The group called Defending the Early Years has released a report on very troubling trends in Massachusetts.
The report shows that academic pressure has invaded kindergartens and that children have lost the time once spent in play, socialization, recess, even lunch.
Child-directed activities have increasingly been replaced by teacher-directed activities and scripted curricula.
It seems that “reform” in early childhood classes means stamping out the interests of children.
This is wrong. Let the children play. Let them have a childhood.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
it is happening in New York as well.
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My 1st child was in the 3rd year into all day kindergarten (she’s now in 10th) and my son was the 5th year in (he’s in 8th grade). Dramatic changes in those 2 years between children…..and that was several years ago. Child #2 spent more time sitting at a desk, 20 minute recesses, no open play, and a very chaotic lunch time (some kids only had 7 minutes to eat their purchased lunch). I’m sure it’s worse now. If I had to do it all over again, I would homeschool with a co-op for the elementary school years.
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Meh. Elementary is not that bad. It gets significantly worse in MS. HS is a gamble: sometimes it picks up, other times it completely disintegrates. I would push in MS, stuff the kids with as much info and skills as possible, and this will be sufficient to get them through HS. Seriously, I think that HS is completely superflous considering current level of education it provides. 9th grade math is at best on the level of 6th grade math in other countries. 12-grade math course is just a preparation for calculus. Physics, chemistry are optional, and sometimes are not available even if one wanted to take it. All that HS delivers presently, can be taught by the end of MS.
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Gruff, since you do not identify yourself, it is impossible to evaluate your harsh judgments about high school. Would you provide sources when you make these sweeping and probably inaccurate generalizations? I really do find your dismissive tone very obnoxious. I doubt that many readers of this blog would agree that high school is a waste of time.
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@dianeravitch. I have 1 in HS and 1 in MS. I will say that not a lot happens in MS classrooms except for management of hormonal angst and other behavior modifications (although that is considered learning IMHO). At the HS level, the push is for AP for all or else the kids sit and rot in a class doing not much of anything. I’m in the thick of it and Gruff is not far off on his observations. It’s off to private HS for child #2 and child #1 will finish out public school (and we can only hope for the best).
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Diane, I would write a long response, but if you are going to remove it, then there is no incentive to do that. Anyway, the information is available on the net, and also from the primary source – the textbooks. Say, Core-Plus Math for HS, it starts in 9th grade. One of the chapters is about linear equations, there are a lot of words about male and female doctors, bla-bla more percent, bla-bla fewer percent, like in a pulp novel, very few formulas. It insists on solving a simple single-variable problem using either a table or a plotted line chart. There is a weak attempt to teach algebraic method of solving equations like 3x + 12 = 45. Keep the sides “balanced”, deduct 12 then divide by 3. Whoa! This is told not in a main section, but rather in a sidebar, as an optional and weird way of solving linear equations. This is NINTH GRADE. You may say that this is Common Core ruining it, but no, the textbooks originate in 1994. Present Common Core edition is just a subtle rehash of the chapters, otherwise the approach and content is the same. The equations like the above are explained in SIXTH GRADE in other countries. I contend, there are no words like “function” in those other textbooks, but there is no word “function” in this 9th grade textbook either. All it says is “linear equation”.
Physics, chemistry are electives, not needed for HS diploma in most states. Chicago school district decided to make physics a pre-requisite for HS diploma. The result? One third of Chicago schools simply DO NOT OFFER CHEMISTRY OR PHYSICS. Link? Easy, just google it: https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-public-schools-look-to-require-chemistry-physics-beef-up-high-school-science-requirements/
So, if MS is compressed into one year, and HS is pushed down two years, the whole secondary school contracts to 10 years, it becomes more reasonable. As it is, 12 years plus K, this is 13 years stolen from one’s life. Also, because Elem, MS and HS are often different districts, they do not care about each other, then you hear stories about kids coming to 9th grade not being able to read. Do you call this school? Reading is the most basic skill a human can have nowadays, and elem + MS were not able to teach kid to read in nine years!
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Gruff, you, like many people (including educators, alas) do not really understand reading. It’s not a skill. It’s the fruit of broad background knowledge. Hence a naturally smart person who is very ignorant cannot read much of anything. You need a critical mass of knowledge about the world (Congress, erosion, tides, hormones, finance, baseball, etc.) to comprehend most texts. You need to know what the words mean, and you can’t have word knowledge without WORLD knowledge. Thus reading ability accrues slowly as one learns about the world, through TV, school, travel, etc. To say “schools fail to teach reading skills” shows a lack of understanding of what reading ability is.
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At last count, the Common Core/College & Career Standards were still alive in twenty-four states. Since the initial adoptions in 2008-2009, eleven states have revised or re-branded the original standards. Even so, the preoccupation with “college and career readiness” and meeting grade-level “academic” standards on time are still part of the robbing of time from the earliest years in school, cutting out many lessons learned from play.
The persistence of the Common Core is one reason for the shove down to preschool and kindergarten of “readiness for” grade one, two, three, and so on. Read ESSA and do some key word searches for preschool and kindergarten to see how that law perpetuates academic everything/anything as early as possible… and especially for students who are learning English or who qualify for free and reduced price lunches, or who have been classified as eligible for special education.
Add to that mix the venture capitalists who are making money from financial products designed to foot the bill for preschool education. These programs cherry pick students who are likely to have only minor (academic) learning problems, enter grade one with no problems, read-by-grade three and so on. Those financial products are called Social Impact Bonds or Pay-for-Success contracts. In my opinion, preschool programs that have been created so they can be monitored by the criterion of “profits to investor” are educationally compromised from the get go.
Now come the fraudsters who are beating the drum for more screen-time for tykes. Devos just sent the Rocketship franchise of K-5 schools $12.6 million for replication and expansion–never mind that enrollment failure caused a sudden and recent shut down of a Rocketship school in Tennessee.
In Rocketship schools Kindergarten students spend from 80 to100 minutes a day with computers, and on tasks that are monitored daily for time at the computer and tasks completed.Take a look at the warehousing of children in cubicles here. (Sometimes these cubicles are made of cardboard and can be folded up). http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/rocketship-education-or-dud-missile.html
This is what the “launch” of Rocketship a day is like–kids dodging backpacks in a warehouse-like room, following the teacher is the closest thing to a playful interlude before the great silence for most of the day.
About that Grant http://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/betsy-devos-just-gave-12-6-million-grant-to-rocketship-chart/
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You prefer military-style single-story low-ceiling barracks with no natural lightning, with AC blowing in your head, with desks so tiny you need to put one hand under it if you want to write? With no room or – gasp! – lockers for the backpack and all these heavy books. With the whiteboard covered with slogans and never used as intended. With kids never coming in front to solve a problem on a whiteboard, because if they fail, it will haunt them all their lives. I just don’t see how a regular school is sp much better.
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Laura, I think you’re right about the “shove down”. This is the fashion these days: make little kids ape experts. I say “ape” because there’s no way a kid can truly act like an expert without the long, slow business of laying a foundation of knowledge. We think we can dispense with this knowledge-building stage and take an express route to the PhD level of science, history, and literature by having kids imitate –ape –what PhDs do. It’s insane.
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More than thirty years ago David Elkind wrote “The Hurried Child,” and today under the influence of outcome based learning and politics, the pressure is even greater. There is no evidence that pushing down skills on younger students has merit. There is also evidence that putting pressure on young students can lead to later social and emotional problems. Young children should be learning through their senses through hands-on exploration. We need to protect young children from harmful, counterproductive practice led by greedy corporations and politicians. https://www.smh.com.au/education/political-pressure-takes-the-fun-out-of-kindy-say-academics-20140506-zr5b3.html
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I blame the Koch brothers and the Kochtapus as the prime force driving these insane reforms. They want to do more than just return the United States to the era of the Robber Barrons.
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