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Career 1: High Profile Naval Officer
Career 2: Fortune 100 VP
Career 3: Teaching 8th grade math to make a difference. I was called to do this. Should have let it ring.
Bumpkins that say Curriculum should be set locally are IDIOTS. Politicians, either locals or national are not leaders, they are not managers, they are simply shysters, who are able to look you in the eye, lie to you, and get you to vote for them. When one espouses local control, these are the mutants you are wishing to put in charge. No thanks.
Common Core is just the latest in a long, long series where defeat has been snatched from victory. With DPI in heat for $$ they signed on. Due to decisions and guidance from the Obama administration CC and Race to the Top got intertwined.
As we used to say in the Pentagon, 'It is never about the money, until it is about the money." These cretins in Raleigh saw the money, and they got the money. What did we get?
Well, a 28 page teacher evaluation. Can you even conceive the stupidity in that. 28 pages. And a 50+ page handbook to explain it, and COUNTLESS meetings and sessions to explain it. If you do not undertand the economic concept of opportunity costs, then just stop reading, but the opportunity costs of this alone are staggering. How many things were not done, but the state's teachers sitting in meetings, learning about a 28 page eval. The navy has done it in two pages forever, and we invaded Okinawa communicating only by flashing light and semaphore. Complex is the enemy, not the friend.
Like Europe in the middle ages, it gets worse. We also got EVAAS and grade prediction system developed by a crop statistician and sold by the sacred cow, SAS, to the rubes in DPI. EVAAS predicts "growth" (which is code for your school sucks, but you went from 25% proficiency to 28% proficiency so you had growth and therefore you get a biscuit). This program also measures my valued added to my students. Right. I don't care, the EVAAS crowd are idiots, but if I was young, and I cared, I would be terrified.
Go ask your principal about the format for standardized tests, you pick um, over the last 2 to 6 years. Stand by for heavy rolls. First one vendor, then another, always spending money, always changing, spreading around the feed in the trough.
It goes on and on...but that is just the money side that was tied to common core.
The math standards themselves are ok, with two caveats.
WAY to many assumptions are made about retaining knowlege. CC has, for example, equations, taught in many years, with the theory being that when you add all the components up, you get a whole. No one year ever gives you a whole. Maybe, just maybe when the kids that started CC in first grade get to be seniors, there will be a crescendo of academic achievement and it will all come together.
But probably not. I know it is old school, but maybe we should teach a subject, master that mutha, and then move to the next. Again this concept might work, but I doubt it will ever have the chance. Can anyone in the biz, even imagine the same standards in place consistently for 12 years.
Now call your dealer, take as much LSD as you can, and try to imagine it. If you have any connection with "education" you cannot even in a trance, begin to believe the educrats will stick to their guns and be consistent that long. After MILLIONS of dollars, common core is barely gonna make it two years!
The second real problem is that CC has move, across the board, way too much abstract "stuff" to low. For 200 years educational psychologist have KNOWN that the development of the frontal lobe of the brain controls a lot of things, such as abstract reasoning and the ability to link a sequence of events together and come to a logical conclusion.
Frontal lobe development, even in our modern, feel good world, is a highly individual deal. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it just depends on the person. Normally between 12 and 25, more or less, one's brain develops to the point that these skills are magically available. I was a teenager and I have just raised two. Teenagers don't do stupid stuff because they are stupid, they do stupid stuff because their FL is still developing. This is not new, we have known this forever.
In the eighth grade, solving systems of equations has moved from ninth grade (normally algebra--now called MATH One, based on the whim of some moron). THis is pretty abstract stuff given the option of graphing, eliminating, or substituting to get solve for both x and y. It is trivial math for 20 somethings but if aint got the proper amount of frontal lobe development,it is just not gonna happen.
I spent about six weeks on this subject this year, until I could not take it anymore. 20 of 60 kids "got it' on day one, maybe 25 of 60 got it on day 30. There was minimal movement across the "frontal lobe divide." My BRILLIANT and insightful teaching accounted for naught, I just got luck that three or four kids had the frontal lobe tumblers trip durin horrifying six weeks of flailing away at systems of equations
An interlude:
Why was algebra so easy, without common core, in the Roman Civilization?
Because X always equaled 10.
So in regards to math, the CCSS is OK, with the exception of the brain disconnect regarding abstract thought, age, and frontal lobe development. This is quite fixable but wont be I suspect, and is not a deal breaker, just in inconvenient fact.
Forget about curriculum, forget about politics, what are some HUGE ADVANTAGES of common core.
Sign on to IXL.COM
these are math problems for practiced, aligned with the common core. EVERYONE in the universe, working under common core can practice math, with familiar terms and methodologies. My eighth grades THRIVE on it. It is there and it works for all under common core. You can do 20 a day for free.
Sign in to Learnzillion.com. This may be the best non XXX site on the interweb. These are lessons, again, ALIGNED WITH THE COMMON CORE, that are available to everyone. If your child is studying CC objective or whatever it is called 8.EE.1, he or she can go to Learnzillion.com, and find short 5 - 6 minute lessons, consistent in format and philosophy on almost every CC STANDARD. these are written by real classroom teacher.
These two web sites are what is GREAT about CCSS. Not that crap that friends of politicians got rich off of handed out under the Race to the TOP feeding frenzy. Common Core makes the law of big numbers work. It makes it possible to get better things, cheaper.
In closing:
Next time you get a chance, read some letters from COMMON SOLDIERs from the Civil War. They will kick your honor roll student's butt.
We put men on the moon with slide rules using old school methods that the educrats to day mock. Using slide rules and a couple of antiquated computers.
To quote my 7th grade math teacher:
Be the labor, great or small,
Do it well, or not at all
The problem is NOT CC. The problem is that those in charge have not done it well.
Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry by Todd Farley is an excellent read too. You can find some articles and interviews from him online, too.
What's the history on common core? When did it start? How did the students in the USA rank in the world scholastic tests when it started as opposed to how they rank now?
The answer to these questions will be a guide to whether it is working. Judging from the reports I have been hearing on how USA students rank on the world scene, common core needs to be ditched.
And I would like to correct the "gentleman" with the attitude problem by saying, the closer teaching methods are to the student the more likely the student will learn. That is why so many professional teaching services succeed when the schools fail. One size does not fit all. http://www.ncspin.com/2014/04/13/why...m-common-core/
Who profits from Common Core is the testing, curriculum, and textbook companies as well as the software, technology, and data management companies. This includes companies like Pearson, Houghton, McGraw, and Cengage. As well as who ever else they are doing business with including Microsoft and other technology companies. Children should be not be sold to the highest bidder and taught a one size fits all type of education. All testing will be moved online through computers and is very expensive to implement and manage.
Those that think this is not about money are very wrong. Common Core was written and implemented with no testing and the committees that created are no longer together so no one can be held accountable for it or questioned if changes need to be made. Education is a very simple process and is best kept to teachers, local leaders, parents, and children at the local level who can best manage their hard earned tax payer money and who care about each other.
Whether or not you are for it or against it, we all agree that something has to change.
Those top ranking nations (Japan, Korea et al.)? Yeah, they're the ones who in recent years have stated their education system is failing their youth. It produces outstanding test scores, and graduates with an appalling lack of innovation and creativity, little intrinsic motivation or impetus toward leadership, which are all very important and desired traits, especially in STEM fields.
They're confused as to why we want to adapt an education model they're attempting to discard and reform.
Those top ranking nations (Japan, Korea et al.)? Yeah, they're the ones who in recent years have stated their education system is failing their youth. It produces outstanding test scores, and graduates with an appalling lack of innovation and creativity, little intrinsic motivation or impetus toward leadership, which are all very important and desired traits, especially in STEM fields.
They're confused as to why we want to adapt an education model they're attempting to discard and reform.
Not saying adopt their programs, just saying that something needs to change in regards to what is going on here.
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