As usual, this is a long diary, so get some warm cocoa. Much like the health care debate, the insanity over Common Core has become frustrating. When will people learn that if you don't do a slick marketing campaign to define yourself, crazy people will define you instead? I recently read an article that is against the Common Core standards written by someone who I highly doubt understands what Common Core is. You can read it here.
Just as a disclaimer, I'm a teacher at a private school and I use Common Core in my classrooms. I am under no obligation to do so. Private schools in my state can teach what they want, how they want, so long as the parents keep paying tuition. I use Common Core when I teach Math and English because as a new teacher it gave me a guidepost as to what I was supposed to teach. I taught myself the Common Core by finding professionals who have already implemented it, and just plain reading it myself. This process has made me a huge proponent, so that is why the disinformation campaign is so disheartening.
When you don't explain an issue thoroughly, people will define the issue for you, and they will define it based on their personal list of good guys and bad guys. I've seen Common Core attacked from every angle. I've seen progressives attack it because they're angry about standardized testing, its effects on lower income and minority students, and that it's a neoliberal power grab. I've seen liberals attack it because they believe it's a means for the state to privatize schools with the evil corporations pulling the strings in the background. Far right tea-partiers attack it because they think it's a federal mandate. Libertarians hate the "one size fits all" education theory, and conservatives think that the Common Core doesn't prepare kids for the "real world" and is instead developed by ivory tower academics.
You see? People insert their own boogeymen where they want.
All of this is BS. All of it. People of each political walk of life get it wrong, but, like the Affordable Care Act, no one has come forward to really explain it, and then people's fear and ego takes over. Surprise, surprise, those on the right are the ones that are the most factually incorrect and incoherent, but for centrists, liberals, etc., there's no excuse. I'd like to spend some time to share my own educational experience using Common Core and some basic facts so that we, the "Reality Based Community" can be the ones to speak the most intelligently on this subject.
1. Myth: Common Core is a big government federal program that will allow government to invade our lives.
Common Core is not a federally mandated education standard or set of reforms like "No Child Left Behind." Common Core is the brainchild of the National Governor's Association and was developed from the best practices of each state, and included input from parents, teachers, administrators, etc. International benchmarks were used in the development of the Common Core. Each individual state can agree to utilize Common Core or reject it at their discretion. There are 6 states (Texas, Minnesota, Indiana, Alaska, Virginia, Nebraska) and Puerto Rico who have not agreed to institute Common Core. THEY DON'T HAVE TO. NO ONE IS FORCING THEM. For example, in my great state of Michigan, the Michigan Senate passed Common Core, and it was accepted June 15, 2010. In fact, Common Core was, in many ways, a response to the central overreach that was NCLB.
The only thing you could possibly say is that states who don't implement Common Core won't get Common Core related aid, but implementing Common Core can give the state a waiver from President Bush's NCLB. States can get "Race to the Top" grants from other means besides implementing Common Core, but as you can see, most states decided getting NCLB waivers and getting grants through "Race to the Top" for implementing Common Core were icing on the cake for implemeting Common Core.
2. Myth: Common Core will force children to only study for the standardized test.
Standardized testing is different from state to state. Over-usage of standardized testing is the dark offspring of education hysteria and the misinformation campaign of people who make money off privatizing schools and turning communities against their school districts. However, that has nothing to do with Common Core. That madness had already been brewing for quite some time. There are tests that align with Common Core, and in 2014 there will be a standardized Common Core test that states can elect to give to their students, but as far as how important standardized testing is, that's up to the state and federal mandates that were already in place. You can't blame Common Core for the governor or legislature of your state being in the pocket of big education companies like Pearson, etc. Common Core doesn't give them the authority to test your kids more or less, and nowhere in the curriculum (which you can read for free online!) says your kid has to take an inhuman battery of tests.
I am not against having a standardized test, but just like one per year. I have an International Baccalaureate, and I studied 4 years to take standardized tests that would determine whether or not I got my high school degree. Standardized testing is fine, but de-funding schools who do poorly on tests without taking into account externalities such as funding levels, teacher training, socioeconomic factors (which have been proven to have a deleterious effect on education, thank you very much neoliberals), and other things that could hamper a school's ability to give a quality education, is the height of stupidity.
We do not want a country where we lay on extreme pressure to take standardized exams. I taught in a nation that is obsessed with quantifying student achievement, and the social costs are enormous.
In short, it is a problem, but take it up with the right people and direct your anger in a constructive way.
3. Myth:Common Core teaches kids with methods that only make sense to ivory tower eggheads.
This is a criticism levied by many on the right, and as usual, the libertarians and conservatives are the ones that are off in "LaLa" land. Common Core presents a set of skills that a child should have by the end of a given year. Nowhere in the Common Core does it design a lesson for you. There are education systems in the world that do that, and their rigidity gives lackluster results. Common Core just says what the child must be able to do. How you get to Rome is up to you. If you want a central bureaucracy mandating that everyone across the country be exactly the same, pack your bags for France.
Don't believe me? Well let me show you something!
If we use the power of the interwebs and visit the Common Core Standards website (did I mention it's free?) we can take a look at the standards. Want a real world example? I was teaching my 3rd graders area and perimeter. It is a big part of the 3rd grade Math curriculum. I pulled up the website, and saw this:
CCSS.Math.Content.3.MD.C.6
Measure areas by counting unit squares (square cm, square m, square in, square ft, and improvised units).
CCSS.Math.Content.3.MD.C.7.a
Find the area of a rectangle with whole-number side lengths by tiling it, and show that the area is the same as would be found by multiplying the side lengths.
CCSS.Math.Content.3.MD.C.7.c
Use tiling to show in a concrete case that the area of a rectangle with whole-number side lengths a and b + c is the sum of a × b and a × c. Use area models to represent the distributive property in mathematical reasoning.
Yes, real esoteric stuff there. The last one might be, but keep in mind, this curriculum is for me. I'm an educator, so if I don't understand that last one, I shouldn't teach math. To be honest, I think most people are just too lazy to actually, you know,
read the standards. There is nothing there that tells me HOW to teach that idea, just that I have to teach it.
Would you like to know how I teach area and perimeter? I made up a game called "Island Conquer!!!" (Yes, it has that many exclamation points). You take turns making square/rectangular islands on grid paper, and see if your partner can figure out the area. If they get it, they color in the island, and the person with the most land at the end of the game wins. You can change the difficulty level so that the kids have to multiply the sides to find the area, and you can even allow "weird shapes" made up of squares and rectangles that you have to figure out by counting squares. 3rd graders love it! I made laminated boards and it's a fun activity, because 3rd graders like to play. Just saying.
Common Core does not stop me from doing that. In no way shape or form does it tell me HOW I have to teach the idea. If you see some stupid meme on Facebook with an example of a teacher teaching an idea poorly or in a confusing manner, blame the teacher, not the curriculum.
#4 Myth: Common Core doesn't leave any time for arts, foreign languages, underwater basket weaving, etc. How is my kid going to become the next Van Gogh?
Common Core just covers English and Math. That's it. It doesn't tell you how to teach Spanish, Science, History, or anything else. It doesn't touch other subjects. The English standards do include being able to read texts on Science and History, but that doesn't mean it counts as standards for teaching History. It just counts as "Hey, in your English class wouldn't it be great if kids were well versed in reading documents about a variety of different subjects, and not just Chaucer?" For example, if we go back to that free website anyone in the world can read, but no one actually does, it says:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.4
Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 6-8 texts and topics.
In normal people speak, this standard says kids should know how to figure out crazy science words in context using background knowledge from their Science class. Do you know what I do for my seventh graders studying Biology? We read articles from Scientific American in English class! We read all about what is going on in Science with respect to evolution, cosmology, genetics, etc. I have my children find articles on topics that interest them, mine the article for words they don't know, look them up, create word webs, and even write their own articles on scientific subjects using knowledge they got from Science class! Wouldn't it be great to have a society that was just as versed in reading technical articles and sociology articles as it is in following the movements of the Kardashians?
My school teaches Spanish and Chinese and Art, etc. etc. and we have plenty of time for Common Core. We do yearly standardized testing, so I'm not under the gun to have them take 4 tests in a year or some insanity like that. If your school doesn't, it's probably because the funding is being ripped away for a corporate tax break, your governor gets big bucks from education corporations and uses suburban hatred of inner city schools to gain political clout to standardized test your district into oblivion which makes it so you can't, or you just are in a state that doesn't value public education. None of that has to do with Common Core, and Common Core is not some Trojan Horse to ram all of those hideous things through.
#5 Common Core will exacerbate the divide between rich and poor by enforcing standards that minorities can't meet.
Actually, one of the disadvantages of the American public education system when compared to other countries is lack of uniformity. In countries like Norway, Japan, Germany, and South Korea, the uniform curriculum assures a standard of education. Common Core does not go to the extent that say, France does, in trying to standardize the curriculum. It gives teachers latitude; a very American value. In other countries, even in poor schools the kids have a base level of knowledge. Raising that base gives them a better shot at moving up in the world. Education is not the only means where that can happen. There are too many variables. However having many of the same basic traits as your richer counterparts goes a long way in bridging the opportunity gap. A poor South Korean can study hard and do great on the Su-Neung (the national exam to get into college) and then land in one of the big Korean corporations because his rural school followed the same practices as a nicer school in Seoul.
Can anyone give me a good argument as to why kids in Massachusetts should have a higher quality education than kids in Mississippi? Resources might be different, but why should a 3rd grader in Mississippi not learn area, and a 3rd grader in Massachusetts should? This has nothing to do with standardized testing, it has to do with the quality that is delivered to each student. If everyone in the United States got the high quality education that kids receive currently in Massachusetts, we'd be number one on the list. We should be number one on the list. Please don't give me this garbage about "ethnic/cultural homogoneity" being the reason we can't deliver the same quality education to everyone whereas Finland and S. Korea can, because if we actually emphasized true equality in our system, it wouldn't matter if it were a Black kid in downtown Chicago or some suburban White kid living outside of Nashville: they'd get the same thing. We have a culture that binds us just like every other nation.
The fact that we aren't delivering high quality education to all children is a problem, but most of the solutions to that are outside of the ability of Common Core to address. That problem is addressed by the manner in which schools are funded, how well schools work with parents to create community, general attitude towards public education, and a myriad of other factors.
Are there things to dislike about Common Core? Sure. I think in some places it can be vague, and also, it utilizes skills that kids are sometimes not used to. Counting up to easy numbers is hard to teach kids who were trained all their lives to use a rote algorithm. However, if you're a flexible teacher and are dedicated to your job, those kinds of hurdles are nothing. I'd like a better rubric to tell if a book is grade appropriate according to the standards. Of course, you'll hear horror stories of the Common Core telling 4th graders to read Grapes of Wrath (despite the fact the educator has final say as to what book will be used.) Those horror stories are written by conservatives though, so we know how fact free they are.
It is important we are the ones in the know.
Mon Apr 07, 2014 at 9:04 PM PT: Well, I do so love creating a @#$storm :) Just some final thoughts on some of the responses of the commenters:
#1. I think there are a lot of hurt teachers out there who have allowed their frustrations with the system to get a bit out of hand. It seems to have made them bitter. Someone insinuated I wasn't a real teacher or that I never experienced difficulty because I work in a private school. That's unreal given that in our last staff meeting we had to argue with the administration to buy lined paper so that the kids could write on it. Lined paper, as in the stuff that costs like 45 cents at the Office Depot. I'm sorry your public school isn't properly funded, but that might be a problem with the funding mechanism, an anti-education culture, mismanagement of funds by corrupt politicians, or a host of things that have NOTHING to do with CC, just as my diary states explicitly. As for not being a true teacher in the sense I needed the curriculum to help me get started, I'd like to say for my first teaching job I had to teach ALL FOUR core subjects to multiple grades, without being super versed in 3 of them. CC helped.
#2. This diary cannot be all things to all people. Yes, you think the diary is incomplete blah blah blah. Lots of diaries are. When you read a diary about the Affordable Care Act, do you demand the diarist write an epic saga of the ACA from beginning to end, including every single bit of its implementation? No, of course not. If you don't like the implementation of CC, I'm sure I could write a 20 page thesis on that, but it's outside of what I wanted to write and I am under no obligation to have to write a book every time I write a diary. That's insane.
#3. Many of you have actually strengthened my point in that a lot of what is wrong with school systems, especially with respect to standardized testing, does not originate solely from CC, but is symptomatic of other problems. Why does one state with CC not demand the same number of tests another state does with CC? Because the second state suffers from education hysteria. Again, talk to the right people, instead of getting angry at something whose destruction won't fix your problem.
#4. I had no idea that the "Knowledge Based Community" was so ... ignorant (for lack of a better term) of arguments made by right wing groups. "i haven't heard these arguments, therefore they're not true." Reality based? Really? No one here knows that the Tea Party hates CC on a completely fact free basis? Or that the National Review has penned several op-eds bashing CC for things that don't exist? We need to read more stuff from the other side of the aisle instead of just hating them, so we're not blindsided when they make shit up.
Anyways, these are my two cents. Take it or leave it. As I prepare to go off to public school next year for better pay and better benefits (leaving the mystical, magical fairy land that apparently is private school...) I'll be utilizing Common Core for all that is good about it, all the while making certain I place blame where blame is due.