common core

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My reading of the Common Core standards doesn’t give me particular cause for alarm. Like anything else, there are trade-offs. The skill sets themselves do not look problematic. They do not look so extensive that a school would be stuck teaching to the core standards at the exclusion of everything else.

Certain topics and skill sets are assigned to certain grade levels, which could constrain curriculum development. That’s the down side. The “up” side is that when we recognize how common it is that a student will not be in the same school system for his or her entire school career. In light of that, having a roughly uniform standard of when certain topics are taught will make it easier on students changing schools or even moving from one side of the country to the other.

There are a lot of students who change schools, and every change will necessarily put them at some disadvantage. Implementing some sort of common core would mitigate some of the problems for those students. I’d be on the look-out for wrong-headed implementation, but I wouldn’t oppose the idea outright.

As for Catholic schools, it isn’t unusual for students to transfer in and out of parish schools, both to and from the public schools and from one parish school to another. After an academic career in a parish school, some students will be able to attend Catholic high school and some won’t. It would be foolish to think we don’t need to care about the curriculum trends in the schools with which we do such regular student exchanges. Even if we don’t strictly implement the common core standards, Catholic schools ought to have them in mind when planning their curricula. Like the standards or not, a good number of our students will benefit if we make that effort.
 
The creation of a common set of standards, designed to raise the bar and make students critical thinkers, is a very appealing idea. Likewise, it makes sense to move students from the rote execution of math algorithms to deeper conceptual understandings. That was the original promise of the Common Core.

That said… the reality is quite different from the promise (or, as Einstein said, “In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they are not.”) Here are five reasons why:

• Despite the claims of supporters, the standards are not built on sound research. They have never been field-tested nor proven to raise student achievement. In fact, countries with “rigorous” standards are on the top and the bottom of international rankings.

• The Common Core standards contradict what we know about the way young children learn. In fact, shortly after the standards were published, 500 early-childhood experts — pediatricians, researchers and psychologists — found the early-childhood Common Core standards to be so developmentally inappropriate that they called for their suspension in grades K to 3.

• Many of the math standards push confusing methodology. Here is a kindergarten example of Common Core’s confusing methodology: “Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones andsome further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record eachcomposition or decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 18 = 10 +8); understand that these numbers are composed of ten ones and one,two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight or nine ones.” *No wonder *parents are confused and kids are crying over homework. This is aside from the developmental inappropriateness of this standard for 4- and 5-year-old children.

• The Common Core standards for English Language Arts promote the use of questionable strategies and over-emphasize informational text over literature.

• The Common Core tests are unreasonably difficult and will result in unfair consequences for students. Test scores are used to decide who gets into gifted programs and into competitive schools – and students with low test scores will be put into remedial classes. Sounds about like what one would expect on the surface… but note that New York’s students have taken Common Core tests twice, proficiency rates dramatically dropped to the low 30s (and to single digits for students with disabilities or who are poor), and there was minimal improvement in year two. I for one have a hard time believing that close to 70% of students are this badly proficient.
 
As a parent, whose had to waste time and effort dealing with com. Core, I don’t think it is harmful to Catholics or any other religion. On the other hand, Rube Goldberg would have loved it

Example: How to Add, according to Common Core m.youtube.com/watch?v=uc3Pv5Q_AdA
 
I can find no component of Common Core that has any moral aspect. I do not like the math approach. I had to spend the summer playing catch up on real math.
 
CCSS (common core standards) emphasize “Culturally Responsive Teaching Guidelines .”
intime.uni.edu/multiculture/curriculum/culture/teaching.htm

This type of integrated teaching has social lessons that cross subject lines (political based questions in math, reading I’d presidential speeches in literature class, etc.) It also strongly pushes a relativistic philosophy
It guides students in understanding that no single version of “truth” is total and permanent.
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This aspect is very anti-Catholic because, of course, we believe in only one Truth. It is wise to learn about other cultures, but not wise to believe that values/virtues are arbitrary depending upon how you are raised.
 
With common core, the government decides what is taught and how it’s taught. Scary.
 
Both my daughters are enrolled in a Catholic School that proudly implements Common Core curriculem.

As far as English and social sciences go, it seems fine. The Social studies seem to be heavily weighted towards promoting cultural diversity (hopefully it will never drift into celebrating family diversity or anything else that is unbiblical, if you know what I mean) but I have not really heard my 4th grade daughter ever talk much about American History, founding fathers, etc and I don;t recall ever seeing it covered in any of her textbooks. I am pretty sure that by 4th grade I was learning about American Revolution, founding fathers, etc. I take that upon myself to teach her though.

The math is nuts though. My wife and I cannot help our kids with their math homework because the methods for figuring out really basic calculations are really convoluted and overly complex.
 
Erich said:
… as Einstein said, “In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they are not.”
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This is an extremely good point.

If I were on the school board of a Catholic school or a superintendent of Catholic schools, I’d be very jealous of our right to have wide latitude in choosing curricula for our schools. Having said that, I’d also want school planners to keep initiatives such as Common Core in mind while planning curricula for our students, if nothing else to make it easier on students who will be moving between the two systems. It is probably the most reasonable if teachers are well aware of Common Core methods but are left more free than CC-constrained teachers when it comes to how they get students to particular benchmarks.
 
Norm_The_Robot said:
Both my daughters are enrolled in a Catholic School that proudly implements Common Core curriculem.

As far as English and social sciences go, it seems fine. The Social studies seem to be heavily weighted towards promoting cultural diversity (hopefully it will never drift into celebrating family diversity or anything else that is unbiblical, if you know what I mean) but I have not really heard my 4th grade daughter ever talk much about American History, founding fathers, etc and I don;t recall ever seeing it covered in any of her textbooks. I am pretty sure that by 4th grade I was learning about American Revolution, founding fathers, etc. I take that upon myself to teach her though.

The math is nuts though. My wife and I cannot help our kids with their math homework because the methods for figuring out really basic calculations are really convoluted and overly complex.
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I agree with you. My son is also in a Catholic school that uses Common Core and, apart from the math which I’ve posted about, Social Studies is severely lacking. They don’t have History as a separate subject, so what little there is it is lumped in with Social Studies. He is in the fourth grade and they have yet to mention the Magna Carta, monarchies vs. republics, taxes, colonialism, the Revolutionary War, etc. all the things I learned in Catholic School, in History, in the 70s. Of course, I’ve taught him about this stuff at home, but it is odd when you look at their textbooks and it is so devoid of history. 🤷
 
Common core is one of the reasons I am keeping my children out of schools.

The math is a joke and will greatly hurt the sciences in general. I honestly found Cal 4 easier than the garbage they are teaching. The phonics is subjective in the answers, especially for the kindergarten level. History, social studies, and geography are all wonky and aren’t done in a way that will enable children to survive well in a global economy.
 
As far as the math goes, is all I know is that my 7th grade nephew has been using common core math and he can’t do simple basic math addition and easy multiplication without his fingers. When I was helping him one time, I showed him how to get an answer. Well he informed me I was wrong, not enough steps. I looked at his example and it was absurd to take a simple 3 step answer and turn it into a 15 step answer. So I went searching on the internet and found that there are no national standards for Common Core as all teachers and schools teach it differently.

So then I found this video and it about sums it up. Kudos for the lady pointing out why it is wrong to take a two step math problem and making it 108 steps.

youtube.com/watch?v=wZEGijN_8R0
 
Common core math is a framework in the early years to have the child’s thought process wired for advanced math-such as trigometry and calculus, and to score well on SAT/ACT. It is starting younger and younger…

Doing well on government issued standardized tests is the focus, not educating the whole child.
 
mommy_k said:
Common core math is a framework in the early years to have the child’s thought process wired for advanced math-such as trigometry and calculus, and to score well on SAT/ACT. It is starting younger and younger…

Doing well on government issued standardized tests is the focus, not educating the whole child.
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From what i understand, Common Core teaches students to add and subtract using multiples of 10 on a bar graph, rather than the traditional plus and minus signs. No carrying over or borrowing numbers when adding or subtracting from what i see. Is that right?

…that seems like the difference between being left handed or right. I wonder what other wiring will be affected from mingling in the framework of the minds of our youth. There must be some statistic that shows the changes… Or are the stats in the making. 🤷
 
TEPO said:
From what i understand, Common Core teaches students to add and subtract using multiples of 10 on a bar graph, rather than the traditional plus and minus signs. No carrying over or borrowing numbers when adding or subtracting from what i see. Is that right?
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I actually like this part. It is less rote and conveys the idea of what subtraction is more easily.
 
I’ve got a lot of kids in a Catholic school that has adopted CC. I think it is fantastic. I love that it is teaching the kids to THINK about math and numbers, rather than just get to the answer. I think it’s great. I do not understand the outrage people have over it. No, it’s not Exactly Like When We Were Kids. Maybe that’s a good thing, as I never really learned any theory behind mathematics and went though school assuming I “sucked” at it. All my kids love math. I couldn’t be happier. 🤷
 
Honestly, as an educator, many of us think of Common Core as a “trend that will change in 10 years”. Seriously. And, honestly, most of the original proponents of Common Core are now the most vocal against Common Core. After NCLB, Common Core became pretty much inevitable. See, NCLB required states to create their own math and reading tests for grades 3-9, and an additional time in the last three years of high school. While it sounded like a good idea (let’s see how our students are doing, and make sure they’re on grade level by giving them a test), paying for the creation of such tests was, to put it lightly, bankrupting many states’ education budgets (seriously - these tests are extremely expensive to develop). And, so, to save money, states decided that it might be better if they pooled their resources and had their students take a common test. But in order to have a common test, the standards had to be the same. Thus the idea of “Common Core”. And then Obama comes along and offers states additional money through the “Race to the Top” program if they join Common Core (which is not federally mandated). So, pretty much, Common Core was put into place due to financial reasons for states (less money, theoretically, going to test development, as the states can pool their funds & additional federal money to pay for education).

However, the main winner in the Common Core situation? Pearson Education, the number 1 textbook-selling company in the US, if not the world. See, Pearson Education developed the PARCC test (I’m sorry, I don’t know what the letters in the acronym stand for), the test used to test the students’ proficiency in Common Core standards. If students don’t do well on the PARCC, then Pearson can come back and have the schools buy their textbooks, which are “aligned to Common Core”. And, thanks to Pearson, the logistics of having students take the PARCC assessment are bonkers. Why? Because the test is online-based ONLY, and schools don’t have enough computers for all of their students to take the test at the same time!

As for the comment before about US History being absorbed into just “social studies”, that’s one of the problems with NCLB and the Common Core standards. Both ONLY pertain to reading and math! In other words, science & social studies are considered “extras” by schools, as the schools are only graded on how well their students can read (and actually, how close the students’ interpretation of a passage matches the test designers’ interpretation of a passage) and how well their students can do (and explain) math problems. Science and social studies are not tested, and if they are, their scores are not included in a school’s “rating”.

And the overemphasis on test scores has even eliminated one of the things that we, as children, looked forward to every day in school - recess (even for kindergarteners). Kids don’t have the attention span needed to sit through 3 hours of reading in the morning and 3 hours of math in the afternoon, with the only breaks being a 1/2 hour lunch and a “pullout” period so that the teacher can get her “prep” period in (which, believe me, is how some schools are operating today - and if teachers weren’t required to have preps, they’d eliminate the “pullout” period as well). Kids need recess to socialize and exercise, and, actually, to be able to focus for class! Seriously.

And it’s not much better at the middle school or high school level. At the middle school level where I work, teachers in language arts and math classes are expected to cover so much material that they are on a strict schedule with no opportunity for reteaching a subject that their students did not understand, with a state-“highly recommended” (in other words, you don’t have to do it, but your rating will suffer if you don’t do it) common district grade-level unit test at the end of each unit. The math and language arts classes are also expected to have a “benchmark” test done three times a year - which doesn’t align with the old state test OR the new PARCC. Other classes (including all high school classes) have an “End of Course Exam”. And all these tests are not in lieu of the old state-based test or the PARCC or any teacher-created tests, but in addition to them! The students actually often are testing almost as much as their teachers are teaching them! Yes, the educational system is the backbone of our democracy - but our insistence on being “first” in everything is making our students good test-takers, maybe - but that’s about it.
 
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