Then how will the kids be able read their tatoos?
LOL!! They can still be a winner on Project Runway:
Posted on 11/13/2013 7:01:38 AM PST by Nachum
HILLSBORO, Ore. – Nine parents pulled their seventh- and eighth-graders out of math class and started teaching them at home, because they are upset with the new Common Core curriculum that public schools in Oregon are starting this year.
Seventh-grader Amy Craig has always been an "A" student in math until this year. She came home with a "D."
The same thing happened to other students in her school. So their moms got together and decided to teach math themselves – an hour every morning.
Then the kids go off to school for the rest of the day.
This is the first school year when every public school in Oregon is using Common Core teaching standards. Forty-five other states use those, too.
"Our teachers would tell you math is more challenging this year than it was a year ago," said Rian Petrick, principal of Evergreen Middle School in Hillsboro, who is not surprised kids are struggling.
Math hasn't changed, but he said there are now fewer numbers and formulas and many more word problems and real-world examples. It includes more group work. That's tough for some kids.
"Our teachers feel like it's the best thing for kids, making them look much deeper into mathematics than they have in the past," Petrick said.
(Excerpt) Read more at katu.com ...
My daughter teaches music in a Catholic school. As a “perq” for her low salary, she was allowed to enroll my granddaughter into the school for 1/2 tuition. My granddaughter’s math scores plummeted until she was quite far behind over 2 years. So, my daughter pulled her out, sent her to public school, and enrolled her in “Mathnasium”, a tutoring program.
After a year of Mathnasium (which costs $200 per month) my granddaughter is at the top of her class again. The interesting thing is that Mathnasium is full of Asian and Indian students who go there for FUN, not because they need help.
“A KATU News reporter tried to ask Petrick whether the Common Core standards were the best thing if nine families had pulled their kids out of class because their kids were so stressed and distraught, but the Hillsboro School District spokeswoman cut Petrick off before he could answer.
“You don’t have to answer that, Rian. That’s an aggressive question,” the spokeswoman said.”
Principal Petrick doesn’t have to answer “aggressive questions.” That’s a good one.
Why bother taking your kid out of one class? Just pull him out altogether.
There are pluses and minuses to that approach. Personally I liked the theory best. If I knew the theory (proof) I could solve the problem, maybe not quickly but I could get there. I think first you learn the theory then later you learn the short cuts.
bttt
The recipe for Common Core math: throw process and rigor out the window, center the curriculum around multiculturalism and inclusivity, foster an environment of unfocused discovery where each child invents mathematics from the ground up. Disaster.
That’s a good point. I’ll see what I can get for her. Thank you!!!!
1. They are pretty much owned by the NEA, the largest union in the United States. As a union, they pretty much want complete control over all aspects of whatever the business is they are a part of. Because of this, trying to get any sort of reform is a non-starter because they will claim that it isn't the schools' fault that kids aren't doing well because if it was the schools' fault then the blame would land right on their doorstep. Unions want all the benefits they can get but want to shoulder none of the blame. They are always blaming something else:Because of these three things, those controlling the public schools are riding a gravy train:•We don't have enough money for our schools.Also because of this, there is no room for innovation or competition. If a public school or even a teacher within a public school is allowed to experiment to see what really does or does not work in either a very low level criterion of, say, getting the kids to be enthusiastic readers or a very high level criterion of being able to analyze an argument, even one from the teacher, point out the bullsh_t, and then eviscerate the opponent by use of a deadly application of logic and sarcasm, then it will be evident that, by comparison, everything else that is controlled by the union from textbook writing, textbook purchases, classroom size, curriculum development, curriculum implementation, curriculum specialists, etc., is pretty much bullshit and their sinecure will be at an end.
•We don't get paid enough to attract the best and brightest (considering what teachers have to put up with in dealing with the deadwood of administrators, there is no amount of money large enough to convince the best and brightest to put up with that kind of crap unless they are, at heart, masochists-- you know, those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, administrate or become guidance counselors).
•We don't have a large enough portion of the day to counteract all the negative influences the children experience at home or on the streets.
•The parents are not doing what they are supposed to do to prepare children for school.
•Kids don't get enough sleep.
•Kids speak a different language at home.
•Kids can't learn effectively because of racism.
•Kids can't learn effectively because of sexism.
•Kids can't learn effectively because of homophobia.
•Kids come to school hungry and cannot concentrate and benefit from our curriculum.
•Kids are hyperactive or attention deficit disordered (usually means that the tedium and bullsh_t of the class is just too much for some kids who then find other ways to amuse themselves).
•Kids have so many electronic playthings at home that they cannot concentrate on traditional learning methods (meaning, "Hey, let's buy billions of dollars of electronic equipment for the class and hire veritable sh_tloads of specialists to figure out how to use them, dream up innovative new software to use on them, teach the teachers to use them, teach the kids how to listen to the teachers telling them how to use them, repair them, figure out ways to make firewalls the kids can't hack to escape from the tedium and bullsh_t of the class now being administered to them via an electronic IV", etc).
•Kids can't learn effectively because of demands for teacher accountability.
2. The teachers, though often well-intentioned, are generally from the very bottom of the barrel of college graduates in terms of grades, ability, and proficiency in almost anything (see how education majors compare to engineering majors in the GRE test given for those going on to graduate school. Look at the absurd product of candidates for either a masters or doctorate in education. Their theses are rarely more than Mickey Mouse feces). Because of this, expecting any sort of major innovation from a group constitutively unable to rise above mediocrity, overly desirous not to rock the boat, and, from an early age, overly eager to please those in authority over them, is a ridiculously false hope.
3. Public schools claim that their objective is to educate students. In reality, their aim is to indoctrinate students and the philosophical core for that indoctrination is a leftist, materialist, collectivist point of view. It has been that way since the second decade of the 20th century when the Gang of Thirteen overturned the recommendations of the Eliot Committee for the standards for secondary education and put into place what has afflicted public education ever since: producing worthy citizens (as defined by the people in charge of producing the curriculum--certainly not EVER by the parents) rather than producing educated people.
•They command ever larger amounts of money and control.The education landscape of the past 100 years or so is littered with the corpses of such schemes that served their purposes to distract the public's attention while the educational beast lumbered forward gobbling everything in its path.
•They inculcate their sociological and political ideas to their hearts content to produce kids chattering their ideas on the environment (environmentalism), industrialization (business is bad, produces pollution, and oppresses people), money (capitalism is bad and makes people selfish and not want to share), government (Democrats are FOR people, Republicans are for BUSINESS, which is evil and greed and oppresses the people, government should provide for everyone's needs), religion (it's divisive and keeps people from coming together in a loving and sharing community provided by the government that should eliminate all the divisive elements of religion so we can all get along).
•They can point to their failures and claim that it's only because they haven't been given enough money, power, and control over those pesky objects of their education to be able to do the job right and then ask for more.
•They occasionally dream up some scheme to produce an educational red herring to throw people off the scent of their incompetence and call it "basic minimum standards" or "basic minimum competency" or "common core."
“The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
I always struggled with handwriting, although I can do a fair job of it today if I put my mind to it. My typical report card would be straight As and an “Improving but below standard” in handwriting.
We recently sold my 100 year old mother’s house. Upon removing her belongings, I found a packet of my old school treasures. Included in the box were 2 of my “autograph books” from 7th and 8th grade. ALL of my classmates wrote beautifully in cursive — even the boys. My grandchildren can’t write at all — even the college aged ones. They print in a childish hand.
Sometimes group work is appropriate,
....and sometimes it will just lead to more resentment and feelings of inferiority and frustration.
Group work may be good for discussing a book or a psychology assignment. It is ridiculous for math.
That method has worked well for 100's of years. Why anyone would change how math is taught is beyond me. Teaching New Math really pissed me off, "set theory" to grade schoolers? Really? Fools. Just pound arithmetic into their little mushy heads first. Once they can do long division competently then we can move past arithmetic. Not before.
I hope she is now back at the Catholic school.
“I remember the ‘new math’ they tried in the 70s. It was a complete failure”
As was the ‘new math’ they tried in the 60s.
bttt
Just switch out the words, “Teacher” and school”, and insert the name of **any** socialist-entitlement program, and all of what you have written will apply to that program.
Fundamentally, government schooling is a socialist-entitlement. That is the problem. It must be abolished.
Nope. There were other reasons besides math why my daughter pulled her out.
The “Catholic” school really isn’t very catholic. Social snobbery is rampant, and my daughter didn’t like some of the influences on my granddaughter. “Mean girls” and “mean mothers” are allowed to call the shots on everything.
My daughter is a serious musician, and she teaches music from a serious standpoint. Many of the parents expect it to be an easy “A” for their kids who often refuse to put the required work into the classes. They try to use their wealth and their standing in the community to manipulate the system for better grades for their kids. Plagiarism is common. Skipped assignments are common. Parents demanding the teachers ignore those failures are also common, just as long as their kids get good enough grades to make it into the next private school.
Music is not just performance anymore. My daughter is expected to integrate music instruction into all the other programs, such as math, policital science, foreign studies, history, literature, etc. As such, the students must write the occasional paper at the 7th and 8th grade level. She’s learned that she must look up the topic on Wikipedia when a paper sounds too erudite. Often she will find 80% of it is copied directly. Parents don’t want to hear that and question why little Johnny got a D in music.
My totally non-political sis-in-law is really up in arms about this, and so are many other parents in her area Suffolk Co. long island).
In the humanities and social sciences, Common Core looks like a socialist indoctrination campaign, but evidently, in the sciences, or at least in mathematics, it seems to actually raising standards. The sudden D might be a result of suddenly having to do rigorous math at the 7th grade level, rather than getting whatever mush the girl was getting A’s on previously.
I say this because I was talking with a 4th grade teacher who works in a nearby town that adopted Common Core at a housewarming party last Saturday. He reports that the new curriculum has his students actually able to do long division, with a good understanding of why the steps work, by the second month of fourth grade (about four school-months later than we did it back in the 60’s, but earlier than the topic had slid to over the intervening 40 years) and even his slow students are understanding the next topic: fractions. Considering that we’ve had students entering our university who couldn’t add fractions correctly, I’d say that may be an improvement.
How was Common Core designed? If they had folks in each area (mathematics, physics, English lit, history,...) rather than in ed (math ed, physics ed,...) design it, that might explain it: the humanities and social science parts would have designed by typical leftist professors in those areas (yup, lit crit types would use politically tendentious statements in grammar exercises, as we’ve seen reported elsewhere) while the sciences would have been designed by scientists.
LOL!! They can still be a winner on Project Runway:
They are already Ritalinizing the boys and Gardasilling the girls.
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