Common Core State Standards Initiative
Common Core State Standards Initiative
#1Common Core State Standards Initiative
Posted: 12/3/13 at 1:28pmI remember that several posters on here are educators. Any thoughts on the common core standards? Is the initiative a ground-breaking effort on the part of states to help K-12 students in the US ramp up for college and to compete in the global marketplace or is it more "teaching to the test"?
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
#2Common Core State Standards Initiative
Posted: 12/3/13 at 2:12pm
As a college professor, I can say this: students are coming to college with a greater deficit of the skills needed to succeed than ever before. I encounter very few students with adequate critical thinking or writing skills, so rather than building from a foundation that should begin in primary and secondary schools, I feel like I have to start from scratch to teach my students who to read, write, and think effectively. High schools teaching common core have turned their students into test machines with very little aptitude for critical thought, and the only incentive teachers have is to keep their test scores high, because they fear the repercussions of underperformance on tests. It's far more of a problem than a solution.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 12/3/13 at 02:12 PM
#2Common Core State Standards Initiative
Posted: 12/3/13 at 2:22pm
It's a disaster for education. The sole emphasis has been placed on high stakes testing. Critical thinking and creativity have gone out the window. But testing companies like Pearson are making millions of dollars.
Forget the ACA, Arne Duncan is Obama's biggest failure.
#3Common Core State Standards Initiative
Posted: 12/3/13 at 2:23pm
For anyone interested there will be a National Day of Action Event to Reclaim the Promise which calls for fair funding of public schools and colleges, a three year moratorium on high-stakes consequences of standardized tests and a renewed focus on teaching and learning, not testing. It will take place on December 9th, 2013.
It's National so time and place vary.
Yes, I do work for an educational organization and Common Core Standards are a general P I T A around these parts.
Updated On: 12/3/13 at 02:23 PM
#4Common Core State Standards Initiative
Posted: 12/3/13 at 2:34pmIt seems to be one of those issues than transcend standard left/right, conservative/liberal definitions. But I have yet to hear any of the defenders of Common Core state persuasively how it helps kids.
#5Common Core State Standards Initiative
Posted: 12/3/13 at 2:38pm
The problem with education in the United States is poverty. We have record numbers of kids living in poverty and the inequality gap is widening but politicians want to blame our education woes on teachers unions.
You don't have to do much research on negative effects of poverty on education. The answer to dealing with these negative effects is not high stakes testing. Until this country has a war on poverty instead of a war on the poor I don't see things getting much better.
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