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Common Core Rulz
Accuracy in Academia ^ | October 24, 2014 | Malcolm A. Kline

Posted on 10/28/2014 8:55:59 AM PDT by Academiadotorg

On both coasts, grandparents are learning to apply a modern-day rule of thumb with surprising accuracy: If it looks inane, it’s probably Common Core.

“The Berkeley school district's curriculum for sixth-grade math was an exact copy of the Common Core State Standards for the grade,” Marina Ratner wrote in The Wall Street Journal on August 5, 2014. “The teacher in my grandson's class went through special Common Core training courses.”

“As his assigned homework and tests indicate, when teaching fractions, the teacher required that students draw pictures of everything: of 6 divided by 8, of 4 divided by 2/7, of 0.8 x 0.4, and so forth. In doing so, the teacher followed the instructions: ‘Interpret and compute quotients of fractions, and solve word problems involving division of fractions by fractions, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem. For example, create a story context for 2/3 divided by 3/4 and use a visual fraction model to show the quotient . . .’

“Who would draw a picture to divide 2/3 by 3/4?” Ratner asks. She is a professor emerita of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley.

“And my grandchildren are forever having to draw little boxes to illustrate arithmetic problems they already know the answers to,” a friend of mine in the New York City suburbs informs me.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California; US: New York
KEYWORDS: berkeley; commoncore; education; math; publicschools; schools

1 posted on 10/28/2014 8:55:59 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
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To: Academiadotorg

.... and the Left went insane when Talking Barbie said “Math is hard!”.....................


2 posted on 10/28/2014 9:00:30 AM PDT by Red Badger (If you compromise with evil, you just get more evil..........................)
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To: Academiadotorg

Channel surfing, a came across a mention of common core, and went back. The president of the National Urban League was propagandizing the benefits of commie core.

I think it was on LOGO TV. Then they ran the commercial again. I went back to surfing.


3 posted on 10/28/2014 9:01:07 AM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: Academiadotorg

Yep. One might improvise the old quip from the Army, to describe Common Core (and its many twisted cousins who have invaded public education since the time of Dewey):

1) If it makes sense, rework it.
2) If it doesn’t make sense, mandate it. (An education department chair’s job may depend on the revenues, after all!)


4 posted on 10/28/2014 9:03:40 AM PDT by paladinan (Rule #1: There is a God. Rule #2: It isn't you.)
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To: Red Badger

so they went her one better and made it incomprehensible.


5 posted on 10/28/2014 9:31:19 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
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To: Academiadotorg

What happens when these Common Core kids get to college and start trying to learn Calculus?

Common Core seems guaranteed to purge the US work-force of native-born engineers. Only people who learned MATH at a young age will have enough math skills to become engineers. This means Chinese and Indian kids.


6 posted on 10/28/2014 9:36:20 AM PDT by tpmintx (Gun free zones are hunting preserves for unarmed people.)
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To: Academiadotorg
Common Core teacher to student in every school district: "I don't care that you added the numbers and got the right answer. You aren't to do it that way. You have to do it by drawing pictures of everything and then counting them on your fingers. It's better this way."

Or "Yes I see you got the actual answer but you should have estimated instead, to get a close answer. So you get it wrong."

7 posted on 10/28/2014 9:55:24 AM PDT by pepsi_junkie (Who is John Galt?)
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To: pepsi_junkie

am running into the latter


8 posted on 10/28/2014 10:27:33 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
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To: Academiadotorg

Seems the goal is to teach advanced thinking before basic notions. I understand what this craziness is trying to do in each example, and it resembles how I mentally break down numbers and manipulate them - but I have _decades_ of advanced mathematical experience, and would NEVER try to teach my methods to a raw beginner. Start with basics and build up ... convoluted breakdown of constituent pieces without comprehension is stupid. CC is like trying to teach basic biology by starting with quantum mechanics.


9 posted on 10/28/2014 10:46:24 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (You know what, just do it.)
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To: Academiadotorg
My daughter tried to insist to me (after her teach told her) that an estimate is just as good as the real answer. I told her "so if I owed you $124 and I just gave you $100 since that's the nearest 100, that's just as good, right?" She saw the light.

Then the teacher marked her wrong for having the correct answer. "She was supposed to estimate". I feel like saying "she did, she estimated to the nearest one"

10 posted on 10/28/2014 12:12:13 PM PDT by pepsi_junkie (Who is John Galt?)
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To: tpmintx

What happens when these Common Core kids get to college and start trying to learn Calculus?

Forget the Calculus, what happens when they try ballancing a check book, paying there own bills and taxes?


11 posted on 10/28/2014 12:19:21 PM PDT by Duckdog (If it wasn't for NASCAR my TV would have gone out the window years ago!)
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To: Duckdog

or make change at the fast food register?

if those still exist by then?


12 posted on 10/28/2014 12:20:45 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: pepsi_junkie

yes, and if it’s under 150 you have to estimate down:>)


13 posted on 10/29/2014 6:17:29 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
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To: paladinan

As with everything the left does,
take reality, turn it on its head,

and you’ll have the next great leftist policy.

I can’t help but think this CC stuff is intended to destroy the ability to think logically.


14 posted on 10/29/2014 6:19:33 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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