On the PBS blog, economist Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute and American University expresses skepticism about the one-size-fits-all academic nature of the Common Core.
Lerman strongly supports youth apprenticeship programs.
Lerman is skeptical of Common Core for two reasons: One is that it lacks any evidence. In other words, as I have written repeatedly, Common Core has never been field-tested and we have no idea how it works in real classrooms, and how it will affect the students who are currently struggling.
The other is the dubious assumption that college and career skills are the same.
As he writes:
“…Two issues concern me about the debate. One is the lack of solid evidence about the effects of the curriculum on students. Education research, long a backwater of social science, has become more rigorous in recent years, backed in part by the federal government’sInstitute of Educational Sciences and its funding for rigorous experimental methods to test educational interventions. Yet, here is the same federal government encouraging a massive educational initiative without solid evidence documenting gains for student academic or career outcomes.
The second concern is justifying the Common Core on the highly dubious notion that college and career skills are the same. On its face, the idea is absurd. After all, do chefs, policemen, welders, hotel managers, professional baseball players and health technicians all require college skills for their careers? Do college students all require learning occupational skills in a wide array of careers? In making the “same skills” claim, proponents are really saying that college skills are necessary for all careers and not that large numbers of career skills are necessary for college.”
Lerman smartly traces back the origins of this astounding claim.
It is true, he says, that most employers identify certain skills they seek: “Nearly every study of employer needs over the past 20 years comes up with the same answers. Successful workers communicate effectively orally and in writing and have social and behavioral skills that make them responsible and good at teamwork. They are creative and techno-savvy, have a good command of fractions and basic statistics, and can apply relatively simple math to real-world problems like financial or health literacy.
But, he says, the Common Core misinterprets this consensus to mean that all students need the same level of academic preparation. He writes: “Employers never mention polynomial factoring. But what about the higher level math required by the Common Core? Consider algebra II, the study of logarithms, polynomial functions and quadratic equations. Many states want to make algebra II a requirement for graduating high school. Yet, a stunning finding produced by Northeastern University sociologist Michael Handel(cited in a recent Atlantic blog) indicates that only 9 percent of the work force ever use this knowledge, and less than 20 percent of managerial, professional, or technical workers report using any algebra II material.”
Trying to squeeze all students, regardless of their interest or wishes, into a common mold, he concludes, is a bad idea.
Finally, some sense on this topic. Supporters of the Common Core in ELA have no clue that inevitably this one set of standards will drive standardization of instruction and materials that will narrow and impoverish our teaching. A diverse, pluralistic society (and economy) needs variety and innovation in instruction. A tree farm is fragile in ways that an old-growth forest is not. Kids don’t come standardized, and the attempt to standardize them will be disastrous for them personally AND for the economy.
Sorry, Mr. Shephard, but isn’t the beauty of the CCSS the fact that they don’t prescribe content and materials? That they push for connections and creative, active pedagogy and assessment? We all agree, I believe, that the testing mania started under NCLB is a serious issue, but nothing in the CCSS limits teachers. In fact, it forces them to open their curriculum up to meaningful thinking.
Sorry, David, but the CCSS suffers the same inherent invalidities that all educational standards have. The “standard” is the construct is the ability of the student is an inherent trait of the student is what the developer of the standard, wait-is that the construct, or is that ability or is that the trait-names it. Wait a minute what the hell is an educational standard to begin with?
“That they push for connections and creative, active pedagogy and assessment?”
As if the vast majority of teachers don’t do that now?
“In fact, it forces them to open their curriculum up to meaningful thinking.”
As if the vast majority of teachers don’t do that now?
Gimme a break!
Edudeformer claptrap!
David,
I agree. The author again misstates the CC as a curriculum. This is so frustrating.
Duane (couldn’t reply to your post for some reason). We’ll have to agree to disagree, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of reflective teachers I’ve seen teach and spoken to all have acknowledged that CCSS represents a direction in which they can grow. Yes, some have less distance to go than others, but there is now a path through which to do this. If you think you already have it all figured out, that’s great. I’m happy for you and for your students.
The problem with standards in any industry is the enforce uniformity at the expense of flexibility and creativity. Poorly written standards create lemmings, not critical thinkers. Common Core is UNTESTED. Even worse, the assessments may end up dictating the content of the standards. Business demands skills for the jobs of today. Teachers create students with the skills for the jobs of tomorrow.
‘ “That they push for connections and creative, active pedagogy and assessment?”
As if the vast majority of teachers don’t do that now?
“In fact, it forces them to open their curriculum up to meaningful thinking.”
As if the vast majority of teachers don’t do that now?’
This. Just because a bunch of corporate Hedgeucators and policy wonks became aware of the notion of “critical thinking skills” does not mean they are new. Teachers have been doing this stuff literally for millennia.
David, that’s simply not true. I work in the textbook industry. Since the CCSS arrived, when I get a job from a client, it comes with the list of 10 CCSS skills that this lesson must cover. That constrains, enormously, what one can do with the lesson. There is nothing creative about expecting identical outcomes from everyone. And increasingly, every curriculum is prep for the test, for the specific tasks required by that test. Nothing creative or active about this.
One of the big problems with the CCSS in ELA is that they are so unimaginative. Standards constrain curricula in a number of ways. One of the most important of these is that they prevent people from coming up with innovative instruction that has goals different from those articulated in the standards. When the standards are themselves as mediocre as the CCSS in ELA are, this is a HUGE problem. Kids don’t come standardized and shouldn’t leave our schools standardized. The standards effectively tell every teacher, every curriculum coordinator, every educational materials developer, “It doesn’t matter what you think the outcomes for this lesson, this unit, this curriculum ought to be.” We’ve made that decision for you, and we’ve done it based on really unimaginative, pedestrian notions about what those outcomes should be. Your expertise about educational outcomes and your innovations in thinking about those DON’T MATTER. We’ll have innovation with regard to those when the Politburo meets to write its next five-year plan.
Consider, for example, the CCSS writing standards. I’ve written and thought about writing instruction for 30 years now, and for thirty years, I have made my living as a writer. I think it a simplistic mistake, demonstrably inaccurate and extremely consequential, to carve up writing by genre into narrative writing, expository writing, and argument and to found our curriculum development in standards based upon this extremely dubious analysis of genre. There are literally hundreds of other ways to atomize genre, many of which suggest other operational approaches to teaching writing skills that are enormously productive. But given the standards as written, it’s entirely predictable that we shall see more of what we have seen ever since NCLB–students writing five-paragraph themes in the “three modes.” Standards constrain curricular design and, in particular, people’s thinking about curricular design. They encourage mediocrity and depress innovation.
Well said, David. You nailed it. These CC myths are out of hand – we teachers must set the record straight. These folks are utterly misinformed.
The CCSS may not technically prescribe content and materials, but it still happens. You should see the VERY precise requirements that we’re being handed in my state, all in the name of CCSS. That includes specific literature selections and VERY specific mathematical formulas that are listed for each grade. There are ENORMOUS limits in the CCSS.
Poorly conceived execution from states and district should serve as evidence of the issues with “local control.” Do you think this insanity would be different if the standards/outcomes were coming from elsewhere or do you think your state would just do without any such expectations?
That’s one of several MAJOR problems with CCSS: It was rushed through in the middle of summer with no participation from people actually teaching the curriculum; there are no materials to use for the curriculum, and we have NO IDEA what the testing will look like, because it hasn’t even been written yet. The curriculum could have come from Mt. Sinai, and this would be a disaster because of the implementation. We’re dropping kids into the middle of this mess and expecting them to get it. Who does that?
We need taxi drivers and computer programers, child-care workers and fire fighters, brick layers and gardeners, painters and soldiers, statistical process control analysts and actors.
Sadly, I have forgotten who said this, on this blog, but it’s brilliant, and it sums up neatly the economic case against the Common Core: The Common Core is a monoculture. But the beauty of metaphor, Robert Frost reminds us, is that it breaks down, and it’s where it breaks down that is often most instructive. It’s a monoculture in which we take plants from the tropics and from the altaplano, from the desert and the tundra, and put them into a single field and treat them as though they were absolutely identical. What will happen is completely predictable.
But this blighted crop will be our nation’s children. It’s unconscionable for us to allow the CCSS to be done to them.
From my house, located as it is in a primary school catchment area, a middle school catchment area, and a high school catchment area, state, district, or even building standards are a monoculture as well. What does it matter if some other school that my students can not attend has different standards than the schools my students must attend?
Altiplano, Robert! The question is: What is a major food staple for the world that came from the altiplano* (of which there are over a thousand varieties of which only a few varieties are cultivated monoculturally)?
*Bonus question: Where is the altiplano located?
Thanks, Duane, for the correction! When I was in Peru, I saw a single market selling what must have been 300 varieties of potato.
Regarding the need for remedial college math and ignorance of fractions, my math teacher colleagues tell me that their presribed curriculum forces them to largely eschew things like fractions and multiplication tables. Instead, they are to focus on decimals and encourage calculator use, and jump into algebra material when basic arithmetic is still weak. They want to teach solid math skills, but “21st Century Skills” are so often interpreted as necessitating the use of buttons and flickering screens and avoiding the hard work of memorization.
Robert,
Perú es mi patria chica. Glad to hear you got to experience one of the great countries in the world. I lived there for six months after high school in a sort of informal student exchange.
One of the oldest city/states in the world is in Perú, the archaeological site of Caral, inhabited over 4,000 years ago contemporaneous with the beginnings Egyptian civilization!
It is no wonder that Sir Richard Branson would want to get the heck off this planet and find another place where common sense and reason reside. If there is nothing there and we repopulate starting with the premise of Do No Harm, One Size Does NOT Fit All, Slow and Steady, Common Sense Rules (you fill in the rest), we would be better off then the direction we are allowing to take place at the hands of a select few these days. On this planet, Sir Branson, as a learning disabled person, would be denied his intellectual giftedness and creative genius from the very beginning of his school years under this new punishing and restrictive measurement sorting mechanism for rushing to fine the value added students and future work force. He would be discarded into the dust bin of society, unless of course he was the child of a wealthy family.
Factoring in the differences of humans like maturity, environmental and domestic circumstances, etc., can change the equation for each child and ultimately the rest of us. Society stands to lose many gifts through discarding by measurement for the purposes other then the welfare and growth of the children themselves. How the H. did we get to this point? What a combination and formula for failure denial and greed are!!! They have contributed on both sides of this current education crises and civil rights challenge to create generations of innocent victims! Life and death choices are being foisted onto children and their families without their knowledge or approval. Is this far fetched? Oh! No!!!!!! What to do about it is the question and to act now is the answer!!
Wait a minute. Are these skills not the “21st Century Skills” all ed jargonists and politicians started screaming about last century? As someone with excessive hours of graduate level statistics courses, I know I seldom use much beyond basic math in my daily activities. Thankfully, my program required us to learn the math behind the statistics, not just how to use SAS or SPSS. Doing linear regression problems by hand, using a calculator for the math (not a programmable one) meant that we had to know the formulas and understand the assumptions behind the statistics. Thus I can read and understand real research and recognize the crap being put out by ed reform/choice proponents and touted as research (see JP Greene, Robertson of Harvard, or anything included in checker Finn’s publication.
“21st Century Skills”
That one’s going to have to go into the “Devil’s Dictionary of Education”
Cindy, I am VERY aware of the difference between a set of standards and a curriculum. However, standards drive curriculum design in some extraordinarily insidious ways. They inevitably end up being mistaken for curricula by educators who are being judged not on their curricula but on their students’ mastery of this or that standard as indicated by some narrow evaluation instrument. Nothing else matters except whether, according to this test, students have demonstrated “proficiency” on standard L.5.3a. And so people respond by attempting to teach the standard directly. Big mistake. It’s the tail wagging the dog.
Wrong. The teachers are at the wheel, “driving” instruction. The standards do not list content – the teachers and local schools decide what to teach, what texts to use, which best practices to employ, and how to access. None of that is prescribed by the CC. An example, the CC might say, “teach myths” in 10th grade. We decide which myths to use, how to teach them, and how to evaluate our students’ success with them.
Not to mention that when the tests cover only those specific curricular areas, that’s what’s going to be taught. Since social studies isn’t mentioned in the testing, I have students come into 8th grade not knowing about Columbus. That’s a travesty.
Melissa,
May I point you to the fallacies involved in educational standards and standardized testing? Please read and understand Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 to understand the insanity that are educational standards and standardized testing. See my earlier posts this week for a brief summary.
Duane
“. . . I have students come into 8th grade not knowing about Columbus. That’s a travesty.”
Hopefully, they learn from you just what a bastard Cristobal Colon was. If you are not familiar with Rubén Blades’ song “Conmemorando” please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKl9IqlWrxM
The last comment is for Louisana Purchase.
Melissa, the standard L.3.2 reads “Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.”
Fine. It’s great that at Grade 3 students will be attending to fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures. And it’s great that teachers and curriculum coordinators and educational materials developers will be able to choose which fables, folktales, and myths they deal with. But why at Grade 3 in particular? Why not Grade 2? Grade 4? Why not Grade 12? It’s completely arbitrary to make this a standard at this grade level. There are approaches to myth and the folktale that are extremely valuable but that are far, far too sophisticated to be taken at Grade 3. Why not have high-school students learning about the Arne Thompson index of motifs of the folktale, about Propp’s morphological/formalist approach to folktale analysis, about Campbell’s monomyth, about the extraordinarily wide range of approaches to analysis and interpretation of traditional oratures from Muller’s solar hypothesis to Frazer and Graves’ primary myth of the Great Mother and her cyclically dying and resurrected consort to Weber and Durkheim on the social and ritual functions of mythology? Why not have those 12th-graders studying the influence of classical Greek and Roman myth on British literature, following in the footsteps of Douglas Bush’s Mythology and the Renaissance Tradition in English Poetry and his Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry? What about upper level study of the robust theories of mythology developed by other great thinkers I did not mention above, such as Euhemerus, Socrates, Spinoza, Hobbes, Edward Burnett Taylor, Gilbert Murray, Ernst Cassierer, Freud, Marx, Karl Jaspers, Mircea Eliade, Claude Levi-Strauss, David-Lewis Williams and David Pearce, and Robert Sapolsky?
And why fables, folktales, and myths? What about other oral genres like proverbs, legends, parables, praise songs, tall tales, lullabies, mnemonics, ballads, field hollers, work songs, counting rhymes, game rhymes, and the formulaic oral epic?
My point is that the inevitable consequence of arbitrarily issuing a standard like that for Grade 3 is that it will CONSTRAIN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT. A curriculum developer cannot sit down and ask himself or herself, “What is it important, over the course of a K-12 sequence of instruction, for a child to learn about mythology and oratures generally and their relations to culture and to literature?” and then design an exciting, challenging, rich curricular sequence that meets those goals. Perhaps this curriculum designer believes, as I do, that knowledge of the structures and archetypes of folktales and myths is extraordinarily valuable for the insights to be gained into reading and writing generally and should be a thread running through instruction at all levels? He or she can simply forget about creating an innovative curriculum that might do that. No. We teach fables, the folktale, and myths at Grade 3. And what we do with those at Grade 3 is have students recount them.
Why is recounting them what is emphasized by the standard? Why not comparing them? Why not thinking their purpose? Why not borrowing their structures as models for writing? Why not making real to students the social roles played by folktale and myth by doing performance activities involving them?
I read one this standard and think, “Whoever wrote this standard doesn’t know much at all about fables, folktales, and myths. He or she doesn’t understand, at all, how important they were and what might be learned from them over an entire K-college sequence of instruction. He or she does not understand enough about teaching or about the subject of “English language arts” to grok how arbitrary, how capricious it is to decide that those topics are going to be “done” at Grade 3 and that doing them will mean learning a few and being able to recount them. And then I turn to the very next standard, and it’s the same story. Each constrains possible curricula in particular ways, and taking together, they make it impossible to produce coherently unfolding curricular designs, across the grade levels, that have long-range goals and that make sense as a progression.
In practice, what having the “fables, folktales, and myths” standard at Grade 3 will mean is that curriculum developers and teachers will be forced to “cover that” at that Grade level. If someone were to suggest that it might be done at Grade 6, instead, for this or that reason, or that it might be a topic across grade levels, he or she will be told, “No, we do that in Grade 3.” And what does “do that” mean? Well, it could mean a lot of things that no one COULD do at Grade 3, but all those things will be off the table. STANDARDS CONSTRAIN POSSIBLE CURRICULUM DESIGN.
I happen to believe that there is a great deal to be learned from the study of the folktale and of mythology and of oratures generally, over the entire K-12 sequence. For example: One can approach myths as primitive science and learn from the about the functions and methods of scientific explanation. One can approach myth in terms of its social functions and learn a great deal from that about human values, beliefs, cultural variation and cultural universals, the role of social sanction and ritual in our lives, and much more of sociological and anthropological interest. One can approach myths structurally as archetypes/prototypes from which later literary forms developed and so learn a great deal about poetic form, dramatization, narrative structures, and storytelling generally. And I have just scratched the surface of the possibilities. One has to be profoundly ignorant of mythology and the folktale and the rich history of study of these to think that it makes sense to “do” folktales and myths and Grade 3 and think that one is done with them. And all that might be done with them in innovative, exciting, powerfully relevant and applicable curricular designs not yet conceived IS OFF THE TABLE because the CCSS tells textbook publishers and curriculum designers and teachers, “That’s a Grade 3 standard.”
And what is true of this one standard is true of all of them. They constrain possible curriculum development, and they do so in ways that, it seems, are not evident to people, though they are highly consequential.
Suppose that you had a list of standards for building living spaces and it didn’t just deal with matters that would ensure safety–ones having to do with matters like structural integrity and the proper functioning of critical systems for energy, water, and waste disposal. Suppose, instead, that these standards said things like
Will have purple south-facing wall in living room.
Will supply ample space for entertaining.
Will have pitched roof.
Will have minimum of 1,700 square feet of living space.
Will have energy-efficient dishwater
Will have skylight in foyer.
And suppose this list of standards went on for page after page after page. One could say, “Well, this doesn’t tell you what sort of living space you have to build. You can do anything you like as long as you are meeting these objectives. The standards are NOT a design, after all.”
And suppose that this were one set of standards for ALL living spaces–for dorm rooms and single-person homes and temporary living spaces for campers in the woods.
And then suppose you sat down with these standards to design a living space.
That’s what it’s like to design a curriculum with a single set of standards for all students. The standards constrain the possibility space of the design in extremely significant ways. They hobble curriculum designers. They crush innovation and variation in curricular design, including variation to meet the extraordinarily various needs of extraordinarily various kids and of an extraordinarily diverse, pluralistic society that needs people with different abilities, different sets of world and procedural knowledge.
Mr. Shepherd. I have enjoyed your thoughtful insight into CCSS conversation here on this thread. Your comments below bring insight to this discussion and I hope to hear more from you on this blog. I am now a school administrator, but as a student I thought of myself as a horrible math student. Being a conscientious student, I worked hard, but struggled with math concepts. I did learn to memorize my math facts with fluency bc that was how we did it in the 60s and 70s, so I was able to make decent grades. It wasn’t until I was in graduate school and actually working that I realized math had a purpose in real life situations. I was able to overcome my math phobia and now use my math skills easily to solve and make real life decisions about my students. Although I have to admit I never have had to use algebra, not even once in all these years. You are correct that there must be a better way to teach math in a developmentally appropriate progression that doesn’t turn kids away from these important skills. CCSS has the potential to cause math skills to be taught to very young children at developmentally inappropriate times in their development. You are also correct that these standards will become the curriculum, and will become the same teaching to the tested skills that NCLB created. This testing era has caused the curriculum to become narrowed and our students to miss important concepts needed to be successful in college and on the job. It is time for educators to return to helm of driving education policy. Billionaire business owners have driven us off course and into the ditch. They have hijacked education and we must take it back.
Thank you, Bridget, for sharing this. I had a similar experience with “history.” It wasn’t until I was well into my undergraduate career that I realized that history was everything that ever happened to anyone and that a lot of that stuff was really fascinating, that it wasn’t the memorization of the names and dates of battles, which was just about all I ever did in history classes in K-12. I was lucky with regard to math. While I found what we did in my K-12 math classes excruciatingly boring, I was able to attend well enough to it to parrot back the crap teachers wanted me to parrot back and to do well on the tests. It wasn’t until I had an Algebra teacher in high school who was actually a mathematician that I figured out that this stuff could be really exciting. But she would be kicked out of the profession today for not following the proscribed curriculum. She was fascinated by logic and set theory and the relations of these to computer programing and computability and proof, and we spent a LOT of time on her interests and didn’t “cover” all the topics in our Algebra text. However, a bunch of us became really excited about logic and set theory because of her excitement, and we learned that this stuff could be interesting and consequential. We could read a newspaper editorial and figure out just how the writer’s argument became derailed. We could understand what it meant to describe something as “digital” and how computers and electrical circuits actually worked. Fascinating stuff. The sort of stuff that makes people into lifelong consumers and practitioners of mathematics. But it wouldn’t be on the state test or, now, the national test.
prescribed curriculum, not proscribed. I wish one could edit these posts!
A disturbingly high percentage of college students have trouble dealing with fractions. One of my colleagues reported just yesterday that a student pulled out a calculator to fine the answer to 1/4 * 4.
And that “disturbingly high percentage” is?
Come on TE, for a numbers guy (aren’t all economists numbers guys and gals?) that’s a rather vague accusation.
Duane,
Are you going to dismiss what an increasing number of college professors are saying because TE can’t pull a number out of a hat? Where is the respect from K-12 teachers for college professors?
The only solid number I can give you is a third of the entering first year students must take a remedial mathematics class and a smaller fraction of students must take some mathematics class elsewhere before they are eligible to take the remedial class offered by the university.
Cindy,
Think “Blazing Saddles” Respect, I don’t need no stinkin respect. Actually the original quote came from “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and was appropriated by Mel Brooks in “Blazing Saddles”. And respect, true respect not adoration nor veneration, is the basis of my class room management techniques.
It’s not a matter of us peon K-12 teachers “respecting” those oh so high on the social/education charts college professors. Horse manure. TE made a generalized statement and I questioned it which he has since answered with a more specific figure of which one could still dispute his characterization of “disturbingly high”.
Although our kids score pretty well on international comparisons if those are corrected for socio-economic level, almost all ADULT AMERICANS are effectively innumerate. There was an NEA study that showed that 60 percent could not calculate a 10 percent tip, even though they simply have to move the decimal place to make this calculation. And most of them–most adult Americans– HATE mathematics. What they have learned from their math instruction is that math is monolithic, that they can’t or don’t want to do it, and that they should seek alternatives in their lives that do not involve math.
Clearly, what we are doing is failing if it has these sorts of LONG-TERM outcomes. But the Common Core math standards are a ratcheting up of the old approach. They push downward the levels at which we expect students to achieve conceptual understandings in mathematics. They ask very young people to do that which they haven’t, yet, the tools. This is a terrible, terrible mistake.
The study I am referring to was conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts, not by the National Education Association. At any rate, simply look around you. How many adults do you know who are GOOD at some variety of mathematics and LOVE it? We train our kids, pretty well, to take the tests. They can polish the bright work and untie a bow line, but they can’t sail.
Teachingeconomist, I would not exactly start the downstream fingerpointing and assume an air of supremacy over K12. College and universities are hardly models of teaching and simply eliminate those kids they do not want to take the time or effort to try to reach. K12 does not and tries to reach a much broader population. Plus your comment shows an ignorance and lack of clarity by condemning all K12 over an anecdotal experience. I am beginning to wonder if your online persona is contrived for trolling.
I am not doing any finger pointing, just saying that the skill of using fractions the original post talks about is an issue for both students who leave high school to join the labor force and those that go on to higher education, at least at my relatively non-selective university. No doubt the students at MIT are skilled at using fractions.
“I am beginning to wonder if your online persona is contrived for trolling.”
You must be new around here. I’ve been wondering that for months.
Gave TE the benefit of the doubt. As soon as I hear someone base their entire critique of teaching on one or two baseless stories, I write them off as mere teacher bashers who lack experience or insight. Certainly kids reach for a calculator for fractions and I’ve (gently) scolded my calculus kids for doing so as well as developmental math students. For some it is a crutch, for some a short cut, for some a necessity. I don’t expect each kid to derive Pi each time they need it and find it OK the student hit the Pi button. As long as they understand the concept and can locate the concepts later. Sometimes I move on and come back to it.
Who is critiquing teaching? At best I am saying that students that come to collage are often not well prepared for math. This is news?
I’ll gladly come to TE’s defense here. He’s not a troll, just an economist and economists have a certain way of viewing the world that is quite different than the vast majority of K-12 teachers. It’s good to have differing points of view available.
Oops. My comment above is supposed to be in response to this.
I found myself doing just that for even the simplest of problems. Reliance on computers and software led me into that downward spiral. It was not that I could not do the problem in my head, but that I felt more confident letting the machine tell me the answer. Kind of scary
“I felt more confident letting the machine tell me the answer”
I’ve always felt the opposite but then I’m a cranky old SOB who memorized (oh what a dirty word in education these days) the mathematical tables back in the 60s.
What I’d to see is post-secondary redefine “college ready”. Just because a student needs remedial math does not mean they cannot succeed. Rather they may have a myriad of factors that caused them to struggle – health issues, family crisis, late bloomer, and, yes, substandard teaching. But my frustration with Common Core and standardized testing is that it ignores reality – students are humans and not merely data points on a distribution plot. Colleges and universities today have thrown up their hands and taken the approach of just accepting the “best and the brightest” – usually people more like themselves – while jumping in the K12 blame game. As someone who had to fight tooth and nail to a grad degree, I find the elitism disgusting.
My university accepts 90+% of all applicants. Admission is automatic for students with a C average across a set of academic courses. This seems like a minimal standard, but it is more restrictive than when I first started teaching. All that was required at that time was a high school diploma.
Which proves what? My original point was your distain for students that pick up a calculator to do fractions. It is easy to point a finger. I think it is great a university gives more kids a chance. It is even better when they spend some of that vast influx of student debt on actually helping students.
What disdain? Just making an observation.
I don’t know about the fancy schools on the coasts, but the median level of student debt for a graduating senior at my university is 0.
Amen
The skills students need when graduating high school are: read and write with some fluency; be able to complete some mathemaical equations; be creative; be good citizens; be responsible by handing assignments on time; taking responsibility for one’s own actions and showing up. No where in the Common Core does it mention this. If we are to raise the so called bar, what do we do with the students who don’t or choose not to participate?.
Go to red states and districts and you will find a large number of conservatives on food stamps and assistance.
Poverty in a non-political force.
Poverty is a non-political force!
Isn’t the idea that something shouldn’t be tried until it’s been tried and proven the very antithesis of the innovative spirit that we’re looking for schools? With regards to the CCSS, they’re not all that innovative, by the way. Asking schools to include HOTS and interdisciplinary literacy work? That feels pretty well field tested by now.
“. . . the innovative spirit that we’re looking for schools?”
I don’t look for any “innovative spirit”, I look for what I consider to be tried and true methods in the teaching and learning process. And each subject/grade level has differing concern and needs.
In my subject area, teaching Spanish, the “innovative spirit” these days results in a “less is more” thinking. Teach them less so they supposedly get more. Don’t teach grammar, don’t have the students memorize vocabulary, it will all come “naturally” as they learn only conversational Spanish. Hogwash!
Perhaps it’s because I’m a non-union old fashioned waiting for retirement teacher that I just can’t get into that good ol “innovative spirit” (sounds too much like a revival to me) but then again I don’t like experimenting with a student’s opportunity to learn in order to catch that “innovative spirit”.
But thanks for another entry into my “Devil’s Dictionary of Education Jargon” (with all due apologies to A. Bierce)
Duane, not to cause you any grief, you are in good company with the language school that teaches more languages to more people in shorter time lengths than anyone else, the Defense Language Institute. We learned grammar, the only class of the day conducted partially in English, we studied vocabulary and conjugated verbs daily, and memorized dialogue as well. It was intense, we were proficient when they were done with us. We then went in country to improve our skills. Tried, true, Old School. This last year I taught 1st through 5th grade science in the morning, and team taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade math in the afternoons. I don’t give a rat’s behind about test scores, but I insisted that every student learn by rote their times tables. A funny thing happened, since previous assumptions put less emphasis on this, we had more time to work on problem solving once they knew their times tables. What we gave up on the front end in forcing memorization we made up for with greater progress later. Spare me innovation unless you can show me it actually works. I’m with you as far as being old school.
Old Teacher,
Thanks for that vignette!
I know that my methods can work (it’s the student who has to actually put in the effort) as I have had many students come back and tell me so. Who is a better judge? That is not to say that other methods can’t work but not only do I attempt to teach the students to understand and speak the language but also understand its structure (grammar, that other dirty word in teaching foreign languages these days) in relation to English.
And yes, to eventually become bilingual one (who begins learning a second language anytime after early childhood) more likely than not will need to live in a country where the target language is spoken and to have to stumble through those first weeks/months (even after having studied the language for a number of years in class, remember at the high school level one year of a foreign language is the equivalent of being 10 days in a target language country-not very long). After arriving in Peru after high school I remember being so totally exhausted at the end of each day for the first couple of weeks due to having to so thoroughly concentrate on understanding everyone and everything, but it was definitely worth it.
In fact, David, the Publishers’ Criteria from the CCSS in ELA clearly tell instructors NOT to do HOTS until AFTER students have read the selection closely. This is actually one of the few parts of the whole program that I actually agree with.
But no, the CCSS are not at all innovative. In fact, they are mediocre, a lot more of the same.
I agree. I’m not blown away by any innovation within them so much as their having creating a working scope and sequence for work that ought to have been universally included in schools for a long time now. Testing and textbooks, for me, are separate discussions.
David,
“a working scope and sequence for work that ought to have been universally included in schools for a long time now.”
Why should there be this standardization in education? Didn’t this country survive and thrive with minimal or no standardization throughout its history. Why this push for the mediocre which is what standardization is about?
Do you go to McD’s for a gourmet meal? Didn’t think so! McD’s is the epitome of standardization-sustenance on the cheap. Is that what you want for the children of this country, standardized education on the cheap? Well that is what the CCSS is about, standardized education on the cheap and measured up by standardized testing not necessarily on the cheap. No Thanks!
Duane – It’s not the standardized processes that makes McD’s food awful, it’s the quality of the food. After spending a decade working in a variety of restaurants across the country, I can tell you that The Cheesecake Factory is a great example of a place with HIGHLY standardized processes and food quality measures. I’d rather eat there any time over many of the locally owned “independent” restaurants.
Understand! Now what is the difference between food service operations and public education?
My oldest son is a chef who works in a high end restaurant that this teacher can’t afford. I am currently reading his chef school text, only about 1350 pages. Boy what an eye-opener as to what it takes to produce excellent dishes for a restaurant. I consider myself a fairly good home cook but being a chef is a quantum leap up from that.
Oh, the answer to my question can be found in the “blueberry question”.
I don’t know about that. The teaching methods may be the same, but at least in math, they’ve thrown every subject up in the air and saw where each skill landed and put that into a “curriculum.” My son took pre algebra in 8th grade, and in Secondary I (9th grade) had pieces of algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus! All in the same year, and all for a kid who struggled in pre algebra! He hates math even more now. How’s that supposed to help?
An interesting article on the level of high school preperation of DC high school valedictorians :http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/graduates-from-low-performing-dc-schools-face-tough-college-road/2013/06/16/e4c769a0-d49a-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z1
Can we agree that High School is not the only thing that matters in public education? I’ll grant you that not every HS student is going to college, but EVERY elementary school student NEEDS to know some fundamental, higher expectations than currently exist in many schools. Please do not completely discard what is good for the foundation of younger students because you want to haggle over HS. That already happens way too much, especially when it comes to community resources. Are there any advocates for elementary education among educational professionals?
Cindy,
You’ve hint at where precious resources might best be spent-at the elementary level. Thoroughly agree!
There’s a wonderful film called “The Elders Speak” that consists of interviews with native American elders. One fellow says, “Look around you. Watch the children. You will see who the leaders are. They will show you.”
We need to do a LOT more of that. Early education should consist of providing a LOT more various experiences than kids now get and spending a LOT more time watching those kids to see what they reveal about themselves.
I wonder how people like Edison and Einstein would have performed in all areas of the Common Core?
Or Mozart?
Or your plumber or your graphic designer or the person who runs that great greenhouse where you purchase your seedlings for those raised beds in the back yard.
Robert,
Not every plumber or greenhouse operator is going to be math-challenged. Why can’t we just accept that we should attempt to teach (or to provide the opportunity to learn) all students college-ready math? If, however, students don’t want to take it, whether they have an affinity for it or not, then they should be able to take a more basic math (though everyone should have to learn algebra and basic geometry – my opinion).
Isn’t this more about “honoring” individualism than teaching a lower or a higher standard exclusively because we want to be fair or, as someone put it, be monolithic in our approach?
Again, I reiterate that this is at higher grades only. Elementary school students should not be allowed to opt out or have expectations set too low. Those young minds are sponges. That is our one best opportunity to teach, inspire, and aid the child to get started on the path of the best “them”.
Did I suggest that every plumber or greenhouse operator is going to be math challenged? No. What I said is that people have different vastly different proclivities. For decades now, we’ve heard this cry that it’s time, finally, that we got serious about all our students graduating with the ability to do college-level math. Our math standards nationwide have been extraordinarily similar from state to state (I know because I have studied these in depth over many years). And they have been quite “rigorous.” And most adults (I’m not talking about 12th graders) are still effectively innumerate and have mostly learned from their math instruction that they are no good at math and that they hate it. To an enormous degree, the CCSS in mathematics are more of the same. And they will, predictably, have the same long-term outcomes.
If we were more creative in our design of mathematics curricula, we would long ago have tossed over the absurd notion that there is some one thing called “math” rather than a great variety of very different activities that share the common characteristic of being amenable to characterization either as pattern manipulation or as formal systems or as both. And if we had done that, we would have developed many math-related and math-dependent disciplines actually useful to different types of people with different interests, including plumbers and greenhouse operators.
” If, however, students don’t want to take it, whether they have an affinity for it or not, then they should be able to take a more basic math (though everyone should have to learn algebra and basic geometry – my opinion).”
Cindy, that is what happens in my high school, all are required to take four years of math, some choose the upper level maths others more mundane (and that shouldn’t imply mediocre) workable math.
And I don’t know of any elementary schools where students can opt out of taking math unless it were part of their IEP.
And yes, I agree that all should at least be “exposed” to elementary algebra and geometry, whether the student chooses to learn those is a whole other story.
Robert,
How and what are most HS students taught relative to math that you find objectionable? I am curious, as I know next to nothing about what or how math is taught there today. I do have an idea about what and how it is being taught (and not taught) in elementary schools (in my district and a good many other areas) and I’m not real enthused or impressed.
I thought you were suggesting that plumbers and greenhouse operators either did not have use for higher math or not suited for it. Sorry, if I interpreted your point incorrectly.
Cindy, I do not find math standards x or math curriculum y objectionable in and of themselves. What I find extraordinarily objectionable is the notion that one size should fit all AT ANY LEVEL of instruction. And it’s clearly insane, given our long-term outcomes, to do more of the same that we’ve been doing and to ratchet that up. We need a lot of variety and innovative thinking about math instruction that re-envisions what we mean by math instruction from the ground up and that replaces the existing monolith with lots of different tracks. You sound like a very thoughtful person. Read this:
Click to access lockhartslament.pdf
And by tracks I do not mean “higher” and “lower.” I mean different from one another. VERY different. If it were left up to me, for reasons far too complex to go into here, I would replace what we are doing for most kids, at the early grades, in math with pattern recognition activities for developing fluid intelligence for later application to a very wide variety of later mathematically related studies.
Precisely…
My “precisely” comment was for Robert. I agree that everyone needs to know how to work with fractions. Knowing the Pythagorean Theorem is a good idea. Algebra I might be doable. But, I know adults and students alike that cannot seem to reason beyond that level. And, possibly they are really good at something else. Also, when people see the need to know something, they are more willing to learn it, if they are reluctant to tackle things that require thinking, not analysis. I think reluctance is the key to a lot of “failure”. I kno.) w many who just don’t “get it” if it is applicable. Yet they have many, many skills.
I have twin brothers. Brother #1 got a PhD, but he was a TERRIBLE test taker in high school. He only got 17 on his ACT in 1972. He died last August at age 58 from a heart attack. Brother #2 didn’t go to college, is now retired, but continues to work despite retiring since he needs to be away from the wife. He is a 1st class pipe-fitter. He got 21 on his ACT in 1972. He was done in a half an hour. He just randomly picked circles to darken and sat there until he could go. He didn’t intend to go to college, but it was a required test.
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Point being that they made a similar income. #1 was a slow reader. That was his issue with the ACT. He didin’t get finished. But, when he entered college (followed me to the same school), they wanted to put him in ALL Foundations classes. (I taught the one for the math students, even though I was only 2 years older than he was.) I talked to the PTB and told them that he was my brother and that it would be absurd for him to take my math course because there was nothing he couldn’t do as well as I could. So, he did take the first semester reading and writing courses. He took courses with me the 2nd semester. He and I raced for the 100% in those classes. We usually tied. Point being: He wasn’t unintelligent.
I taught fractions in that class. Most people told me that they “got it” within the first 2-3 weeks of class and they were fed into the regular Math 101 class and passed it. I taught Adult Basic Education as a night class several years. I gave them a pretest on the Metric System (that WV was planning to enforce the Go Metric idea by 1982) and then I showed them the “trick of the metric system,” showed them the prefixes, and told them that if they thought they had caught on, they could take the post test and decide if they needed to return. Many passed the test at the end of the 2.5 hour class. Point being:if adults want to learn something and are willing to expose themselves to it, they usually can learn it.
To act as if high school students are really at the adult level of decision is ludicrous. They are there. They play sports. They think they should be sexual and drink and do drugs. They say no to their parents. Many have jobs. Point being: Give therm a purpose to learn what it is that we want them to learn … Don’t force-feed them … It doesn’t work. They forget it very quickly. If they feel the need to learn it, they will.
We go on with all these theories and write papers and columns and even theses. But, do WE “get it”? I am not sure that we do. We act like we are the “parental authority” about what “must” be learned. Do we have that right? Isn’t being an educator about educating students, meeting their needs? We really need to view education as student centered rather than subject centered.
I believe that is one of the obvious secrets of the magnet schools. They fulfill a need. Public schools need to find a way to do the same.
Testing does NOT fulfill this need. The only thing it fulfills is the corporations’ and the legislators’ and the governors’ needs to control, quantify, and collect data, no matter how flawed, to cram into someone’s file to justify their “outcomes”. And yet, we want to use these tests to evaluate teachers and school districts. But, so many keep playing the game … because who can afford to lose their $200K+ home at age 26?
First, let me say that I am an Indiana teacher so I have not followed VAM that closely in Ohio. However, I have written a few papers on this topic. In this situation, if the proprietary information used through VAM to evaluate teachers in Ohio is not disclosed then there could be a case made for the evaluation being arbitrary. in my opinion it would seem that teachers have legal recourse under substantive due process which prevents decisions from being “arbitrary or capricious deprivation of property,” (United States Constitution) which is often defined to include employment. If the assessments and results used to place teachers in categories that dictate compensation and continued employment could be shown to be arbitrary, then litigants would likely be victorious in wrongful termination cases based on VAM-based teaching evaluations. It is obvious that there are serious psychometric problems with VAM and most judges with a well-reasoned argument would rule that the VAM part of the evaluation is in fact arbitrary. I think it is only a matter of time before massive numbers of lawsuits pop up all over the country regarding VAM-based evaluations.
I sure hope so on your last sentence.
I may be wrong but the more I learn about the standards, the more that I think the CCSS are not really meant to impart all of these “skills” to all students, but rather to identify and sort out kids by “natural disposition” to be guided on to their next phase of life.
The testing will sort out kids by ability to succeed in certain skills – attention to detail, perseverance, deep reading of boring text – and the tests will allow our children to be funneled into either “college” or “career.”
The ceiling being placed on these standards (can’t add more than 15%) and the push to bring college material into high school via “high school reform” or technical experience via high school internships is sounding so much like worker/college channeling.
TNL2000
Please read Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 to understand the inherent invalidities involved in the process of making, using and disseminating the results of the process of educational standards and standardized testing. For a brief summary and comments read on:
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking. The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. This is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.” In other word all the errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms shit-in shit out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures NOTHING as the whole process is error ridden and therefore invalid. And the whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Excellent, Duane. Wonderful that some people are thinking about the philosophical underpinnings, stepping back from the notion of standards and critiquing that. Wonderful. Thank you. And about the general conclusion here, I could not agree more.
Robert,
Thanks!
I believe that Wilson’s work is THE most important work in education policy analysis in a half a century. It shows just how nefarious, perfidious, and pernicious these sorting and separating mechanisms are. Almost everyone takes grades, standardized testing, ranking and sorting as the “way the world is” without giving it any critical thought. The psychometricians declare that their machinations have scientific validity when in reality psychometrics is a pseudo science at best and really has more in common with phrenology and eugenics than anything else. They have successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of the populace with the worst part being the fact that many, many students are harmed greatly by this sorting and separating, ranking and labeling (grading) which are common everyday occurrences.
I hope you read the full study (because my summary really doesn’t do justice to what Wilson has to say) and help me get the word out!
Duane
Boy, both those comments didn’t go where I wanted them to.
Holy frijoles what is going on? Am I in the twilight zone.
These discussions seem to switch back and forth from CC to testing. The problem is that the CC shoves skills to for 12 year olds into the grade levels for 9 year olds. Some students can achieve at this level. The truth is, though, that we continue to expect younger children, with less academic background knowledge to achieve as if this isn’t the case.
We continue to focus on the CC as if it is “the problem”. But, the truth is that the application and implementation of the tests, with questions designed by non-educators, drives evaluation of students, teachers, and districts. Principals and superintendents are driven to protect their own jobs by forcing unnatural curricula into the classroom at the expense of allowing students to learn through inquiry and at appropriate developmental stages.
Why are we expected to pretend like we really buy in to the way the changes are implemented? Would any of these reformers honestly expect adults who speak no French to be proficient in its usage and applications? That is similar to what these tests do for certain groups of students.
Inappropriate tests are used to change way too many lives. It seems to me that the real goal here is to extinguish traditional teachers … to erase us from the face of America … and start anew with TFA types in the interim to place hold until schools of education fall lockstep with the corporate agenda. I find that frighening. It is also very sad for so many children.
I agree with you, Deb, I think the trend is to make sweeping changes and destroy the old mold and throw out the baby with the bath water, i.e. traditional teachers.
Reblogged this on Teachercloud's Blog and commented:
Only nine percent of the workforce will need to be able to factor polynomial equations and other higher math skills included in Algebra 2 of the new nationwide common core curriculum.
Why hasn’t PBS done an exposè on Connon Core? Oh yeah, they support any and all liberal agendas. PBS is, and always will be, a waste of uninformed tax-payer’s money. PBS, whose “core” is to undermine “common” sense any way it can to sway uninformed voter’s perception of reality.
I thoroughly agree with Mr. Lerman. I have long been an advocate of apprenticeship programs. My great, great grandfather apprenticed with a well-known attorney, Bailey Peyton, when he was a boy. He had been orphaned at the age of 11 and was raised by his aunt and uncle. There was no money for a formal education, but he became one of the best and most highly respected attorneys and judges in Tennessee. His book OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE is now used as a reference book and can be currently purchased on Amazon. This Common Core think/speak drivel is confusing, non-specific and in no way addresses the basic needs of children from grade 1 through 12. I went to a public elementary school in Nashville — Burton Elementary — where I got a first rate education and went on to a private high school, Harpeth Hall, where well-known people such as Amy Grant, Reese Witherspoon, Tracy Caulkins and others attended. I breezed through my first year of junior college as I had such excellent preparation in high school. While in college, I interned three days a week for 3 hours after classes at an attorney’s office to learn about taking dictation, I also took courses in business law, typing and shorthand and bookkeeping/accounting along with French, English literature, Humanities and Social Studies, etc. At that time, it was not “fashionable” to take the office courses, but I wanted to be prepared for anything. I have worked full time since I was 20, and I am now of a certain age — over 40 years without missing a beat. There are many and varied ways to earn a good living and support yourself. I am also a professional songwriter. Children need the basics, as a good foundation; dedicated and highly skilled teachers; and parents who support their children’s education and learning processes, especially reading. Being able to communicate through the written and spoken word, i.e. speech and diction classes would be very helpful. I have noticed even in young people just out of college, their grammar is appalling. These young people have no idea how the spoken word can influence, for better or worse, their chances of success. I have been a Human Resources Manager and know how important first impressions are. Someone can look great and have all the right credentials, but if their grammar and communication skills are poor, that is a real detriment to being considered for top slots.
Reading, writing and arithmetic — basics. Parents, teachers & school officials who truly put forth the effort to see that children under their care are given every tool and opportunity available to be able to thrive in life are vital. Apprenticeship, office skills courses, and other options. Not everyone is meant to go to college or wants to. I didn’t want to go to a four-year college. I got what I needed.
Please everyone — listen — heed — and fight against this Common Core.
Repeated!!!!!
It is no wonder that Sir Richard Branson would want to get the heck off this planet and find another place where common sense and reason reside. If there is nothing there and we repopulate starting with the premise of Do No Harm, One Size Does NOT Fit All, Slow and Steady, Common Sense Rules (you fill in the rest), we would be better off then the direction we are allowing to take place at the hands of a select few these days. On this planet, Sir Branson, as a learning disabled person (which he is!), would be denied his intellectual giftedness and creative genius from the very beginning of his school years under this new punishing and restrictive measurement sorting mechanism for rushing to fine the value added students and future work force. He would be discarded into the dust bin of society, unless of course he was the child of a wealthy family.
Factoring in the differences of humans like maturity, environmental and domestic circumstances, etc., can change the equation for each child and ultimately the rest of us. Society stands to lose many gifts through discarding by measurement for the purposes other then the welfare and growth of the children themselves. How the H. did we get to this point? What a combination and formula for failure denial and greed are!!! They have contributed on both sides of this current education crises and civil rights challenge to create generations of innocent victims! Life and death choices are being foisted onto children and their families without their knowledge or approval. Is this far fetched? Oh! No!!!!!! What to do about it is the question and to act now is the answer!!