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Last night one of my daughters and I started talking about school curricula starting in Kindergarten since she has one child in first grade and two 3-yr old twins.
While I had heard of Common Core, I really knew no details whatsoever. Well, my daughter educated me!
My question is, if you currently have children in school, has your SD already implemented the new Standards and if so, which school district and what is your opinion of Common Core?
To the Moderator:
I know this is State and Nationwide (45 States adopted it) but I'd like to know how "local" parents feel about it. Thank you!
My child has started Kindergarten in Plainview and the district has implemented Common Core. The Board of Eduction as well as the Teacher's Union have both come out against the Common Core. Having done a lot of reading and being a teacher myself, I am seeing that this Common Core is unbelievably not aligned with children's social or cognitive development. I am not against "raising the bar", but it needs to be developmentally appropriate and not cause children to begin to have anxiety and a hatred for school.
What does it tell you when the head of the NYSED cancelled his first 4 parent meetings? One was lower Hudson area ( Poughkeepsie ) area -- and parents in Poughkeepsie evidently weren't too happy with him. So, he cancelled the first 4. Now his is planning new ones, for smaller areas.
NYS adopted Common Core. I don't believe that districts can "opt out", can they? Some may be in various stages of adoption, but I was under the assumption that all of NYS has to do this.
I agree that some higher standards are a good thing, and our kids for the most part need to be more serious about education in general. But NYS was never a state considered to be poor when it came to educational standards on it's own.
I believe the biggest problem this past year was that some of the curriculum was instituted yet all of the testing was given even though many districts weren't prepared for it. The skill level for the testing was so much more difficult from what I've heard, that the students could in no way be ready! What should have happened was to allow a couple of years of the new curriculum to be introduced and then start the new testing.
But then, I'm opposed to submitting our kids to so much standardized testing that rarely benefits them. Most of this is intended to be a "punishment" for districts and teachers. I'd rather see teachers be able to create their own tests, based on what they've taught all year, rather than what some bureaucrat/politician has decided should be tested.
He held the first meeting, and canceled the other meetings citing that 'special interests' (concerned parents with children) had hijacked the previous meetings.
Instead, he ended up keeping his scheduled visit at the William Floyd school district on a day where district families where mourning the loss of a student, who along with his mother and siblings, died in a tragic house fire. King is sly. He knew that no one would have protested out of respect for the Adam Tarbell and his family, so he moved forward with this meeting.
I believe the biggest problem this past year was that some of the curriculum was instituted yet all of the testing was given even though many districts weren't prepared for it. The skill level for the testing was so much more difficult from what I've heard, that the students could in no way be ready! What should have happened was to allow a couple of years of the new curriculum to be introduced and then start the new testing.
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It's not about the students being ready. They needed to establish a baseline to measure how students performed before the new standards and curriculum were implemented. They can't really have a control group where they hold out one classroom per grade per school.
For instance, if you send your kid to an SAT prep course, they take a practice test at the beginning for baseline and diagnostic purposes. Then they know what each student needs to work on and they assign work accordingly. At the end they take another practice test before taking the actual test to show how much their score has improved.
How else would you measure the efficacy of the new curriculum and standards?
We've gone full force into it where I live. Not Long Island, but it's been fullt adopted here. There is good, and there is bad. I think the older the child, the rougher the transition...there are things that are being left out at certain levels. For instance, CC moved landforms and some other science stuff from 5th grade to 4th grade. So last year's 5th graders NEVER learned landforms, and never will. That's just one example. There's other stuff too. As I said, kids who are just starting school really won't notice anything nor will their parents. The farther along in school you are the more you'll notice.
One thing I will say....my kids go to a school where 50% of the students are AG for math - that's half the school. The kids, even the gifted ones, are REALLY struggling with the math. They were doing stuff in 6th grade that I was doing in 9th. They needed GRAPHING CALCULATORS in 6th grade - that's ridiculous IMHO. And a parent told me that her neighbor is a HS math teacher and they are finding that kids are coming to the HS and they don't know jack about the math. It's just too advanced for them. They are doing every thing possible to get the kids to pass this math in MS but it's just not translating in HS.
Then they know what each student needs to work on and they assign work accordingly. At the end they take another practice test before taking the actual test to show how much their score has improved.
My experience so far is that this is not true. The don't assign work accordingly. They work with the kids who can't pass the tests. No one cares about the kids who can pass. I don't blame the teachers-- their hands are tied.
Not a fan of the common core as my district has implemented it. The work my daughter did last year was much more advanced and more developmentally appropriate.
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