A teacher in Florida wants to know how the Common Core standards are supposed to change her teaching, why she should drop literature for informational texts, which dominate other subjects, and what the PARCC assessments mean. Will states have the money they need to buy computers for the assessments? Will they have the funds to pay for professional development for the new standards and assessments? So much remains unknown.
If students are reading in their history and science classes (as they should be), I see no reason to limit the amount of literature in English classes. There is plenty of time to read “informational texts” outside of the English curriculum. I never read an “informational text” in an English class growing up. We never even had an English textbook. Instead we given actual books and the lessons revolved around what we were reading. What a novel (pardon the pun) idea!
We finally had our first meeting about Common Core last week. Most teachers don’t have a clue about Common Core. Even the presenters who attended a four day summer institute could not explain what exactly the PARCC assessments will consist of. All we know is that by 2015, the Common Core is coming! The PARCC assessments will replace the newly redesigned FCAT 2.0 and the newly implemented EOCs. In Florida, teachers’ jobs will surely depend on the our students’ test results but so far we have received zero training and no one knows what these assessments will look like. We do know however that they will have to be administered online and we know we don’t have nearly enough computers to accomplish this. Will the Federal Government be providing massive funding for computers and teacher training? Florida received millions in Race to the Top funds, but so far all I have seen from the money is a lousy value added algorithm.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a high school English teacher, I have already started to list the common core objectives on my lesson plans. I don’t really think we have any substantial changes to our units. We are already teaching complete units and daily lessons that will cover them; do not fear the new standards. Besides, who knows how long they will be around. Eventually some company will need to promote new products and the common core will be out. Here in NY we had the national standards before the common core standard.Who knows what’s next
Flolindy,
“do not fear the new standards”
Yes, fear educational standards as that false concept is at the root of so many educational deforms that cause “institution violence” to be visited upon way too many innocent students.
For a complete understanding of “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” please join me in reading, understanding and discussing Wilson’s dissertation at my blog “Promoting Just Education for All” found at: revivingwilson.org .
Duane
I attended a math training at the district building earlier this week. A district employee in advanced learning and I fell into conversation as we walked from the far end of the vast and unusually packed parking lot. He asked if I was attending the common core math training. No, my training was for a program called Jump math. He thought it was a shame that I had reservations about common core (cost in the billions while class sizes were huge, teachers and counselors were being laid off, services to help families were being cut, and so on.) He seemed to consider what I was saying, but then exclaimed that we needed to get those international scores up. (He conceded to my explanation about poverty accounting for the lower overall scores.) He was not concerned about how common core has not been piloted, because that is not what happens with standards ever. We went our separate ways.
I got to the Jump Math training eager to learn new strategies for teaching math to my students with math learning disabilities and phobias. The training was very light in explaining the strategies, although they were heavy on talking about how wonderful the program was, and they spent a significant amount of time on how they were rewriting materials and had completed rewriting certain grade level materials to meet common core standards. I wonder if this PD forecasts large chunks of time being spent on how whatever training meets common core. That will be time taken away from actually learning the information for which the professional development was designed. As an aside, I sat at the same table as a pleasant GF employee, who had come to observe.
This is kind of like the coding that doctors have to do for insurance companies to identify different procedures. Every year or two, we get a new set of codes to write on our lesson plans. Now I understand the grumbling of the veteran teachers. What a waste of time, energy, and scarce funding!
“This is kind of like the coding that doctors have to do for insurance companies”
Yes, that kind of idiotic coding would be a nightmare for teachers. The difference being our paychecks don’t directly come from the would be overseers of our practices as the docs have to rely on the insurance payers.
Governor Jindal through his education emissary, John White, proclaimed that teaching is a “job” that doesn’t require certification creditials. What does this mean for NCATE accreditation requirements for state flagship university’s College of HumanSciences and Education?
If teaching is just a job that requires no real credentials, then Jindal must sure feel foolish for having wasted all that time and money on a science degree from Brown, an accredited institution with credentialed faculty. Maybe some day folks can buy their degrees at Costco, like in the movie “Idiocracy.”
CCSS will be like NCLB…looks good in words and ideology. Who cares about the funding to implement them. Do more with less. That sure is the belief of “Gov. Jindal and his education emissary” in Louisiana.
I just LOVE that last sentence…”Florida received millions in Race to the Top funds, but so far all I have seen from the money is a lousy value added algorithm.” I also teach in a state that won $400 million from RttT. I’ve only seen a new teacher evaluation instrument that adds even more subjectivity to the process (supposedly the new evaluation system is a “coaching” instrument – like an A.P who had a few years in the classroom could really “coach” me?). And then there’s always that VAM part. It really looks like teachers are benefiting from this RttT stuff huh?
Oh, but I forgot – we have that state longitudinal data system now. How could I have forgot about that and all the advantages it brings to the table for teachers? My teaching practices will surely improve now.
At our beginning of the year professional development the English Dept. was told that they would have to teach informational texts after a brief video about the Common Core from David Coleman’s Keynote Speech at Chancellor Walcott’s Principal Conference. Around minute 23 he says that “people don’t really give a sh#! about what you feel or what you think.”
I’m not from New York, but in my experience as an English teacher, caring about what the students feel and what they think IS why they read, write, and explore complex texts.
When the Principal said that most subjects would be unaffected by the emphasis on information texts I pointed out that for grades 11 and 12 the standards propose that students read 30% fictional texts and 70% informational texts. (Our students have 7 classes and we have eliminated auto, electricity, wood-shop, culinary arts, child development, etc. because these classes did not prepare children for college.) If we ONLY taught fiction in English class and the other subjects areas continued to teach using their informational texts we would only be at 14%. We don’t need more informational texts. We need more fiction.
His response was to ask the Chair of the math department if my math was correct.
I quickly said, 14.3%.
Since these College and Career Readiness standards are K-12, in what grade are elementary school teacher supposed to explicitly teach students “people don’t really give a sh#! about what you feel or what you think.”
“His response was to ask the Chair of the math department if my math was correct.”
That is just sooo precious!!
Mr. Coleman surely must have been talking to himself, outloud. The crack must have really been intended to show he realized that about nobody gives a shit about how ‘he’ feels or thinks since he seems to be talking and creating overhyped untested nonsense. To be accurate, it would be correct of him to assume this since a great many educators apparently don’t give a shit what Mr. Coleman feels and certainly not what he thinks up- ie Common Core.
I get why powers that be don’t think longevity is a good thing in education since no one seems to stay around very long. Isn’t Coleman sharing his infinite wisdom with the College Board now?
Really angry that two states that had really high standards for education, Mass and NY have had to go down the common core way and apparently a state like Louisiana can skate on by with everything that isn’t nailed down called a charter school.