Common Core lessons blasted for sneaking politics into elementary classrooms

Fiddytree said:

Fantastic, but as we all know, what the teachers say about student progress doesn't really matter. What matters is systemic discontent by American citizens, business leaders, and politicians. As a result, you're looking at systematically evaluating not only a student, a teacher, a school, a district, and a county or even Governor's units..you're evaluating entire states, regions, and the country as a whole. Try giving a "state" or "national" report card off of the varied evaluations a teacher thinks appropriate. We would be taking writing samples, surely systematizing them like the SAT/ACT/GRE, but it's still standardized, somewhat arbitrary stuff educators can and rightly do critique, right?

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What seems to matter is trying to fit everyone neatly into the same mold. It doesn't work. The standardized test scores are not an accurate measure of student progress.

If the bureaucracy doesn't want to take the teachers' word for how well the class is doing, let them assess the writing samples and so on. Give every kid a subject to write on, and then let the "educators" in the state and federal offices of education score them. That would make the bureaucrats actually work, give them a little glimpse of what teachers do all the time, and perhaps distract them from coming up with more great ideas to fix everything.

Or, we could continue to assess kids with questions like:

Which sentence has correct grammar and punctuation?

a. Larry and me went to Larry's house.
b. Larry and I went to Larry's house.
c. Larry and I went to Larrys' house.
d. Who gives a rip? I'm not getting graded on this (bleep!) anyway!

The correct answer, of course, is D.

Josie said:

When I taught 3rd grade and had to administer state assessments, I would sit there watching these 9 year olds try to get through pages and pages of material in 45 minutes. Especially when it came to reading, many kids would just glance at the passage and then just half-heartedly read the questions/answers. Some of my lowest readers would just mark answers down the page because they knew they had zero chance of getting them right. It was exhausting to watch them.

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That is a problem, I agree. Inappropriately long or complicated tests for an age group speak to an issue with the program itself. Are these CC tests?

Dittohead not! said:

If you want to know how well kids can write, you give them a subject and have them write about it. If you want to know how well they read, do a reading inventory. If you want to know how well they do math, give them a math problem to work on. Good teachers knew how well their kids could read, write, and do math long before anyone thought of the NCLB tests. All that is needed is to standardize the reading inventories, math sheets, and writing assessments. That doesn't have to be subjective, at least not very, and is far and away more accurate than a multiple guess test that kids don't care about.

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State assessments are standardized with non-subjective responses. Now, por favor, describe how educators would incorporate instruction that aligns with state assessments and facilitates learning.

P.S. For all students.

That's the 600 million dollar question.

Wouldn't a single federal standard also reduce costs? Sure the initial step would be more expensivee but afterwards every teacher is teaching the same material, but not necessarily in the same way. I would think that that would be cheaper in the long run.

Dittohead not! said:

What seems to matter is trying to fit everyone neatly into the same mold. It doesn't work. The standardized test scores are not an accurate measure of student progress.

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It certainly doesn't work. It gives us a limited amount of understanding, but we expect much more from it than we can possibly obtain.

I think the question we ask ourselves about education sets us up for a lack of knowledge and lack of ability to do much better. By framing it in terms of a national uplift project, we have obscured the complications, and set us up to follow any one of Peter Rossi's Metallic Laws.

If the bureaucracy doesn't want to take the teachers' word for how well the class is doing, let them assess the writing samples and so on. Give every kid a subject to write on, and then let the "educators" in the state and federal offices of education score them. That would make the bureaucrats actually work, give them a little glimpse of what teachers do all the time, and perhaps distract them from coming up with more great ideas to fix everything.

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Bureaucrats are only part of the story. Frankly, I would indict the entire United States of America.

Μολὼν λαβέ;1062529488 said:

State assessments are standardized with non-subjective responses. Now, por favor, describe how educators would incorporate instruction that aligns with state assessments and facilitates learning.

P.S. For all students.

That's the 600 million dollar question.

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You mean standardized learning, where every student learns the same thing?

and there is no room for individual differences or creativity?

I really don't think that is a reasonable goal, but anyway, if you really want to come up with an objective measure that can compare kids in school A with school B, and last year's students with this years, and measure them against a pre set goal, then what you do is matrix sampling.

Which means that each student takes a portion of the test, then the tests are combined into a score for the whole school/state/nation/ whatever. Instead of six or eight hours of testing, you have maybe a half hour. Kids will actually sit there and try to answer the questions for a half hour (most of them, anyway), but not for eight hours, no way.

Then, if you really want to find out what they know about the goals that the government has set, computerize the questions, give immediate feedback and some sort of a reward for correct answers. Do that, and the test scores will go up dramatically.

Gina said:

That is a problem, I agree. Inappropriately long or complicated tests for an age group speak to an issue with the program itself. Are these CC tests?

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What I'm talking about are the state standardized testing of the past. We don't exactly know how it will compare to Common Core standardized assessments. The #1 different thing is that they're all on computers.

I noticed that you skipped over my list of facts about CCSS from the video series. The video series where you said there were no facts presented at all....just conspiracy theories.

Josie said:

What I'm talking about are the state standardized testing of the past. We don't exactly know how it will compare to Common Core standardized assessments. The #1 different thing is that they're all on computers.

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My daughter was taking standardized state tests on computers for the last couple years. She didn't have a problem with it. I'm not sure why that would be a problem.

Or we could just mandate that every student take the SAT and/or ACT. The two companies that make the tests could modify their tests for 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders. The test creating experience is already there for those two corporations.

Moot said:

The Common Core initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). It's been whole heartedly accepted by 46 states.

These governors aren't Progressives....

http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/COMMITTEELIST.PDF



Because Obama likes it.

Kentucky is a red state.....


"...Kentucky was the first to implement the Common Core standards, and began offering the new curriculum in math and English in August of 2010. In 2013 Time magazine reported that the high school graduation rate had increased from 80% in 2010 to 86% in 2013, test scores went up 2 percentage points in the second year of using the Common Core test, and the percentage of students considered to be ready for college or a career, based on a battery of assessments, went up from 34% in 2010 to 54% in 2013.....

Common Core State Standards Initiative - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Well moot, I would have to look at the actual quote from Time but I'm not a subscriber. This is what I got from more than one source about the PARCC results in KT: The news was only slightly better for Kentucky this year. “Overall, the math and reading scores in grade 3 though 8 and high school did go up, but the concerns we have is that they did not go up fast enough,” Holliday said at a September press conference announcing the new results. Statewide only about 40 percent of students scored at least proficient in math and about 50 percent in reading. And the gap has increased between the percentage of white students who are proficient and the percentage of African Americans. What Kentucky Can Teach the Rest of the U.S. About the Common Core - Sarah Butrymowicz - The Atlantic

Gina said:

My daughter was taking standardized state tests on computers for the last couple years. She didn't have a problem with it. I'm not sure why that would be a problem.

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Well, it's going to be a big problem for schools that have one or two computers per 30 students. And that computer barely works. Also you have lots of kids that have zero experience using a computer at all.

reinoe said:

Wouldn't a single federal standard also reduce costs? Sure the initial step would be more expensivee but afterwards every teacher is teaching the same material, but not necessarily in the same way. I would think that that would be cheaper in the long run.

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We'll see as this rolls out but my opinion is a large part of this is profit motive which will increase cost in *some* areas.

Josie said:

Well, it's going to be a big problem for schools that have one or two computers per 30 students. And that computer barely works. Also you have lots of kids that have zero experience using a computer at all.

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Very true, but on the other hand, computerized examinations help for many students that I would be representing, and are often a more relevant means of producing extensive written material.

Now, I am assuming there are paper versions of the examination that will be quite prominent.

Lastly, I am also assuming this is a DPI issue rather than mostly a CC issue.

Edit: This would take more looking into by me.

Fiddytree said:

Very true, but on the other hand, computerized examinations help for many students that I would be representing, and are often a more relevant means of producing extensive written material.

Now, I am assuming there are paper versions of the examination that will be quite prominent.

Lastly, I am also assuming this is a DPI issue rather than mostly a CC issue.

Edit: This would take more looking into by me.

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Alright, after some quick digging, I would say that:

1) Still the same cost prohibitive + student benefit points as before.
2) Yes, paper and pencil alternative available.
3) An overly-ambitious design of CC's testing incentives as of yet.
4) Reiteration of the hopeless "we aren't funding many public schools enough" mantra still needs to be said.

Josie said:

Well, it's going to be a big problem for schools that have one or two computers per 30 students. And that computer barely works. Also you have lots of kids that have zero experience using a computer at all.

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As states adopt or have adopted CC, this should have been a consideration. I read a quick story about Oakland. They will get a half million dollars from the DOE to implement CC. It will be used in part for that purpose.

I guess I live in a more forward looking state. Computers have been in our schools since the mid-90s. We have computer labs, classes and computers in classrooms beginning in elementary school. The handwriting has been on the wall as far as the necessity for computers to be used in education for decades.

I cannot c and p it on my phone but it says CC is not a curriculum. The state developed the curriculum to meet the standards. We have had state standards for years with locally adopted curriculum for teacher flexibility. This is just the latest version.

This is not true of your schools Josie?

Look for your state here.

Common Core State Standards Initiative | In the States

Gina said:

As states adopt or have adopted CC, this should have been a consideration. I read a quick story about Oakland. They will get a half million dollars from the DOE to implement CC. It will be used in part for that purpose.

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They didn't have a lot of time to consider it before the deadline for the federal government.

Gina said:

I cannot c and p it on my phone but it says CC is not a curriculum. The state developed the curriculum to meet the standards. We have had state standards for years with locally adopted curriculum for teacher flexibility. This is just the latest version.

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Achieve, Inc., the National Governor's Association and CCSSO wrote the standards.

Common Core isn't a curriculum, but it is what every single company is using to create new or update old curriculum. Everything must be aligned with Common Core now just as with NCLB. NCLB was a giant ball of federal crap and this is an even gianter ball of federal crap. Yes, I'm a teacher and I said "gianter". Sue me.

If you'd go back and read through the numbered lists I've made, we've already covered your questions, I think.

Josie said:

They didn't have a lot of time to consider it before the deadline for the federal government.



Achieve, Inc., the National Governor's Association and CCSSO wrote the standards.

Common Core isn't a curriculum, but it is what every single company is using to create new or update old curriculum. Everything must be aligned with Common Core now just as with NCLB. NCLB was a giant ball of federal crap and this is an even gianter ball of federal crap. Yes, I'm a teacher and I said "gianter". Sue me.

If you'd go back and read through the numbered lists I've made, we've already covered your questions, I think.

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If you wouldn't mind, since we are several pages into this thread, I don't recall if your school has adopted curriculum in the manner mine has. My state has a state wide adopted standard with locally adopted curriculum. Is your state not doing it that way?

Gina said:

If you wouldn't mind, since we are several pages into this thread, I don't recall if your school has adopted curriculum in the manner mine has. My state has a state wide adopted standard with locally adopted curriculum. Is your state not doing it that way?

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Yes, that's how it works.

rabbitcaebannog said:

Well moot, I would have to look at the actual quote from Time but I'm not a subscriber. This is what I got from more than one source about the PARCC results in KT: The news was only slightly better for Kentucky this year. “Overall, the math and reading scores in grade 3 though 8 and high school did go up, but the concerns we have is that they did not go up fast enough,” Holliday said at a September press conference announcing the new results. Statewide only about 40 percent of students scored at least proficient in math and about 50 percent in reading. And the gap has increased between the percentage of white students who are proficient and the percentage of African Americans. What Kentucky Can Teach the Rest of the U.S. About the Common Core - Sarah Butrymowicz - The Atlantic

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Terry Holliday seems to be saying that Common Core standards aren't the problem, but rather it's the teachers lack of skills and training...

Holliday said the exam results and teachers’ anecdotal evidence show weaknesses in elementary reading and middle-school math in Kentucky. He said New York’s schools should identify where students lack the requisite skills for the more challenging coursework and focus there.

He said working to improve teachers’ skills is important, and King said New York is also focusing intensely on professional development.

“It’s overall growth, but not fast enough,” Holliday said, reacting to the second year of results in his state. “We are going to have to really beef up teacher training and support to make the kind of gains we need to be making to get back into a larger percentage of kids being college- and career-ready.”

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What New York learns from Kentucky about Common Core education | Capital New York


So if students, particularly black students, are falling behind then perhaps it's because a lot of teachers in the inner cities and urban areas weren't that qualified or well trained to begin with....

"....Studies show that matching quality teachers with disadvantaged students is an effective way to close the black-white achievement gap. Good teachers are more effective than small class sizes, for instance.

For starters, the United States needs to increase its pool of quality teachers. Almost half of its K-12 teachers come from the bottom third of college classes. Classroom leaders such as Singapore, South Korea, and Finland select from the top ranks. In Finland, only 1 in 10 applicants is accepted into teacher training.....

Another US hurdle is teacher training. Many states require a master’s degree in education in order to be certified to teach. This automatically locks out a talented population such as second-career experts in a field who don’t want to invest the time or money in a graduate degree that’s often short on classroom skills and long on pedagogy.

President Obama’s “Race to the Top” fund encourages states through competitive grants to open up alternative, effective routes to teacher certification. Hopefully, that fund will survive budget cutting (same for Teach for America).

Public schools won’t be able to attract and keep high quality teachers if they don’t reward and develop them once they get into the classroom.

That’s next to impossible given the standard operating procedure of teacher unions. As the nation is witnessing, a rigid rule such as last-hired, first-fired lops off enthusiastic newcomers in favor of those with seniority. Experience is important in education, but it does not always add up to quality. Performance must be the determiner....."

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Next US education reform: Higher teacher quality - CSMonitor.com


Once the layers of reform and standardizing are peeled away it becomes clear that the only thing that really matters is the quality of instruction. Even Kentucky’s education commissioner, Terry Holliday seems to recognize that it's the teacher's lack of training and skills that is slowing down the progress and higher test scores in his state.

As a parent, I would prefer that my kids learn how to think and solve the test problems, rather than just memorize and not understand why that is the answer to the test.

Josie said:

Yes, that's how it works.

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But is that what they did? Did they look at the standards and then adapt the curriculum locally?

Moot said:

Terry Holliday seems to be saying that Common Core standards aren't the problem, but rather it's the teachers lack of skills and training...


What New York learns from Kentucky about Common Core education | Capital New York


So if students, particularly black students, are falling behind then perhaps it's because a lot of teachers in the inner cities and urban areas weren't that qualified or well trained to begin with....


Next US education reform: Higher teacher quality - CSMonitor.com


Once the layers of reform and standardizing are peeled away it becomes clear that the only thing that really matters is the quality of instruction. Even Kentucky’s education commissioner, Terry Holliday seems to recognize that it's the teacher's lack of training and skills that is slowing down the progress and higher test scores in his state.

As a parent, I would prefer that my kids learn how to think and solve the test problems, rather than just memorize and not understand why that is the answer to the test.

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I'm not surprised Terry Holiday would point the finger at teachers and say in his state they have a lack of skills and/or are poorly trained. Perhaps, as the commissioner he should be embarrassed because if he has poorly trained teachers who are ill prepared for the Common Core that is a reflection on him. After all, this is a top down plan. Why would he use high stakes testing? With that said and all scapegoats aside, did he ever consider that it has little to do with the CC but rather how it's being used or should I say misused? It's not a bad thing to have standards and expectations but the question is how realistic are those expectations on all fronts? Yes, it's fairly new. Some states having more money for training and materials than others. One has to ponder how fair just that one factor is in itself? Then add to the mix students and the high stakes it means to them. What happens to those who are developing writing and reading skills in the younger grades? Will they be deemed failures because a test expects them to be proficient writers who can analyze and synthesis information by critiquing a wide range of POVs and show that in composition form. I'm not talking 5th and 6th grades but by 3rd grade they need to be masters of both those skills. That means children who are still developing those skills simply fail. That is what happen to a wide range of students in both NY and KT where the PARCC was administered. Not just to those "minorities" who probably have "bad" teachers.

I'm not at all surprised that happened in a wide range of districts especially in poorer areas because not all students come into school with the same skills. Some due to a lack of resources, stimulation so on and so forth. If you compare them to students who come in reading, you already see a wide gap in reading skills. Now add to that brain development. Some brains soak up language rather easily and fluidly. Others struggle and need extra support. Many need practice and guidance. It takes more than 3 years for young children to be masters in reading and writing. Those who have them mastered that young are the exception and not the rule. Raising the bar will not change that unless these people who have developed the test have figured out how to fix the brain into one standard method where all learn the same way using one standard time table. Then every child should without excuse should be masters by ages 8 and 9.

My prediction is the people who developed the PARCC will make adjustments so the majority of children pass. That is how they do standardized testing which the PARCC is not. It is a criterion reference test. Still, I have a feeling the rubrics they use will have to reflect the standard norm. No matter how much people hate to acknowledge the bell curve exist (especially in my field and I don't know why).....It does.

rabbitcaebannog said:

My prediction is the people who developed the PARCC will make adjustments so the majority of children pass. That is how they do standardized testing which the PARCC is not. It is a criterion reference test. Still, I have a feeling the rubrics they use will have to reflect the standard norm. No matter how much people hate to acknowledge the bell curve exist (especially in my field and I don't know why).....It does.

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I forgot to include an important word. "norm-reference" in front of standardized test.

Gina said:

But is that what they did? Did they look at the standards and then adapt the curriculum locally?

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I was on the committee that went through the 2 literacy programs that administrators picked for us to choose from. They picked these two programs because they were already aligned with Common Core standards. Our committee went through every single page of the teacher's manuals, student textbooks, big books, etc. and tallied how many times vocabulary, specific phonics rules, comprehension, fluency, etc. was taught. It was exhausting, to say the least. After we were done with our report, we presented it to the rest of the staff and everyone voted.

Education will never truly change in this country until more parents start giving a damn.