This kindergarten teacher responds to an earlier post about how to fix the Common Core standards. I add here my own concerns about the lack of any field testing of the standards. We don’t know what effect they will have; we don’t know if they will improve student achievement; we don’t know if they will narrow or widen the achievement gap; and we don’t know if they are developmentally appropriate for the early grades.
First, if David Coleman has changed his mind about that particular statement or any other aspect of HIS Common Core, he should articulate that clearly to the masses. Second, the Common Core is being shoved down our throats AS IS. We can talk about fixes all we like, but until Coleman himself works to FIX it/them, we are stuck with the document in ‘as is’ condition. And I haven’t heard anything about Coleman even considering changes. He certainly seems cocksure that the Common Core is perfect. The tests are being written, the staff development has been in place and is ongoing, the meetings are happening, the speeches have been shouted by Coleman and every administrator from the highhest in the land (I’m looking at you, Arne) down to our local curriculum ‘specialists.’ The publishing companies are rubbing their hands in glee as they push ‘must-have’ Common Core materials to cash-poor schools. Many of the materials I have seen have gone through no changes except the placement of a ‘Common Core-based’ sticker on the cover. Go to any education-related conference and try to find a workshop or publisher NOT pushing the Common Core. Third, as a kinder teacher, I see extensive flaws in the Common Core. Those who critique it or support it rarely consider the impact on kids (and teachers) in the primary grades. That’s a tale for another time…
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Coleman, like so many other ed “experts,” has moved on. Good luck getting him to take responsibility for his “product.” He took his profits and has now moved on to greener pastures at College Board. We all know the scenario – throw the grenade and run. I suppose if someone offered him a lucrative contract to repackage or change the recipe of the snake oil, you might hear from him.
I just wish school boards, state eds, administrators, would say enough, and refuse to go forward with this federal foolishness.
would
I wouldn’t say he has “moved on.” You will now see the tests of the College Board aligned with the Common Core. He did move on as treasurer of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. His term ended in June.
As an early childhood teacher I saw first hand last year the effects of the Common Core on my pre-k students. The ELA was not so dreadful. It was more or less consistent with what I had been doing. The math was another story. Asking 4 year olds to master addition and subtraction while they were just trying to grasp basic math concepts such as one to one correspondence was stressful; not just for my students, but for me as well. How to make teaching concepts beyond their understanding without stressing everybody out.
That, however, was the least of it. The performance tasks that came with the lessons were not only stressful for teacher and students but it was so incredibly labor intensive as to take away precious instructional time. Time that I might have better used providing opportunities for my students to learn how to share and be kind to each other and maybe recognize the letters in their names.
Instead I had to take 4 children at a time and tell them we were going to play a game although they saw that I had papers and a pencil in front of me so they knew I wasn’t telling the truth, and read a script which would ask children to do addition and subtraction problems while I manipulated little mice or small cubes or counting bears. Some children cried, some refused to respond, and some didn’t mind at all. The accompanying rubric did not allow for children whose experiences may not have been the same as those children attending Sidwell.
In the end, we wasted a ton of time, the data was copied and sent to suits in far away places and i went back to teaching.
We had to do this twice last year. Who knows what this year will bring.
One of my goals is how to give the suits what they want without stressing my students and not taking away from instruction.
David Coleman, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan are the Thomas Gradgrinds of our time. They should each be forced to read Dickens’ Hard Times. God knows they’re giving us a hard time – and unwittingly I might add.
I think those you mentioned should personally model what they mandate. After all, you shouldn’t ask people to do what you wouldn’t do yourself.
I am so sorry to see what the state of education has become. It’s not education; it is schooling. Tammy Drennan @ http://educationconversation.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/education-vs-schooling/ has a good definition of education. Gramsci (1971) felt schooling was to keep the status quo, which is what it appears to be in our public schools – students are socialized into staying in their places; students are being told WHAT to think instead of taught HOW to think in many cases.
I am a product of public education, I taught in public schools except for two years of my career, and I used to decry home schooling. Many of the parents I have seen who home school their children are in actuality giving their children a real EDUCATION. Learners are active, the curriculum matters and it can be explored deeply. As Drennan said, Many of the home educated children entwine wisdom and discernment with knowledge, they make judgments about knowledge, and they ask WHY then proceed to “what now” (based on Drennan’s statements about education).
I *wish* our students in public schools could be educated, not schooled. I hope the small revolutions and push backs I’ve heard of and read of take root, sprout, and flourish. I hope teachers band together to get away from the factory model, the business model – and get back to really teaching.
Diane, your posts give many teachers / administrators hope and things to think about. Whether educators agree with you or not is not important. What is important is that they continue to read your work, become inflamed by their own passion for teaching and education, and work to improve the state of education. We absolutely need an educated populace.
Thank you for your words. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for your wild assertions. Thank you for your passion.