better then who would vote for him?
15
So you're telling me that the Official Party of Low-Information Voters doesn't understand the American educational system?
I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
Next, you'll probably say that Republicans are trying to weaken education across the country as part of their strategy of staying in power; that the common denominator -- if you believe in such a thing -- for all those red states in the Southeast are the failing public schools found there.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
Next, you'll probably say that Republicans are trying to weaken education across the country as part of their strategy of staying in power; that the common denominator -- if you believe in such a thing -- for all those red states in the Southeast are the failing public schools found there.
7
As I understand it, Common Core imposes nefarious concepts such as the idea that one-half = 50% = 1/2 = 1:2, and the ability to do the math to get there.
Can we have a country that competes economically without a populace that gets this? Enough is enough.
Can we have a country that competes economically without a populace that gets this? Enough is enough.
8
Mr. Carey: I hate to disagree with anyone who disagrees with Donald Trump, but -- you are wrong on both counts.
I hate Common Core, too. The way Gov. Cuomo has been pushing it on schools, and students, without preparing (or teaching!) it first, is disgraceful, even abusive. We here in New York know he only did that to punish the teachers' union for not endorsing him. It has harmed students, teachers, and schools -- which is why so many parents are Opting their children Out.
You are also wrong about a President's ability to affect local education. I regret to say that President Obama's "Race To The Top" was a significant factor in making public education here significantly worse. Nothing could have turned me against federal initiatives more than the disaster of Common Core in New York.
I hate Common Core, too. The way Gov. Cuomo has been pushing it on schools, and students, without preparing (or teaching!) it first, is disgraceful, even abusive. We here in New York know he only did that to punish the teachers' union for not endorsing him. It has harmed students, teachers, and schools -- which is why so many parents are Opting their children Out.
You are also wrong about a President's ability to affect local education. I regret to say that President Obama's "Race To The Top" was a significant factor in making public education here significantly worse. Nothing could have turned me against federal initiatives more than the disaster of Common Core in New York.
6
Common Core is the latest money grab by publishers who write and correct tests. They re-write the tests and sell them again every three years or so. The market is great, new students every year, who have to take the tests two or three times sometimes. Lobby efforts by publishers have increased to over 100 million a year! What a scam.
9
Common Core is predicated on the belief that teachers, schools, districts, and states do not know, understand, nor can develop curriculum. Largely, it takes the power and decision-making away from localities to gives it to the federal government. The standards themselves are laudable, but the draconian methods in which Arne Duncan (never an educator--a sociologist by day, basketball player by night) shoved them down teachers and schools throats reflects the complete lack of respect he and the DOE have for educators.
Far more worrisome are:
-Districts that decide 42% is the default reward on all assessments where no effort has been made.
-Student and parental accountability. No teacher and no set of standards can overcome a lack of commitment by a student and his/her parents in school.
-Poverty is the single greatest factor in poor academic performance and has been proven so for decades. The "best" schools are almost always the ones from the wealthiest attendance areas WITH the most committed parents.
-504 plans enable many students to have virtually no hard deadlines nor accountability.
-Byzantine evaluation systems with few links to standards and more about administrative power.
-Standardized testing rarely, if even, measure critical thinking.
-Herding everyone into AP classes who are not ready for AP classes helps a district's US News rating and does a disservice to the best and brightest.
-Those who lead education are almost never educators, but are somehow 'experts.'
Far more worrisome are:
-Districts that decide 42% is the default reward on all assessments where no effort has been made.
-Student and parental accountability. No teacher and no set of standards can overcome a lack of commitment by a student and his/her parents in school.
-Poverty is the single greatest factor in poor academic performance and has been proven so for decades. The "best" schools are almost always the ones from the wealthiest attendance areas WITH the most committed parents.
-504 plans enable many students to have virtually no hard deadlines nor accountability.
-Byzantine evaluation systems with few links to standards and more about administrative power.
-Standardized testing rarely, if even, measure critical thinking.
-Herding everyone into AP classes who are not ready for AP classes helps a district's US News rating and does a disservice to the best and brightest.
-Those who lead education are almost never educators, but are somehow 'experts.'
13
If your idea of the sole criteria for education is testing scores, and you develop a curriculum to elevate testing scores, you will probably do it. In the process, you will of course sacrifice education and what it has been about for the last 2500 years. Donald Trump is being used as a boogyman here. Let's talk of the opposition of teachers, or of Diane Ravitch. We need education in schools, not an assembly line of test question lessons leading to the diminishment of what makes us human. http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-...
6
I'm not that big on Common Core. I'm not that big on common anything when it comes to education. I think the bigger problem is not whether standards should exist, but whether people value education. Much of the purpose surrounding common core seems to be about meeting needs of others, not the students. But it's a big topic, and I could argue the opposite.
3
As numerous other readers have commented, the author is a paid shill, who works for an organization sponsored by the Gates Foundation. The vision of these "reformers" is quite simple, to enable a corporate takeover of education in the United States. School choice and the testing protocol associated with the Common Core (and it is disingenuous to pretend that the onerous amounts of testing have nothing to do with the standards) stand to directly benefit corporate interests such as Pearson, The College Board, and the charter school movement. The common core standards were not openly created in collaboration with actual classroom educators, but crafted in secret and based on no credible research. Telling the fiercest opposition to the Common Core has not come from the lunatic fringe on the right, but rather from the classroom teachers who see how these standards are affecting the education of students on a daily basis. It is easy to dismiss the claims of a demagogue like Trump, or even the ranting of Ted Cruz, but much more difficult to ignore the voices of hundreds of thousands of teachers and students.
6
Unless you are a classroom teacher please don't expect to speak for them.
We need a national curriculum. Period. End. Of. Story. EVERY nation outperforming the U.S. in educational outcomes has one. They also don't have droves of people denigrating teachers and blaming their bargaining units for every problem facing the nation.
One of the biggest problems with public education in the U.S. that no one ever addresses is the intellect of the average teacher. Our best and brightest don't go into the profession. Most studies indicate teacher candidates in college are in the lower third of their entering class. In places where public education outcomes are significantly better, like Finland, they've fixed this though market incentives. That means they take seriously the education of their children and they offer salaries that attract top-tier talent. When you consider a nurse in the U.S. has a starting pay twice that of a teacher, with very similar educational and licensing requirements, it's no wonder our best and brightest don't consider education as a profession.
We need a national curriculum. Period. End. Of. Story. EVERY nation outperforming the U.S. in educational outcomes has one. They also don't have droves of people denigrating teachers and blaming their bargaining units for every problem facing the nation.
One of the biggest problems with public education in the U.S. that no one ever addresses is the intellect of the average teacher. Our best and brightest don't go into the profession. Most studies indicate teacher candidates in college are in the lower third of their entering class. In places where public education outcomes are significantly better, like Finland, they've fixed this though market incentives. That means they take seriously the education of their children and they offer salaries that attract top-tier talent. When you consider a nurse in the U.S. has a starting pay twice that of a teacher, with very similar educational and licensing requirements, it's no wonder our best and brightest don't consider education as a profession.
7
Um... I am a classroom teacher, and I speak for myself and many colleagues. I also highly discount any theory about why the US struggles on international assessments that does not acknowledge the singularly high poverty rate of children in the US. Finland and other such countries simply do not have to deal with the effects of poverty like schools in the US do. I, like all teachers I know, would never argue against trying to attract better teachers through increased salaries and benefits. However, when you tie statistically spurious value-added numbers to raises and bonus pay, that is where you lose the majority of teachers.
13
I sort of suspect it's the other way around. A big part of the reason Finland has less poverty is because it has it such good schools and good teachers.
Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton understands Common Core and all the rest of it. She has been working for a civil, equitable, just society in America her entire life. Now for the first time in the 240 year HIStory of America we have a WOMAN who is the MOST QUALIFIED CANDIDATE WITH THE MOST INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL POLITICAL CAPITAL TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - MS. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON.
Today in International Women's Day and it is time for women of America - and the men who love them - to throw off the religious shackles that have held women back, vote for Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton and step up to claim at least one-half the power positions in America. We owe it to ourselves and to a more civil, peaceful, just world.
Today in International Women's Day and it is time for women of America - and the men who love them - to throw off the religious shackles that have held women back, vote for Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton and step up to claim at least one-half the power positions in America. We owe it to ourselves and to a more civil, peaceful, just world.
11
There is also a federal investigation into her that is ongoing. She is not an angel. Not that any Republican candidates are better (except possibly Kasich), however. Feel the Bern.
2
Investigation bought and paid for by your Republican friends. She was smart enough to have a private email server, just like every prior sec of state. In the wake of Snowden, so do I.
Its not enough to just go arrest a Democrat Gov. in Alabama.
Its not enough to just go arrest a Democrat Gov. in Alabama.
The 'success' of these education initiatives is purely measured terms of standardized testing that has no reasonable connection to the real objectives of education. The focus on these tests, while it has improved the standard indicators, has impoverished education in everything that really matters, including a love of learning, curiosity, diversity, and human values.
In fact, this 'success' has been a disaster.
In fact, this 'success' has been a disaster.
7
Sure, CC was not Federally created, but the author glosses over the important point that: "President Obama supported the Common Core by using money from the 2009 economic stimulus package to finance better standardized tests and reward states that adopted challenging standards."
What this gross understatement means: the Federal Government offered billions of dollars to states that implemented certain CC criteria, leaving these cash-strapped states with an "offer they couldn't refuse." But hey, the Ed secretary is technically prohibited from endorsing it, so it's all good, right?
What this gross understatement means: the Federal Government offered billions of dollars to states that implemented certain CC criteria, leaving these cash-strapped states with an "offer they couldn't refuse." But hey, the Ed secretary is technically prohibited from endorsing it, so it's all good, right?
2
Did you even read the article? The law mandating that "the Ed secretary is technically prohibited from endorsing it [common core]" was passed last year. The stimulus was in 2009.
2
Common Core sounds a bit fascist to me. If we are worried about excelling in schools, why have a common core. Let some of the smarter students be exceptional, not common, and let teachers design curriculum's that challenge them.
Common Core is a fancy new term, not new philosophy, that a bunch of people with no educational experience decided was the magic pill for all societal ills. The educational basis is to link subjects to each other and more practical applications. The reality is, educationally, good teachers have always made the subjects purposeful. It's really nothing new!
What is new about it? Lots of $ was tied to accepting the testing. Lots of $ is being made by Pearson and other test and text writing companies. So the author is incorrect in stating it was voluntarily adopted. States were held hostage by Obama administration to accept or not receive funding and in turn states held local districts accountable for renegotiating contracts to accept common core.
I am a big Obama supporter on almost all issues, but his education policies are a disaster. (Not that the Donald has any clue on how to fix)
Common Core is a fancy new term, not new philosophy, that a bunch of people with no educational experience decided was the magic pill for all societal ills. The educational basis is to link subjects to each other and more practical applications. The reality is, educationally, good teachers have always made the subjects purposeful. It's really nothing new!
What is new about it? Lots of $ was tied to accepting the testing. Lots of $ is being made by Pearson and other test and text writing companies. So the author is incorrect in stating it was voluntarily adopted. States were held hostage by Obama administration to accept or not receive funding and in turn states held local districts accountable for renegotiating contracts to accept common core.
I am a big Obama supporter on almost all issues, but his education policies are a disaster. (Not that the Donald has any clue on how to fix)
7
Frankly, I think your position is a bit ridiculous. Common Core means nothing more than establishing a basic set of knowledge that everyone should know. We've always had a de-facto common core, it just wasn't called that. It doesn't mean that teachers and students can't go beyond Common Core. It's not like most local school districts throughout the country had great success before Common Core.
There are problems with Common Core. Many of the materials developed to teach it are quite poor. It dictates methodology and it punishes students who solve problems correctly by other means. It relies too heavily on non-fiction references and places literature on a lower priority.
But it asks students to apply real thinking skills and to figure out how to solve a problem - what the relevant information is and how to apply it. That's exactly the skill needed in a modern, technological society where most of the well-paying jobs are in STEM areas.
You know the main reason why parents hate Common Core? It's because it's harder and it results in lower student grades. But that's the price of raising standards. However, in our "everyone must feel good all the time culture", we'll abandon Common Core and accept lower standards, just so our kids can work less hard, have more fun and achieve higher, but meaningless, grades.
There are problems with Common Core. Many of the materials developed to teach it are quite poor. It dictates methodology and it punishes students who solve problems correctly by other means. It relies too heavily on non-fiction references and places literature on a lower priority.
But it asks students to apply real thinking skills and to figure out how to solve a problem - what the relevant information is and how to apply it. That's exactly the skill needed in a modern, technological society where most of the well-paying jobs are in STEM areas.
You know the main reason why parents hate Common Core? It's because it's harder and it results in lower student grades. But that's the price of raising standards. However, in our "everyone must feel good all the time culture", we'll abandon Common Core and accept lower standards, just so our kids can work less hard, have more fun and achieve higher, but meaningless, grades.
16
While you are partly correct about Common Core and the need for national standards, this boondoggle resulted in monies given to companies that only botched the rolling out of this program. I am pointing my finger (guess which one) at Pearson, which published inferior materials, made us teachers sign pledges not to discuss test material and made a mockery of state tests by splashing their name all over test booklets.
There is a lot of money in public education and the wealthy want to get their hands on it. Common Core and the ridiculous standards set by Pearson and others was the beginning of the cash grab.
There is a lot of money in public education and the wealthy want to get their hands on it. Common Core and the ridiculous standards set by Pearson and others was the beginning of the cash grab.
4
I don't think you understand what Common Core really is. It's a set of conceptual standards. For instance, by X point in grade two, a student should be able to write an original sentence displaying Y level of complexity. It doesn't dumb things down. "Common" means "shared" in this sense. Everyone held to the same minimum standards and shooting for the same goals.
2
I read several paragraphs of Mr. Carey touting the enormous gains achieved by the standards and accountability movement and wondered and the incongruity of this position with lamenting Donald Trump as a potential candidate. In a word, if the "standards and accountability" movement has lifted the educational level to such surpassing levels, why is the populace so obtuse as to embrace Trump, Cruz, Rubio and other clown car candidates as a potential president? That Mr. Carey fails to see the contradiction here suggests he has some education lacunae of his own, as if he'd himself been educated through this exam-rather-than-learning mania.
Not that embracing intellectually more substantive education is a bad idea: quite the contrary. But the human capital-standards/accountability paradigm's technology of exams and economic carrots and sticks has fostered a populace of money-obsessed economic cogs with often high scores but deficient judgment and intellectual depth.
For all his faults, I credit Trump with a kind of Woody Allenesque wisdom: rejecting any education paradigm that could result in a populace prepared to embrace him as a candidate. Trump is, after all the type of candidate our educational system supports.
This is clearly over Mr. Carey's head, perhaps because it's not on the test.
Not that embracing intellectually more substantive education is a bad idea: quite the contrary. But the human capital-standards/accountability paradigm's technology of exams and economic carrots and sticks has fostered a populace of money-obsessed economic cogs with often high scores but deficient judgment and intellectual depth.
For all his faults, I credit Trump with a kind of Woody Allenesque wisdom: rejecting any education paradigm that could result in a populace prepared to embrace him as a candidate. Trump is, after all the type of candidate our educational system supports.
This is clearly over Mr. Carey's head, perhaps because it's not on the test.
4
"if the "standards and accountability" movement has lifted the educational level to such surpassing levels, why is the populace so obtuse as to embrace Trump, Cruz, Rubio and other clown car candidates as a potential president?"
Easy answer: The PARENTS who are not in school--and haven't been for a couple of decades at least--support the political party that at every turn pushes them further down the ladder of importance, while their children and grandchildren see Trump, Cruz, et al, on the TV and are appalled and amazed that any of these cretins could be elected President.
Easy answer: The PARENTS who are not in school--and haven't been for a couple of decades at least--support the political party that at every turn pushes them further down the ladder of importance, while their children and grandchildren see Trump, Cruz, et al, on the TV and are appalled and amazed that any of these cretins could be elected President.
It seems that nobody, even my teacher colleagues, understands the Common Core. It has become a political catch phrase that means different things to different people, none of which is accurate. To beleaguered teachers and parents, Common Core means an overemphasis on test prep in the classrooms. To conservative politicians wary of 'tyranny' it means liberal government overreach and mind control. The reality is that the standards themselves when read are pedagogically sound, though perhaps somewhat ambitious. The state-level implementation has been the source of the debacle as well as the political cow-towing to those in the teacher accountability movement, led by anti-union crusaders and those who back the dissolution of public schools through voucher programs They want evidence to prove that the educational system in our country is crumbling. It's not.
9
One common highly rigorous and challenging curriculum for all school in all states is an absolute necessity for America to compete globally but that will probably never happen because of Federalism run amok and the junk science, among many other anti-intellectual biases conservatives embrace.
6
As Mr. Carey rightly points out, this issue is perhaps the most emblematic of the political problems this country faces.
First, I would challenge those critical of common core to first read them. Why? Because the initial attacks against it were inspired by right wing talk radio crackpots like Glenn Beck who warned that the standards were a conspiracy led by liberals to reprogram the minds of American children. So read the standards and see if you find anything in there.
Second, we are told by Republicans that this was some scheme cooked up by Obama, again to corrupt the minds of American youth to turn them in Koran toting Islamic extremists. Obama had nothing to do with it. He simply recognized that such a set of standards would be helpful to states in setting education priorities. As such, he endorsed it.
So here is the issue. Thousands of education experts, techers, researchers etc gathered to create a set of standards to imporve education in America in the hopes of creating a populis ready to compete in the global economy. It is not as if the current approach was yielding fantastic results.
Republican respones? Launch baselss conspiracy theories to stir up the base and derail any reform while offering nothing substantial to replace it with, all the while calling for defunding the department of education.
It is remarkable this country has gotten as far as it has with one of the major parties engaging such irresponsible, cynical and damaging political tactics.
First, I would challenge those critical of common core to first read them. Why? Because the initial attacks against it were inspired by right wing talk radio crackpots like Glenn Beck who warned that the standards were a conspiracy led by liberals to reprogram the minds of American children. So read the standards and see if you find anything in there.
Second, we are told by Republicans that this was some scheme cooked up by Obama, again to corrupt the minds of American youth to turn them in Koran toting Islamic extremists. Obama had nothing to do with it. He simply recognized that such a set of standards would be helpful to states in setting education priorities. As such, he endorsed it.
So here is the issue. Thousands of education experts, techers, researchers etc gathered to create a set of standards to imporve education in America in the hopes of creating a populis ready to compete in the global economy. It is not as if the current approach was yielding fantastic results.
Republican respones? Launch baselss conspiracy theories to stir up the base and derail any reform while offering nothing substantial to replace it with, all the while calling for defunding the department of education.
It is remarkable this country has gotten as far as it has with one of the major parties engaging such irresponsible, cynical and damaging political tactics.
16
The idea of uniform standards for all public school instruction is fine. Using that as an excuse to force school districts to give millions to corporations and waste valuable instruction time taking computerized multiple choice tests is the product of Republican gamesmanship.
The idea of providing a single-payer medical care system is fine, too. Using that as an excuse to require the working people to give millions to corporations and waste valuable time trying to compare fine print is also the product of Republican gamesmanship.
The idea of providing a single-payer medical care system is fine, too. Using that as an excuse to require the working people to give millions to corporations and waste valuable time trying to compare fine print is also the product of Republican gamesmanship.
17
Common Core is not nearly enough. We need educated teachers we need teachers who are the best of the best. In the Trump universe where teachers are for want of a better word losers we will continue the downward spiral. Americans don't know math and science which is sad but repairable. The fact that Americans don't know their history or literature risks democracy and well being.
9
You might have to pay them, offer them respect, and give them some actual power So your idea is pretty much an idle dream.
why aren't teachers given the power------there must be a number of forces working against that
The real mis-understanding surrounds the Common Core and standardized testing. You can adopt the Common Core standards and do no standardized testing at all. You might not know if your students were learning better, but when has that really been the concern of school boards or the majority of parents. Both groups just want to be assured that their students are better than the next guy's, and evidence be damned. You could ignore standardized testing and rely on performance at the next stage of education, but then you would have to give teachers licence to say when students failed to master what was expected in earlier stages, and to expect them not to shelter colleagues who are socially promoting children. In short, you need standards that are actually realistic and adhered to.
3
My understanding is nobody who knows what it is dislikes the common core, they just dislike the standardized tests associated with it that test vendors insist can be used to evaluate teachers' job performance.
2
The problem is that parents and politicians don't understand what most testing is for. It's not for the student. It's for the teacher so they know what to review or teach next and for the school administration to assess the teacher.
Ask the average American parent which they would choose:
a) their kids would automatically receive an extra 10 points on every exam but that wouldn't be accompanied by an increase in skills or knowledge
-or
b) their kids would have to work much harder, but in the end they'd learn more, but their grades would probably be somewhat lower.
Most American parents would choose "a". And then in ten years, they'll blame Conservatives if they're Liberals and Liberals if they're Conservative as to why their kids can't find decent paying jobs.
Ask the average American parent which they would choose:
a) their kids would automatically receive an extra 10 points on every exam but that wouldn't be accompanied by an increase in skills or knowledge
-or
b) their kids would have to work much harder, but in the end they'd learn more, but their grades would probably be somewhat lower.
Most American parents would choose "a". And then in ten years, they'll blame Conservatives if they're Liberals and Liberals if they're Conservative as to why their kids can't find decent paying jobs.
2
"Ask the average American parent which they would choose:"
I don't believe average American parent is that stupid. For a Scandinavian person the discussion around American education system seems absurd.. But it's a big and diverse country so I guess everything is a bit more difficult..
I don't believe average American parent is that stupid. For a Scandinavian person the discussion around American education system seems absurd.. But it's a big and diverse country so I guess everything is a bit more difficult..
Mr. Trump's views on education, like his views on so many national, foreign and global issues are devoid of facts or reason as he uses valueless terms like "total disaster" to describe them. Trump devotees don't care much about his thoughts on anything and why should they? It is his perceived ability to blow up establishment politics in this country that attracts support. Blow up government and then re-build it to look like...what?
7
The article is a little misleading. Common Core was a carrot and stick approach. Although it's correct to say the federal government "didn’t create the Common Core" and that states "voluntarily adopted the standards in reading, language and math" (para. 3), the federal government did financially incentivize states (to the tune of $4.35 billion) to adopt the Common Core through Race to the Top Funding (RTT). Moreover, the federal government supported the initial development of the Common Core by providing $360 million in federal funding. Money makes the "marry go round"!
5
Hey, if Donald Trump says he'll get rid of Common Core, then he'll get rid of Common Core! He says, "You've got to get rid of the lines!"
Thank goodness local control of education (as it was then known) ended when President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce Brown vs. the Board of Education. Local control = discrimination.
14
Why do we even listen to this moron anymore? Everything he says is a moronic fallacy. Stop reporting or covering him and you will deny his power to work the media. None of these articles are 'new' stories. We've accepted that he's a bullying, racist hypocrite. Just stop.
6
There's a lot of sense to common standards, and there's a legitimate purpose for the federal DoE in ensuring that local governments aren't intentionally shortchanging certain students or doing crazy, unconstitutional things like teaching creationism in the classroom in the guise of "Intelligent Design." That said, the Common Core was designed to sell more tests, and more technology to take the newly-computerized tests, as well as more test prep, all of which will be used to hold teachers and schools responsible for test scores that correlate mostly with parental factors. That's a bad idea, and the last few decades of bipartisan school policy, especially the last fifteen years of it, have all been leading in that unfortunate direction.
Trump, and a lot of ignorant people like him, oppose the CCSS for ignorant reasons. That doesn't make the standards good. Other, more knowledgeable people oppose them for much better reasons.
Trump, and a lot of ignorant people like him, oppose the CCSS for ignorant reasons. That doesn't make the standards good. Other, more knowledgeable people oppose them for much better reasons.
7
Your argument makes no sense. The problem would seem to lie not with the Common Core but with the testing industry and narrow focus on test scores as a metric for school performance.
2
Some people, including a lot of those on the right, may be well educated, but they remain unbelievably ignorant. This attitude ensures that racial, ethnic, and poor students become much more ill-prepared adults.
Without a strong educational program, we become a third world nation, and the haves and have-nots will be forever separated.
Without a strong educational program, we become a third world nation, and the haves and have-nots will be forever separated.
5
1. It is ridiculous to claim that there aren't reasonable standards for what kids in this country should learn in schools.
2. That's all Common Core is: reasonable standards.
3. The inspiration for Common Core--which by the way was carried out without squawks back in the glorious days we hear so much about--is in people like E.D. Hirsch's "cultural literacy."
4. Beyond the fact that it's just bizarre to see claims that there aren't general standards for math and science, the point of Common Core in the humanities--as Hirsch pointed out--is to help build a shared basis on which we can talk one to another.
5. Most of the problem is right-wing nutbar politics, voters who're too cheap and too bigoted to fund schools, and wacko religious fanatics who don't want things like evolution taught.
2. That's all Common Core is: reasonable standards.
3. The inspiration for Common Core--which by the way was carried out without squawks back in the glorious days we hear so much about--is in people like E.D. Hirsch's "cultural literacy."
4. Beyond the fact that it's just bizarre to see claims that there aren't general standards for math and science, the point of Common Core in the humanities--as Hirsch pointed out--is to help build a shared basis on which we can talk one to another.
5. Most of the problem is right-wing nutbar politics, voters who're too cheap and too bigoted to fund schools, and wacko religious fanatics who don't want things like evolution taught.
52
My classmates and I were actually set behind a year in math by the implementation of CCSS. We were two years ahead of the regular math classes, but then we were forced to take a "Bridge to Algebra 2" course to "catch us up" to CC Algebra 2. (It turned out that the "bridge" was basically a repeat of Algebra 1, which we had already taken a year before.)
The main issue is that many states were rushed in adopting CC standards, and therefore didn't implement it well. I like the idea of having common standards, but there's no point in setting standards if they can't be met by harried teachers who are forced to suddenly revise their entire curriculum. Since CCSS needs to be put in place, the Department of Education should provide clearer guidelines so that students like my classmates and me aren't disadvantaged by being in one of the "transition" years.
The main issue is that many states were rushed in adopting CC standards, and therefore didn't implement it well. I like the idea of having common standards, but there's no point in setting standards if they can't be met by harried teachers who are forced to suddenly revise their entire curriculum. Since CCSS needs to be put in place, the Department of Education should provide clearer guidelines so that students like my classmates and me aren't disadvantaged by being in one of the "transition" years.
The demonization of Common Core by both the right wing and left wing is disheartening. We decry the state of education in this country and then when reasonable base skill objectives for students in various grades are developed they are distorted, demonized and disgarded all to the detriment of our children.
17
One can only understand 'Common Core' if they've common sense.
But it seems like the Republican Presidential candidates starting with Trump,Rubio and Cruz, lack one.
I really find it terrifyingly humorous that a simple standard education that can guide all the students through their qualifying attempts to climb towards a higher education ,can be mocked, ridiculed and threatened to be abolished by these Republican Presidential Candidates .
And the irony of it all is that there is really no federal mandate imposed on the states to set up a standard test for all the students of this country.
It was formulated and collaborated between Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush.
So it was not until 1994 when President Bill Clinton championed a new education law that 'required states to develop common standards for all schools within the state' and hold schools accountable for helping students measure up and thanks to President Obama's support of the 'common core' and the use of money from the 2009 stimulus package for better standardized tests and awarding states that adopted challenging standards that we saw a remarkable improvement in the students' reading,writing and Mathematics score.
We now have more students graduating from the high schools than ever before.
And thanks to Obama our nations' elementary school students also improved their skills.
So why so much anger against 'Common Core'?
Only because the nation's first Black President proposed it.
But it seems like the Republican Presidential candidates starting with Trump,Rubio and Cruz, lack one.
I really find it terrifyingly humorous that a simple standard education that can guide all the students through their qualifying attempts to climb towards a higher education ,can be mocked, ridiculed and threatened to be abolished by these Republican Presidential Candidates .
And the irony of it all is that there is really no federal mandate imposed on the states to set up a standard test for all the students of this country.
It was formulated and collaborated between Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush.
So it was not until 1994 when President Bill Clinton championed a new education law that 'required states to develop common standards for all schools within the state' and hold schools accountable for helping students measure up and thanks to President Obama's support of the 'common core' and the use of money from the 2009 stimulus package for better standardized tests and awarding states that adopted challenging standards that we saw a remarkable improvement in the students' reading,writing and Mathematics score.
We now have more students graduating from the high schools than ever before.
And thanks to Obama our nations' elementary school students also improved their skills.
So why so much anger against 'Common Core'?
Only because the nation's first Black President proposed it.
30
Being deliberately anti-science and ignorant may well be a constitutionally protected personal choice, but when imposed on students in public or private schools. I am quite comfortable in calling it "child abuse".
Apart from common core standards for content literacy, what do the candidates think about school districts that try to teach creationism alongside evolution in science curriculums?
How is it fair to students anywhere in the country to subject them to this type of religious proselytization under the guise of "state based standards in education"?
The idea that the GOP needs to "debate" these issues, shows little progress intellectually from the spanish inquisition.
Apart from common core standards for content literacy, what do the candidates think about school districts that try to teach creationism alongside evolution in science curriculums?
How is it fair to students anywhere in the country to subject them to this type of religious proselytization under the guise of "state based standards in education"?
The idea that the GOP needs to "debate" these issues, shows little progress intellectually from the spanish inquisition.
42
When Mr. Carey conflates Ted Cruz's denunciation of Common Core standards with the "flow of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars into government schools and their unionized work force," he reveals himself as a spokesperson for the billionaire entrepreneurs are scrambling to divert those taxpayer dollars from public schools and universities into their own pockets through the use of vouchers, charter schools, and online ventures.
23
I do wish people would read the actual Common Core document. It does not purport to be rigorous enough for the academically skilled students any more than it purports to provide for the struggling students. It does outline a baseline of skills all students should work toward mastering. It also means the skills and concepts in basic math and ELA classes look the same regardless of the child's zipcode. How those skills are taught should be a local decision,but again the document itself states it is not curriculum.
15
opposition to the common core is easy to understand, and Texas provides great examples. Right-wing advocates realized that on a local level they can seize control since the voting is thin for local school boards and a determined minority can drum up enough votes to put their slate in office and stop "the liberal agenda". Once there they can forbid teaching evolution, discussion of global warming, etc.
18
Few people understand that Common Core (which is basically just a syllabus for every grade and subject) and standardized testing are not the same thing. We need the former and not so much of the latter. Simple.
30
Common Core isn't a syllabus, it's a general road map for syllabi. And I don't for the life of me see what's wrong with intelligent standardized testing.
2
Nor do I. When I was a child we had a battery of tests once a year. They were sort of fun--all that bubbling in circles. They were used to benchmark schools and highlight schools and students that were having problems--a temperature check and no more.
Now, kids go through three or more major test sets per school year, and a lot of class time is devoted to practice tests and drills. Not "how to do the math," but "how to answer the question right." And school risk funding cuts if they don't show increases in these score. The tests themselves are not well validated, and the consequences of poor performance are out of proportion to their predictive value. They are a menace to our education system--and they predate Common Core.
Now, kids go through three or more major test sets per school year, and a lot of class time is devoted to practice tests and drills. Not "how to do the math," but "how to answer the question right." And school risk funding cuts if they don't show increases in these score. The tests themselves are not well validated, and the consequences of poor performance are out of proportion to their predictive value. They are a menace to our education system--and they predate Common Core.
2
The U.S. attempts to give every citizen a education while many countries in the world do not educate all citizens. When comparing our system to other countries, we need to take a closer look at who actually is educated in other countries. In the U.S., anyone can receive the education they need to attend college, but this is not the case in many other countries. It's more often the case that young people have no opportunity to go to college. Before you compare the U.S. to another country, take a look at the system in the other country.
Local control has failed in many areas of our country. I'm not a fan of common core - there are better standards we could have adopted. If we really want to improve our schools, we need to invest in our teachers and instead basic standards, we need to adopt higher standards. Our students need to learn more than one language, need higher level math, and a real science education. We waste the best years to learn multiple languages, higher math and science with very low expectations in our elementary schools.
Local control has failed in many areas of our country. I'm not a fan of common core - there are better standards we could have adopted. If we really want to improve our schools, we need to invest in our teachers and instead basic standards, we need to adopt higher standards. Our students need to learn more than one language, need higher level math, and a real science education. We waste the best years to learn multiple languages, higher math and science with very low expectations in our elementary schools.
8
Schooling was never a priority until the last century, and to think the entire population can shift from a non-schooling culture to one where everyone gets schooled is wrong. It is not possible to make the shift, even over several generations, because that shift is a work of engineering that tries to make people learned against the pressures of Nature. Frankly, way too many people working in the local school districts as administrators and teachers are incompetent: they are poorly educated and make petty decisions based on their needs and not the children's needs. The salaries these workers get are uncompetitive, so we are left with too many low-quality workers. We need to raise the salaries through the roof to attract the best and brightest to teach and manage our schools, and until we do that, we'll be left with incompetent and petty dictators in way too many classes across America.
3
The average salary of a K-12 public-school teacher in the US is $57K, compared to the overall average salary of $37K. Adjusted for number of days worked, teachers make twice as much as the average worker.
Of course, the salaries of administrators and school district officials are much higher than this.
Of course, the salaries of administrators and school district officials are much higher than this.
5
Teachers are college-educated, and are paid about 60% (on average) of what other college-educated workers are paid without working significantly fewer hours (though teachers do tend to work longer hours when school is in session and shorter ones when it isn't). Yes, Jonathan, teachers are paid a bit more than McJobs. They're paid much less than any comparable worker, though.
As for quality, when you control for student poverty levels, our schools do a better job than most or all other countries. There just aren't many developed countries with our high levels of child poverty. We're getting far more than we pay for from our educators (possibly because the sort of people who are good at that job aren't necessarily the ones primarily motivated by salaries).
As for quality, when you control for student poverty levels, our schools do a better job than most or all other countries. There just aren't many developed countries with our high levels of child poverty. We're getting far more than we pay for from our educators (possibly because the sort of people who are good at that job aren't necessarily the ones primarily motivated by salaries).
4
More education should equal more pay.
Of course Donald Trump doesn't understand Common Core Standards, because he is playing to his undereducated base. Even if Trump privately felt that Common Core is a good program he would be against it, because that's what his followers want. Trump's followers don't want government involvement in anything. To them the government is bad and inefficient and is trying to take something away from them. Actually, we need higher standards so that we have a higher educated populace that would never support the likes of Donald J. Trump.
49
thank you for distinguishing standards (Common Core is a set of standards, across subjects, for elementary/secondary level students) and curricula (which are related but not the same thing) from functional structures (teachers, funding).
As a parent of school aged children (and, I appreciate your vision - any good society and school system should look to the changes happening societally and technologically for curricular aims and content), I want standards and I want them to be rigorous (meaning promoting critical thinking, reasoning, appreciation for the advances made by research scientists in everything from human biology to cosmology). I have no problem with the particular set of standards comprising Common Core; so, I do not want them eliminated, either because they are "too hard," "too oriented toward test-taking," or "too national" (as Trump might put it).
As a parent of school aged children (and, I appreciate your vision - any good society and school system should look to the changes happening societally and technologically for curricular aims and content), I want standards and I want them to be rigorous (meaning promoting critical thinking, reasoning, appreciation for the advances made by research scientists in everything from human biology to cosmology). I have no problem with the particular set of standards comprising Common Core; so, I do not want them eliminated, either because they are "too hard," "too oriented toward test-taking," or "too national" (as Trump might put it).
15
Thank you Mr. Carey for stepping up. The politics aside, Common Core, for example, seem to offer one step closer to remediating the remedial education problem that threatens priorities in higher education even at America's best colleges.
Unfortunately the folks who follows Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and now Donald Trump for wisdom are likely the same who are dumping down on Common Core as it takes a little more than bird brain to comprehend.
Many of the republican Governor's (Wisconsin and New Jersey for example) who are swept in by the follies of the evil Koch bothers or or their devious plots, can care less about students or those who work with them; they go where ever the wind takes them.
Unfortunately the folks who follows Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and now Donald Trump for wisdom are likely the same who are dumping down on Common Core as it takes a little more than bird brain to comprehend.
Many of the republican Governor's (Wisconsin and New Jersey for example) who are swept in by the follies of the evil Koch bothers or or their devious plots, can care less about students or those who work with them; they go where ever the wind takes them.
12
Proof once again that we live in a time of faith-based decisions. Don't let facts confuse the issue.
11
"He is promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by using power the president doesn’t have."
Right. And all of his rabid supporters declare they should not be dismissed as "know-nothings."
Right. And all of his rabid supporters declare they should not be dismissed as "know-nothings."
11
The son of friends of mine attended a college in Georgia. In Canada he was a diligent student but averaged a middling C Plus. On one of his visits back home he related to me his astonishment that he was getting high A"s and that a majority of his classmates were struggling to get passing grades. As stated in the article the US spends more on education per capita for mediocre results. This is an issue your country has to address if you want the term "American Exceptionalism" to mean something.
13
Ah yes, anecdotes. We love them even though we have no idea if they are truly representative of the typical case.
1
Did I hit a nerve?
The Common Core standards are very good. The associated testing may be way too burdensome and a big problem. It may be helpful to think about these two aspects separately. The testing advocates argue we need a method to measure the standards, which is true, but the current testing regime has much room for improvement and/or a better method to measure achievement can be developed.
12
Every culture educates its children with the information they need to grow, survive, and thrive. In the African bush or the Aleutian Arctic that information will differ from that needed in modern California or Maine. A modern, industrialized nation requires its youth to learn to communicate -- English, "language arts," whatever it might be called -- and to have mathematics and some level of scientific understanding.
For a republic like ours, Common Core should also include history and civics, since the country's democracy depends on our maintaining it through understanding of how it works as well as what has threatened it in the past. Clearly there are many, many voters out there -- and commenting on this article -- who have little or no knowledge of those crucial subjects, just as Donald Trump is bizarrely ignorant about the structure of the American political system he wants to lead.
Common Core is simply an agreement on what the fundamentals are that our children need to learn to survive and thrive in the modern world. There is wide flexibility about how each school or district imparts that knowledge to its students; the great weakness is that measuring the knowledge achieved relies too much on standardized testing. But the ignorance shown by Mr. Trump (and his GOP rivals) is echoed only by their supporters, not just about Common Core but about the American democratic system itself.
For a republic like ours, Common Core should also include history and civics, since the country's democracy depends on our maintaining it through understanding of how it works as well as what has threatened it in the past. Clearly there are many, many voters out there -- and commenting on this article -- who have little or no knowledge of those crucial subjects, just as Donald Trump is bizarrely ignorant about the structure of the American political system he wants to lead.
Common Core is simply an agreement on what the fundamentals are that our children need to learn to survive and thrive in the modern world. There is wide flexibility about how each school or district imparts that knowledge to its students; the great weakness is that measuring the knowledge achieved relies too much on standardized testing. But the ignorance shown by Mr. Trump (and his GOP rivals) is echoed only by their supporters, not just about Common Core but about the American democratic system itself.
16
The Common Core State Standards are almost certainly the last best chance to drag US K-12 education up to the level of the better performing countries in the world. It's unfortunate that disinformation from the right on the federal role in CCSS and a revulsion towards testing on the left have muddied the waters but the fact is the standards are solid and a giant step in the right direction. States and school districts alone decide on the curriculum to be taught to meet the standards so it is not a one-size fits all situation.
We need to face a harsh fact. When we have left the education of our children to individual states, the latter have failed dismally and our children have suffered the consequences. The Common Core is a collective effort by the states to raise our educational standards. We would be fools to turn our backs on it.
We need to face a harsh fact. When we have left the education of our children to individual states, the latter have failed dismally and our children have suffered the consequences. The Common Core is a collective effort by the states to raise our educational standards. We would be fools to turn our backs on it.
15
I have been an English teacher (middle and high school, public and private education) for fourteen years and I find the common core standards to be a work of art. Taken at face value, they are beautiful ideals and inform my teaching quite a bit. They keep me from leaving important things out just because those things may not be my strengths.
However, I teach at a private school now, and am free to implement the common core standards exactly as I wish. I also am free from any kind of standardized test (except the AP Literature exam every May) to prove that I'm using them effectively.
When I taught in a public school, I still loved the Common Core, but the testing was awful.
However, I teach at a private school now, and am free to implement the common core standards exactly as I wish. I also am free from any kind of standardized test (except the AP Literature exam every May) to prove that I'm using them effectively.
When I taught in a public school, I still loved the Common Core, but the testing was awful.
65
Regardless of the absolute necessity for its implementation, one which has been admittedly botched and botched badly, Common Core is fighting a significant headwind. It strikes at the very core of the American ideal of individualism, a trait which is being played out in the political arena. In terms of national education nothing could be worse. We need national standards. We need objective methods of comparison for both learning progress and those who teach. We need new approaches to instructional methods, ones which also serve to combat the overreach of technology. And far worse it the thought that local districts can, and should control what is taught in science, social studies, history, etc. Speaking of truly frightening scenarios ...
So far as the political candidates are concerned,they are demagogues of the first order, all of them, and Common Core is a wonderful target. It is one of the national issues that has the "locals" against the "government" banner raised high. Forbid intrusion into this realm.
So please, let us put aside the posturing and rally behind the one thing that makes any sense at all if we are to really be a country. Simple, straightforward educational criteria for all. And yes, in English, for language too is a national identity.
So far as the political candidates are concerned,they are demagogues of the first order, all of them, and Common Core is a wonderful target. It is one of the national issues that has the "locals" against the "government" banner raised high. Forbid intrusion into this realm.
So please, let us put aside the posturing and rally behind the one thing that makes any sense at all if we are to really be a country. Simple, straightforward educational criteria for all. And yes, in English, for language too is a national identity.
7
The Common Core fiasco is just that. The original idea of having basic academic standards which each state could agree to at first sounded reasonable and necessary to begin leveling the playing field. But, the Governor's Council, et. al could not stop there. They had to get involved with pedagogy. Borrowing from the disgruntled father and mathematician an idea that his daughter was not being taught "properly," the powers that be decided to require schools that adopted the Core to use his foreign methodology in math called "mental math." Then, the DOE comes in with their Race to the Top monetary incentive of over four billion in the form of grant money and a tie-in agreement with the Core.The disgraceful part is how states didn't evaluate the content or the intent of the CCSS.
Educators are discussing mostly the math part, but the approach to teaching reading is equally abominable. For those readers who are over 35 years of age, surely you remember all the mis-fired educational paradigms of the 60's, 70's and 80's. That "New Math" that chugged down the pipeline in the 60's brought us two generations of students who could not do math. This Common Core is worse than that. And, to all the "do-gooders" who want to revolutionize the education system, how about jumping on the bandwagon to get some vocational schools established for our working class. Not every student needs to attend college, and we should stop comparing our system to Singapore.
Educators are discussing mostly the math part, but the approach to teaching reading is equally abominable. For those readers who are over 35 years of age, surely you remember all the mis-fired educational paradigms of the 60's, 70's and 80's. That "New Math" that chugged down the pipeline in the 60's brought us two generations of students who could not do math. This Common Core is worse than that. And, to all the "do-gooders" who want to revolutionize the education system, how about jumping on the bandwagon to get some vocational schools established for our working class. Not every student needs to attend college, and we should stop comparing our system to Singapore.
6
The claim that the "new math" "brought us two generations of students who could not do math" is absurd.
Those two generations invented the personal computer and the internet, and made the US the leading scientific innovator on the planet.
Those two generations invented the personal computer and the internet, and made the US the leading scientific innovator on the planet.
59
Hello Hornko, specifics please. I'm an old guy who happens to be working with a 3rd grader whose school curriculum is CC based. From what I see, the math work is building a solid mastery of the basics of working with numbers - addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, working with fractions, along with some interesting introductions to algebra concepts.
Reading is also a solid program, building skill and mastery of reading and comprehension.
For all of the CC noise, what I am seeing is solid learning.
Reading is also a solid program, building skill and mastery of reading and comprehension.
For all of the CC noise, what I am seeing is solid learning.
51
I am a product of the new math introduced to me as a 4th grader in a large working clas and poor community back in the mid 60s. I loved it and made a career in a STEM field. Now in my sixties I try to help a 12 yo with his math, but some of the techniques the teachers are using are strange and this child struggles terribly despite great reading and writing skill. So something is amiss and I think it has more to do with over stressed teachers trying to teach much larger class sizes than in my day. 40 kids in 4th grade is too much for any one teacher to handle. More well trained teachers, smaller class sizes and fewer high paid administrators leeching money from the task at hand is needed.
15
We have as the basis for improving math and English one of the great problems in our times. We have a great number of high school graduates that go to college and take remedial classes to learn what they should have learned before. By some estimates it is close to 40-50% at community colleges and even top colleges have 8-10% taking remedial classwork before they start college work. The affect is these kids often do not graduate college or take 6+ years to graduate with excessive student loans. Which in turn leaves them in fiscal distress for years. We are leaving many high school graduates with the false hope they are ready for the world when they get their high school diploma. Studies are showing a great number of the parents opting their kids out of testing scored on the lower spectrum on previous common core testing. So the parents opt their kids out of testing because their kids are doing poorly. Not everyone gets a trophy but these parents do try. But their effort is leaving their kids without assistance to catch up. The world is changing and the employment market is getting much more difficult for the generation leaving high school. Having the proper skills will be essential for even a minimum wage position as we go forward. We should not be growing a under educated populace that is helpless in an advancing job market.
7
"The president can’t end the Common Core, because the federal government didn’t create the Common Core. Governors and state boards of education developed and voluntarily adopted the standards in reading, language and math."
This is simply not the case. Common Core and its linkage to high-stakes testing were written by a committee assembled by the US DOE and funded by Bill Gates that did not include any active teachers or experts in early childhood education and had no significant input from the states. It was then presented to the states by the Federal government as a condition for getting Federal funding and waivers from the absurd requirements of NCLB. Yes, the states "adopted" CCLS but it was not in any meaningful sense voluntary, or created by them. Trump or any president very definitely could reverse this course. It is completely ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
The only thing standing in the way of this happening today is that President Obama and a very small number of very wealthy people don't want it to. At the grass roots and professional educator level, there's wide and deep opposition to CCLS and high stakes testing. This is another one of those issues where Trump is doing a better job of reading the electorate than the "elites." Sanders, too, on this subject, by the way.
This is simply not the case. Common Core and its linkage to high-stakes testing were written by a committee assembled by the US DOE and funded by Bill Gates that did not include any active teachers or experts in early childhood education and had no significant input from the states. It was then presented to the states by the Federal government as a condition for getting Federal funding and waivers from the absurd requirements of NCLB. Yes, the states "adopted" CCLS but it was not in any meaningful sense voluntary, or created by them. Trump or any president very definitely could reverse this course. It is completely ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
The only thing standing in the way of this happening today is that President Obama and a very small number of very wealthy people don't want it to. At the grass roots and professional educator level, there's wide and deep opposition to CCLS and high stakes testing. This is another one of those issues where Trump is doing a better job of reading the electorate than the "elites." Sanders, too, on this subject, by the way.
9
Hate to rain on your parade but here is how it really started.
It all started with former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, who was the 2006-07 chair of the National Governors Association and now leads the University of California system, says Dane Linn, a vice president of the Business Roundtable who oversees its Education and Workforce Committee.
Napolitano created a task force – composed of commissioners of education, governors, corporate chief executive officers and recognized experts in higher education – which in December 2008 released a report that Linn says would eventually serve as the building blocks of what became known as the Common Core State Standards, now adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.
the idea of federal intrusion into the public education system has become a rallying cry for opponents of common standards.
Proponents of the Common Core say they had to tread lightly and ensure that the effort was an absolutely state-led initiative.
It all started with former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, who was the 2006-07 chair of the National Governors Association and now leads the University of California system, says Dane Linn, a vice president of the Business Roundtable who oversees its Education and Workforce Committee.
Napolitano created a task force – composed of commissioners of education, governors, corporate chief executive officers and recognized experts in higher education – which in December 2008 released a report that Linn says would eventually serve as the building blocks of what became known as the Common Core State Standards, now adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.
the idea of federal intrusion into the public education system has become a rallying cry for opponents of common standards.
Proponents of the Common Core say they had to tread lightly and ensure that the effort was an absolutely state-led initiative.
8
Wrong. the standards were drafted by David Coleman with Gates Money first. The Napolitano task force came after as RTTP was being implemented. The task force voted on a fait accompli in order to give the appearance of it being state led.
2
John is right and Bill is wrong about the origins of CCSS. Bill seems to have read the press release, but there's been lots of reporting about the actual facts.
Of course, John's wrong that the president can do much about it now that the Every Student Succeeds Act has been passed, limiting the federal DoE's power to mandate standards. States were coerced by Duncan to adopt the standards, but the feds couldn't coerce them to abandon them anymore.
Of course, John's wrong that the president can do much about it now that the Every Student Succeeds Act has been passed, limiting the federal DoE's power to mandate standards. States were coerced by Duncan to adopt the standards, but the feds couldn't coerce them to abandon them anymore.
1
One of the American myths of education is that "local control is better." It certainly wasn't for minorities and poor people. But let's look more broadly--at international comparisons. The same people who scream for local control look to countries in Europe and Asia with "better" academic achievement. And virtually every country they envy has a totally centralized education system. Policy, budgets, curriculum, tests, books--everything is decided by bureaucrats in their capitals.
I'm not saying that's good. I'm simply saying that most people screaming about this issue need some education.
I'm not saying that's good. I'm simply saying that most people screaming about this issue need some education.
61
And, as for examples of how local control can fail, we have the BoE in Colorado that mandated creationist stickers in all their science textbooks and got rid of AP history because they didn't like the facts of history. Or Texas. I don't know what Texas voters have against schools. But they keep electing people to their state BoE who are demonstrably insane.
5
In fairness though, a single typical US state is more comparable in population size and geographic reach to other countries.
These smaller countries tend to be able to keep a tighter rein on politicians and administrators because they are smaller and far more homogeneous than the US. Finland does great sure, but how about India? Or China?
I'm not claiming to have the answer, but federal funding in combination with local control and oversight, in conjunction with federal oversight, would be my best guess as the way to go.
Its just not fair to expect poor counties in the US to compete with wealthier counties, so educational funding has to be mostly federal I would think. But at the same time, its unconscionable to have local school boards shoving 'creationism' alongside evolution in the science curriculum.
Maybe the wall between church and state needs to be built a bit higher when it comes to education. Maybe the Donald could help build that wall.
These smaller countries tend to be able to keep a tighter rein on politicians and administrators because they are smaller and far more homogeneous than the US. Finland does great sure, but how about India? Or China?
I'm not claiming to have the answer, but federal funding in combination with local control and oversight, in conjunction with federal oversight, would be my best guess as the way to go.
Its just not fair to expect poor counties in the US to compete with wealthier counties, so educational funding has to be mostly federal I would think. But at the same time, its unconscionable to have local school boards shoving 'creationism' alongside evolution in the science curriculum.
Maybe the wall between church and state needs to be built a bit higher when it comes to education. Maybe the Donald could help build that wall.
Trump is wrong about this and everything else, but this does not make Mr. Casey right about educational policy.
Common Core is more than a set of "standards." It is part of a "test and punish" policy in education (partly rolled back by ESSA). This policy is a lazy person's idea of how to improve education: make test scores go up and punish people when they don't.
This policy has nothing to do with improving education.
Common Core is more than a set of "standards." It is part of a "test and punish" policy in education (partly rolled back by ESSA). This policy is a lazy person's idea of how to improve education: make test scores go up and punish people when they don't.
This policy has nothing to do with improving education.
7
It is more like the MBA approach to managing education. After all, G.W. Bush was an MBA.
The CEO of education looks at his computerized executive dashboard to see how education is going. Numbers based on millions of test scores come in at the bottom, and they are sliced and diced, and summarized in colorful graphs. What could go wrong?
As any bank CEO. If the numbers coming in at the bottom are totally phony, your PowerPoint presentation will be completely worthless,.
The CEO of education looks at his computerized executive dashboard to see how education is going. Numbers based on millions of test scores come in at the bottom, and they are sliced and diced, and summarized in colorful graphs. What could go wrong?
As any bank CEO. If the numbers coming in at the bottom are totally phony, your PowerPoint presentation will be completely worthless,.
3
Politicization of Common core is yet another example that has no other purpose than driving a wedge between people.
Simply think about this way: If I am a Biology teacher how do I decide what to teach and when? Well, I look for guidance written by experts. Surely, I do not want to invent a curriculum myself; right? Somehow as kids move from district to district or state, we need some level of uniformity. That is common core. It is impossible to teach without guidance and uniformity.
Of course there should be discourse about what needs to be taught; this must be an educational discourse not a political one exactly as the states intended when they decided to pool resources to create the common core.
Simply think about this way: If I am a Biology teacher how do I decide what to teach and when? Well, I look for guidance written by experts. Surely, I do not want to invent a curriculum myself; right? Somehow as kids move from district to district or state, we need some level of uniformity. That is common core. It is impossible to teach without guidance and uniformity.
Of course there should be discourse about what needs to be taught; this must be an educational discourse not a political one exactly as the states intended when they decided to pool resources to create the common core.
13
Top down, bottom up, it doesn't much matter where Common Core is "trickling" from. What is inarguable is that it is aptly named, that is, it will only result in "common" (ordinary) results.
Our federal government continues to demonstrate that everything it touches that is outside its intended Constitutional scope become massive failures (it even fails miserably at things that are within its scope, so bloated, unaccountable, ineffective and inefficient has it proven itself to be). Anything "common" that attempts to coalesce decision making, and creation of standards toward Washington, DC should be thwarted, UNLESS the desire is to create something ordinary, or "failed."
That Common Core decreases the "say" of parents, and limits their ability to make a school change for their child, a school with more palatable standards, for example is bad enough. But excellent teachers would be further discouraged from engaging in the creative, and innovative things that make them excellent, and excellent students will be discouraged from engaging in the creative, and innovative things that make them excellent.
One size fits all education approaches have been proven to fail, ALWAYS, and have also been proven to be an irresponsibly expensive albatross to taxpayers. Paying more for less, while popular in Washington where nobody is spending their own money. or accountable, is DUMB with a D minus.
Our federal government continues to demonstrate that everything it touches that is outside its intended Constitutional scope become massive failures (it even fails miserably at things that are within its scope, so bloated, unaccountable, ineffective and inefficient has it proven itself to be). Anything "common" that attempts to coalesce decision making, and creation of standards toward Washington, DC should be thwarted, UNLESS the desire is to create something ordinary, or "failed."
That Common Core decreases the "say" of parents, and limits their ability to make a school change for their child, a school with more palatable standards, for example is bad enough. But excellent teachers would be further discouraged from engaging in the creative, and innovative things that make them excellent, and excellent students will be discouraged from engaging in the creative, and innovative things that make them excellent.
One size fits all education approaches have been proven to fail, ALWAYS, and have also been proven to be an irresponsibly expensive albatross to taxpayers. Paying more for less, while popular in Washington where nobody is spending their own money. or accountable, is DUMB with a D minus.
3
It appears you didn't comprehend the article. Common Core is not connected with the federal government in any way, not does it dictate the content of the curriculum. It defines what is considered content mastery in a uniform way so that student achievement across states can be comparable. Your opinion about Common Core is remarkably fact-free, just like Donald Trump's. Reactions like yours are what this article is debunking.
11
Common Core most certainly is "connected" to federal government, even if its "dumb-down" policies have not emanated from there. There are three separate laws in place that disallow the federal government from prescribing curricula for states, but Obama's Department of Education, while restricted by those laws from messing with state curricula, has been very active promoting Common Core since 2009, thereby skirting those laws... about the only thing that Obama has shown proficiency at. Flouting law.
1
And wasting taxpayer dollars while so doing.
1
Thank you for this article. States set academic standards and local school districts set curriculum (e.g. teaching methods, books, materials, lesson plans). Most Americans don't know the difference between the two. We can all agree that American kids should be able to read and write and, therefore, we need minimum education standards. That was the intent of the Common Core State Standards. Nothing more or less.
25
Curriculum is not methods and materials. It is the course of study, the path of ideas, usually from simple to complex (math and reading skills), or in a chronological way (as in history). Curriculum is implemented in the classroom by teachers with whatever methods they are given, or create themselves. Thus, Common Core is a set of standards, indicating when, not how, they are to be taught.
Why is this piece in Upshot? It reads more like an op-Ed piece and given its author seems to be one. I'm not that familiar with CC issue and after reading this am not certain I've read an unbiased analysis. Having someone with a particular and known point of view write a news analysis piece isn't helpful when trying to understand an issue.
5
I just don't "get" the idea behind charter schools. How do they improve the educational outcomes of their students, ultimately what is their principal reason for existence? Are they a tool to further a right-wing anti-government, anti-union, anti-intellectual agenda? Are they a dodge to indoctrinate students through a Christian madrassa? Do they too have common core standards?
I assume that they receive governmental monies, probably from the same budget as the mainstream school districts. I assume also that tuition monies are tax-deductible, further enlarging taxpayer support for which those with non-attendees receive no benefit. To me, it smacks of yet another example of socializing costs and privatising profits using children as pawns for agendas far beyond the scope of "education".
In my province, and I expect in all the others as well, there are no "charter" schools. There are private schools but with this distinction a) They receive no governmental monies b) They must teach the provinces mandated curricula (What they teach beyond that is entirely up to them)c) Tuition paid is not tax deductible.
Those parents who feel that the public system is not up to snuff for them for whatever reason are free to explore other alternatives, just don't expect the general public to pick up the tab for them. BTW, since most public systems are funded through a % of municipal taxes assessments, these same parents must pay their share to fund the public system. Seems fair to me.
I assume that they receive governmental monies, probably from the same budget as the mainstream school districts. I assume also that tuition monies are tax-deductible, further enlarging taxpayer support for which those with non-attendees receive no benefit. To me, it smacks of yet another example of socializing costs and privatising profits using children as pawns for agendas far beyond the scope of "education".
In my province, and I expect in all the others as well, there are no "charter" schools. There are private schools but with this distinction a) They receive no governmental monies b) They must teach the provinces mandated curricula (What they teach beyond that is entirely up to them)c) Tuition paid is not tax deductible.
Those parents who feel that the public system is not up to snuff for them for whatever reason are free to explore other alternatives, just don't expect the general public to pick up the tab for them. BTW, since most public systems are funded through a % of municipal taxes assessments, these same parents must pay their share to fund the public system. Seems fair to me.
14
You nailed it. It's all about making a profit using tax money. And I have no doubt that charter schools are behind the demonization of Common Core. I'm sure it's part of their long-term marketing and profit strategy. They have no need to stick to Common Core or to hire certified teachers. Their performance is hard to evaluate. But, from what we can tell, they underperform public schools. Except for their shareholders.
5
Charter schools are private groups receiving charters from the local school boards to run public schools that are disconnected from the rest of the school system. They receive tax money to run them and cannot charge tuition. If they can run the school without using all their tax allotment, they're allowed to keep it as profit. I repeat, if they can run the school without using all their tax allotment, they're allowed to keep it as profit. That's pretty much all one needs to know.
5
That's not all about charter schools. They are not fully subject to the political constraints that hobble public schools. In particular, they can simply throw out those too stupid or unruly to learn, or so handicapped as to require expensive help.
Public schools could improve their results dramatically by spending money in proportion to how much good it can do, as was done 75 years ago, as opposed to spending in inverse proportion as must be done now.
This has nothing to do with Common Core, however.
Public schools could improve their results dramatically by spending money in proportion to how much good it can do, as was done 75 years ago, as opposed to spending in inverse proportion as must be done now.
This has nothing to do with Common Core, however.
2
Supporters of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) love to assert it wasn't a Federal Mandate and technically that's true. The truth also is that adoption of Common Core was required (mandated) for a state to apply for Race to the Top funding. In effect then, CCSS was mandated and most states adopted them.
In Maine, they were adopted before they were published! And because they are 'common,' Maine now has less rigorous and more incomprehensible standards than before CCSS came on the scene.
I agree with Trump on this, get the Federal Government out of education and return all control to the states.
In Maine, they were adopted before they were published! And because they are 'common,' Maine now has less rigorous and more incomprehensible standards than before CCSS came on the scene.
I agree with Trump on this, get the Federal Government out of education and return all control to the states.
5
Race to the Top funding was a drop in the bucket. $4.5B compared to $ trillions in locally generated spending on public primary and secondary education during the Obama presidency. Not really the same thing as the strings attached to something like transportation spending.
4
Trump's dislike of Common Core is his only redeemable quality. Common Core was designed to line the pockets of test-prep companies and Charter Schools. It is turning public schools into testing factories and robbing an entire generation of the ability to think critically and creatively. It should be abolished!
10
If you think we are burdened by low information voters today, just wait. With educational standards dropping, and with the unceasing attack on teachers, and with an increase in religious home schooling, in the coming years we are going to see a vast increase in no information voters, of American citizens who have no clue at all how our government works. Trump may not win the presidency, but others like him will follow
21
THIS article is issue related. I will at least read this one. I'm not reading any more horse race articles. Enough of the race. Cover the issues. Thank you.
4
Trump's dislike of the Common Core is his only redeemable quality. It is a sham designed to line the pockets of testing companies and Charter Schools. In fact, Common Core is turning our schools into high pressure test prep factories, destroying critical thinking and blunting creativity throughout our educational system. It should be abolished!
1
So tell us, which of the states that have abandoned Common Core have also dropped standardized testing?
3
Without educational standards, we condemn our children to mediocrity in all things. Schools that teach creationism produce students who will not meet science standards. They will be unable to compete with fellow Americans who come from more enlightened states, is this what anyone wants for their children? Common Core sets standards that force school boards to meet the needs of students; do not vote to disband the only educational standard in the country.
28
What a croc. As if we were all flying blind w/o ed stds before CCSS came along.
We need federal standards, because of a lack of standards held by too many local school boards.
State stds is the norm, local districts have to follow them. All states had'm before the Core, most updated every 5 yrs. in fact many were in the process of (or had recently finished) overhauling their state stds because of criticism that some had lowered their stds to end-run NCLB. There was also a study comparing each state's stds w/the CC. Some were deemed better-- Mass was one-- but their politically-connected gov scrapped them for CCSS to please his ed-industry campaign donors.
This article simply uses Common Core and the Education Act to illustrate that Trump is an ill-informed, ill-prepared presidential candidate that doesn't understand the most basic facts about programs critical to our nation. He just blusters that he will "make it great", "we will love it", etc. about issues and programs that he doesn't care enough to learn about.
14
"He is promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by using power the president doesn’t have. His plan may also have the unintended effect of stultifying American greatness."
In other words he is promising to apply the well worn GOP SOP to continue the destruction of the USA.
In other words he is promising to apply the well worn GOP SOP to continue the destruction of the USA.
11
I knows what I know and I don't need to know no more
10
Sadly, this article is trying to be logical in a time when the Republican campaigns for president do not embrace logic, since it doesn't attract Republican voters.
19
Yet another example of the Republican Party displaying a vested interest in ignorance.
12
Enough of these canards that any opponent of the Common Core must be a right-winger foaming at the mouth. Plenty of teachers who have had to work with the Common Core and oppose it are deep blue Democrats. I am as liberal as they come and deeply oppose charters and the Common Core. My party has left me on education - both parties are more interested in privatization, charter schools, top-down takeovers. Is there any difference between Michigan's use of emergency managers and New York's recent Cuomo law establishing receivership to take over "failing" schools?
Words I never thought I would utter: Donald Trump is absolutely right. Local control has been wrested away from school districts, particularly in New York in the guise of a property tax cap that this year will essentially impose a freeze on funding and force layoffs, cutting of essential programs (and of course a teacher of a subject like mine, music, which is not a tested academic subject, is first on the chopping block). What happened to trusting voters to elect people who will represent their best interests? Since when do Albany and Washington have a better understanding of my local community than my local community does?
So enough of the fallacy that if you oppose Common Core you must be a fringe conservative. Democrats, take notice: you do not automatically get my support. Stand up for local control, stand up for kids and sound research-based educational methods and you'll have my vote.
Words I never thought I would utter: Donald Trump is absolutely right. Local control has been wrested away from school districts, particularly in New York in the guise of a property tax cap that this year will essentially impose a freeze on funding and force layoffs, cutting of essential programs (and of course a teacher of a subject like mine, music, which is not a tested academic subject, is first on the chopping block). What happened to trusting voters to elect people who will represent their best interests? Since when do Albany and Washington have a better understanding of my local community than my local community does?
So enough of the fallacy that if you oppose Common Core you must be a fringe conservative. Democrats, take notice: you do not automatically get my support. Stand up for local control, stand up for kids and sound research-based educational methods and you'll have my vote.
14
Read the Washington Times piece linked in this article and you'll understand why there are so many crazy Trump supporters.
It boils down to this:
A large number of Americans have simply turned off their brains. They are non-rational people who just repeat the dumbest pronouncements they hear from dumb leaders and never bother to see if any of it is true.
They have become sheep.
Bah, bah, bah.
Trump says it- bah, bah, bah. We repeat like good little sheep.
Can they read a clear explanation like this article and come away more informed?
Are you kidding!!
Some people are just down to dirt stupid.
Trump Chumps I call them.
I only wish I could scam every one of them and make myself some fast money.
Would be like taking candy from a Trump Chump!
It boils down to this:
A large number of Americans have simply turned off their brains. They are non-rational people who just repeat the dumbest pronouncements they hear from dumb leaders and never bother to see if any of it is true.
They have become sheep.
Bah, bah, bah.
Trump says it- bah, bah, bah. We repeat like good little sheep.
Can they read a clear explanation like this article and come away more informed?
Are you kidding!!
Some people are just down to dirt stupid.
Trump Chumps I call them.
I only wish I could scam every one of them and make myself some fast money.
Would be like taking candy from a Trump Chump!
14
Gee, a R candidate who doesn't respect facts--I'm shocked, shocked.
7
"Money and power are not sufficient to improve schools. Genuine improvement happens when students, teachers, principals, parents, and the local community collaborate for the benefit of the children. But a further lesson matters even more: improving education is not sufficient to “save” all children from lives of poverty and violence." Diane Ravitch
6
Frankly after the Flint crisis it may be more important to insure our kids have good nutrition then good education. Schools are noted for making money on soda machines and other junk food. The real problem here just may turn out to be the American diet while people run around with false solutions that do not address the real problem. No wonder nothing works.
The Establishment (this time the DOE and teachers' unions) are VERY worried that parents will take back their educational system from the mindless bureaucrats. You should be very worried. The easy paychecks are coming to an end!
1
The notion that states and localities somehow have the greater wisdom in setting standards and curricula may have been defensible in the days when education was limited to the 3 R’s. But when the previous Senate majority leader meets with the leaders of the semiconductor industry - one of our country’s key technologies - and doesn’t even know what a semiconductor is,* it tells you that something is fundamentally broken, not only in our education system, but in the educational quality of the people we are choosing as our national leaders. No, I do NOT trust my local school board to have the knowledge to competently develop a curriculum that will prepare my children for the challenges of the 21st century.
*https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/senate-majority-leader-do...
*https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/senate-majority-leader-do...
11
And the answer is to put ed into the hands of those educationally-disqualified national leaders?
The major and definitive defect of Common Core is that it doesn't teach students how to think, it teaches them what to think. That is why it fails. The totalitarian statists keep trying, but, so too do the lovers of freedom and liberty.
3
What puts the lie to your statement is that the State of Texas Republican party believes that Common Core teaches "critical thinking", rather than obedience to authority! https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects...
3
No you are wrong on this. Common Core does not each them what but it teaches them broader concepts. Do you know what common core is?
7
Agree that CC just puts a different colored lipstick on the pig. But don't support the GOP's "solutions". We need to rethink how the curriculum develops kids' critical thinking abilities.
Also testing isn't an educational tool, it's a tool to support property values and therefore the real estate industry.
Also testing isn't an educational tool, it's a tool to support property values and therefore the real estate industry.
Did anybody ever test the Common Core to see if it, you know, works? Or is it just a smart-sounding plan that David Coleman sold to Bill Gates?
3
Education, another commodity from which to make money. The American way! Why do men and women who have no real connection to the average American make policy? Better yet, why do Americans let them do it? We worship the rich and blindly believe what they tell us via the media. As long as money dictates policy, we're cooked as a nation. Don't believe me? Study our political discourse where grotesques like Trump, Cruz, Rubio old sway over so many. They keep the great unwashed ignorant, flatter their ignorance by feeding the platitudes, thus creating a great, inchoate mass of emotional voters (suckers?) and keep their flatterers in power. In the mean time, the policy setters' children go to elite schools, far from the smell of the great unwashed.
5
European teachers abhore the mandatory testing regimens that has damaged a well rounded, student focused educational system in this country. No arts, onerous levels of homework, politically altered history books, restriction of courses to those immediately applicable to someone's idea of generic employment is robbing us of the main goal to train kids to think for themselves and pursue their own interests.
7
I would like to impose some testing on the candidates. Trump appears to think he is running for dictator in chief as opposed to the head of one of the three branches of government. Trump wants to build a wall even though we have net immigration with Mexico, he doesn't seem to understand either Medicaid nor Medicare and he has no idea about public education.
39
Local school boards by definition reflect the population of the parents whose children inhabit them. This tends to reinforce the prejudices, ignorance and fears as well as the strengths, talents and advantages already present in the community.
4
Fortunately state & fed depts of Ed have no prejudices, ignorance & fears...
What about the rest of the world? Which countries have some sort of centralized regulations and expectations concerning education and which leave it up to the localities? Which countries have, in fact, a strong. challenging core for their students? Such a list would probably help to silence some of the nonsense about Common Core.
8
That's an argument for having natl stds, not for this particular set of them. Maybe if we had actually found a good set elsewhere & copied them, we'd have something worth using. & don't believe the 'internationally benchmarked' hype, it's been de-bunked by members of the CCSS writing team.
Those who think that eliminating Common Core will return curriculum design and testing to the local level obviously haven't had a child take College Board's AP classes and exams, the SAT or ACT. The real world has spoken, and it wants consistent curricula and testing standards across the US. What's Trump going to do - mandate that universities stop accepting SAT, ACT, and AP scores?
11
In this country ed is a political football and ed stds-writing is funded by those who expect to profit off it. The 'world' may 'have spoken' , but here, consistent stds means breaking learning down into artificial skill-sets which can be measured by computer w/ resulting data politically manipulated & sold to the highest-bidding data-bank. One real advantage of dumping CCSS would be knocking D Coleman, it's 'architect', off the catbird seat he now occupies as Pres of College Bd, where his team has already re-written the SAT and the GRE to align. National stds in this country just means establishing a huge market.
It should be noted that very little in Common Core actually provides the how of instruction. A central tenant to the standards is that education is a means to an end, and Common Core outlines how to determine a student has reached those ends. It's up to teachers, schools, districts, and states to determine the means.
And please, stop conflating PARCC with Common Core. The latter is the standard created in the mid-2000s through the collaboration of almost all the states. PARCC is a for-profit curriculum created by a testing company's interpretation of the Common Core and sold to a number of states with the promise of helping them meet the No Child Left Behind standards and the state commitments made during the Race to the Top. The standards were just an easy framework from which to hang profitable materials and teacher training.
And please, stop conflating PARCC with Common Core. The latter is the standard created in the mid-2000s through the collaboration of almost all the states. PARCC is a for-profit curriculum created by a testing company's interpretation of the Common Core and sold to a number of states with the promise of helping them meet the No Child Left Behind standards and the state commitments made during the Race to the Top. The standards were just an easy framework from which to hang profitable materials and teacher training.
42
Well stated, Eric. Those interested in the role PARCC plays in this debate should know it is a testing program run by for-profit Pearson Education whose lobbying efforts can be found by Googling "pearson political influence". Alas, education funding is a honey pot which excites all manner of entrepreneurial shenanigans on the part of those greedy folks to whom kids are the very LAST concern.
2
Eric: tenet. Unless it's paying rent.
Our children attend a school that offers the International Baccelaureate (IB). Having read some of the Common Core curriculum, I find a lot of similarities in terms of a focus on writing and thinking skills.
Having said that, it has taken me a few years to fully understand the IB curriculum.
Common Core strikes me as having tremendous value, but the curriculum is challenging, foreign to most parents, was rolled out in schools where teachers are already overwhelmed with preparing students for all of the testing and where teachers had very little training on how to implement Common Core.
While, like the IB, most of Common Core seems quite good, there are parts of it that are a waste of time or where lip service is given to community service activities but in reality that is just another box to tick.
Lastly, there are now so many companies making money off education, it is hard to know what educational system/curriculum is actually for the benefit of students vs. the wallets of shareholders.
Having said that, it has taken me a few years to fully understand the IB curriculum.
Common Core strikes me as having tremendous value, but the curriculum is challenging, foreign to most parents, was rolled out in schools where teachers are already overwhelmed with preparing students for all of the testing and where teachers had very little training on how to implement Common Core.
While, like the IB, most of Common Core seems quite good, there are parts of it that are a waste of time or where lip service is given to community service activities but in reality that is just another box to tick.
Lastly, there are now so many companies making money off education, it is hard to know what educational system/curriculum is actually for the benefit of students vs. the wallets of shareholders.
11
As someone who has been forced to work with the Common Core standards on a regular basis, I can tell you from experience that the standards for my area of expertise - oral language - are as strong and robust as a limp, wet noodle. They were clearly developed without input from a speech-language pathologist or from anyone, for that matter, with a true understanding of what is required for a child to be successful in academic classes with regards to oral language. In contrast, my district's previous standards were developed by educators and were, in my opinion, robust, detailed, and developmentally appropriate.
Here's an example of a Common Core standard:
Grade 03
1 Oral Expression and Listening
2 Successful group activities need the cooperation of everyone
Evidence Outcomes
c Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
"Successful group activities need the cooperation of everyone": what an awful standard. It implies that if the group is not successful, someone was not cooperating. It says nothing about developing the skills and understanding needed to participate successfully in groups, such as: to understand, remember, and organize what was heard; to compare what was heard with one's own ideas and formulate a grammatically correct response using clear and specific vocabulary expressed in a coherent and logical way.
Mr. Trump is completely correct about the Common Core.
Here's an example of a Common Core standard:
Grade 03
1 Oral Expression and Listening
2 Successful group activities need the cooperation of everyone
Evidence Outcomes
c Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
"Successful group activities need the cooperation of everyone": what an awful standard. It implies that if the group is not successful, someone was not cooperating. It says nothing about developing the skills and understanding needed to participate successfully in groups, such as: to understand, remember, and organize what was heard; to compare what was heard with one's own ideas and formulate a grammatically correct response using clear and specific vocabulary expressed in a coherent and logical way.
Mr. Trump is completely correct about the Common Core.
8
These are just standards it is up to the people teaching them to be creative and come up with interesting and challenging ways to teach them. As an educator myself I find it a challenge to find ways to do this. If an individual has to be told how to teach then maybe they shouldn't be in teaching.
Thank you for bringing up the horrendous CCSS-ELA stds. Most of the arguments on implementation apply to the math stds which are no worse than what was already around for 20yrs prior to CC & leave room for good pedagogical methods. The ELA studs should be scrapped.
I am not a Trump supporter, but I cannot help but notice that being opposed to Common Core is attacked here by going through Trump, when almost all the candidates oppose it, invoking local control as their mantra. The point should be Common Core and the general opposition to it, not joining in with comedians and pundits to create another opportunity to throw bricks at our most eminent and obvious target these days. As is intoned after every debate, we ought to be addressing issues, not personalities. Let me just add that local school boards (and textbook commissions) are as much, if not more of the problem, than any federal guidelines
3
Oh I dunno, I think throwing bricks at Trump is always a good idea. Best to try to avoid having an ignorant version of Mussolini in charge, anything that might stop him should be done.
1
Every parent in this country will continue to fight for a good education for their kids. They may not understand education, but they do understand fighting!
Shall we wallop Bill Gates? Or maybe the evil Koch brothers? No, it's policy wonks at Ivy League universities! Or maybe it's right-wing Bible-thumpers on the Texas school book committee!
This is a fight anyone can join, so feel free.
Shall we wallop Bill Gates? Or maybe the evil Koch brothers? No, it's policy wonks at Ivy League universities! Or maybe it's right-wing Bible-thumpers on the Texas school book committee!
This is a fight anyone can join, so feel free.
7
The intentions behind charters may have at one time been noble (maybe), but these days, the idea is to siphon public funds for profit while also breaking the supposedly all-powerful teachers unions. I often wonder why the big boys like ALEC and the hedge funders don't go after pilots unions, iron workers, and so on? Could it be that it is just easier to bully women in a female-dominated, underpaid profession?
13
The school board of my little community is run by a bunch of nincompoops, barely high school grads themselves.
This country is so in the dark ages when it comes to educating it's young people. The money wasted by local school districts, especially small ones, borders on insane.
In a world where we are desperate for highly educated people to work in industries requiring more than good hands and a strong back, We send kids out into the world barely able to write a sentence in standard English; barely able to balance a checkbook; unable even to find Afghanistan on a map. (But boy, they can get a text message out on their smart phones in a matter of seconds.)
This country is so in the dark ages when it comes to educating it's young people. The money wasted by local school districts, especially small ones, borders on insane.
In a world where we are desperate for highly educated people to work in industries requiring more than good hands and a strong back, We send kids out into the world barely able to write a sentence in standard English; barely able to balance a checkbook; unable even to find Afghanistan on a map. (But boy, they can get a text message out on their smart phones in a matter of seconds.)
7
The ignorance of candidates and debate moderates is deeper on this issue and extends to many others. No Child Left Behind, which was the original national program fostered by Bush 43 was a way to promote charter schools. The idea, for this and common core is that a nationalized standardized test would identify schools that were not doing the job, and require vouchers for private schools.
This conservative legislation shows the simplicity of thinking of the current Republican candidates whose thinking stops at "Federal Government is bad, so anything it does must be cut and eliminated" Few moderators choose to press issues, point out how many lives have been saved by the EPA that they want to eliminate.
The rare incisive question gets stonewalled with absurdities, the moderators move on, and the public learns nothing.
AlRodbell.com
This conservative legislation shows the simplicity of thinking of the current Republican candidates whose thinking stops at "Federal Government is bad, so anything it does must be cut and eliminated" Few moderators choose to press issues, point out how many lives have been saved by the EPA that they want to eliminate.
The rare incisive question gets stonewalled with absurdities, the moderators move on, and the public learns nothing.
AlRodbell.com
7
I think that getting a "high quality" education is in the best interests of everyone in this country and see no difficulty in the federal government, the states and local governments working on this in partnership. Having a common basic curriculum does not have to be a one size fits all solution and with appropriate measuring tools a common basic curriculum mixed with state level and local level variation and experimentation should help give answers to what we need to do going forward. I think the real problem is politicians who don't understand or don't try to understand the issues. Our challenges as a nation are manifestly not suited to the simplistic answers being offered by the republican candidates.
4
But their simplistic answers are well-suited to the simple-minded voters who are the intended targets of their simple-minded answers. They just want someone to blame for why they and their kids are failing to keep up so any simple scapegoat (blacks, muslims, immigrants, socialists)that plays on their prejudices/ignorance is good enough for them.
2
Republican ideology on education is idiotic.
5
Decide for yourself based on these facts whether or not the president (and Congress) did or did not effectively affect state and local policy concerning the establishment of Common core: Obama's SOE Duncan created Race to the Top, which distributed over $4 billion through competitive grants (as authorized under the Federal stimulus approved by Congress and signed by Obama), and key parts of the competition were establishing standards that replicated Common Core, even using the key words "college and career ready" and assessment, which lead to the two testing consortia. Technically, this might not be directly establishing Common Core, but the funding was massive under this carrot and stick approach by the administration using funding approved by Congress.
14
In this case, those who deplore public education and unions read Obama and Duncan like a book. The opponents of public education knew that the President and Secretary of Education could be counted on to throw money at a problem without thinking through the situation, as long as it sounded like the solution was tied to "facts," however unproven they were (data-driven decision making and testing).
3
ted, the testing regimen is totally separate from the Common Core, which as far as I know does not prescribe any testing. The testing is pure politics and commerce.
On this issue, and on all issues of consequence, it is the role of the press to bring the truth to light. in this election cycle, when the need is perhaps more urgent than ever, and when a dangerous and malevolent man like Trump is attracting such attention, the mainstream press has miserably failed.
38
Save the name calling for your playground recess time.
I used math frequently in my profession before I retired -- simple algebra and statistics, although I'm not especially smart in math -- language is my thing. Still, the two "outrageous" common core math problems friends posted to show how awful the program was ... complete piece of cake, and frankly useful to me even at this late stage of life. It took me less than one minute, each time, to confront the completely unfamiliar format, figure out how it worked, solve the problem and learn something. I am beyond shocked and appalled that the rest of Americans can't do this, and feel proud of themselves for their inability to understand simple numbers and how they work.
152
Having taught junior high for two years and at major research universities for more than 40, I can attest that thinking is one of the hardest things you can ask an average American to do.
Education is quickly becoming vocational training. Your tax dollars at work, not to educate kids to become thoughtful citizens, but to become productive workers for business.
Education is quickly becoming vocational training. Your tax dollars at work, not to educate kids to become thoughtful citizens, but to become productive workers for business.
89
I'm curious where the rumor started that Common Core mandated algorithms for solving problems that were alien to parents and causing those Facebook posts. Reading through the actual Common Core standards, they are just that: standards. There is an appendix that lists suggested materials, but the standards just state that by the end of a certain grade. For example, by the end of kindergarten a child should be able to "[s]olve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem." While the "e.g." does provide a method, the e.g. indicates it's just an example, not a prescription.
I think a lot of those Facebook posts are people digging out old math books from the 80s and 90s during a different movement to redo the algorithms in an attempt to make learning the concept easier. A good example is the box method of multiplication. It's been around since the 90s at least, and some people who are even older remember learning similar algorithms in the 70s and 80s. Does no one remember the generational kerfuffles about "new math"? Any time kids learn something differently than their parents, all sorts of things break loose...
I think a lot of those Facebook posts are people digging out old math books from the 80s and 90s during a different movement to redo the algorithms in an attempt to make learning the concept easier. A good example is the box method of multiplication. It's been around since the 90s at least, and some people who are even older remember learning similar algorithms in the 70s and 80s. Does no one remember the generational kerfuffles about "new math"? Any time kids learn something differently than their parents, all sorts of things break loose...
8
Eric, the CCSS are technically standards that not only propose what to teach, but HOW to teach it. There are visual models bridging into pretty much every version of the standard algorithm. Many parents are uncomfortable with the use of these visual models because these models actually require strong conceptual understanding in order to be used for problem solving. Most parents are more comfortable using an algorithm that they memorized back in school in order to get a quick answer. The algorithms sound more efficient in theory, but if you ask an average bear to explain WHY the algorithm works ... crickets. This is the meat of the CCSS - - students must not only learn how to solve, but also be able to explain why their strategy works. This analysis and explanation of an algorithm requires very high level reasoning, which only motivated (notice I didn't say "only smart") students are willng to do. To be frank, Americans are often a mentally lazy population. The truth hurts, hence the fight against the CCSS. Personally, I'm not at all surprised by the pushback from parents and teachers. The status quo, mindless math with very little conceptual understanding, feels much more comfortable to most.
I have been working for the past three years to launch the Commom Core at my school, where I am co-director of the elementary math program. It's been quite a learning curve, but the depth of mathematical thinking has definitely increased.
I have been working for the past three years to launch the Commom Core at my school, where I am co-director of the elementary math program. It's been quite a learning curve, but the depth of mathematical thinking has definitely increased.
5
It is too bad that a large segment of the American public prefers the fantasy of their children as top performers rather than the reality that the US education system by world standards is both the most expensive and at best mediocre. Hard to see why anyone would object to a common minimum standard throughout the US. Perhaps if Americans were a little better educated they wouldn't find a character like Trump so appealing.
115
And, in China, where cheating on milestone tests is rampant, middle class and rich parents now want their children to come to the US for a year of high school to be more well-rounded and to learn to think critically, not just prepare for testing.
1
Jack, I loved your expression in the last sentence above: "Perhaps if Americans were a little better educated they wouldn't find a character like Trump so appealing". Marvelous! Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happening with Trump. Unreal!
2
Trump performs best with the "uneducated" voters, whom he loves!
"That’s a notion, widely held, that is at odds with research, common sense and the education agenda of every president, Republican and Democrat, for the past 40 years"
It is at odds with every president's education agenda because it empowers thousands of local school board members at the expense of a small number of national leaders. There is no research that letting local school boards make decisions will result in lower educational standards. There is not research that shows improvements in attainment are a result of Presidential policies. In fact, its not even clear that the standards are actually measuring the right results.
Of course if you are a national education "expert" you need a national policy to implement your ideas. The task of convincing thousands of educators all over the country is too onerous. You see local control as a barrier to kids getting the benefits of your research.
Its not at all clear that achieving better results is a function of good research or national standards. Instead it is driven by local school boards, administrators, teachers and parents who are actively engaged in kids education. Top down decisions by remote and unaccountable decision makers is generally a failed management structure in any endeavor. Is there any reason to think education is different?
It is at odds with every president's education agenda because it empowers thousands of local school board members at the expense of a small number of national leaders. There is no research that letting local school boards make decisions will result in lower educational standards. There is not research that shows improvements in attainment are a result of Presidential policies. In fact, its not even clear that the standards are actually measuring the right results.
Of course if you are a national education "expert" you need a national policy to implement your ideas. The task of convincing thousands of educators all over the country is too onerous. You see local control as a barrier to kids getting the benefits of your research.
Its not at all clear that achieving better results is a function of good research or national standards. Instead it is driven by local school boards, administrators, teachers and parents who are actively engaged in kids education. Top down decisions by remote and unaccountable decision makers is generally a failed management structure in any endeavor. Is there any reason to think education is different?
6
The problem with local control is the prevalence of local "leaders" driven by local politics, and corporate slush funds to eliminate science, math skills, and history in favor of superstition, fictional history of fictional golden past, and uncritical consumerism. These trends easily conflate with the popular culture which is virulently anti-intellectual. On the other hand, the there is a problem with "National Educational Experts" whose own education consists of educational theory and nothing of subject matter content, hence such favorites as the "New Math" of the 1980's.
2
You evidently don't know much about local school boards.
6
Let's see how well those kids in Texas get along after graduating schools that have been using Texas history and science textbooks. I'll bet the "local" administration has really set these kids up to succeed.
1
Improved education is simply not in the Republicans' interest and they know it. Just one example: climate change, which virtually all climate scientists agree is real, man-made, and a serious threat. Yet Republican politicians, none of them scientists, tell voters this is not true. This kind of thing only works with an ignorant public.
No wonder Republicans go after common core: if students achieved these standards, no Republican in the country could get elected.
No wonder Republicans go after common core: if students achieved these standards, no Republican in the country could get elected.
176
I think by now most Americans know it was people like Bill Gates who pushed this age-inappropriate curriculum and testing culture upon us. States were forced to accept these standards and Pearson tests if they were to receive RTTT funds.
No politician understands education!! Instead they follow whatever their campaign donors like Gates, Bloomberg, Broad, Walton, and the Kochs tell them to do. Meanwhile legislatures are rewriting history and science books to follow a political/religious agenda, teachers are enemy, unregulated charters are siphoning public dollars while students are the pawns to corporate greed!
No politician understands education!! Instead they follow whatever their campaign donors like Gates, Bloomberg, Broad, Walton, and the Kochs tell them to do. Meanwhile legislatures are rewriting history and science books to follow a political/religious agenda, teachers are enemy, unregulated charters are siphoning public dollars while students are the pawns to corporate greed!
110
So, Bill Gates has that much sway within the government that he can "push" curriculum upon unwilling students in states that abhor the high standards set by Common Core? That's actually NOT the case, and no, if states don't accept the standards of Common Core, they do not lose their Race to the Top funds - that's utter nonsense. States that dumped Common Core continued receiving RTTT funding, as long as they met the uniform, rigorous standards that qualified them for that funding, standards fulfilled by Common Core, but that could be achieved without it.
4
I think the standards in Common Core are what we should expect students who are applying to reasonably selective four-year colleges and universities to have more or less mastered by the end of high school. To expect 100% of students to master these standards is unrealistic, and to punish schools and educators for not bringing every student up to that level is unproductive. The real challenge of education policy (and politics) is how to deliver each student as rigorous a curriculum as they can handle without demonizing teachers or demoralizing students when test results don't match our often inflated expectations.
67
Common Core tests are designed so that most children fail them. Everyone with a brain in their head sees the agenda behind the CC and its test.
Most kids have to fail so the privateers can claim that public education is failing so that charter operators can open charters and pocket the tax dollars. Meanwhile, charter operators buy off politicians so that public school funding and veteran teachers are squeezed too tight; this is one way they ensure deeper failure.
It's a racket no matter who initiated it. It's permanently tainted and Americans are now aware of the agenda behind it.
Most kids have to fail so the privateers can claim that public education is failing so that charter operators can open charters and pocket the tax dollars. Meanwhile, charter operators buy off politicians so that public school funding and veteran teachers are squeezed too tight; this is one way they ensure deeper failure.
It's a racket no matter who initiated it. It's permanently tainted and Americans are now aware of the agenda behind it.
65
I agree about the charter school profit motive, which is a disaster for our education system long term. But Common Core is not the baddy here. That would be politicians and school boards who get conned into the "Charter school way."
Regarding the CC test, last May was the first for my then fifth-grade son. He got a perfect score on the math part and did very well on the English part -- an improvement over his previous end-of-year non-CC standardized tests. Apparently it is not really designed to make kids fail it.
Regarding the CC test, last May was the first for my then fifth-grade son. He got a perfect score on the math part and did very well on the English part -- an improvement over his previous end-of-year non-CC standardized tests. Apparently it is not really designed to make kids fail it.
5
Common Core isn't a test. Common Core are a series of written statements about what a child should be able to do and know at each grade level.
The assessments are developed by other people--some by states, some by large $$$ test developers. Some of those tests may truly be terrible--meaning, unreliable. In the past we know for sure that state assessments might've been terrible and in many cases ALSO set the passing score much, much, much too low. Under those circumstances schools got away with "murder" or at least deep neglect of our kids' intellectual and even professional and civic lives.
Politicians may well be using results from assessments to assert that public education is failing, and that the private sector could and would do better. But, you know, if the charter schools had to demonstrate their value by improved performance, and if they were not able to do so, this argument would certainly fall flat on its face. Without a (good) assessment, there's no telling what kind of lies would be perpetrated.
The assessments are developed by other people--some by states, some by large $$$ test developers. Some of those tests may truly be terrible--meaning, unreliable. In the past we know for sure that state assessments might've been terrible and in many cases ALSO set the passing score much, much, much too low. Under those circumstances schools got away with "murder" or at least deep neglect of our kids' intellectual and even professional and civic lives.
Politicians may well be using results from assessments to assert that public education is failing, and that the private sector could and would do better. But, you know, if the charter schools had to demonstrate their value by improved performance, and if they were not able to do so, this argument would certainly fall flat on its face. Without a (good) assessment, there's no telling what kind of lies would be perpetrated.
3
It's is sad that so many that condemn the CC know so little about it. They cry, "It's an Obama conspiracy!" "The feds are forcing it on us!" I've been teaching for nearly 30 years and the CC requires kids to think! It is that simple. Too many adults fear what they don't understand, and why change something that's worked for over 100 years? Well, it's 2016 and we know a lot more about how the brain works. Those stuck in the past are still using rotary phones and typwriters.
3
Trump has fallen into the trap of conflating the term "Common Core" with state imposed curricula, state imposed canned lesson materials, state imposed tests and the big business of testing, state imposed teacher evaluations, and the specter that the Feds will be teaching our kids about evolution and climate change (even though the Core is a set of reading and math standards.)
None of this is necessary to adopt the Common Core. Curricula, class materials, lesson plans can all be local, if the *state* boards allow it. What is standard is that all the kids across the nation learn roughly the same math and reading skills at roughly the same time. Moving and changing jobs would no longer leave kids missing some subjects and learning others twice.
No one has accused Trump of thinking about any policy; on the Core, the lack of thought pretty much follows everyone else who has touched it and mishandled it. Give teachers time to implement it, and keep politicians about a 100 miles from being able to influence it, and Common Core has a shot at working.
All of which is of no interest to Trump.
None of this is necessary to adopt the Common Core. Curricula, class materials, lesson plans can all be local, if the *state* boards allow it. What is standard is that all the kids across the nation learn roughly the same math and reading skills at roughly the same time. Moving and changing jobs would no longer leave kids missing some subjects and learning others twice.
No one has accused Trump of thinking about any policy; on the Core, the lack of thought pretty much follows everyone else who has touched it and mishandled it. Give teachers time to implement it, and keep politicians about a 100 miles from being able to influence it, and Common Core has a shot at working.
All of which is of no interest to Trump.
121
You can't really separate CCLS from the rest of the testing/privatization agenda because of the way Federal education law connects CCLS to that agenda as a condition of funding.
1
John A - Which is why we might want to keep the standards and punt the politicians.
The disinformation campaign about Common Core is reaching a fever pitch with the presidential campaigns. The article is correct, it was not a top down mandate, it came from the governors and the states. The second hot button issue is testing. Federal standards require one test, just one. Any others are being mandated by a government agency other than the federal government. The most pernicious disinformation is about the basic objective of Common Core, namely it sets the floor, the minimum a student should know. How that minimum is achieved is up to the state and local school districts. Look to your states and local districts if you have a problem, don't automatically blame big government.
196
No, Common Core did not come "from the governors and the states." It came from the Gates Foundation, which continues to dump money into it; was cobbled together quickly and secretly by a group of testing-company executives (College Board, ACT, and Achieve, Inc.) in order to avoid public scrutiny; and was then adopted by state governors before any aspect of the program had been tested or before the public was even made aware of what it entailed.
20
EM, your opinion is a classic example of assuming conspiracy theories that are not there (the point of the article and my comment). Common Core development in our state was open to the public as were the deliberations. A large group of teachers in our state were involved in the original deliberations. Perhaps you were not aware of its origination, or your state did not mention it, but some of us and some states did pay attention (no I am not a teacher).
7
What exactly was Race to The Top? A financial reward for schools that followed the administration's detailed scoring card which shockingly strongly favored "Common Core"
In my area of South Carolina school boards spend taxpayer dollars not so much on education but on football stadiums, band rooms and parking lots. The trappings of education, like new buildings, seem more important to them than education. As a result, South Carolina has high school graduates who can't even make change and to earn a living must stay in SC, whether they want to or not.
143
But Robert, this is a typical American trait, spend zillions on the trappings and ignore the real problem, Americans don't value education.
4
The author of this obviously pro CC article works at New America which is unsurprisingly supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation He is quite out of touch with the devastating realities of this experimental set of standards. My high-performing suburban LI neighborhood is welcoming yet another storefront tutoring center, Mathnesium, to join Kumon, Huntington Learning Center and others. Private tutoring abounds as even elementary students and their college and master degree educated parents are at wits end from nonsensical math homework. Our district (as well as others on LI) recently made a local decision and voted to discontinue CC Algebra 2 midstream when state Ed formally allowed the prior Algebra 2/Trig Regents to count for credit. It was realized kids wouldn't be prepared for calculus since CC Algebra 2 takes out the majority of trig and replaces it with statistics. Many kids were doing horribly as well, and this can be traced back and blamed on the poor and inadequate standards of CC Algebra 1 as well as unnecessary inclusion of pre-Calc kids were unprepared for. No child should have their education squandered by having to take part in untested and unproven standards. The damage done by CC is growing and needs to be reversed by an immediate stop and return to education that worked.
36
Bill Gates, the Waltons, the Broads--they've all been given free rein to "reform" education (destroy it so the public is forced to send their kids to charters, who skim off the tax dollars and enrich themselves with no public oversight).
None of their children or grandchildren will ever have to endure the CC or its tests.
Local, state and federal career politicians will do anything for campaign money from Gates, Walton, and Broad; the rest of us are at the mercy of these oligarchs seeking to impose their unproven, destructive ideas.
Nothing Bill Gates gets involved in really succeeds, including his malaria involvement. He's rich, not wise.
None of their children or grandchildren will ever have to endure the CC or its tests.
Local, state and federal career politicians will do anything for campaign money from Gates, Walton, and Broad; the rest of us are at the mercy of these oligarchs seeking to impose their unproven, destructive ideas.
Nothing Bill Gates gets involved in really succeeds, including his malaria involvement. He's rich, not wise.
13
"Nothing Bill Gates gets involved in really succeeds"?
You are either very young or have a very short memory.
You are either very young or have a very short memory.
10
Gates wants the DATA from our children. Money is access, information is power. Punch your child's educational "history" into an algorithm and presto! Then the marketers and the HR people have all the work done for them. The future looks bright, if your a robot.
1
Anyone who believes in one-size-fits-all education that Common Core purports has either never been in a classroom or is a poor teacher. Everyone teaching and studying the same thing at the same time leads to a vanilla populace. Unleash principals and teachers at the local level to build many different types of schools and education models, and then let parents and children choose.
The writer shows confirmation basis citing statistics showing an increase in math performance comparing old and new test scores. Teachers teach to the exact test of the Core so of course students do better on that particular test. Give them a test outside the Core and they will fail just like they used to fail. The old tests did not dominate the classroom like they do today. We have sacrificed creative and inspired learning for a drone student population.
I don't agree with Trump, Rubio, et al on much, but they're dead on saying the Core is horrible for education. The president cannot do much to affect it policy-wise but they can set the agenda and use their office to bury the pernicious "common" standard.
The writer shows confirmation basis citing statistics showing an increase in math performance comparing old and new test scores. Teachers teach to the exact test of the Core so of course students do better on that particular test. Give them a test outside the Core and they will fail just like they used to fail. The old tests did not dominate the classroom like they do today. We have sacrificed creative and inspired learning for a drone student population.
I don't agree with Trump, Rubio, et al on much, but they're dead on saying the Core is horrible for education. The president cannot do much to affect it policy-wise but they can set the agenda and use their office to bury the pernicious "common" standard.
16
The tests mean more today because the scores affect teacher pay & advancement as well as school funding, which was probably not as great a factor in prior years. Still, kids need to have a base understanding so that they can advance to higher education without eating their first semester at college consumed by remedial English & math courses. Simply put, colleges & universities spend excessive resources to ensure arriving students understand the same basic concepts so that they have a better chance of succeeding
14
The kids still pay for the courses. They just don't count as credit to a degree. Schools get extra money, not financial stress.
@Mark--Private school kids rarely need remedial college classes. Why is that?
Could it be that the overwhelming predictor of academic achievement is family income, not teachers or testing? Could it be that private schools offer curricula that is rich in the arts, experiences, creativity and an almost complete absence of Pearson testing?
And if the "basic concepts" aren't already in place, how do so many public school graduates get into and then excel at top-tier universities?
Could it be that the overwhelming predictor of academic achievement is family income, not teachers or testing? Could it be that private schools offer curricula that is rich in the arts, experiences, creativity and an almost complete absence of Pearson testing?
And if the "basic concepts" aren't already in place, how do so many public school graduates get into and then excel at top-tier universities?
4
They try to teach a way of thinking around a problem before the kids learn enough of basic problem solving to have a foundation. It is like trying to make a short cut without knowing the route you originally intended to take.