Common Core: too hard? solution: keep 'em dumb

[boutons_deux]

School Standards’ Debut Is Rocky, and Critics Pounce

The Common Core, a set of standards (http://www.corestandards.org/) for kindergarten through high school that has been ardently supported by the Obama administration and many business leaders and state legislatures, is facing growing opposition from both the right and the left even before it has been properly introduced into classrooms.

At the same time, a group of parents and teachers argue that the standards — and particularly the tests aligned with them — are simply too difficult.

Those concerns were underscored (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/nyregion/under-new-standards-students-see-sharp-decline-in-test-scores.html?pagewanted=all) last week when New York State, an early adopter of the new standards, released results from reading and math exams showing that less than a third of students passed.

The standards, which were written by a panel of experts convened by governors and state superintendents, focus on critical thinking and analysis rather than memorization and formulas.

One goal is to reduce high remediation rates at colleges and universities and help students compete for jobs that demand higher levels of skills than in previous generations.

According to some estimates, about 40 percent of students entering college must take remedial courses before they can enroll in credit-bearing classes. Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York, said the system spends about $70 million a year conducting catch-up courses for students.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has repeatedly emphasized that states, districts and teachers have broad flexibility to devise their own curriculums and lesson plans based on the standards.

Speaking about the Common Core to the American Society of News Editors in June, Mr. Duncan said: “The federal government didn’t write them, didn’t approve them, and doesn’t mandate them. And we never will. Anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or willfully misleading.”

We’re using a very inappropriate standard that’s way too high,” said Diane Ravitch, an education historian who served as an official in President George W. Bush’s Education Department ( :lol Repug education values! )

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/education/new-education-standards-face-growing-opposition.html?from=homepage

[101A]

Teachers, in my experience, are NOT critical thinkers...They organize and memorize; nothing wrong with that, but that is who they are, and, frankly, that's how they judge the performance of their students. Students aren't going to learn that type of thinking in the American classroom; they will learn it at home (sometimes), in college and through life experience. OF course a test of that is going to produce crappy results.

They gave the first common core based test this past year at our school district here in Pa (Algebra). The district has not released the results, but they have completely restructured the match curriculum from pre-algebra through Calculus. Oh, and EVERY student enrolled in Algebra has to take it again.

I'm guessing the results aren't stellar.

[Nbadan]

Teachers, in my experience, are NOT critical thinkers...

I hate people who speak in absolutes....besides, I don't see how someone can get a degree from one of our fine Universities and not be a critical thinker....

Every thought of that?

[Nbadan]

The standards, which were written by a panel of experts convened by governors and state superintendents, focus on critical thinking and analysis rather than memorization and formulas.

One goal is to reduce high remediation rates at colleges and universities and help students compete for jobs that demand higher levels of skills than in previous generations.

Problem is the same as here in Texas......they raise the standards, but the kids who struggled with the old tests are still the same kids...I'm all for accountability but kids have to start at the elementary school level under new standards, otherwise they have tremendous holes in their learning...

[Nbadan]

districts and teachers have broad flexibility to devise their own curriculums and lesson plans based on the standards.

I wonder how many years teachers got to work with the kids to raise them to the level of the new standard before politicians and policy-makers raised, or completely changed, the standards...

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I have a hard time believing the gap between us and countries like India in terms of math education is THAT much because of teachers. It's not like math teachers in India have developed this riveting curriculum where students can learn calculus via a game of kickball which makes the students interested in math. It's a lot more to do with the culture parents, students and everyone else has developed in this country where math is an annoying subject you wanna get out of the way with the lowest amount of work possible.

People I know from India all seem to agree that the big difference stems from parenting here vs. there because all of their parents drilled it into them and stressed it. Parents in America don't do that, instead, they blame teachers for too much homework and :crynot creating a more "interactive" curriculum:cry.

[Leetonidas]

I hate people who speak in absolutes....besides, I don't see how someone can get a degree from one of our fine Universities and not be a critical thinker....

Every thought of that?

:lmao

[pgardn]

Teachers, in my experience, are NOT critical thinkers...They organize and memorize; nothing wrong with that, but that is who they are, and, frankly, that's how they judge the performance of their students. Students aren't going to learn that type of thinking in the American classroom; they will learn it at home (sometimes), in college and through life experience. OF course a test of that is going to produce crappy results.

They gave the first common core based test this past year at our school district here in Pa (Algebra). The district has not released the results, but they have completely restructured the match curriculum from pre-algebra through Calculus. Oh, and EVERY student enrolled in Algebra has to take it again.

I'm guessing the results aren't stellar.

This is not my experience.

My experience is teachers dumbing down classes so they don't fail kids with parents who don't care. The teachers are not allowed to have high failing rates. The kids and parents who care take honors classes and do just as well on test scores in math and science as their counter parts in other countries.

We, as a country, have yet to decide the purpose of public schools. Warehousing kids to keep them off the streets most of the year, surrogate families, refuge, prep for college... It's not clear and highly variable.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

This is not my experience.

My experience is teachers dumbing down classes so they don't fail kids with parents who don't care. The teachers are not allowed to have high failing rates. The kids and parents who care take honors classes and do just as well on test scores in math and science as their counter parts in other countries.

We, as a country, have yet to decide the purpose of public schools. Warehousing kids to keep them off the streets most of the year, surrogate families, refuge, prep for college... It's not clear and highly variable.
Or they have parents who don't care the entire semester then decide to raise hell after their kid failed, which is even worse :lol

[scroteface]

there's no reason to have 4 years of english whenever it's the native language and such an emphasis on writing/libtard arts, that should already be mastered by junior high. high school should focus on strictly math, science, and a little bit of history and government that's IT

[pgardn]

Or they have parents who don't care the entire semester then decide to raise hell after their kid failed, which is even worse :lol

The schools have automatic grade reporting so the parents and students can look up their grades as the grading period moves forward, but the above still happens. Some schools even have automatic calling.

My father would just beat the hell out of me. Had his own corporal punishment methods that were much worse than school. It paid off though for me. My Grandma was a HS principal. You did not soil the family name with poor results in school. We always came to school ready.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

there's no reason to have 4 years of english whenever it's the native language and such an emphasis on writing/libtard arts, that should already be mastered by junior high. high school should focus on strictly math, science, and a little bit of history and government that's IT
IMO The best route is to incorporate critical writing skills into history classes like every gened history class at the college level does. Critical writing is the important part of English classes yet it's the one thing HS English classes don't teach :lol, they're too focused on poetry and being able to identify figurative language.

[AntiChrist]

My wife and I taught our kids before they even started school. They are both WELL ahead of their peers, especially in math. There seems to be some pressure to teach to the lowest common denominator. Sad, tbh

[AntiChrist]

And if you're kids aren't excelling, they are going to get smoked by Indian immigrants.

[Th'Pusher]

My wife and I taught our kids before they even started school. They are both WELL ahead of their peers, especially in math. There seems to be some pressure to teach to the lowest common denominator. Sad, tbh
I bet your children use absolutely dreadful logic.

[101A]

I hate people who speak in absolutes....besides, I don't see how someone can get a degree from one of our fine Universities and not be a critical thinker....

Every thought of that?

My wife happens to be a Biochemistry prof. at the local university (where 90% of the local public school teachers received their degrees). Not only do plenty of students who can't really think at all receive degrees, the education department's products are among the least capable - actually they are THE least capable. Right now the education department is campaigning so that their students don't have to take Chemistry in the Chemistry department. They want there to be an education majors only Chemistry class taught in the Education department....

The vast majority of teachers produced here (don't want to speak in absolutes; MIGHT not be at all colleges) do not receive degrees in the subject they are going to teach; they don't get Math degrees, or Chemistry degrees, or even History degrees; they get "Math Education", "History Education", etc....these degrees don't include the upper level strenuous classes in the discipline the student is, allegedly, focusing on. THOSE are the classes where critical thinking is required and rewarded. Those education students take upper level education courses that they get great grades in....fail Chem 101 twice before passing with a D - but make straight A's in their education classes? What does your critically thinking brain make of that, Dan?

[boutons_deux]

poorly educated, poorly paid, DISRESPECTED/RIDICULED-by-the-VRWC/ALEC teachers are a big part of the US problem.

[TeyshaBlue]

Except, as I have proven over and over again, there is no disrespect nor ridicule from your imaginary VRWC.

lol simpleton.

[boutons_deux]

Except, as I have proven over and over again, there is no disrespect nor ridicule from your imaginary VRWC.

lol simpleton.

VRWC/ALEC are hell bent on destroying the teachers union as a source of Dem funding, and public education as source of govt providing service. for-profit charter schools pay even shittier teacher wages/benefits, are non-unionized, and suck taxpayers dollars into corporate pockets. for-profit education: the shittiest possible product for the highest possible price.

GFY, coward.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol...continue to runaway from facts like a little bitch.

lol buzzwords.
lol talking points.

[pgardn]

My wife happens to be a Biochemistry prof. at the local university (where 90% of the local public school teachers received their degrees). Not only do plenty of students who can't really think at all receive degrees, the education department's products are among the least capable - actually they are THE least capable. Right now the education department is campaigning so that their students don't have to take Chemistry in the Chemistry department. They want there to be an education majors only Chemistry class taught in the Education department....

The vast majority of teachers produced here (don't want to speak in absolutes; MIGHT not be at all colleges) do not receive degrees in the subject they are going to teach; they don't get Math degrees, or Chemistry degrees, or even History degrees; they get "Math Education", "History Education", etc....these degrees don't include the upper level strenuous classes in the discipline the student is, allegedly, focusing on. THOSE are the classes where critical thinking is required and rewarded. Those education students take upper level education courses that they get great grades in....fail Chem 101 twice before passing with a D - but make straight A's in their education classes? What does your critically thinking brain make of that, Dan?

This is absolutely false in the 3 best school districts at the HS level in San Antonio. Those districts would be NISD, NEISD, Alamo Heights in no particular order.

4 separate HS in NISD have NO science teachers teaching full schedule science with education degrees. None. They are degreed in their subject area and many had no intention of becoming Science teachers. The 4 I am acquainted with are OConnor HS, Brandeis HS, Clark HS, Health Careers HS. They are in the higher socioeconomic areas in NISD.

In fact, Physics (the most difficult area to find teachers with this degree) have Physics/Enginnering Majors teaching those kids that want to major in Science/Physics/Engineering.

Like any venture, the most educated teachers tend to gravitate to schools with clientele that believe in education. This is why school districts like SAISD, Edgewood, South San, have a difficult time recruiting good administrators and teachers. Go to a PTA Parents night and look how full the parking lots are at any of the top 3 school districts v. The bottom 3. Then you will understand that the schools mimic the surrounding socioeconomic situations. It is not a surprise, even in a city with a smaller disparity between these socioeconomic groups like SA.

[101A]

This is absolutely false in the 3 best school districts at the HS level in San Antonio. Those districts would be NISD, NEISD, Alamo Heights in no particular order.

4 separate HS in NISD have NO science teachers teaching full schedule science with education degrees. None. They are degreed in their subject area and many had no intention of becoming Science teachers. The 4 I am acquainted with are OConnor HS, Brandeis HS, Clark HS, Health Careers HS. They are in the higher socioeconomic areas in NISD.

In fact, Physics (the most difficult area to find teachers with this degree) have Physics/Enginnering Majors teaching those kids that want to major in Science/Physics/Engineering.

Like any venture, the most educated teachers tend to gravitate to schools with clientele that believe in education. This is why school districts like SAISD, Edgewood, South San, have a difficult time recruiting good administrators and teachers. Go to a PTA Parents night and look how full the parking lots are at any of the top 3 school districts v. The bottom 3. Then you will understand that the schools mimic the surrounding socioeconomic situations. It is not a surprise, even in a city with a smaller disparity between these socioeconomic groups like SA.


Should have never left, Texas, I guess. I don't have nearly the experience (or apparently gripe) with that type of arrangement. However, where I am in Western Pa, the union completely dominates everything regarding the teachers' contracts. Starting salary for B.ed. is over 60K - includes generous, accumulating sick/personal time (as well as a cushy arrangement with the university that has the district pay for the teachers to get advanced degrees through watered down evening and online courses) - and a very healthy retirement pension. Tenure is easy, and nearly bulletproof.

[101A]

This is absolutely false in the 3 best school districts at the HS level in San Antonio. Those districts would be NISD, NEISD, Alamo Heights in no particular order.

4 separate HS in NISD have NO science teachers teaching full schedule science with education degrees. None. They are degreed in their subject area and many had no intention of becoming Science teachers. The 4 I am acquainted with are OConnor HS, Brandeis HS, Clark HS, Health Careers HS. They are in the higher socioeconomic areas in NISD.

In fact, Physics (the most difficult area to find teachers with this degree) have Physics/Enginnering Majors teaching those kids that want to major in Science/Physics/Engineering.

Like any venture, the most educated teachers tend to gravitate to schools with clientele that believe in education. This is why school districts like SAISD, Edgewood, South San, have a difficult time recruiting good administrators and teachers. Go to a PTA Parents night and look how full the parking lots are at any of the top 3 school districts v. The bottom 3. Then you will understand that the schools mimic the surrounding socioeconomic situations. It is not a surprise, even in a city with a smaller disparity between these socioeconomic groups like SA.

From personal experience, my wife does have a teacher's certificate to teach in Texas (never took a job as one, however). Before deciding to move to a small town, she got the cert. Anyway she applied and visited Boerne ISD; spent a couple of days there with the faculty. KNEW she couldn't teach secondary due, in large part, to the fact that her peers (with more seniority) weren't really scientists at all; from her perspective. The department chair, in fact, had a science education degree herself...not even a B.S.

Maybe that's why Boerne, despite its reputation, isn't on your list of "top 3" (or because it's not technically in S.A.?

[Bill_Brasky]

VRWC/ALEC are hell bent on destroying the teachers union as a source of Dem funding, and public education as source of govt providing service. for-profit charter schools pay even shittier teacher wages/benefits, are non-unionized, and suck taxpayers dollars into corporate pockets. for-profit education: the shittiest possible product for the highest possible price.

GFY, coward.
Shut the fuck up. You are a cancer.

[boutons_deux]

Shut the fuck up. You are a cancer.

Your reaction proves I'm right on VRWC/ALEC.

[pgardn]

Should have never left, Texas, I guess. I don't have nearly the experience (or apparently gripe) with that type of arrangement. However, where I am in Western Pa, the union completely dominates everything regarding the teachers' contracts. Starting salary for B.ed. is over 60K - includes generous, accumulating sick/personal time (as well as a cushy arrangement with the university that has the district pay for the teachers to get advanced degrees through watered down evening and online courses) - and a very healthy retirement pension. Tenure is easy, and nearly bulletproof.

Texas does not have teacher unions. Texas teachers don't strike.

[pgardn]

From personal experience, my wife does have a teacher's certificate to teach in Texas (never took a job as one, however). Before deciding to move to a small town, she got the cert. Anyway she applied and visited Boerne ISD; spent a couple of days there with the faculty. KNEW she couldn't teach secondary due, in large part, to the fact that her peers (with more seniority) weren't really scientists at all; from her perspective. The department chair, in fact, had a science education degree herself...not even a B.S.

Maybe that's why Boerne, despite its reputation, isn't on your list of "top 3" (or because it's not technically in S.A.?

I got my BS in molecular biology and my masters in Biochem. I was a TA while at UT, went to work for a lab, then decided to teach. (I am no longer doing so) The head of our dept. quit as a medical doctor and came back to teach. When I applied and spent a couple of years in the trenches, I leapfrogged teachers with more seniority into the AP position held by the dept. head when she moved to Central office. So I guess each place is a little different. I will tell you I saw PHD 's quit because they were unable to cope with the mind of a teenager. You must know your stuff in my experience in schools that care. But you also must know people, including teenagers.

I did have to take education courses before teaching and found them completely useless. However, The best class I took for teaching was student teaching.

I met physics teachers at the two HS I taught at better than any physics teacher I had in college. Far better. But not in getting grants for research.

The teachers I met were far better then anything I encountered in HS.
My £2... But I taught in schools with parents who cared. I usually did not have enough chairs available on parents night. I attribute this to my good looks and modest disposition.

[pgardn]

The problem that continues to persist that the OP's article does not mention is the wide array of students that are encountered by the school system. We have kinders coming in that can read, write and add. In that same district we have malnourished children that need to be fed and taken care of. These underprivileged continue to fall further behind. These kids on average will never be able to say, pass a real Alg II course unless we continue their education into their 20's. Yet Texas requires passing this course. So Algebra II has become Alg I, and Alg I has become pre Algebra. It has happened with science courses as well.

Repeat:

Public Schools in the US most often mimic the socioeconomic status of the clientele they serve.
The US public school system? Juvy, hospital, surrogate family, prep for college... All of theaforementioned


If its all of the above, Governors like Rick Perry do not get it.

[exstatic]

there's no reason to have 4 years of english whenever it's the native language and such an emphasis on writing/libtard arts, that should already be mastered by junior high.
That "sentence" is a pretty good argument FOR four years of English.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

That "sentence" is a pretty good argument FOR four years of English.
The several hundred thousand manufacturing job in this country that are unfilled because high school grads don't have the most basic technical skills those jobs require makes a much better argument that the emphasis high schools place on English over math is retarded.

[Nbadan]

I have a hard time believing the gap between us and countries like India in terms of math education is THAT much because of teachers. It's not like math teachers in India have developed this riveting curriculum where students can learn calculus via a game of kickball which makes the students interested in math. It's a lot more to do with the culture parents, students and everyone else has developed in this country where math is an annoying subject you wanna get out of the way with the lowest amount of work possible.


There are teachers who do a great job with the kids here in the U.S.... kids are resilient and can overcome poverty, but at some point, it turns into a labor of love rather than a job...I don't know what else you would call working under such pressure for 80 hours a week for less than $50K

[Nbadan]

The several hundred thousand manufacturing job in this country that are unfilled because high school grads don't have the most basic technical skills those jobs require makes a much better argument that the emphasis high schools place on English over math is retarded.

I bet most people here couldn't pass the 8th grade New York Common Core test...

http://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/math-grade-8.pdf

[DMC]

Send your kids to a seminary. There the teachers are dead sure of their teachings and the material has been vetted for thousands of years as infallible. They will also get introduced to same sex relationships and learn to cope with trauma.

You can't beat it (they don't allow it).

[scroteface]

That "sentence" is a pretty good argument FOR four years of English.


excuse me for not proofreading my spurstalk posts and using poor grammar/punctuation out of laziness, i didn't get the memo that spurstalk.com was this serious gathering of the minds.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

excuse me for not proofreading my spurstalk posts and using poor grammar/punctuation out of laziness, i didn't get the memo that spurstalk.com was this serious gathering of the minds.
:cryyour spurstalk grammar is proof we need more english classes about poetry:cry

[101A]

I bet most people here couldn't pass the 8th grade New York Common Core test...

http://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/math-grade-8.pdf

I could (only because I have 8th and 10th grade students at home right now - been practicing).

That test is tough; if that really is the CC standard, it is too strenuous IMO. We are so far from being at that standard: True story: My wife's Chem 101 class - she gives a pretest on the first day of class. Every year 40-50% of the students (college Freshmen nursing & nutrition majors primarily) CANNOT convert ml to L.

As in, how many L is 2350 ml.

The test you posted 4 years earlier in their education....please.

[boutons_deux]

"if that really is the CC standard, it is too strenuous IMO."

of course it will take time to upgrade the teachers to pass the test, then upgrade the material, and then get the students up to grade

or

we could just leave them all dumb and ignorant and incompetent, which is pretty much what international comparisons say about US students.

[boutons_deux]

of course, right wingers freak out as usual at any attempt to have an educated populace. They depend totally on an emotional, pissed off, ignorant misinformed base.

War on the Core

The backlash began with a few of the usual right-wing suspects. Glenn Beck warned that under “this insidious menace to our children and to our families” students would be “indoctrinated with extreme leftist ideology.”

(Beck also appears to believe that the plan calls for children to be fitted with bio-wristbands (http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/04/08/the-whole-story-on-common-core/) and little cameras so they can be monitored at all times for corporate exploitation.)

Beck’s soul mate Michelle Malkin warned that the Common Core was “about top-down control engineered through government-administered tests and left-wing textbook monopolies.”

Before long, FreedomWorks — the love child of Koch brothers cash and Tea Party passion — and the American Principles Project, a religious-right lobby, had joined the cause.

Opponents have mobilized Tea Partyers to barnstorm in state capitals and boiled this complex issue down to an obvious slogan, “ObamaCore!”

As one educator put it, less than half in jest, “The problem with national testing is that the conservatives hate national and the liberals hate testing.”

Discomfort with the Core may grow (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/education/new-education-standards-face-growing-opposition.html?ref=us&_r=2&) when states discover, as New York did this month, that the tougher tests make their schools look bad. But overwhelmingly the animus against the standards comes from the right.

But today’s Republican Party lives in terror of its so-called base, the very loud, often paranoid, if-that-Kenyan-socialist-in-the-White-House-is-for-it-I’m-against-it crowd.

In April the Republican National Committee surrendered to the fringe and urged states to renounce Common Core.

The presidential aspirant Marco Rubio, trying to appease conservatives angry at his moderate stance on immigration, last month abandoned (http://shark-tank.net/2013/07/25/marco-rubio-opposes-common-core-education-standards/) his support for the standards.

And state by red state, the effort to disavow or defund is under way. Indiana has put the Common Core on hold. Michigan’s legislature cut off money for implementing the standards and is now contemplating pulling out altogether.

Last month, Georgia withdrew from a 22-state consortium, one of two groups designing tests pegged to the new standards, ostensibly because of the costs. (The new tests are expected to cost about $29 per student; grading them is more labor-intensive because in addition to multiple-choice questions they include written essays and show-your-work math problems that will be graded by actual humans. “You’re talking about 30 bucks a kid, in an education system that now spends upwards of $9,000 or $10,000 per student per year,” said Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute.)

The Common Core is imperiled in Oklahoma, Utah, Alabama and Pennsylvania. All of the retreat, you will notice, has been in Republican-controlled states.

as with that other demonic federal plot, Obamacare — the Republicans aren’t interested in making reform work. They just want it dead.


“Conservatives used to be in favor of holding students to high standards and an academic curriculum based on great works of Western civilization and the American republic,” two education scholars, Kathleen Porter-Magee and Sol Stern, wrote in National Review Online. “Aren’t they still?”


http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/opinion/keller-war-on-the-core.html

fucking tea baggers, red states, Confederate states.

right-wingers are above all interested in destructive, obstructive All Politics All The Time.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol nyt op ed and the lazy conflation of extreme right wing as main stream conservatism.
lol @ boutons rage.

The GOP panders to the Tea Party mentality, but that is not main-stream. The TP is very vocal and they're vastly over represented by the attention that the contemporary GOP pays them. But, the day will come when either the GOP collapses entirely and splinters into likely a moderate wing, and a zillion splinter Tea Party wings or someone with more than two brain cells to rub together takes the helm of the GOP and brings the moderates back into the fold.

[TeyshaBlue]

You think we teach to the test too much now? Wait until CC is completely installed.

Teaching a child critical thinking (that is, the ability to figure out the answer by themselves, not regurgitating curriculae) is about 100x more important than the most potent core "value". Design and implement a robust Voc-Ed program and end the outcome based, lowest common denominator bullshit like CC.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol @ Keller getting destroyed in the comments.

Dr. Gary ThompsonSalt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Keller:

As a local doctor of clinical psychology, I take issue with your column.

As a African American, Moderate, President Obama voter, father of multiple children in public school systems and Director of Clinical Training in a child psychology clinic (Los Angeles and San Francisco trained), I take issue with not only your lack of citations to your multiple claims, but your role in continuing to make issues of concern surrounding Common Core a "Left-Right" issue.

You mention Glen Beck and his opposition to the Core and your cite their right wing dogma as evidence of their incorrect stance on several issues related to the Core. If that is your only foundational basis for criticism, chew on this:

I made a T.V. appearance on Mr. Beck's show voicing objections to the manner in which "Testing" is being utilized via Common Core. . Good luck trying to hem a San Francisco trained, African American, Obama voter into that convenient, and overused conceptualization of "Right Wing nut bag, Anti Core activist". I'm not a activist. I hate politics. I'm a scholar by profession, and a father at heart.

The "tests" are a horrible, not validated experiment that have never been subjected to proper pilot test studies. 70% of NY students "flunked" the test not because of "added Core rigor", but because the test itself is a disaster. If you wish to have a relevant discussion on the issue minus the labeling, contact me. In lieu of such, stop the rhetoric.

[boutons_deux]

anybody who Beck invites in his show if IMMEDIATELY suspect

yes, I read where Mayor Bloomberg is pissed that his rep as "the education mayor" having made major education improvements is trashed by 70% common core test failure.

And TB :lol believes this Beck asshole that it's the fault of the test? :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

It's obvious you are completely clueless as to anything relating to education. Do you ever, just once, bother to research something that pops up on your RSS reader? Fuck no. Just keep on parroting whatever your demented RSS feed tells you to parrot. For reasons outlined above (which I see you immediately ran away from) CC is, at best, a ridiculous proposition.

Keep running, simpleton.

[TeyshaBlue]

Anything posted from your RSS feed is IMMEDIATELY suspect.

lol simpleton.

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

agrees with BecKKK host that test is fucked because too many students fail it. :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

lol simpleton who can't be bothered to read.

[TeyshaBlue]

Here's something else you won't be bothered to read because it :cry doesn't say what you want it to.:cry

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/

[TeyshaBlue]

Do you even understand what Common Core means as pertains to curriculum design?

[TeyshaBlue]

Do you realize that it mandates certain aspects in the core curriculum. It also removes them as well. You can't teach money math in Kindergarten because it's not part of the CC methodology.
There are many other aspects that are removed as well. If you possessed even the slightest hint of intellectual honesty, you would actually read up on the topic.

[TeyshaBlue]

now post a smiley and a non sequitur per par.

[boutons_deux]

Here's something else you won't be bothered to read because it :cry doesn't say what you want it to.:cry

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/

Ravitch says CC is too hard, duh. too many students will fail, duh. CC will "hurt the kids", duh.

which corresponds with too many HS diploma'd students entering college in need of remedial studies.

"I wish we knew more about how they will affect our most vulnerable students."

hey, Diana, try this:

Is Common Core Too Hard-Core?And the results are not pretty.

31% of New York students (http://www.oms.nysed.gov/press/grades-3-8-assessment-results-2013.html) in grades three though eight met or exceeded math and English competency standards on tests given over six days this past April. In 2012, under the older, far easier, standards, 65% of New York students were proficient in Math and 55% proficient in English. Moreover, according to the Summary of Statewide 3-8 Exam Results (http://www.oms.nysed.gov/press/grades-3-8-assessment-results-2013.html), “only 16.1% of African-American students and 17.7% of Hispanic students met or exceeded” the English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency standard, far lower than in years past.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2013/08/16/is-common-core-too-hard-core/

[boutons_deux]

what sounds unfair, and probably is, is not to ramp up to the CC levels over a few years. Gotta give the education system a chance itself to ramp up to new standards.

[TeyshaBlue]

Dumbass, it's not that it's too hard, it's that the design is so fucking poor. The standards are almost fucking identical.

Jesus fucking Christ.

BTW, if you actually read that cite, you would see your VWRC/Education soliloquy completely exposed for the idiocy it is.

[TeyshaBlue]

what sounds unfair, and probably is, is not to ramp up to the CC levels over a few years. Gotta give the education system a chance itself to ramp up to new standards.

This is true and is the least of the problems with CC.

[TeyshaBlue]

While I can appreciate the urgency of reform, you don't reform education with a single act and you sure as hell don't do it without some kind of testing and assessment of effectiveness beforehand.

[TeyshaBlue]

That's how we got hoisted on the NCLB petard.

[TeyshaBlue]

This response is a fair exposition of the problems with a national CC program:


Andy Morris Andy Morris 4 hours ago
Mr. Crotty,

Can you explain to me, specifically, how more Common Core-aligned tests and higher standards are going to help students in large, low-income urban areas attain higher achievement rates? Take a city like Rochester, NY where only 5% of students are proficient in math and English. Do you really think these schools will turn around simply because we’ve raised the bar, the tests are more convoluted, curriculum is canned (via Odell Education), and instruction is data-driven? This is a naïve argument. We need to improve lives before we can improve achievement outcomes. Maybe the eight-lane highway and basketball stadium need to be sidelined. Maybe more local control is needed. Maybe the government needs to end its system of endless measurement and punishment.

I keep reading nothing but empty rhetoric from the supporters of Common Core and standardized testing. It’s easy to say that more rigorous testing and raising the bar will fix things. It’s easy to say that new standards and more rigorous testing will prepare our students for college and the workforce but nobody has the ability to explain how. “Ready” is a relative term, right? How is college-ready different from what it was ten or twenty years ago? If a college accepts you, doesn’t that mean students are college-ready? Gaps in skills and knowledge are inevitable. Some students will need remediation as college freshman, and they will quickly adjust. Some will drop out. That doesn’t mean that can’t return down the road. Maybe the emotional maturity wasn’t there. Maybe they simply didn’t have transportation. Maybe bad habits got in the way. Maybe some wanted to immediately enter the workforce or attend a community college.

These days, employment is precarious for college graduates. Tuition rates and student indebtedness are soaring. Are we preparing our current high school students for this? We need to be more creative, open up alternate paths to work and college. There are many programs of study out there and jobs that do not require the same body of knowledge and skills set. Why are we forcing this, via standardized testing and Common Core, on all students? More standards, more tests, less local control, more data, and more whacky accountability measures aren’t going to get our students more ready for college or the workforce, or improve education in this country. If we continue to focus on results, we will continue to vulgarize education. We’re creating a Sisyphean task for ourselves. We’re simply assuming that the system is eternally broken, that our students are eternally lacking. It’s regressive and constrictive.

Our public schools aren’t failing. I work in a healthy and successful one. I’ve been in charge of my curriculum for a decade. My test scores are exemplary. The school I work in is considered a low-income school. We graduate 100% of our students.

Since the reforms were instituted last year (Common Core, teacher accountability measures, data-driven instruction, and more standardized testing), I no longer have control of my rich and lively curriculum. I’ve been given a flat-as-a-tire curriculum from Odell Education (NYSED contracted with them). My students spend more time preparing for tests and being tested than engaging in learning projects, debates, independent studies, etc., The test includes TerraNova, Acuity, Regents exams, state exams, interim assessments, and my own more relevant tests and quizzes.

There are more time-wasting hoops to jump through with regard teacher accountability measures, all of which lack a human face (evidence binders, data spreadsheets, HEDI scores, composite scores, student learning objectives, etc.,).

I know that many public schools are hurting. I would argue the one-size-fits-all mentality has failed. Trying to quantify learning, at every corner, has failed. Top-down mandates without much public discourse and teacher input have failed. The standards and accountability movements have failed…Maybe what many see as “failure” has more to do with politics, moneyed interests, and the social fabric rather than these students and teachers and the human endeavor they’re engaged in.

Who decides what proficiency means? Are these Common Core exams measuring important skills and doing so in a way that’s applicable to the way skills are used in the real world – in college, in work environments? I would argue that multiple-choice exams are not capable of measuring what our students are truly capable of doing if given the right context and time frame.

Data and test scores are “dust in the wind.” The data is limited. If each of us allowed a test score (SAT, etc.,) or a collection of data to dictate our future, we’d all be screwed. There’s no correlation between high standards, test scores and future success.

We need good teachers. They need to be able to use their expertise without the top-down mandates squashing their creativity and passion. They need autonomy. These teachers already collect important data, assess, re-teach, develop and tweak their rich and lively curriculum. They already have high achievement results. They meet students where they’re at and get them to a set of goals. They’re already held accountable by their administrators, students, colleagues, and parents.

Some public schools possess this, but it’s being stripped away by the heavy-handed reforms. Other schools need it, badly, before we throw more tests and standards at them, before we tie funding to results, before we tie employment to snapshot test scores…

[baseline bum]

I could (only because I have 8th and 10th grade students at home right now - been practicing).

That test is tough; if that really is the CC standard, it is too strenuous IMO. We are so far from being at that standard: True story: My wife's Chem 101 class - she gives a pretest on the first day of class. Every year 40-50% of the students (college Freshmen nursing & nutrition majors primarily) CANNOT convert ml to L.

As in, how many L is 2350 ml.

The test you posted 4 years earlier in their education....please.

Your wife teaches at UTSA?

[baseline bum]

LOL people who raged against Bush's standardized testing loving it when it's Magic Negro doing it tbh gfy.

[boutons_deux]

LOL people who raged against Bush's standardized testing loving it when it's Magic Negro doing it tbh gfy.

Magic Negro is doing nothing, CC is not a federal program.

[Nbadan]

LOL people who raged against Bush's standardized testing loving it when it's Magic Negro doing it tbh gfy.

I don't think anyone is against raising the level of education in public schools, but the way Duncan and his buddies in the Gates Foundation are going about it is wrong...

[TeyshaBlue]

Magic Negro is doing nothing, CC is not a federal program.

lol...the DOE is tying Federal funding to it. http://homerecording.com/bbs/images/smilies/facepalm.gif

[boutons_deux]

lol...the DOE is tying Federal funding to it. http://homerecording.com/bbs/images/smilies/facepalm.gif

you mean Race to Top ?

[boutons_deux]

"These teachers already collect important data, assess, re-teach, develop and tweak their rich and lively curriculum. They already have high achievement results. They meet students where they’re at and get them to a set of goals. They’re already held accountable by their administrators, students, colleagues, and parents."

then why do you right-winger and VRWC trash teachers non-stop as under-worked, over-paid, and unionized?

and why do American kids' learning levels compare so poorly with other countries, many of whom have NATIONAL TESTING.

[TeyshaBlue]

Yup. The state's are hung out to dry for the rest of the funding for this initiative.

[TeyshaBlue]

"These teachers already collect important data, assess, re-teach, develop and tweak their rich and lively curriculum. They already have high achievement results. They meet students where they’re at and get them to a set of goals. They’re already held accountable by their administrators, students, colleagues, and parents."

then why do you right-winger and VRWC trash teachers non-stop as under-worked, over-paid, and unionized?

and why to American kids learning levels compare so poorly with other countries, many of whom have NATIONAL TESTING.




lol simpleton. These are questions you probably need to answer before you go on another VRWC rant. The original NY cite you posted but didn't read, completely destroyed you.
Btw, back that bullshit up or GTFO.

[Nbadan]

Yup. The state's are hung out to dry for the rest of the funding for this initiative.

Not the states....the districts, the schools, the administrators, the teachers, and the kids are being hung out to dry..and this after years of slashing education budgets...

[TeyshaBlue]

Not the states....the districts, the schools, the administrators, the teachers, and the kids are being hung out to dry..and this after years of slashing education budgets...

True..that's where the buck stops, literally.

[Nbadan]

What the policy makers and the pro-reformers, ie..the for-profit crowd don't tell you is that in America we test every kid — the mentally disabled, thesick, the hungry, the homeless, the transient, the troubled, those for whom English is a second language. That done, the scores are lumped together. When the scores of the disadvantaged aren’t counted, American students are at the top.

[TeyshaBlue]

What the policy makers and the pro-reformers, ie..the for-profit crowd don't tell you is that in America we test every kid — the mentally disabled, thesick, the hungry, the homeless, the transient, the troubled, those for whom English is a second language. That done, the scores are lumped together. When the scores of the disadvantaged aren’t counted, American students are at the top.

Hell, we even test Texans. English is like a 3rd language to me.:lol

[Nbadan]

This was implemented with no public dialogue, no feedback from experienced educators, no research, no pilot or experimental programs — no evidence at all that a floor-length list created by unnamed people attempting to standardize what’s taught is a good idea. Past experiences already show that state level standards and assessment have not improved the educational outcomes of poor and minority students.


Now a new generation of philanthropic billionaires, including Gates, homebuilding and insurance entrepreneur Eli Broad, members of the Walton family that founded Wal-Mart Stores, and former hedge fund manager Julian Robertson, want public education run more like a business. Charter schools, independent of local school districts and typically free of unionized teachers, are one of their favorite causes. "We don't know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that," Broad said last year at a public event in Manhattan. "But what we do know about is management and governance."


http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38282806#.UWsUX3y9KSN

This is where the Common Core standards come from.

[boutons_deux]

"But what we do know about is management and governance."

which are very distant behind their mastery of wealth extraction, cartelization, effective monopolization, and rentier capitalism.

Govt isn't a business, and public schools aren't a business.

[pgardn]

Yup. The state's are hung out to dry for the rest of the funding for this initiative.
Exactly what my state, Texas, does to school districts with TAKS (going away) and what was supposed to be 15 STARR tests. (Currently 5) Our State Board is run by a bunch of numb nut Perry pats.

[pgardn]

What the policy makers and the pro-reformers, ie..the for-profit crowd don't tell you is that in America we test every kid — the mentally disabled, thesick, the hungry, the homeless, the transient, the troubled, those for whom English is a second language. That done, the scores are lumped together. When the scores of the disadvantaged aren’t counted, American students are at the top.

This is what most Americans misunderstand about our system. We are equivalent or better than almost every other nation in math and science if we take kids in the advanced classes. The numbers are already skewed high for the rest of the world because they have already culled poor students out through a variety of methods. We teach all comers in public schools.

[hater]

keep the sheep dumb

and once they are all connected to the internet, keep them dumber

the only reason to give the sheep some kind of education was so the sheep can mobilize themselves and communicate to each other in society. Once the internet came in, there is not even need to do that.

educating them enough so they can feed themselves and wipe themselves is sufficient

[TeyshaBlue]

"But what we do know about is management and governance."

which are very distant behind their mastery of wealth extraction, cartelization, effective monopolization, and rentier capitalism.

Govt isn't a business, and public schools aren't a business.




Ok, so now you're not a fan of CC.

Pick a lane.