<p>My opinion is that the common core is about standardizing the teachers and the students are just the casualties. As always. </p>
<p>As popular as it has become to blame parental involvement, either too much or too little, the actual facts on the ground point to a dismal success rate with the kids. </p>
<p>It’s an unfortunate fact that we have to do something measurable. It is a school “system.”</p>
<p>Systems always serve the average range best. If your kid falls into the exceptional range, in any way, ld or gifted or creative or athletic or musical , the system isn’t really built for them. </p>
<p>Of course wealthy ghettos of educated professionals will be annoyed. In those school systems the “average” kid really is above average. We know this. We can pretend we don’t know this but we know this.</p>
<p>You may not like the guy, but some of this criticism can be debunked by googling him. And, fwiw, are there tons of candidates that would de facto have done better? And should we not realize how little the ED can do as most education is decided locally. </p>
<p>Please suggest a few alternatives that would have been better in a range from Michelle Rhee to perhaps Bill Ayers? Should we better by reverting to a product of the union leadership that has ruined education for the past 50 years? Or should we place our faith in the collective wisdom of the education academicians that have given us gems such as Columbia’s School of Education? </p>
<p>The problems facing education are much deeper than perceived, and surely well beyond the capabilities of a few federal secretaries. The first step should be to finally admit how dismal the public system of education really is, and how much we are paying for having compounded the problems by recruiting generations of teachers from the bottom of the barrel, and endorsing the value of pedagogy over content mastery for the past decades. </p>
<p>No wonder the soccer moms are surprised. Happens when you ignore the problems for too long!</p>
<p>poetgrl, following the advise of that great thinker of WWII, Sergeant Schultz: </p>
<p>“I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!”</p>
<p>I have no idea what value that common core may bring (vs. other standardized testing schemes), but it’s implementation has been horrible. In fact, it’s been so bad that it may never recover from the PR hit (and lack of trust/support). Questioning the judgment of mothers (even “white suburban moms”) is not the right direction…</p>
<p>Well, it might help to note the “politics” discussed in that post, if there were any short of a twisted definition, are part of the few that are allowed on College Confidential because they relate directly to … matters of education. Discussing Arne Duncan, terrorists like Bill Ayers as well as unions are … not prohibited. </p>
<p>There are things I really like about Common Core and there are things I don’t.</p>
<p>However, I see tremendous issues surrounding implication, just as I have with every curriculum/standards change Georgia has implemented in the last 17 years. Teachers haven’t been trained enough, there aren’t enough school house resources and trying to implement it grades k-8 as opposed to starting in a few early grades and working that group up is just dumb.</p>
<p>From my perspective, the standards are higher than we have had in GA and the expectations are more rigorous. I like the emphasis on reading non-fiction (though I probably wouldn’t have in 3rd grade) and have been impressed with the depth of the social studies curriculum</p>
<p>GA has messed up Math so much it is hard to see a way to fix it.</p>
<p>This is what you have when college dropout computer software engineers (Gates and Ellison) fund the design of something they know nothing about.</p>
<p>It is simple reverse engineering, and it works great for computer products. You figure out what you want the end product to be, and then from that, figure out what the stages (every week, month, or in this case, year) need to be in order to get there. It’s very linear, and wonderful for producing inanimate objects. </p>
<p>It also ignores virtually every truth we think we know about child and learning development. And one thing is predictable: over a period of 12 years, virtually every child will stumble somewhere along the way. And enough of them will think it is their fault, and they deserved what they got. Makes for what the Department of Labor says we need more than anything else - more Walmart clerks.</p>
<p>Singapore Math was written in English from the start. I have a copy that is a good ten years old – the first names used are a little strange to my eyes, but the text is perfectly good English.</p>
<p>With all due respect, such a statement indicates a really sketchy understanding of what the “funders” have done. One of the perennial complains uttered by the “educators” is that there is not enough money for this or for that. Gates decided to give new ideas a chance by merely funding the ideas suggested by “specialists.” It would be a mistake to think that Gates decided to leave Microsoft to apply his massive talents to reform education based on his OWN ideas. Without the funding limitations, he went to work but soon realized that the combination of very few great thinkers and the obsessive obstruction by the service providers is quite lethal. </p>
<p>If there is one line where you are correct is that “reengineering” education will not work, and that is because it is merely rearraging the Titanic chairs after hitting the iceberg. If education were a kitchen in a failing restaurant, we would see how the blame would be directed to the patrons, the poor quality of the food in our farms, the low cost per ticket, and will carefully avoiding the knot of the problem: the fact that the “chefs” lacked proper education, were hired from the lowest qualified group of cooks, that management is bloated, lazy, and corrupt, and that that the restaurant is open less than one year! But we would hear plenty about technology like letting the patrons order via an iPad and the psychology of coming to the restaurant after eating at home! Very much in the same vein as the drivel produced by the education “specialists” who develop fifty theories of teaching but could not solve the problems they “teach” without a Teacher’s Manual. Yep, but pedagogy they know! </p>
<p>What is needed is a massive retraining program and retooling of the entire education system. Since we can’t and won’t get “rid” of the deadwood, the only hope is to change the hiring and training policies for the generations to come, and wait for the storm to subside. We would continue to produce generations of quasi-illiterates, but at least there will be hope at the end of the tunnel, and a reversal of six decades of abject abdication of our education system to the unqualified service providers who simply care to do the least possible for the greatest benefits. </p>
<p>And in the meantime, glorified amateurs will continue to educate their kids much better and much cheaper than the monopolistic system would dream of doing. But as you say Mini, some kids did better than others in picking the right set of parents who could homeschool them. But heck, it ain’t the fault of the teachers and the morons who lead them!</p>
<p>"This mess is not the fault of Gates and Ellison. I still think that the fault is with the department of Education. "</p>
<p>Common Core did not come from the Department of Education, but from the National Governors Association, in meetings convened under the auspices of Gates and Co., who brought their agenda to marketplace through the back door.</p>
<p>States were given an incentive to adopt the Common Core Standards through the possibility of competitive federal Race to the Top grants. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform.[12] To be eligible, states had to adopt “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place.”[13] The competition for these grants provided a major push for states to adopt the standards.[14] Development of the Common Core Standards was funded by the governors and state schools chiefs, with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pearson Publishing Company, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and others.[15]</p>
<p>No, Common Core is not a Bill Gates scheme.</p>
<p>And you conveniently left out who funded the conferences that initiated the pre-development of the Common Core. They knew exactly what they were doing.</p>
<p>Reverse engineering. Think computer development. Sounded great to the Guvs (that’s actually how it was pitched). After all, what did they know about child and learning development?</p>
<p>I’ve done a lot of research on the Common Core and Mini is correct, this is a Gates-led initiative. </p>
<p>Most state legislators never even voted to adopt the Common Core after their development. In Washington State, the House and Senate Education Committees would not allow it to come up for a vote because the previous year they passed a bill and said Washington would adopt the Common Core (sight unseen) unless the Legislature voted it down the following year after the standards were released. It’s difficult to vote something down that isn’t allowed to come up for a vote.</p>
<p>@Bossymomma (post #40) - I’m so sorry to hear about your 3rd grader’s experience with the Common Core in reading. When the standards were first released people wondered if they would result in students not wanting to read anymore and if they keep with mostly non-fiction, that is what is going to happen. </p>
<p>I have fond memories of my 3rd grade teacher reading to us during lunch. We all laughed while she read Judy Blume books and all cried during Where the Red Fern Grows. That’s the year I realized how fun books were–they could carry me away to a far off land or just down the street to someone else’s house. I’ve tried to instill a love of reading in both of my kids and when they aren’t crushed with college homework and classes, they both love to escape by reading. I wish the same for your daughter.</p>