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Common Core: Against Gifted Students
Accuracy in Academia ^ | February 26, 2015 | Spencer Irvine

Posted on 02/27/2015 12:17:24 PM PST by Academiadotorg

Now, after lauding Common Core’s benefits, Common Core supporters are scrambling to justify the oft-maligned education standards. At the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, UConn education professor Jonathan Plucker criticized school districts for using the standards in order to cut funding for gifted and advanced student education.

In his research, he noted, “We found plenty of evidence that many districts are using the implementation of the Common Core to cut services for advanced students,” and cited “four to five press releases” and articles to support this claim. But, instead of blaming Common Core, Plucker blamed its supporters. He said, “The justification is, well, we got the Common Core now, we don’t need anything else. That is worrisome, to say the least.”

Instead, “Common Core was really meant to be a floor, not a ceiling,” and Plucker quoted sections of the English Common Core standards to support his claim. He said, “I can’t say it much more plainly than that. The Common Core is a set of grade level standards.” Plucker concluded that “If you have the Common Core, it’s going to work well with well-above or well-below grade level students” and not the gifted or advanced learners. He admitted, “That’s frustrating, but we have to be realistic.”

Plucker concluded, “Academic excellence, has traditionally, has not been a focus of American education, period.” The all-too common refrain of Common Core supporters, he said, is that “it’s going to make things better.” But, he disagreed and said, “Things have never really been good in this country in terms of advanced performing students.” He added, “It’s not that we were starting from a position of strength before the Common Core came in.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: commoncore; education; giftedstudents
why is it that every time Common Core supporters defend it, they wind up admitting its failures?
1 posted on 02/27/2015 12:17:24 PM PST by Academiadotorg
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To: Academiadotorg

The gifted students see right through that collection of low-IQ education types that perped this collection of intellectual abortions on us.

Libs have a real problem with real talent.


2 posted on 02/27/2015 12:19:51 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: Da Coyote

Real talent is a threat to any existing system.


3 posted on 02/27/2015 12:22:03 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Academiadotorg

An attack on those that “won the genetic lottery”. (lib thinking)


4 posted on 02/27/2015 12:24:52 PM PST by machogirl
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To: Academiadotorg

Government Axiom:

Minimum Requirements = Maximum Achieved


5 posted on 02/27/2015 12:27:01 PM PST by Klaatu Barada Nikto (Liberty is not a Loophole)
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To: Secret Agent Man
Reminds me of this quote:

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.”

-Robert A. Heinlein

6 posted on 02/27/2015 12:40:21 PM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: kosciusko51

Common core reminds me of a phrase we used at my college, one which the institution managed to overcome in me, despite my best efforts to follow it.

“If the min wasn’t good enough, it wouldn’t be the min.”

Heh!


7 posted on 02/27/2015 12:42:36 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: Academiadotorg
It's designed so no student can excel.

8 posted on 02/27/2015 12:45:01 PM PST by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: Academiadotorg

Why? Because liberalism isn’t about producing positive results. It’s about FEELING like you are doing SOMETHING. And to the left feeling righteous about it trumps results.


9 posted on 02/27/2015 12:46:19 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (True followers of Christ emulate Christ. True followers of Mohammed emulate Mohammed.)
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To: Academiadotorg

I am really not a fan of common core and dread the day when it affects homeschoolers.

However, public schools haven’t been terrifically challenging for a long time. It is an institution, it is not realistic to tailor a curriculum for each student according to their abilities and interest; especially since teachers are required to disseminate information to the students. They have to teach to the middle and that is below what the better students could handle. Outside of math courses (challenging to me!) I felt disappointed in school, as though something were missing because it didn’t take much effort to succeed. I’m not that smart or capable, I’m just a bit above the middle. Common Core just lowers the standard even further.

I do not stand in a room at home and lecture my kids. They read the material and do the assignments, asking for help if they do not understand something. It’s pretty rare they ask for help. Some keep the pace that the curriculum sets, others find certain lessons easy and work ahead more quickly.

In this, they own their education in a way that can not happen in modern public schools. It is similar to what was done with McGuffey Readers way back in one room school houses. The teacher was not responsible for the student’s learning, he/she just listened to the student recite the lesson and let them know if they passed or needed to go back and work on it some more.


10 posted on 02/27/2015 12:59:10 PM PST by NorthstarMom
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To: Academiadotorg

Dear Prof Jonathan Plucker [$150K salary plus beaucoup bennies]......if you truly are from Connecticut....you would have noticed decades ago, gifted/sped programs were eliminated. Geesh. Also many districts have eliminated art & music/band programs the few *hooks* that keep inner city kids interested in school.


11 posted on 02/27/2015 1:09:05 PM PST by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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To: Academiadotorg

we recently started homeschooling my son. He took a test to see wher ehe should be and the teacher immediately put him into advanced math.
He’d been so bored and frustrated with school, and now he truly is a much happier, pleasant 13 year old. He’s looking forward to doing 8th grade at home now too. Can’t believe the change!


12 posted on 02/27/2015 1:14:45 PM PST by vpintheak (Call them what they are - regressive control-freaks)
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To: Academiadotorg

Common Core = LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR.........................


13 posted on 02/27/2015 1:32:13 PM PST by Red Badger (If you compromise with evil, you just get more evil..........................)
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To: vpintheak

Fantastic !


14 posted on 02/27/2015 1:46:02 PM PST by PieterCasparzen (Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.)
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To: Academiadotorg

I think it is because the failures are too blatantly obvious to deny and they are so prevalent that any discussion of Common Core from any side ultimately ends up in pointing out its failures whether someone means to or not.

Common Core fails gifted kids, kids with real learning disabilities but who are working especially hard to learn the material, and everyone who learns in even a slightly different way than what it dictates.


15 posted on 02/27/2015 1:51:57 PM PST by youngphys01
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To: Academiadotorg; metmom

Get your children out of the government indoctrination centers - NOW!


16 posted on 02/27/2015 1:54:26 PM PST by ForYourChildren (Christian Education [ RomanRoadsMedia.com - a Classical Christian Approach to Homeschool ])
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