Common core

[Ladybug]

A republican congressional candidate just came by our door. Very nice gent. His three primary issues: stopping common core and returning control to the district, fixed terms and stricken food stamp restrictions (no cigarettes, no Cosmo magazines).

I told him I honestly haven't formed an opinion about the common core yet, but this issue affects my family the most. I know the transitions have been poorly launched, but I'm not sure the entire concept is bad or needs to be thrown out. The woman accompanying him is a teacher and said that they have lost all control over their curriculum.

After working in a (very good) private school I have a better appreciation for standards and testing. I saw some interesting data on teachers grade distributions vs student SAT scores. You don't want a tyranny of the teacher or a cult of personality. There is an inevitable human bias. I've come to believe there has to be some common knowledge standards and assessments to determine a students knowledge level. Someone has to determine what those standards are. I have a lot more faith in education experts than I do politicians. Certainly teachers and parents should give feedback, but we need educational expertise we can trust, not votes.

It's my first year with public school, but nothing I've encountered has been horrific. Different, but never erroneous. It's more time consuming, but that may also be because it's different than how I learned so were all learning as we go. I did encounter some crazy math division techniques. I found them to be a convoluted method, but interesting that they worked. It's not the only method they are learning though. They quickly moved onto more conventional division methods.

My candidate is pushing to return curriculum control to the district. but that seems unfair in today's society. People move frequently. We all have. I think we need a standard national curriculum to optimize the success of our students.

[spotty_dog]

The trick here is not to conflate the *standards* with the *curriculum*. The districts can use any curriculum they darn well please to achieve the goal, which is having children pass a test that represents mastery of the standard grade-level achievement in english language arts or math. What test? States have choices there too, I believe there are two companies producing approved tests.

So when I hear complaints about *curriculum* and teaching materials, I expect parents to take it up with teachers and teachers to take it up with higher-ups. Hearing complaints about how Common Core is ruining everything just because there's one convoluted or age-inappropriate worksheet roaming around the internets, just makes me tune out the whole argument, because Common Core is not the source of any worksheet.

When my son came home from kindergarten wondering where the math was, because "Math is important, mom!" I started him on Singapore math. I did so after realizing that the concrete-pictorial-abstract progression and the emphasis on understanding concepts rather than memorizing algorithms is the future of mathematics. A computer can do an addition problem faster than any human. But only a person who understands math as a way of thinking and sound reasoning as superior to speedy recall, is going to be a contributor to our society going forward.

So, when I see these approaches emphasized in the standards, and when I read a speech transcript from the main "architect" of the standards that outlines the solid data-driven methods that were used to figure out which concepts needed to take the prime position in every classroom, so that teachers can't teach 80% of the grade-level topics but skip the most vital 20% and still have kids who pass the tests...well, I've been impressed so far. One valid complaint I've heard is that the material ramps up too fast in the K-3 grades because the committees did not have many specialists on this age group represented? I don't know because my kids are advanced so the material seems fine to me.

One thing I like to ask when people ask for repeal of the CCSS, is what they liked better in their old state standards? Or whether they're ready to step up with a third option? My momma always said that you can't make a complaint without offering a solution.

[GrayMatterWife]

I homeschool. I loathe CCSS compliant math curricula. With a passion.

Don't know much about CCSS standards for other subjects because I had such a horrible experience with math, that I make an effort to avoid anything that advertises itself as "CCSS- supporting."

I teach by the classical method. Works for us, but I can see that severely primarily visual-spatial learner would not like it.

[mommax3]

The curricula that is produced will all be written to the standards that are adopted, so effectively, Common Core and the curriculum will become one. Local control of education left the building long ago.

[spotty_dog]

I homeschool. I loathe CCSS compliant math curricula. With a passion.

Don't know much about CCSS standards for other subjects because I had such a horrible experience with math, that I make an effort to avoid anything that advertises itself as "CCSS- supporting."

I teach by the classical method. Works for us, but I can see that severely primarily visual-spatial learner would not like it.

There isn't one classical method, unfortunately. If you're talking about Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise's WTM neo-classicism, all their recommended resources have aligned, to my knowledge.

If your son is mathematically inclined it would be a real pity to deprive him of the Art of Problem Solving materials.

[GrayMatterWife]

There isn't one classical method, unfortunately. If you're talking about Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise's WTM neo-classicism, all their recommended resources have aligned, to my knowledge.

If your son is mathematically inclined it would be a real pity to deprive him of the Art of Problem Solving materials.

Correct. I use a version of the trivium that I like the best. STory of the Works by Wise Bauer does not design itself to be CCSS aligned. It was designed long before. The recommended sources I've used of theirs are not CCSS aligned, like their Usborne recommendations. But I don't know much about her recommendations other than SOTW.

I use a lot of Memoria texts. We teach science very hands on.

If the product advertises itself as CCSS aligned (usually on the cover), I stay away.

I can't tell you the number of parents of DS's former classmates have complained to me about Common Core math. Two families have decided to HS, which is super-weird for this area... I don't encourage that. CCSS may be bad, but it's not a reason to HS. There are lots of ways to teach math right at home without having to HS. But I think people had just gotten more broadly fed up.

[fluffhead]

Our school has jumped on the CC bandwagon with a blind idiotic ferocity. They've hired consultants and have given the teachers guidelines, and made everybody very unhappy. My older son had to learn three ways to multiply last year, so now he doesn't know how to multiply, because "which method should I use?" and it seems that he's been doing nothing but magic squares the last month of this year and the whole second half of last year. My daughter's textbook makes no sense to me and I'm a HS math teacher.
I agree about teaching concepts and not rote algorithms. But any decent math teacher was doing that already. The people inventing CC, but mostly the people inflicting it upon the masses, have no idea how to teach math well - they're so wrapped up in allegiance to this new "ism" that they can't see the forest past the trees.
Now I'm not a reactionary trying to keep the feds off my back and all that crap. I just want my kids to learn math, and this is not the way.

[Pollyanna]

I've had at least one kiddo in elementary school for the last 15 years. I've seen control of curriculum go from the district, to the state, to the feds. What I can tell you is that is has not been a good move. I find it hilarious that now CCS are being sold by saying, "it's great because every kid will be learning the same thing across the country so if you move your child won't be behind or ahead". Really, this is the big selling point? Our district here has removed the CC language and is calling it State Standards. I don't have an issue with standards and I'm not even sure I would have an issue with common standards but what we are doing is not good and I have to believe that the folks that put this CC crap together have no idea what they are doing or have not been in a classroom in years, if ever.
I watch what my older kiddos were exposed to in elementary school and now what CC has to offer my younger kids and I am beyond disappointed. I'm a big believer in public k-8 and loved it for our oldest three but just cannot do it with our youngest three right now. Our 7th grader was doing 6th grade math when we moved here two years ago and started with a CC aligned math curriculum. She is now farther behind than she was when we moved here. I am reteaching her math because what she got was so flipping convoluted. What happened for us was two years of wasted time and a girl that used to love math to a girl that thinks she doesn't get it.

[Sheherezade]

My kids escaped most of CC since the youngest has completed the math sequence already. CC testing starts here next year. Our curriculum started the transition last year. We've been told that since she will be in mostly AP by next year, she's exempted from testing. Whew! One less thing to research.

During my kids' 12 years in school, they've had changes in testing, standards and curriculum every two years. It's such a cluster. People need to stop tinkering.

My issue with the CC math is that it seems designed to bring in the kids that "don't get math". It incorporates so much more language. I worry about kids that don't get language...but thrive in math. I'm not sure why we aren't accepting of the idea that some kids will just be better at math and others will struggle with it. I'm not sure altering the curriculum to suit those that struggle won't just introduce a whole new set of issues for different kids.

[Pollyanna]

Thank you for bringing up the language issue Angie! Yes, that was one of the elements that really was hard for dd12. To be honest it took us a while to figure that part out.

We also found that not all elementary school teachers are confident enough to teach the new methodology which just adds to the confusion. And it's not that these aren't good teachers! They are just as frustrated as everyone else in most cases.

[peggyfromwastate]

My son learned regular math (like I did in school) through third grade. In fourth they started to mix in common core math, taking him back to special graphing and what not. This year, he started school late bc of our move. Apparently they do only common core, and the teacher was shocked that Luke "doesn't know how to multiply". I was shocked too, because he knew how in 3rd and 4th. Well, they expect him to multiply on an array. It took the teacher twenty minutes to show me how to do one problem. My son has ADHD. This is ridic. He's spending over an hour on a problem that two years ago would take one minute.

The changeover was very abrupt.