This appeared originally in Newsday on Long Island.

Long Island is becoming the epicenter of the Opt Out of Testing movement. Parents who are vocally opposed to standardized testing are running for school boards. Long Island parents are furious at the state’s deluge of tests, especially the most recent Common Core tests, which claimed that most of their children were “failing,” even students who were A students in school. Is everyone lying except the tests? Not likely. How did Commissioner King predict with great accuracy that 70% of the children would fail before they took the test?

 

Common Core Vs. Common Sense

I put a very worried and anxious girl to bed tonight. She’s 7 and in second grade. I am a worrier too, I guess she gets it from me. But in the mid 1980s I was worried about the Barbie outfit I misplaced and whether I’d be able to cartwheel as well as the other girls on the playground at recess. You see, she has her first Common Core math test tomorrow. We have spent the last 2 weeks learning her math work. I say we because I have had to learn it as well. I am a certified NYS teacher and have had to rely on a 7 year old to explain to me how to add 65+7. It’s not as easy as you think.

My heart breaks for her and her fellow students. I have a little girl who loves school. All I want is for her is to go to school happy and come home happy. As far as I am concerned the rest will fall into place. I know what my responsibilities as a parent are in supporting her education. I think if we all reflect back to our elementary school days the best days, and our treasured memories were those days when we did a fun art project on a Friday afternoon, or perhaps we got to play outside for extra recess or maybe we didn’t get to math one day because we were creating costumes for a Thanksgiving play and feast. Are our children going to have positive memories like these to reflect back on?

I feel for all the parents and caregivers who are dealing with tired, frustrated children at the end of a long day, . . . and that’s before homework has even begun. When I was teaching and presented at my Open School nights, I stressed the importance of the home school connection and I have heard the same sentiment from my child’s teachers each year. I want to sit with my child and help her when she needs it. I want her to know I value what she is learning. Now a totally new math curriculum has been thrust upon us. Hey, NYSED, the parents need classes on this stuff too! My daughter continually comes home and tells me “the state” wants the math work done a certain way. Other than naming the state we live in and others that we have visited, I do not think she even understands what “the state” is. She has been told that to do math the way parents have learned is wrong. I tell her that it is not wrong, but is simply a different way of reaching the right answer. I feel hamstringed and trapped, and this is public education! Why are we subjecting our children to this? I guess the next thing we’ll be teaching is a new way to sing the ABC song, starting with the letter m.

I also feel for the teachers who know in their hearts what is developmentally appropriate for a child to be learning. I feel for them because parents are frustrated and taking it out on the teachers. I feel for the principals and administrators who are asking even more from their staff. At my daughter’s open school night I appreciated that her teacher told us what a second grader can handle developmentally. However one week later, out went the math workbook and in came this common core module work using the very concepts the teacher said most second graders couldn’t and wouldn’t understand. Of course these teachers are stressed. I am sure it’s very hard when your job is on the line to not get overwhelmed and frustrated; but the children sense the teacher’s panic. My child doesn’t want to disappoint her teacher, she wants her teacher to be proud of her.

I do not claim to know all about the Common Core, its mission, its purpose or its evolution, but I do know something about common sense and it seems to have been thrust aside. I know that it has made my child doubtful of her abilities. I know it has brought unnecessary stress into her life and I’m mad about that. Does making something harder and more difficult make a child smarter? We want to keep up with the rest of the world but I think 200+ years of American ingenuity and creativity have served to prove that we are quite able to compete in the world around us.

My biggest question is what has changed? Many previous generations have learned without the Common Core. I loved school, and I fear my 3 daughters won’t have those memorable experiences that make school a happy and nurturing place of learning. I taught for over 6 years before staying home with my children. If you asked any of my former students what they came away with from my classroom and teaching, I would hope it is that I made them feel valued, intelligent, and capable. I wanted to instill in them a sense of pride and love of learning, hoping that it would put them on the path to a lifetime journey of learning and personal fulfillment.

Come on parents, we change our shoes if they are uncomfortable. We switch doctors and seek second opinions if we don’t like our course of treatment. Our grocery store loyalty is fickle if we don’t have a positive experience or they ran out of the brand of pasta we like. And here we are sitting back, watching our children suffer.

I prepared questions for this math test tomorrow for my child using the teacher’s study guide. As I sat there with my daughter, who understood the homework each night, I saw fear in her eyes. She blanked. She could not recall how to do any of the math her teacher has spent goodness knows how many hours on these past weeks. My daughter is on overload and her brain cannot filter and process all the information and methods she was inundated with these past few weeks. So, I made a call as a parent, I took the study sheet and questions I had prepared and put it away. She may fail, she may pass. I do not care. She knows her addition facts and we are working on subtraction facts. I am more proud that she thinks of others and is a kind child. And her cartwheels are amazing!!!!