Thread: Education "Reform" : “Common Core” standards

‘They’re making kids stupid now’: Check out this Common Core math problem
Posted at 12:01 am on January 21, 2014

Lauren @HollaAtMe_Baby

Have y'all looked at this "common core" shit they got kids doing in school these days ? It's complete bullshit.

10:11 PM - 20 Jan 2014

As a matter of fact, we have had a look at Common Core, and no, we don’t get it either. Check out this fourth grade math problem, and if you become confused, just remember to “use number bonds to help you skip-count by seven by making ten or adding to the ones.”

My 9 year old sisters math homework with this "common core" shit. WHAT ARE THESE DIRECTIONS.

What happened to "3 fish, take away one, you have 2 fish"?

Now it's all this "3 fish, times the price of gas plus the square root of 4827"

http://twitchy.com/2014/01/21/theyre...-math-problem/.

Why I Want To Give Up Teaching
By ELIZABETH A. NATALE | OP-ED - The Hartford Courant
7:55 p.m. EST, January 17, 2014

Surrounded by piles of student work to grade, lessons to plan and laundry to do, I have but one hope for the new year: that the Common Core State Standards, their related Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium testing and the new teacher evaluation program will become extinct.

I have been a middle school English teacher for 15 years. I entered teaching after 19 years as a newspaper reporter and college public relations professional. I changed careers to contribute to society; shape young minds; create good and productive citizens; and spend time with youngsters lacking adults at home with time, energy and resources to teach them.

Although the tasks ahead of me are no different from those of the last 14 years, today is different. Today, I am considering ending my teaching career.

When I started teaching, I learned that dealing with demanding college presidents and cantankerous newspaper editors was nothing. While those jobs allowed me time to drink tea and read the newspaper, teaching deprived me of an opportunity to use the restroom. And when I did, I was often the Pied Piper, followed by children intent on speaking with me through the bathroom door.

I loved it!

Unfortunately, government attempts to improve education are stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help children. The Common Core standards require teachers to march lockstep in arming students with "21st-century skills." In English, emphasis on technology and nonfiction reading makes it more important for students to prepare an electronic presentation on how to make a paper airplane than to learn about moral dilemmas from Natalie Babbitt's beloved novel "Tuck Everlasting."

The Smarter Balance program assumes my students are comfortable taking tests on a computer, even if they do not own one. My value as a teacher is now reduced to how successful I am in getting a student who has eaten no breakfast and is a pawn in her parents' divorce to score well enough to meet my teacher evaluation goals.

I am a professional. My mission is to help students progress academically, but there is much more to my job than ensuring students can answer multiple-choice questions on a computer. Unlike my engineer husband who runs tests to rate the functionality of instruments, I cannot assess students by plugging them into a computer. They are not machines. They are humans who are not fazed by a D but are undone when their goldfish dies, who struggle with composing a coherent paragraph but draw brilliantly, who read on a third-grade level but generously hold the door for others.

My most important contributions to students are not addressed by the Common Core, Smarter Balance and teacher evaluations. I come in early, work through lunch and stay late to help children who ask for assistance but clearly crave the attention of a caring adult. At intramurals, I voluntarily coach a ragtag team of volleyball players to ensure good sportsmanship. I "ooh" and "ah" over comments made by a student who finally raises his hand or earns a C on a test she insisted she would fail.

Those moments mean the most to my students and me, but they are not valued by a system that focuses on preparing workers rather than thinkers, collecting data rather than teaching and treating teachers as less than professionals.

Until this year, I was a highly regarded certified teacher. Now, I must prove myself with data that holds little meaning to me. I no longer have the luxury of teaching literature, with all of its life lessons, or teaching writing to students who long to be creative. My success is measured by my ability to bring 85 percent of struggling students to "mastery," without regard for those with advanced skills. Instead of fostering love of reading and writing, I am killing children's passions — committing "readicide," as Kelly Gallagher called it in his book of that title.

Teaching is the most difficult — but most rewarding — work I have ever done. It is, however, art, not science. A student's learning will never be measured by any test, and I do not believe the current trend in education will lead to adults better prepared for the workforce, or to better citizens. For the sake of students, our legislators must reach this same conclusion before good teachers give up the profession — and the children — they love.

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/...,6264603.story

New Classroom Rules
by Abby Byrd

1. Enter the room and socialize at your leisure. The daily “warm-up” is just a suggestion that is not in any way intended to promote the acquisition of grammar skills over necessary social interactions.

2. Every time you enter the room, please be sure to ask me if we’re watching a movie. I may have neglected to plan a movie, and will quickly be reminded that a feature-length film, however loosely connected to the curriculum, will be both more entertaining and more instructive than whatever lesson I had originally planned.

3. Sit wherever you want. If you feel like sitting. Standing up is good, too, or sitting on top of the chair and rocking in it. It’s important for those of you who are kinesthetic learners to feel comfortable.

4. Please don’t put your name on any papers that you turn in, especially on multiple choice quizzes. I enjoy challenging myself to match each of your 125 identities with the intricacies of the way you form the first four letters of the alphabet.

5. When I say “Pass your papers up,” what I really mean is, “Pass your paper to the person either to the left or right of you. Or behind you. Or just keep your paper at your desk; it doesn’t matter.”

6. When I say, “Put your papers in a stack,” what I really mean is, “Throw your papers in a pile facing all different directions. Unless you don’t want to put your paper in the pile. Which is fine too, because I don’t want to stifle your individuality.”

7. When preparing formal essays, feel free to abandon all conventions in the interest of expressing your creativity. For example, use titles like “My Super-Awesome Essay.” Festoon your papers with patterned borders, and use interesting fonts in colors such as bubblegum pink and seafoam green. Making your font size extremely large ensures that I can read your essay from very far away. Making your font size extremely tiny serves as a gentle reminder to visit the eye doctor. Either is encouraged. Or, alternate a sentence in very large type with a sentence in very small type. That keeps me focused.

8. Read your essay aloud. Then put commas wherever you breathe.

9. Start every other sentence with the interjection “well.” It makes me feel as if you’re right there talking to me.

10. Use the time when I’m giving directions to multitask. Doodle, stare into space, gesture to someone across the room, pick your nose. Even if you don’t hear how to differentiate among the four types of noun clauses, it’s still good for me to practice explaining it, just so I don’t forget! LOL!

11. Sharpen your pencil at any time, even if you have to walk in front of me while I’m talking to do it, and even if the incessant grinding of the sharpener drowns out anything I might be saying.

12. It is a good idea to verify all directions by asking the same question three, four, or five times.

13. Encourage your parents to email me often, and to use capital letters, multiple exclamation points, and an accusatory tone to get my attention and ensure that I will respond promptly.

All classes this year will involve parties with piñatas, paper-wad basketball, and hair braiding. Should I bore you at any time, please raise your hand and I will unzip my face to reveal that I am actually a magical giraffe-llama-unicorn hybrid who will entertain you with magic tricks and grant each of you 500 extra credit points in addition to a lucrative career in which you will not have to write coherently or have any knowledge of grammar.


Looking forward to a fun year!



Holy shit IT’S RAINING CANDY!!!
Or prescription drugs, I can’t really tell which.



Addendum, To the Senders of All That Hate Mail About How I’m an Embarrassment to the Profession: If you are so dim and humorless that you are offended by this post, please know that I am a young, vibrant teacher who loves my students. Teaching isn’t just a job for me; it’s my identity, and I will probably teach until I am mentally or physically unable to do so. Teaching has given meaning to my life unlike anything else I’ve ever done, and even on difficult days, I have hope that I have made a positive difference in my students’ lives. When I start to lose hope, I go to a red binder on top of my bookshelf that is filled with notes of thanks. This post could have been written only by someone who knows and loves kids well. If you can’t see that, then congratulations on LACKING A SENSE OF HUMOR and taking yourself RIDICULOUSLY GDDMN SERIOUSLY. I’m just thankful we don’t know each other in real life.

http://abbythewriter.wordpress.com/2...assroom-rules/

How would you like to be six years old and given this problem? Common Core is ROTTEN to the core!

‘We Teach Our Children Not to Sleep Around’:
Dad Outraged Over Biology Homework That Stepped Way, Way Over the Line
Feb. 15, 2014 5:07pm Dave Urbanski

Let’s say your high school freshman son or daughter asks for your help with a particularly difficult biology homework assignment.

So you walk over, glance at the worksheet on DNA and blood type, and notice questions about a mother trying to determine the identity of her baby’s father. Then question reads in part: “She had the state take a blood test of potential fathers. Based on the information in this table, why was the baby taken away by the state after the test?”



Possible answers? Cab driver, bartender, flight attendant, and guy at the club.

That was what Larry Basaj read on his daughter Audri’s homework page from Romeo High School — about 30 miles north of Detroit — and he said he flipped. “What are they teaching?” he asked WDIV-TV in Detroit. “I couldn’t come up with the words. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s teaching them that it’s OK to not know who it is because you can have the state help you. And if they can’t help you, they are going to take your child away, and it’s not the way it is. I was beyond fired up last night.”

According to WWJ-TV in Detroit, the incomplete assignment was sent back with a note: “We teach our children not to sleep around.”

After talking to their daughter about the questions, Audri was concerned. “Now that I see what it really means, I think it like depicts women in a really uncomfortable light,” she told WWJ.

“The goal is that the students are understanding blood types and DNA and possibilities based on the makeup of the two parents,” explained Romeo Schools Superintendent Nancy Campbell to WWJ. “But, again, this painted a picture, I think, that was not appropriate,” she told WWJ. “My first thought when I saw it was that it certainly been worded better.”

Campbell told WDIV the question came from a website — teachingbioformatics.com — which the teacher has used for getting problems with components and concepts students can understand. Campbell said the question will be revised.

Campbell said the teacher, who got the worksheet from a teaching website, has apologized. “Teachers use all kinds of different resources that are available to them,” Campbell told WWJ. “[This incident] brings in awareness for all of our staff to, you know, be more thoughtful and reflective about the items they use when they put them on a homework assignment.”

According to Campbell, only one parent complained, WWJ reported.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...over-the-line/

You’ve Just Got to See What a ‘Frustrated Parent’ Wrote on Their Child’s Common Core Math Assignment
March 24, 2014 2:34pm Oliver Darcy

One purported father’s response to his child’s Common Core math assignment is making waves around the Internet.

Posted to a popular conservative politically-oriented Facebook page, a fed-up dad appears to have authored a hard-hitting note to his child’s teacher in the space given to provide an answer. https://www.facebook.com/PatriotPost...&stream_ref=10



“Jack used the number line below to solve 427 – 316. Find his error. Then write a letter to Jack telling him what he did right, and what he should do to fix his mistake,” the assignment instructed.

That seemingly perplexing question prompted a response to the fictitious “Jack” character from the parent.

“Dear Jack,” the upset parent wrote. “Don’t feel bad. I have a bachelor of science degree in electronics engineering which included extensive study in differential equations and other higher math applications. Even I cannot explain the Common Core mathematics approach, nor get the answer correct.”

“In the real world, simplification is valued over complication,” he added, signing the letter as a “frustrated parent.”

Since posted online, the response has been widely circulated on the Internet and shared thousands of times.

It’s not clear who authored the letter and where the homework was assigned.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...th-assignment/

Anyone want to have brain surgery from a doctor that can explain how the tumor is removed but hasn’t done it successfully and only gets close each time? It is time to return to the old way of teaching mathematics and other basic subjects. This is nuts! Talk about dumbing down our kids.

...

Propaganda: Kids Learn Writing By Copying Sentences About Obeying Government And The President

When I homeschooled, copying sentences meant memorizing founding father quotes. Instead, your tax dollars pay for this bilge. MAD YET?! A whole nation being converted to Marxism through your child's brain. Read more http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/e...-the-president

Parents rail against 'ridiculous' Common Core math homework
Published May 15, 2014

An Iowa woman jokingly calls it "Satan's handiwork." A California mom says she's broken down in tears. A Pennsylvania parent says it "makes my blood boil."

What could be so horrible? Grade-school math.

As schools around the U.S. implement national Common Core learning standards, parents trying to help their kids with math homework say that adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing has become as complicated as calculus.

They're stumped by unfamiliar terms like "rectangular array" and "area model." They wrestle with division that requires the use of squares, slashes and dots. They rage over impenetrable word problems.

Stacey Jacobson-Francis, 41, of Berkeley, California, said her daughter's homework requires her to know four different ways to add. "That is way too much to ask of a first grader," she said. "She can't remember them all, and I don't know them all, so we just do the best that we can."

Simple arithmetic isn't so simple anymore, leading to plenty of angst at home. Even celebrities aren't immune: The comedian Louis C.K. took to Twitter recently to vent about his kids' convoluted homework, writing that his daughters went from loving math to crying about it.

Adopted by 44 states, the Common Core is a set of English and math standards that spell out what students should know and when. The standards for elementary math emphasize that kids should not only be able to solve arithmetic problems using the tried-and-true methods their parents learned, but understand how numbers relate to each other. "Part of what we are trying to teach children is to become problem solvers and thinkers," said Diane Briars, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. "We want students to understand what they're doing, not just get the right answer."

That's a radically different approach than many parents are accustomed to. Jennie Barnds, 40, of Davenport, Iowa, was puzzled by her fourth-grade daughter's long division homework, a foreign amalgam of boxes, slashes and dots with nary a quotient or dividend in sight.
"If we are sitting there for 20 minutes trying to do a simple problem, how is an 8, 9, 10-year-old supposed to figure it out?" she said. "It's incredibly frustrating for the student and the parent."

Whether Common Core itself is responsible for the homework headaches is a contentious issue.

Some experts say Common Core promotes reform math, a teaching method that gained currency in the 1990s. Derided as "fuzzy" math by critics, reform math says kids should explore and understand concepts like place value before they become fluent in the standard way of doing arithmetic. Critics say it fails to stress basic computational skills, leaving students unprepared for higher math.

Stanford University mathematician James Milgram calls the reform math-inspired standards a "complete mess" -- too advanced for younger students, not nearly rigorous enough in the upper grades. And teachers, he contends, are largely ill-prepared to put the standards into practice. "You are asking teachers to teach something that is incredibly complicated to kids who aren't ready for it," said Milgram, who voted against the standards as part of the committee that reviewed them. "If you don't think craziness will result, then you're being fundamentally naive."

Common Core supporters insist the standards are developmentally appropriate and driven by research. "For years there has been a raging debate in mathematics education about which is more important, procedural fluency or conceptual understanding. The obvious answer is `both' and the standards give that answer," said University of Arizona mathematician Bill McCallum, who co-wrote the math standards.

Common Core advocates acknowledge parents are frustrated, but blame the problems on botched implementation, insufficient training or poorly written math programs that predate Common Core.

They say schools also need to communicate better. "The homework can appear ridiculous when it is taken out of context -- that's where the biggest problem lies," said Steve O'Connor, a fifth-grade math teacher in Wells, New York. "Parents don't have the context, nor have they been given the means to see the context."

O'Connor has set up a website in an effort to reduce parents' frustration over homework. Other school districts have held workshops for parents to learn alongside their children. But many parents say they've been on their own, complaining that districts have foisted new math curricula with little explanation.

In Pennsylvania, which signed on to the national Common Core in 2010 but developed its own version, Allison Lienhard said homework sessions with her 10-year-old have ended in tears. "She gets frustrated because I can't do it the way they are supposed to do it," Lienhard said. "To me, math is numbers, it's concrete, it's black-and-white. I don't understand why you need to bring this conceptual thing into math -- at least not at this age."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/15...math-homework/

1st grader is told not to do cursive until 3rd grade, woman’s response is legendary
Too many schools are teaching kids what to think instead of how to think.

Posted by: Joshua Riddle June 6, 2014



http://youngcons.com/1st-grader-is-t...-is-legendary/

Check Out This Math Problem Using the ‘Old’ Way and the ‘Common Core’ Way
By Top Right News on July 9, 2014




http://toprightnews.com/?p=3904

About That ‘Common Core’ Math Problem Making the Rounds on Facebook…
March 7, 2014 By Hemant Mehta

Over the past week, I’ve seen this image multiple times on Facebook and elsewhere, a supposed denunciation of the Common Core version of math that kids are now learning:



That picture is especially popular on conservatives’ Facebook walls… and I’m sure one of your relatives has said something about it, too. On the surface, it seems ridiculous. The top makes sense; the bottom is silly; screw you, Common Core!

Except that the top doesn’t make sense, the bottom does, and the connection to Common Core is completely misunderstood. (Says this math teacher.)

Here’s what’s going on: The top is how most of us learned subtraction. I’m sure your teachers taught you what was going on mathematically, but do you really remember what they said? Probably not. For us, it’s just an algorithm. You can do it without thinking. You hope there’s no “borrowing” of numbers involved, but if you had to do it by hand, you could probably pull it off.

The problem with that method is that if I ask students to explain why it works, they’d have a really hard time explaining it to me. They might be able to do the computation, but they don’t get the math behind it. For some people, that’s fine. For math teachers, that’s a problem because it means a lot of students won’t be able to grasp other math concepts in the future because they never really developed “number sense.”

That’s where the bottom solution comes into play. I admit it’s totally confusing but here’s what it’s saying:

If you want to subtract 12 from 32, there’s a better way to think about it. Forget the algorithm. Instead, count up from 12 to an “easier” number like 15. (You’ve gone up 3.) Then, go up to 20. (You’ve gone up another 5.) Then jump to 30. (Another 10). Then, finally, to 32. (Another 2.)

I know. That’s still ridiculous. Well, consider this: Suppose you buy coffee and it costs $4.30 but all you have is a $20 bill. How much change should the barista give you back? (Assume for a second the register is broken.)

You sure as hell aren’t going to get out a sheet of paper and do this:


Instead, you’d just figure it out this way: It’d take 70 cents to get to $5… and another $15 to get to $20… so you should get back $15.70.

That’s it. That’s the sort of math most of us do on a regular basis and it’s exactly the sort of thinking the “new” way in the picture is attempting to explain. Granted that was an *awful* example to use, but that’s the idea. If students can get a handle on thinking this way instead of just plugging numbers into a formula, the thinking goes, it’ll make other math skills much easier to understand.

This image from Reddit clarifies the situation even more (click to enlarge): http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comment..._new_math_and/


As that image also points out, Common Core doesn’t say, “Do this.” Rather, it suggests some general standards that students at each grade level should meet and most states have agreed to adopt those standards. But none of that matters to the people who would rather complain about the “new” math without taking a second to understand what they’re even looking at.

There may be plenty of reasons to criticize Common Core (such as the standardized testing component of it), but this isn’t one of them.

***Update*** (3/9/14): I should point out that the Common Core standards do include teaching students the “old way.” The “new way” is just one suggested method of teaching students how to add/subtract numbers.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendl...#ixzz37RYCSugN