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<p>Californiaaa …what do you consider a snippet on trigonometry? You didn’t notice any standards that weren’t previously in algebra 1, Algebra II, or geometry? Did you actually read the standards and compare them to the old ones?</p>
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<p>I don’t even know how to reply to something like this…organic chemistry in high school? Are you serious?</p>
<p>I’m still not seeing why the common core would mandate that states or districts whose programs exceed the baseline standards dumb down their curriculums. Is there any reason a school would be forced into doing this?</p>
<p>" I think we will be creating a two tier system where parents that can afford to will send their kids to private school and the rest will be left to behind."</p>
<p>Didn’t that happen in the 70’s?</p>
<p>AP Physics B in our high school was taught concurrently with Algebra 2. I’m not seeing the need for Pre-Calc. High school biology has traditionally been taught along with Algebra 1. Most kids at our school who take AP Biology take it as juniors along with pre-calc. They seem to do all right. </p>
<p>I agree with others, I think it’s highly unlikely that schools will dumb down their curriculum for students on the AP track.</p>
<p>I am no science maven. I consider my science education to have been pretty bad, and complicated by the fact that it was split between two countries with different systems. My experience with biology was just as californiaa describes: a lot of memorizing with no true understanding. To me, it makes sense to have chemistry before biology, and in fact our local HS rearranged the honors/AP sequence to do just that. They also beefed up the math sequence to make sure that the kids on that track had the math to match it. My kid was in a transitional class while they were moving over to the new sequence, but one thing they did with his year was have the highest track kids take Algebra in 8th grade with a HS teacher, while the rest took algebra with a MS teacher. (They were able to do this because the campuses were contiguous.) I saw both textbooks, and they were like night and day. </p>
<p>I recall that my HS chem class got into some organic chemistry at the end of the year. I liked it a lot.</p>
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<p>Our state implemented something called ESS (Essential ??) a while ago. The idea was partially to force all districts to offer courses up to a basic standard that included foreign language and art and so forth. (There were rural districts that were not doing so.) In school budgets, the cost of providing up to the ESS standard was identified, with everything beyond this easily identifiable. This instantly enabled the local anti-tax group to label everything beyond ESS a “frill.” You have to realize that in much of New England, school districts are town by town, or at most a combination of a couple of very small towns. Often, school budgets are voted on directly by residents, sometimes at town meeting. School budgets are the ONLY part of the town budget that are treated this way. Often they are not only the most visible portion of the town budget, but the largest. Can they be forced to dumb it down? Not literally, perhaps. But school budgets are under constant attack.</p>
<p>Californiaa, I think you are overstating the math requirements to understand science. Kids study the basic sciences several times, each time in greater depth. My older daughter is now in AP bio, she had honors bio a few years ago, and middle school bio a few years before that. You really don’t have to derive everything from first principles. These are survey courses and there wouldn’t be time to try to study everything in great depth anyhow. Both honors and AP bio include a unit on biochemistry early in the year where they learn the chemistry that’s needed. For instance, in honors bio they spend a few weeks learning about electron shells and ability to form bonds, types of bonds, and the structures of the most common types of biomolecules–eg. amino acids, proteins, and how the larger molecules are composed of these subunits. I think it’s all they really need to know at this point. You don’t need a full course of organic chemistry to study basic biology. And I can’t think offhand of any math you would need for AP biology beyond logarithms, which is covered in algebra2 (to understand pH). The way you are describing it, by the time students finished the math they would need to understand the physics they would need to understand the chemistry and learned all that before they even started biology, the kids wouldn’t even get to biology until they were ready to graduate from college, and most people wouldn’t ever study biology at all.</p>
<p>“AP Physics B in our high school was taught concurrently with Algebra 2. I’m not seeing the need for Pre-Calc.”</p>
<p>How well did the kids do on the AP test? They are recommending completion of Algebra II.</p>
<p><a href=“Get the Most Out of AP – AP Students | College Board”>Get the Most Out of AP – AP Students | College Board;
<p>“Recommended course preparation
Successful completion of a high school laboratory science course
Successful completion of a second-year algebra course, including trigonometry”</p>
<p>Why Common Core in Houston has been dubbed Hard Core! :)</p>
<p>Texas went from TAAS to TAKS to STAAR. I am sure hard core is fine!</p>
<p>On a side note, I find Houston district to be really inflexible. I wanted my D to finish Algebra II online to get into Physics B this year. They would not accept EPGY or CTY Algebra II classes as equivalent of honors.</p>
<p>75% of the class got 4s and 5s in AP Physics B. At the time they were doing an integrated math curriculum, so they may actually have had a bit of trig already, or maybe the recommendations have changed. But again, if you *really *need the math for something you can teach it in physics class. My older son stopped going to a math class at Carnegie Mellon when he realized part way through the term that they were teaching the same math better in the physics class he was taking.</p>
<p>Might work in expensive private schools but I don’t expect public schools to start teaching Math in the middle of their physics classes unless it is part of their prescribed lesson plans.</p>
<p>Limewine ,</p>
<p>" the only math at the high school level, aside from a snippet on trigonometry, is
material from Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. Moreover, the
Algebra II component does not describe a complete course." </p>
<p>This are not my words. This is new Common Core. </p>
<p>This is Prof. Zimba’s (designer of Common Core math standards) definition is taken verbatim from his March 23, 2010 testimony before the MA State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.</p>
<p>Limewine,</p>
<p>How can you study Cell Biology without Organic Chemistry? How would you teach kids about photosynthesis, respiration, ATP, without carbon cycle? </p>
<p>Any meaningful Cell Biology is based on Organic Chemistry.</p>
<p>"I’m still not seeing why the common core would mandate that states or districts whose programs exceed the baseline standards dumb down their curriculums. Is there any reason a school would be forced into doing this? "</p>
<p>Because alignment with Common Core sucks all energy and recourses from school districts now. First, they need to align their curriculum and discontinue all old curriculums. Then they have freedom to experiment and improve. It will take several years before they will be able to be back on track.</p>
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<p>If this is the case with your district, that’s a shame. Don’t assume that all districts are unable to implement the standards without throwing everything our and starting from scratch. That’s not what I’m hearing from our local schools. Tweeks here and there are working fine, and teachers are on board.<br>
It sounds like your district has poor leadership.</p>
<p>My kids go to a public school. AP teachers are expected to have the majority of kids pass the tests. If you can’t pass the test without learning the math, they teach the math.</p>
<p>I don’t see that happening in a public school. Your public school(s) seem out of the norm.</p>
<p>If our kids tried to take Physics B without Algebra II complete, the counselors wont allow them to enroll.</p>
<p>moonchild, I am in a totally different geographical location then californiaaa and our district is also overhauling EVERYTHING and starting from scratch. It is a shame and I am sure that some counties/states will implement Common Core better. Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population that are in the situation facing californiaa and me. </p>
<p>texaspg, I was under the impression that Texas has opted not to adopt common core. Also, our school which offers almost every AP class will not allow you to take the course without the prerequisite. </p>
<p>Limewine, I enjoy seeing your comments in defense of Common Core…it’s nice to hear both sides.</p>
<p>"texaspg, I was under the impression that Texas has opted not to adopt common core. "</p>
<p>I think it is usually a given that Texas won’t accept anything coming down from Federal!</p>
<p>I am only discussing class sequences culminating in AP classes. Common Core won’t impact my kids at all.</p>