Wisconsin Common Core hearing promises to ignite uncommon passion

The Wisconsin Reporter ^ | 5-22-13 | M. D. Kittle

[afraidfortherepublic]

Hearing today in Madison!

[afraidfortherepublic]

Common Core hearing today in Madison. It looks like it will be stacked in favor of Common Core. Those interested in attending should know that signs, and such, are not allowed in the hearing rooms. HOWEVER, T shirts are allowed.

FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interet ping list.

[Repulican Donkey]

Federal courts strongly rule that education is a state responsibility. Progressives hate that. So, since Jimma Carter and his “Dept. of Education” the camel has been sticking it’s nose deeper and deeper into the tent: Special Ed; Public Law 94-142; Americans with Disability; Drug Free Schools; No Child Left behind and now Common Core. Saddest thing is all of these are unfunded or under-funded mandates and the stupid damn governors don’t realize they’re all just settling for common mediocrity instead of striving for exceptional achievement for their states. Everybody gets better when there’s competition. Nobody thrives under a system.

[redgolum]

My wife is a teacher in Illinois.

The CC is going to be a problem, but it is aimed at addressing some real structural problems. For instance, there are local elementary schools that don’t teach math. At all.

The CC was set up to deal with that. However, I suspect it will only lead to more cheating by the teachers on the standardized tests. On the Iowa side of the river, there is a scandal involving the district wanting to take the tests away from teachers and proctor them by an outside group. The county knows that the teachers are cheating, but doesn’t want to upset the Machine.

Stay out of the schools.

[Red_Devil 232]

Texas has dumped its version of Common Core.

Link to article:

Dan Patrick Announces End to Pro-Islamic CSCOPE -- Main Supporter, in Celebration, Yells Out 'Yeehaw!'

[old and tired]

The test scores will plummet. Common core is another stupid academic flash in the pan.

Here are some sample second grade spelling words: daughter, nephew, business, neighborhood, enough, prophet, and profit

Here are some sample second grade vocab:extravaganza, diligent, tedious, feasible, fragrant, correspond, accolade, archaic, semblance, dappled, and habitat.

Here is a sample second grade math question from October. It needs to be answered without using division or multiplication. There are 150 pencils. Ten pencils in each box. How many boxes of pencils are there?

[old and tired]

stupid damn governors don’t realize they’re all just settling for common mediocrity instead of striving for exceptional achievement for their states

I don't think common core can fairly be described as mediocrity. Look at the sample second grade work I posted above. It's ridiculous. Maybe 1/3 of all second graders can do that work, and many of them will only be able to do it if their after school life suffers. Our grandson is probably high middle in terms of intelligence. Ordinarily we would expect him to get perfect scores on second grade reading and vocab tests. But there's no way he can do that unless he loses some of his childhood. Absolutely not worth it. There'll be time to learn how to spell business and daughter in fourth grade, where those spelling words belong.

And if they want some kids to learn this stuff, I have no problem with that. Some of my own kids, my girls especially, would have had no problem with this work in second grade. But to take this work and pretend that an entire second grade classroom can learn it, is ridiculous.

[Blue Turtle]

just another power grab by the federal government to take over schools...this is only the first part of its implementation...global warming, school breakfast, liberaly ideology are already in the schools.

[Nevadan]

Can you tell me the source of your information? Are there more sample questions at this site? I am trying to gather some information for a parent whose children go to a private Catholic school that is throwing out their curriculum to go with the Common Core curriculum.

[Black Agnes]

Wow. Why pay big bucks for Catholic school if your kids will just be dumbed down and brainwashed like the regular public school kids?

[Nevadan]

I agree. That is exactly what I told the mom. The school is obviously seeing Common Core as a plus, just as many private schools like to say their teachers are “state certified”. But in accepting the Common Core curriculum, they are giving up even more autonomy and removing distinctions between private and public schools, which in the end removes the reason for paying out the big bucks for private education when one can get it for free.

[old and tired]

The source of my information is my grandson’s homework. My grandson attends a parochial school in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

[old and tired]

The Catholic Schools in the Philadelphia archdiocese are Common Core.

[Freedom of Speech Wins]

The Common Core is a nightmare, but many of the teachers are Democrats and they don’t see this.

[Nevadan]

I agree that test scores will plummet and that the Common Core curriculum is simply the latest stupid idea. From what I have seen so far, it seems to be a mix of inappropriately high expectations for lower grade levels combined with political correctness. Lately I have been helping a first grader with his homework. I had been noticing some things which I deem inappropriate for that grade level for some time now, and just recently noticed the worksheets had “Common Core” on them. For example, introducing fractions, including addition and subtraction of fractions in the 1st grade. This wouldn't be a problem if the student already fully comprehended basic addition and subtraction and had his basic math facts down without having to resort to finger counting. Math is foundational. It builds upon itself. It seem a huge mistake to me to move on to a higher more complicated areas of math when one doesn't fully understand the basics. Something else I see is a complicated use of terms. For example, on one of the worksheets it showed a picture of a circle. The directions said, “Circle the defining attribute of the shape”. First of all, “defining attribute”? How many kids understand what that means? Very few, I am sure! This student certainly did not, even though it had probably been talked about in class. BTW, the correct answer was not that the shape was round. The correct answer was that the shape did not have any lines. Now what are the chances that most adults would give that answer, yet this is the answer expected of 1st graders. Here is another example of what I saw on this homework. The directions said, “Find the missing addend”. And no, although the meaning of this word was most likely explained in class, the student didn't have a clue what was meant. Or complicated word problems that contained over 40 words and required the student to not only process the words correctly but also complete several mathematical steps to correctly arrive at the answer.

Sure, there will be some 1st graders who would not have a problem doing these math problems. But I am afraid that this new curriculum will set up many more for failure. It is going to be a very destructive experiment on our nation's children, and the fact that private as well as public schools are adopting the curriculum does not bode well.

[combat_boots]

Students will learn to be illiterate and unaware of literature.

Insulation guidelines as reading. C’mon.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Good grief! I’d fail that work sheet for sure. In the first place, I would consider the edge of the circle a line!

[afraidfortherepublic]

I wonder if this is what happened to my granddaughter who was enrolled in a Catholic school in VA? Her math scores declined so precipitously after 2 years in Catholic school that my daughter pulled her out and sent her back to public school even though my daughter is the music teacher in the Catholic school (very awkward.) To catch up, my granddaughter has had to spend a full year in Mathnasium, a 2 x per week math tutoring program at $200 per month.

My granddaughter tolerates Mathnasium, but doesn’t really like it. The interesting thing is that her Mathnasium classes are full of Asian students who go there “for fun”, not because they are behind in any way.

[old and tired]

Could be. The new core standards are bent on teaching kids the reasons behind everything from their earliest grades instead of just making them learn their math facts and how to figure.

My wife has already told our grandson that this summer he'll be learning his multiplication tables because there'll be no time to learn them next school year. Third grade math homework used to be to memorize those times tables but we're worried next year will be expanding upon topics already brought up in second grade - median, mode, and range, shapes and their vertices, comparing fractions, etc. We're pretty fortunate that our grandson is pretty good at Math and so most of this work is ok for him, but we're not taking any chances with next year. If third grade is anything like second, there will be no time to memorize times tables after school and still maintain his little kid-ness.

[afraidfortherepublic]

The effort to remove multipication table memorization from the curriculum began back in the ‘70s in my experience. My kids had a 3rd/4th grade teacher who swore the parents to secrecy that she was teaching the kids multiplication tables by memory. She told us that she’d lose her job if the principal and the school board found out. This was in CA.

I don’t know if the situation was really that dire, but all of the parents wanted their kids in her class, and the kids just loved her.