A teacher in Virginia said this about her state’s standards:
“I teach in Virginia where we do not use Common core. Our standards are actually harder than common core.
“Here is the problem with both: these standards are not developmentally appropriate for children. I am teaching my LD (special ed.) students things like: order of operations (PEMDAS) and prime and composite numbers. I have found very few adults who know what composite numbers are, including West Point and Harvard grads. Do you know what a stem and leaf plot is? Do you know what a compression wave is? Do you know the difference between an expression and an equation? Do you know what an open sentence is (in math)? Can you name different rhyme schemes in poetry? Can you do MLA citations and computer powerpoints? These are 5th grade skills. I am teaching middle and high school skills to 10 year olds. Then when they have difficulties, it is my fault. Really?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can relate having to deal with the same nonsense here in NY. It’s ridiculous. There is, I believe such a thing as cognitive readiness. Why we’re asking 10 year olds to read and analyze the Universal Declaration of Human Rights baffles me.
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In Georgia, we were teaching students to find the area of irregularly shaped figures, a skill that wasn’t even presented until 10th grade when I was in high school just 10 years ago. Things re changing so fast that the teachers can’t keep up. If teachers can’t keep up, how can students?
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Just because people don’t know a definition doesn’t mean the topic isn’t developmentally appropriate. The data and statistics standards were largely written by Dick Scheaffer, and there’s nobody that knows more about statistics education than Dick Scheaffer. Right now students may not have the background knowledge to do some of the topics. That is also not an indication that it’s developmentally appropriate. Students need the background information and teachers need to know how to teach the topics. It may turn out that some of the topics are developmentally inappropriate, but let’s not jump to that conclusion.
Having said that, expecting immediate proficiency on these standards is not reasonable. I think there is much more good than bad in the math CC. I think the statistics topics are very appropriate. But we need professional development so teachers know how to teach those topics. I wouldn’t panic about the content of the Common Core. But I would get rather feisty about the way the accountability hounds are trying to use them.
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It does, too. They are NOT by any stretch of the imagination developmentally appropriate. These standards are DESIGNED to make children fail so as to track them into dropping out of school, and certainly not allowing them to go to college.
It is a way to further a caste system in this country.
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You obviously are NOT a teacher of K-6. Dick Scheaffer, whoever he is, is NOT an elementary school teacher and likely has NO background at ALL on child development. Those “standards” in the OP are absolutely INSANE.
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Let’s just say that Dick Scheaffer (Professor Emeritus, U of Fl) is credited with the book, Probability and Statistics for Engineers. He started at Florida in 1967 and I find no indication that he has any experience with elementary of middle school students. Citing him as an expert in statistics may be appropriate but it is sloppy thinking to leap from there to math curriculum for 11 year olds.
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No! No! A thousand times, No! No Common Core, no NCLB, no RTTT, no teachers without professional training in classrooms, no rating, ranking, blending, reforming, closing, chartering, test prepping, testing, and testing so more. Educators have got to close ranks and unilaterally refuse to engage in or acknowledge this destructive, continual intrusion by unqualified, politically- and monetarily-motivated outsiders. I don’t care that there might be a shred of value in the stew these clowns are dishing up. This attack on education will not stop until professional educators draw the line. Common Core? Dreamed up a bunch of governors? And there are teachers saying, “Well shucks, parts of CC have value, blah, blah.” And then wring their hands because, CC is really just an elaborate ploy to keep educators distractedly running in circles while the crooks steal the schools blind. Come on, people. How often do you buy into the ponzi scheme before you refuse to play any more?
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agree with you 100% Joanne!,
the edu-fascists will not be stopped unless confronted by a united nationwide collective action of teachers, paras, administrators, kids and parents who are willing to walk out of schools and start “heating things up” in the street
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
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I am not sure why you are objecting to the common core in a post about a state that has rejected the common core.
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Hmm. Let’s see. Post said Va wasn’t “using” CC, but something “harder”. Then gave example of its wild inappropriateness. Object to CC on steroids? You bet.
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But the argument against the CC as being something imposed on schools from above does not apply in this case. It is the usual state setting of standards.
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http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/5/introduction Here are the 5th grade standards for math and not one of the things that this teacher complains about is part of them. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/5 Here is Literature. Here is Informational text. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/5 Not one single thing that this teacher mentions is part of Common Core for 5th grade. The standards are not perfect but most of the complaints center around confusion about the difference between standards and curriculum and the difference between complexity and simply teaching inappropriate content. This teacher is really confused. To be fair she is probably totally overwhelmed with the nonsense that her district is shoveling at her. I don’t blame her but these attacks based on misinformation have got to stop!
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I just want everyone, including Dr. Ravitch, to focus on the actual standards. So many of the Common Core posts here are attacks on people’s incorrect notions about Common Core. This means that we would be justified in attacking the implementation plan. Dr. Ravitch represents the anti Rhee-form movement and she does so brilliantly. However, I urge everyone to construct arguments that cannot be so easily dismissed by focusing on things that are actually true about Common Core. That being said, I believe that it is performance pay, testing and teacher evaluation that should be the focus of this movement. Common Core is not all bad if people stop conflating and actually read them!
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Okay, I agree, let’s focus on educational standards. They are a chimera, a farce, a fallacy, a duende and any conclusions drawn from such an invalid “philosophy” of education are “vain and illusory” as Noel Wilson states in his complete destruction of the concepts of educational standards, standardized testing and even the “grading” of students. He has elucidated 13 sources of error in the making of the standards, standardized testing, and in the taking and disseminating of results, that render the whole process invalid. I invite you to read and understand what he has shown in “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 . Once you have read and understood what he has shown you will understand the pure bovine excrement that are standards.
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Duane, I read much of that article and I have to say it is basically unrelated to this discussion. If you do not want educational standards, what do you want? It seems that you and the author of that article are voicing opposition to the validity of using standardized testing to categorize complex achievement. I totally agree. My point is that we will never make our point if we continually misunderstand and misrepresent the thing that we are arguing against. I am not arguing that the Common Core is great. I happen to think that there are many problems with it including, implementation, lack of input in primary, excessive and poorly designed tests, and total lack of funding (aside from RTTT extortion). The teacher that Diane highlights here is totally wrong about the Common Core. This is an argument against inappropriate curriculum. That is fine but it is not even about the Common Core like it claims to be. It is the same as that post that we read about the groundhog experiment and the one about the Kindergartners doing algebra. Those things are just misleading. If you gotta hate, don’t conflate!
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Mark, the quoted teacher was not referring to Common Core standards but to the Virginia Standards of Learning, which have a higher level of rigor: http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/mathematics/2009/stds_math5.pdf
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Fine. So that means don’t call it a critique of Common Core and don’t call it more rigorous when it is just wildly inappropriate (if we accept the characterization here). State standards are not new and state curriculum will hopefully align with Common Core or whatever standards survive when the dust settles. If it does that, then the Common Core should be a big improvement in my opinion. Rigor is when students go deeper and are asked to think more which Common Core does (as long as we actually read what they say). Rigor is not when kids just learn things that are too hard for them. I understand the lack of trust and I hope people use text-based evidence in their critique. Like you did Heather! Thanks for setting the record straight.
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I echo Mark’s comments, but from a parent’s perspective. Common Core may be a bad thing because it forces students to learn in a fast paced “to-the-test” environment or for other reasons, but not, in my opinion, because we are expecting our children to learn complicated concepts earlier.
I say this as a parent who loves teaching complicated concepts to her children at home, and one who appreciates the need for our children to be prepared for a world that, in some cases, is better educated that we are.
Our system may not be effective at inspiring our children toward creative problem solving, but do you belive that the solution to this problem is to introduce less sophisticated problems?
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Ev0ve, I am a parent to and I totally agree that the tests have the potential to ruin the standards and we should be very skeptical. I also believe that the comparison of educational systems is a fool’s errand. It is true that we want to be competitive but pretending that multiple choice test scores from around the globe give us meaningful or actionable information is just not true. Global competition is more of a numbers game. In India, their middle class is larger than our whole nation. We need to be great but it is really difficult to use the comparisons appropriately. I think that a 21st century skills approach is best and the Common Core comes close to that. Corporate reform has nothing going for it and the ideas that are being tried are failing. Common Core is worth a try and we need to fight for time, input, patience, funding, and materials so that it is not destined to fail.
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a parent too!
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