All children are above average

Joseph Ganem, "The Common Core can't speed up child development"

Recent evaluations of the state's preschoolers have determined that only 47 percent are ready for kindergarten, compared to 83 percent judged ready last year. This drastic drop isn't the result of an abrupt, catastrophic decline in the cognitive abilities of our children. Instead it results from a re-definition of kindergarten readiness, which now means being able to succeed academically at a level far beyond anything expected in the past. For example, a child entering kindergarten is now expected to know the difference between informative/explanatory writing and opinion writing. The concern is that preschoolers without that knowledge will not succeed at meeting the new higher-level Common-Core standards. However, I think a more pressing concern is: Why do we have educational standards that are not aligned with even the most basic facts of human development? Clearly these test results show that the problem is with the standards, not the children.

 The people who wrote these standards, and think they're appropriate are nuts.

Education in a panic

From a comment of mine, posted to the FreeRangeKids.com website and discussing how the Common Core is taking away recess and free play time for kids:

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Common Core is being used as a scapegoat for every problem in education today. If anything, the Common Core and the Race to the Top initiative overturned some of the heavy testing requirements of the previous No Child Left Behind Act--which was very heavy on "accountability" and accountability at the classroom and teacher level: which meant testing. This is why states have been reluctant to jettison the CC, even with major backlashes against it: without the Common Core (or a set of standards so similar there's little difference) states have to return to the No Child Left Behind requirements which are much heavier on the testing, and require serious--and probably unreachable--results. (All children must be above average sorts of results.)

I think much of the education world is in a panic and reaching for ideas to improve educational outcomes. Spending on education has skyrocketed in the last few decades, with little or nothing to show for the extra money in terms of results. (Though, a large chunk of that money is being spent on special-needs kids who in the past were either not mainstreamed or were stuck off in a corner and ignored.) Class sizes have been shrunk with little benefits seen. "Technology" and computers have proliferated with little in the way of benefits. "Reform Math" replaced "New Math" replaced "traditional math" with little benefit. "Whole Word" replaced "Phonics" and failed miserably. Everything they've tried has failed.

With little in the way of results, schools are eliminating anything that isn't 3-R related: art, music, even academic subjects like history and science have been put on the back burner. Free play time was often the first to go.

This isn't the result of Common Core, this is the result of decades of failure in our education system. (And even schools which we consider good schools, like the nice suburban ones which we don't consider a problem, often stack up poorly to schools around the world.) They don't know what to do, and don't know how to fix the system.

If they are once again turning to a system which will backfire--less free time for squirming children, it is entirely in line with most of what they've tried over several decades.

Building the Machine

Highly recommend that you take 40 minutes and watch this film on the development of the Common Core: Building the Machine.

It details how the Common Core got made, and how many of the things said about it ("internationally benchmarked", "state-led", "college and career ready", etc.) are hokum.

It covers a lot of ground, but I particularly like the interviews with two of the people who were asked to participate in the reviewing of the Common Core: James Milgram--the only mathematician or math teacher involved in any stage of the creation of the core, and Sandra Stotsky--who wrote the excellent pre-core, Core Knowledge-based, Massachusetts standards. Both of them refused to sign off on the Common Core standards.

Another critical moment, is when they show video of a hearing with a core participant who says flat-out that the core is not for STEM-oriented students and not for students aiming at selective colleges.

It's not as if the lead mathematics standards writers themselves didn't tell the public how low Common Core's high school mathematics standards were. In 2010, Jason Zimba, a lead writer, said the standards are "not only not for STEM, they are also not for selective colleges." [ Common Core Fails To Prepare Students For Stem (Denver Post) ]

Text books

Here's an article on how Common Core adoption is pushing kids out of science careers when they are 13 years old. By only offering limited opportunities to take algebra in 8th grade--which leads to calculus senior year, which leads to possible acceptance into science and engineering schools--the doors to science careers are being closed, with the determination being whether a student manages to grab the few spots available for 8th grade algebra. Miss that cut off, and you are left scrambling with either intensive summer work to catch up, or doubling up math classes in one year.

But here's what I see as the worst line in the story:

According to Martin, textbooks are “a 20th-century concept.” Teachers are now “finding their own resources and putting them on the website for students to access,” he said. “In almost every curriculum area, the investment districts used to make in textbooks is beginning to change.”

Textbooks, at least the best of them, are a carefully designed sequence which thoroughly and thoughtfully walks students through the material and allows them to access the concepts and practice needed for mastery. When stumped, students can look back or can look at example problems to figure out which way to go.

I have absolutely ZERO confidence that teachers grabbing things ad-hoc from wherever can do half as good a job as even mediocre text books. It will leave students with no resources beyond the teacher's word.

I've had courses taught to me by the teacher, using a text book they themselves had written--or worse, a photocopy of transparencies the teacher displayed in class. I always hated it! Having two independent resources at hand is vastly preferable to having one. With a single source, there is no other opinion as to what is most-important, what should be stressed, what should be skipped or deëmphasized, there is no alternative explanation you can turn to when the first isn't working.

I find the idea that teachers are superior textbook authors, better than textbook authors themselves, to be arrogant and misguided.

New law dumbs down Calif. math performance | CalWatchDog

This is horrible. What it boils down to is this: not only has the adoption of the Common Core slowed down California's math curriculum by a year (algebra in 9th instead of 8th,)  it destroys the possibility of a calculus-track for top math students.

New law dumbs down Calif. math performance | CalWatchDog

Furthermore, SB1200 is so poorly drafted that it doesn’t just roll back the expectation of Algebra 1 in grade eight. It does more than that by requiring “one set” of standards “at each grade level,” and precluding typical mathematics course options for students in high school.

California high schools have always offered different math classes to students in the same grade who have different levels of preparation. Accordingly, California historically has adopted course-level math standards for high school — preserving local control at the district and school level to decide when it would be best to offer rigorous courses to each student based on the student’s ability. But SB 1200 would outlaw that practice by mandating only one set of mathematics curriculum- content standards, textbooks and training and teacher materials for all students in each K-12 grade.

Officials of Brown’s administration have offered rhetoric about how they will not have to implement the plain language of the law. But they do not have the statutory authority or capacity to violate the law’s provisions. Efforts to get around the wording of the law will lead to confusion about policy on curriculum, textbooks and testing — and hence invite lawsuits and re-ignite the math wars.

Education "reform"