Common Core

[Pollyanna]

Oh hell, the entire department of education should be done away with as far as I'm concerned.

From where I sit at this point curriculum, standards, testing, and on and on mean nothing if your kids don't have a love of learning. If there is no excitement and wonder what's the point. That doesn't mean I don't believe in flash cards and memorization, I do. I just happen to think that when taught right even learning basic skills can be fun

[Curegirl]

Oh hell, the entire department of education should be done away with as far as I'm concerned.

From where I sit at this point curriculum, standards, testing, and on and on mean nothing if your kids don't have a love of learning. If there is no excitement and wonder what's the point. That doesn't mean I don't believe in flash cards and memorization, I do. I just happen to think that when taught right even learning basic skills can be fun

I totally agree with you, Pollyanna. It's all a joke and the kids are paying for it, in my opinion. Politicians don't know jack when it comes to education, especially since most of them have never stepped into an urban or rural public school. Suzy, in California, the private schools don't need to adopt certain standards as long as they're privately funded and not interested in government incentives.

[Thirteen]

We're probably going to wind up homeschooling. It bothers me that persons with zero teaching experience pass laws/sit on the Dept. of Ed. Board...

Common Core is just another way to push a rigorous standardized testing (not necessarily learning) environment for schooling. Color me unimpressed, and sympathetic to all the elementary and secondary teachers we may have here.


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[Sheherezade]

I'm just glad my kids are so close to done. From what I understand, testing will now be subject based (algebra, geometry, etc) and administered at end-of-course in 9 different subjects.

I'm so tired of changes in education as well. It has been the only constant in my kid's 12 years of school.

I'm in favor of self rule for schools. I feel like a lot of this stems from lobbying by testing companies and a for-profit motive.

From NYT article: "WHAT became the Common Core began quite modestly. Several years ago, many organizations, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, whose members are top-ranking state education officials, independently noticed that the content and scoring of high school “exit” tests varied widely between states. In 2006, for instance, 91 percent of students in Mississippi passed a mathematics exit exam on the first attempt, while only 65 percent did so in Arizona. At the same time, students’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress often differed from the state results. This was not just embarrassing: it looked unprofessional. The governors and the school chiefs decided to work together to create a single set of standards and a common grading criteria. Private funding, led by some $35 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, allowed the coalition to spread its wings. Aligning tests became an opportunity to specify what every American child should know."

Complete article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/op...anted=all&_r=0