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Commom Core: Wonder drug or snake oil?

 
 
Reply Mon 17 Jun, 2013 12:26 pm
Full implementation of the common core standards are scheduled for the 2014-15 school year but as I understand it most schools will be aligning themselves to it next year.

I'm not really up to speed on it but I'm swinging towards "snake oil" despite having heard it described as a "deep well" v. the "shallow pond" of NCLB.

Are you paying attention to it? Have you formed any opinion of it? What do you think will happen to education because of it?
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Type: Question • Score: 2 • Views: 1,206 • Replies: 6
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ossobuco
 
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Reply Mon 17 Jun, 2013 12:29 pm
@boomerang,
No, but I'll read along here.



Oh, by the way, interesting article (to me) in the Chronicle today:

http://blog.sfgate.com/opinionshop/2013/06/17/what-works-at-troubled-schools-play/
boomerang
 
  1  
Reply Thu 27 Jun, 2013 08:33 am
@ossobuco,
Isn't it strange that we'd have to hire coaches to teach kids to play?

This sounds like a great program but I can't shake off the fact that it's aimed at low income schools that would have to provide half of the $60,000 fee to introduce it for a year.

I wonder how many schools are actually able to implement it...
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boomerang
 
  1  
Reply Thu 27 Jun, 2013 08:39 am
In an attempt to understand how we got here and where we're headed I picked up a book on the (modern) history of education. It briefly talks about how national standards for history were attempted in 1994 and the HUGE controversy that erupted.

Trying to learn more about why it didn't work I came across this site: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/10/index-f.html

Nobody has really tried to come up with a national curriculum in any subject since then.

Maybe it will be easier with math. How to best teach math is sometimes controversial but math in itself is not.

Science and literacy could get gluey. There has already been a lot of noise over common core reading. Apparently they think fiction is a waste of time so they won't be including much of that on reading lists.

The explosions as they try to develop this curriculum could be very interesting to watch!
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boomerang
 
  1  
Reply Thu 27 Jun, 2013 08:46 am
@ossobuco,
I had to go and find this but it's interesting what this guy has to say about what recess is like these days -- skip to about 1:15 minutes in. If you have time the whole movie is worth watching though.

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boomerang
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Aug, 2013 09:55 am
We're starting to get some more info about common core....

Quote:
...

Because of the Common Core, our youngest children are being asked to meet unrealistic expectations. New York’s model curriculum for first graders includes knowing the meaning of words that include “cuneiform,” “sarcophagus,” and “ziggurat.” Kindergarteners are expected to meet expectations that have led some early childhood experts to worry that the Common Core Standards may cause young children harm. If we are not careful, the development of social skills, the refinement of fine motor skills, and most importantly, the opportunity to celebrate the talents and experiences of every child will be squeezed out of the school day.

What is equally disconcerting is that these reforms are being pursued with little or no evidentiary grounding. There is, for instance, zero sound research that demonstrates that if you raise a student’s score into the new proficiency range, the chances of the student successfully completing college increases. New York’s new cut scores are an attempt to benchmark state scores to the proficiency rates attached to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or, NAEP. Yet the connections between NAEP scores and college performance are so spurious that researchers have yet to claim that NAEP scores have any predictive value at all when it comes to college and career readiness. In addition, the NAEP proficient level is very high, not at grade level at all. In fact, most analysts consider the NAEP Basic level to be at grade level. You can read about the problems with using NAEP as a benchmark here.

...

In fact, in the upcoming months, there will be far more important issues to worry about than our children’s test scores. As schools and their teachers are hammered due to the score drop, there will be tremendous pressure to further narrow the curriculum and cut out all of the enrichment that can make young children smile with anticipation on Monday mornings.

...

The bottom line is that there are tremendous financial interests driving the agenda about our schools — from test makers, to publishers, to data management corporations — all making tremendous profits from the chaotic change. When the scores drop, they prosper. When the tests change, they prosper. When schools scramble to buy materials to raise scores, they prosper. There are curriculum developers earning millions to created scripted lessons to turn teachers into deliverers of modules in alignment with the Common Core (or to replace teachers with computer software carefully designed for such alignment). This is all to be enforced by their principals, who must attend “calibration events” run by “network teams.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/07/what-big-drop-in-new-standardized-test-scores-really-means/

hawkeye10
 
  1  
Reply Fri 16 May, 2014 01:02 am
@boomerang,
I am increasingly becoming concerned that common core math completely misunderstands mathematics. Math is a tool to get to the answers we seek, and as an engineering major I spent hours at a time manipulating equations to get to the answer that I needed to complete my engineering project. I remember once asking a prof why we did a certain manipulation because I did not understand it all all and his answer was "because it works to get the answer". So I think I have some understanding of the advanced mathematics that common core is allegedly working to prepare students for, that is several classes above calculus, and I am here to say that the entire approach spells of bullshit. Not to mention that math is clarity, like science, their is no room for emotion or relativism. This wishy washy squishy common core math totally miss teaches and miss represents math.
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