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Its fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who all of a sudden their child isnt as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isnt quite as good as they thought they were, and thats pretty scary, Duncan said. Youve bet your house and where you live and everything on, My childs going to be prepared. That can be a punch in the gut.</p>
<p>Overcoming that will require communicating to parents that competition is now global, not local, he said.
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<p>Those suburban mom's are always creating problems.....what do they know about education?....it's complicated and "global"...and please don't ask any silly questions about how failing a new test somehow improves your child's "education"!</p>
<p>I find it infuriating that just about all of the discussion seems to presume the the Common Core is more rigorous, thorough, and challenging than previous curricula used in all schools. </p>
<p>So far, in my experience (I have one child in HS, one in middle school, and one in elementary) it is LESS rigorous, MORE simplistic, and completely neglects important aspects of education which were better covered in the past. My younger children especially seem to be doing mountains of worksheets with very simplistic non-fiction reading comprehensive exercises. We have heard that language arts in the early grades is working to be nearly 100% non-fiction. No more classics and literature for you, kids! </p>
<p>But, you know, I’m a white suburban mom, so what do I know.</p>
<p>I have never had much respect for this man, because I believe he took on the job of reforming education without ever doing the hard work of really learning about education. He is all generalizations and gimmicks. Now it appears he is also a small minded and sexist + racist. I can’t say I am really surprised, making false generalizations is his specialty.</p>
<p>I do think he’s wrong, beachlover. I have met my share of upper-middle-class suburbanites of every sex and race who can’t bear the idea that their snowflake isn’t “gifted,” so I get what you are saying. But, I do NOT think that is the source of objection to Common Core, or to NCLB, which was also awful. </p>
<p>It is possible that these turnkey, teach-to-the-test curricula are an improvement for underfunded districts who have placed low property taxes as a higher priority than investing in hiring good educators. But, in schools that have nurtured really good teachers and specialists? Both NCLB and Common Core have disrupted real education and are instead stuffing the days with tests and worksheets. The neglect of literature and history is particularly problematic.</p>
<p>While I am a big opponent of incessant testing - I have lived with these types of parents for 20 years - ever since baby play group! </p>
<p>I’m in NY and the scores in my district (always one of the top) had a precipitous drop in scores released last spring. The Superintendent’s letter following the release of the scores was very disappointing, imo, as his main point was that though the scores all dropped - our district didn’t drop nearly as much as other districts in the state. So not to worry parents - your kids are still “brighter” than everyone else. Sigh.</p>
<p>I am an elementary math curriculum coach. The pushback is coming from white professional parents who say multiple methods are confusing their kids who have always done well in math. Foreign born parents say that this is the way they were taught.</p>
<p>New Common Core reading textbooks are rolling out. A typical 3rd grade lesson over several days might include reading two folk tales or fables with insect characters and comparing them and reading an article about insects, citing evidence from text to support conclusions, researching insects, and writing a fable. What is not engaging or complex about that?</p>
<p>Oh, so FATHERS aren’t upset? Asian and AA “moms” aren’t upset?</p>
<p>This comes from the same thinking that blamed autism on “refrigerator mothers.”</p>
<p>If parents aren’t engaged in education, blame them. If parents ARE engaged in education, blame them. If parents do nothing to enrich their kids’ live, blame them. If parents encourage their kids to play an instrument, or learn a language, blame them.</p>
<p>Just get rid of all this stupid testing and let the teachers teach.</p>
<p>Minnymom, that sounds pretty good to me, as long as all children are not forced to read the same texts all of the time.</p>
<p>Sadly- if you “let teachers teach” they will indeed teach … Their own interests, passion, or maybe stifled, boring, worksheets with a lot of fill in the blanks and coloring. As a veteran teacher I have seen it all. Standards bring focus and coherence to the progression through grades. Now I know that testing has its own set of problems- but school is more than testing. Standards matter.</p>
<p>Many classrooms are doing literature study and having students self select text- then having mini lessons on how to analyze text. Also teaching how to really read expository text. Kids need to be taught how to read bolded and italicized text, headings, captions, charts and graphs. It can be made fun with engaging text and collaborative learning.</p>
<p>Perhaps I’m prejudiced, because my kid never had a teacher who depended on worksheets. In fact I literally don’t recall his ever coming home with one. (Perhaps he did, but it was obviously a rare occurrence.) Standards are different from teach to the test and canned curricula. Our district had standards, but within that framework teachers could exercise their creativity.</p>
<p>Math would seem to be the one area where a set curriculum may work better. But even then, with a program like Everyday Math, more is required for it to really work. Districts that skip the additional teacher training and the enrichments/supplements to the curriculum have problems.</p>
<p>Thanks, Minnymom. You nailed it. I remember the heated discussion when our district’s first grade teachers got together fifteen years ago to set standards for what a first grader should be able to demonstrate in the area of reading skills. There was no agreement whatsoever. Zilch. It was depressing to watch. Some teachers had very high expectations for kids, and spoke of their success. And some had virtually no expectations – “Reading is developmental. A child will learn to read when he’s ready; our job is just to make sure they’re exposed to a rich variety of literature.” </p>
<p>Standards may not be perfect, but they’re a whole lot better than the Wild West of every teacher making an individual decision on what students are expected to learn.</p>
<p>And I am not a fan of Duncan, but if suburban parents whose kids are at “good” suburban high schools understood the percentage of students with B or B+ or A- averages who require remedial coursework in college, they’d be out with pitchforks, and I don’t blame them. The rampant grade inflation has sent a lot of misleading messages to parents, who assume that a B+ means that their child has mastered the material.</p>
<p>I think by and large the common core standards are fine. However what I’ve seen of the tests, I am considerably less impressed by. Both my kids (who read plenty of fiction) would nevertheless be pleased at the recognizing the value of non-fiction.</p>
<p>And yeah, I think a lot of parents are pretty complacent about how good their schools are. I’ve been pleasantly pleased in my time at CC realizing that our school system, whil never ever considered a top school system in our county, is actually doing quite a good job compared to many across the US.</p>
<p>I have some sympathy with the teachers who say kids will learn to read when they are ready. I had one who was ready a 3, and the other despite no end of effort, including Reading Recovery, really wasn’t ready till seven. (When he went straight from primers to Harry Potter.)</p>
<p>Don’t know about what area of the country Arne is in, but I can tell you that out in our little slice of fly-over country there are a lot of non-white women and plenty of men that come into the public schools to be heard when their kids don’t test as “gifted.” (There are a lot of white women too.)</p>