Community Chat

[lolakimono]

We "implemented" CC this year, but our state assessment was not aligned to the new curriculum, so the kids took tests that had content they had never seen.

[NoelSeven]

On 4/19/2014 Disneylandfan said:

Common core goes through high school.

My district likes to be in front for some reason and so kindergarten and first fully implemented common core last year. This year the rest of the district 2-12th implemented common core language arts and next year math. Though some teachers implemented the math portion already.

Thanks, Disneylandfan.

I foresee biology class being a major problem and the reason some states will opt out.

[Disneylandfan]

What I don't understand is all the instances I've read or heard where kids are having to solve math problems with an unreasonable amount of steps.

I've read most of the Common core standards for k-5th and it's just a set of standards not a methodology for teaching them. For example kinder students must use plurals, s, es, ies when writing. But how you teach that is up to the district/teacher.

I'm not saying that it's not in the standards to teach that way but I have yet to come across it.

I am not a fan of the common core standards because I think that even though the standards say they want critical thinking and students to go deep with the information I don't think they lend themselves to that at all. I also prefer that each state keep their own standards-I think teachers had more input into what those looked like.

[kdgn]

On 4/19/2014 Disneylandfan said:

What I don't understand is all the instances I've read or heard where kids are having to solve math problems with an unreasonable amount of steps.

I've read most of the Common core standards for k-5th and it's just a set of standards not a methodology for teaching them. For example kinder students must use plurals, s, es, ies when writing. But how you teach that is up to the district/teacher.

I'm not saying that it's not in the standards to teach that way but I have yet to come across it.

I am not a fan of the common core standards because I think that even though the standards say they want critical thinking and students to go deep with the information I don't think they lend themselves to that at all. I also prefer that each state keep their own standards-I think teachers had more input into what those looked like.

You lose me here. I just looked, once again, at the Common Core Standards for California. These are not new. My district was working on these or something very similar probably 15 years ago. They are very familiar but they went by another name: the words Common Core were not used. California State Standards. They came from our State Department of Education. We had teacher per grade level working on what we were given, via the State, and then going over them with all teachers at our own grade level meetings. Prior to my retirement our School Board adopted them. The teachers reviewing for new textbook adoptions in language arts were basing their choices on the Ca Standards. We also had them for math.

We also worked on Benchmarks: Each grade level sat down together with a copy of the Standards for reading and math and decided as a group which Standards just had to be learned in order to pass on to the next grade level. Those were called the Benchmarks.

We did have input with the State. Our Assistant Superintendent, who later became our Superintendent, sent our questions on to someone-

The very real problem with having each state set their own standards for what students should be learning is inconsistencies. Student mobility demands that if a child moves from one state to another nothing educational is lost. The timeframe isn't the same for each grade level across the board.

[terrier3]

There was a big Common Core test boycott here in upstate NY.

Parents are pulling their kids out of testing - they say it's too stressful and difficult.

Is this happening in other parts of the country?

[Buck-i-Nana]

On 4/19/2014 terrier3 said:

There was a big Common Core test boycott here in upstate NY.

Parents are pulling their kids out of testing - they say it's too stressful and difficult.

Is this happening in other parts of the country?

I grew up in New York state and they had the state wide regents exams at the end of every year. They were stressful, but it was part of the educational requirements to graduate and get your diploma. How much more stressful could the common core test be, or do they not do the regents exams anymore?

[terrier3]

On 4/19/2014 Buck-i-Nana said:

On 4/19/2014 terrier3 said:

There was a big Common Core test boycott here in upstate NY.

Parents are pulling their kids out of testing - they say it's too stressful and difficult.

Is this happening in other parts of the country?

I grew up in New York state and they had the state wide regents exams at the end of every year. They were stressful, but it was part of the educational requirements to graduate and get your diploma. How much more stressful could the common core test be, or do they not do the regents exams anymore?

They still have Regents tests for High School.

My son is 30, so it has been a long time since he was in grammar school.

People were literally FREAKING OUT over these tests for grammar school students. They compared boycotting the tests to the Founding Fathers revolution against Britain. I'm not kidding.

One wrote in to the paper that they told their children that refusing the test was like Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus.

Some school superintendents said that kids who opted out of testing had to sit and quietly read the test (nothing else) while the other students were being tested. A parents group is suing - they say this is child abuse to expect a 3rd grader to sit quietly for test time.

I wondered if this was just an upstate NY phenomenon.

[Disneylandfan]

On 4/19/2014 kdgn said:

On 4/19/2014 Disneylandfan said:

What I don't understand is all the instances I've read or heard where kids are having to solve math problems with an unreasonable amount of steps.

I've read most of the Common core standards for k-5th and it's just a set of standards not a methodology for teaching them. For example kinder students must use plurals, s, es, ies when writing. But how you teach that is up to the district/teacher.

I'm not saying that it's not in the standards to teach that way but I have yet to come across it.

I am not a fan of the common core standards because I think that even though the standards say they want critical thinking and students to go deep with the information I don't think they lend themselves to that at all. I also prefer that each state keep their own standards-I think teachers had more input into what those looked like.

You lose me here. I just looked, once again, at the Common Core Standards for California. These are not new. My district was working on these or something very similar probably 15 years ago. They are very familiar but they went by another name: the words Common Core were not used. California State Standards. They came from our State Department of Education. We had teacher per grade level working on what we were given, via the State, and then going over them with all teachers at our own grade level meetings. Prior to my retirement our School Board adopted them. The teachers reviewing for new textbook adoptions in language arts were basing their choices on the Ca Standards. We also had them for math.

We also worked on Benchmarks: Each grade level sat down together with a copy of the Standards for reading and math and decided as a group which Standards just had to be learned in order to pass on to the next grade level. Those were called the Benchmarks.

We did have input with the State. Our Assistant Superintendent, who later became our Superintendent, sent our questions on to someone-

The very real problem with having each state set their own standards for what students should be learning is inconsistencies. Student mobility demands that if a child moves from one state to another nothing educational is lost. The timeframe isn't the same for each grade level across the board.

Not sure how I lost you? I'm from California and have been teaching a long time and have been involved with writing benchmarks/assessments and training others on standards and implementation. California standards along with New York were some of the highest standards in the nation. Common core are not the California State standards. Yes, students coming from other states were behind but not a good reason to change our standards.

[NoelSeven]

On 4/19/2014 Disneylandfan said:

What I don't understand is all the instances I've read or heard where kids are having to solve math problems with an unreasonable amount of steps.

I've read most of the Common core standards for k-5th and it's just a set of standards not a methodology for teaching them. For example kinder students must use plurals, s, es, ies when writing. But how you teach that is up to the district/teacher.

I'm not saying that it's not in the standards to teach that way but I have yet to come across it.

I am not a fan of the common core standards because I think that even though the standards say they want critical thinking and students to go deep with the information I don't think they lend themselves to that at all. I also prefer that each state keep their own standards-I think teachers had more input into what those looked like.

My daughter had that problem with math in advanced algebra. The teacher demanded they work out problems step by step on paper, his way. My daughter did them in her head, without paper. At first he didn't believe it was possible, so he gave her almost a dozen problems. She gave the answers back immediately. Then he asked her if she could teach him how to do it her way, and she did.

[kdgn]

Disneylandfan: Not sure how I lost you? I'm from California and have been teaching a long time and have been involved with writing benchmarks/assessments and training others on standards and implementation. California standards along with New York were some of the highest standards in the nation. Common core are not the California State standards. Yes, students coming from other states were behind but not a good reason to change our standards

Sorry, you lost me with letting the states keep their own standards. I feel that we have some of the strongest ones in the nation and it was always very difficult getting new students caught up to where our students were.

Common Core may not be the California State Standards but the Ca website sure looks like them! I read them quickly and saw that what we did years ago has been expanded in some cases and lowered in others. Our kids had to be able to independently print a majority of the letters, capital and lower case. Our kids had to write the numbers to 31, not 20.

It does seem, for the most part, that the original Ca Standards were used as a basis for Common Core? Is this not correct? So many are almost identical. I'd do a comparison but when I retired that's not something I kept.

Dinner, BBL.