The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
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Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#2You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the same title. Nothing advanced, but the concepts were covered quite well. What he missed though was the ability to calculate quickly...this I had to get him to do at home, and it came in time. That being said, I think we need to divorce the common core from the testing standards. Pulling out of the teaching space, any good manager can tell you that applying a one size fits all approach to every person results in a lot of miss-match. Lets stop vilifying the common core, but rethink the way we're forcing teachers to apply it and the tests that states mandate to go with it.
One wonderful point that the author makes is something I've been saying for years (as have many people):
What is called “the achievement gap” is actually an “opportunity gap.”
The opportunity gap is many things. It's lack of a safe, low-stress home environment. It's a lack of time from overworked parents. It's lack of an environment that promotes kids social skills. Things like the boys & girls club provide some help in neighborhoods that have them, but there needs to be much more. I'm extremely pessimistic on this point. I don't think the willpower exists within our current generation of political power brokers (although I do have some hope) to do anything about the common core to all of our problems. Likely spending $1.59m per cruise missile is part of it, and the other part what we seem to value in society....locking people up vs. fixing the core issues (http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/education-vs-prison...). We should not have to eat war to exist (almost quoted disturbed vs. bad religion...but BR fit better).
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#3You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the s…
The fundamental problem is the US habit of funding schools out of property taxes. Then being actually surprised when schools in rich areas are good and schools in poor areas are terrible. Gosh! How could this have happened?
This is not a problem that more tests are going to solve.
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#4You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the s…
We had curriculum standards well before Common Core. What specifically from Common Core enabled what you saw, in way which wasn't done before?
> "we need to divorce the common core from the testing standards"
The only reason Common Core exists is to have testing standards.
Otherwise, without tests, a teacher is free to pick and choose. Which is what we had before this era of high stakes testing.
Also, Common Core was designed to be easy to test at a mass level. Surely not all of the things students learn should be limited to the topics which are easy to test.
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#5You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the s…
The fundamental problem is the US habit of funding schools out of property taxes. Then being actually surprised when schools in rich areas are good and schools in poor areas are terrible. Gosh! How could this have happened? This is not a problem that more tests are going to solve.
It's not that simple. In some areas I have lived the spending per student was higher at the inner city school vs the rich school 2 miles away. Where the money came from didn't matter.
What mattered is the parents of the poor school worked 2 jobs and had no time for the kids. The parents of the rich kids had stay at home moms and tutors.
Depending on your belief system there would also be very different genetics between the two groups.
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#6You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the s…
So my lovely state bailed out of common core a 2 years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/25/i...
I have fairly mixed feelings. In theory, why would a state need to create their own education curriculum? Should a student in New York learn different stuff than a student in Ohio? And I do feel that letting states pick in matters like this means you will have fun things like certain states banning evolution, and other states mandating some form of creationism. And surely there are economies of scale if we need 1 history textbook for the entire country, vs 50.
On the other hand, I see how much my daughters school enforces testing. Tests tests tests. Parent teacher conferences aren't about how to make my daughter more successful in life, it is what to do to raise her future test scores.
As a comp sci person, you can't improve what you don't measure. Tests are how you measure. So I get it. But if I decided to measure the page load time of my server to ultimately improve server performance, no one is really hurt by that. I just write some code that runs in the background - and then I can make things better. Subjecting kids to a year round test or test-study cycle, that totally has an impact. Less time for Gym and Art class, because those aren't on the test. And I would claim that if we had to give up 1-2% of our math test scores for people who will never do math in exchange for a lifetime of healthy exercise habits gained from Gym and sports, I suspect that would be a big net win.
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#7From the article: "it seems clear that the pursuit of a national curriculum is yet another excuse to avoid making serious efforts to reduce the main causes of low student achievement: poverty and racial segregation"
There seems to be a common strain of thought that says we cannot close the achievement gap unless we tackle poverty. Yet there is considerable evidence to support the opposite view. Here is a summary of a few studies as reported in Teaching as Leadership [1]:
"The schools that are highly effective produce results that almost entirely overcome the effects of student background" [2]
"Having a top-quartile teacher rather than a bottom-quartile teacher four years in a row would be enough to close the black-white test score gap" [3]
"Differences in this magnitude -- 50 percentile points in just three years -- are stunning. For an individual child, it means the difference between a 'remedial' label and placement in the accelerated or even gifted track. And the difference between entry into a selective college and a lifetime of low-paying, menial work". [4]
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-As-Leadership-Effective-Achie...
[2] Marzano, R. J. What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action. Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2003, p. 7
[3] Kane, T., Gordon, R. and Staiger, D. Identifying Effective Teachers Useing Performance on the Job Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2004, p. 8
[4] Peske, H. and Haycock, K. Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Short-Changed on Teacher Quality: A Report and Recommendations by the Education Trust. Washington, D.C.: Education Trust, 2006, p. 11
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#8You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the s…
The fundamental problem is the US habit of funding schools out of property taxes. Then being actually surprised when schools in rich areas are good and schools in poor areas are terrible. Gosh! How could this have happened? This is not a problem that more tests are going to solve.
Have you actualy checked the school funding differences in your local city? The city wide funds around here go into one school system. I thought that was common?
I've looked through the budget spreadsheets for the Charlotte, NC school system. Schools in areas with more welfare recipents receive an even higher funding level and more teachers. These schools still may still be terrible, but relative funding between schools is not the problem.
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#9I used to rail against "Common Core" - but then realized the main issue I have is with the use of Reform Math [1], which has been around longer than that.
Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students
#10You know, as a parent I'd heard many things about "Common Core" from the media, other parents, and even family members. When my son got to kindergarten I was a bit worried about overbearing tests and the lack of a tried and true teaching method. Well, what we got were concepts. In kindergarten, my son learned things that I recognized as basic number theory...almost as if it came straight out of Andrew's book of the s…
That being said, I think we need to divorce the common core from the testing standards.
I think we need to divorce the metric system from ways of making standardized length measurements.
Instead, I think people in washington should measure distance in rods, in virginia they should measure in yards, in NY feet should be used, and we should never ensure a way of converting rods to feet.
The entire purpose of the common core is to define a uniform set of standards. Without this, we have no way of even measuring the fact that students in school X are performing badly relative to students in school Y. (This is, of course, exactly what Diane Ravitch wants.)