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Posted on 04/24/2014 3:55:52 PM PDT by Nachum
I get a lot of e-mail from parents and teachers who wonder if President Obama, whose children go to the private Sidwell Friends School, knows what is actually going on with all of the standardized testing in public schools. Here’s an open letter to Obama explaining what he is missing, written by Rebecca Steinitz, a literacy consultant in urban high schools, a writer and an editor. She was previously director of the High School Program at Lesley University’s School of Education and an English professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she ran the Freshman Writing Program. Steinitz is also a parent, as you will see when you read this post of hers, which also appeared on Huffington Post.
Dear President Obama,
We have something very important in common: daughters in the seventh grade. Since your family walked onto the national stage in 2007, I’ve had a feeling that our younger daughters have a lot in common, too. Like my daughter Eva, Sasha appears to be a funny, smart, loving girl, who has no problem speaking her mind, showing her feelings, or tormenting her older sister.
There is, however, one important difference between them: Sasha attends private school, while Eva goes to public school. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support your decision to send Malia and Sasha to private school, where it is easier to keep them safe and sheltered. I would have done the same. But because she is in private school, Sasha does not have to take Washington’s standardized test, the D.C. CAS, which means you don’t get a parent’s-eye view of the annual high-stakes tests taken by most of America’s children.
I have been watching Eva take the Massachusetts MCAS since third grade. To tell you the truth, it hasn’t been a
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
He’s so presidential.
Homeschooling is the answer until they base the college entrance exams on common core...
SAT is being rewritten with the common core goals in mind right now.
SHEESH...how convoluted....I added 7+6, got 13, took the 1 and added it to 2+1, put them together and got 43. 3 steps in my head.
Donno. I would just add 26 + 10 = 36. Then add the remaining 7. Gets you to 43.
Would have been easier to borrow 3 from the first operand adding it to the second giving 23 + 20.
Common core is pathetic.
There are but two ways to end common core.
1. End the Federal Department of Education and prohibit the federal govt from being involved in any way in education.
2. Secede.
That’s it folks, if you think there is another way, well good like proving it and getting it done.
My Daughter is an English Principal of an all-girls high school. She is not too pleased with Common Core.
Then you go to a college like Hillsdale. Or Liberty. Or Reformation Bible. Or Bob Jones. Or Evangel. Or Oral Roberts. Or Patrick Henry.
We have an abundance of educational choices that do not rely necessarily upon the perversions of education of the leftists in academe.
Numbers are abstract.
It’s as if the CC math is an attempt to help certain students that had difficulty adding Apples to apples.
Something in our education system was lost a long time ago if this is what they think they need to do to teach math.
WTF???
N owonder I can’t get the right change anymore...yeah, even from a digital cash register....
OK, So I was just joking.
You and I do this math in our head because we understand that numbers are abstract.
It’s as if CC math is trying to make them concrete.
Either because they think the teachers are stupid or they think their students are stupid.
Maybe both ?
How many of those have engineering programs? Just asking.
The guy is a low class punk. Even as he sits in the Oval Office, he’s nothing more than a low class punk.
My first grade teacher was responsible for allowing me the gift of math in my life.
I must have been having problems understanding the concept of addition and subtraction because I remember one day when the classroom was empty she had me stop by her desk. In her hand she had 9 popsicle sticks. She then took two popsicles out of the stack and put them in her drawer. How many popsicles sticks did she now hold in her hands?
I wasn’t too sure on how many popsicle sticks were now in here hands, but I was darn sure that I didn’t want anyone taking any popsicles away from me. After that math was easy.
"We be doin'gangsta zhit, y'all"
I see the introduction of CC as an admission that the entire complex that is Public Education has failed.
I also think they see this as the most effective way out of the mess they have created.
Common Core won’t fly in the wealthy suburbs. The kids are too smart and the parents will fight back.
The reason the kids are smarter is because their parents are substantially more engaged in every aspect of their kids lives.
It’s the difference between teaching to encourage learning or teaching to the lowest common denominator.
I’ve had experience teaching adults and had to constantly deal with classrooms in which half the class was saying slow down while the other half was saying speed up.
I had many discussions with other Instructors about “who” should I teach too. My contention was to teach to the top of the class. There were business reasons for this. While many of my counter-parts thought it best to teach to the bottom. I never wanted to lose half my class by dumbing down the content and always found a way to engage everybody.
I was never “taught” how to teach. I fell into this role and have been told that I’m a “Natural Teacher”.
When a student doesn’t “get” something, you need to get creative. You can see it in their body language. A good teacher sees this and can stop and begin to rephrase the concept in a way that will make sense to the student.
What I see is a tremendous amount of indifference from both the students and the teachers in mostly urban schools.
There have been reports over the years of our Military having to deal with teaching new recruits some of the most basic skills that would make your head spin.
I may be wrong here but I think that CC is trying to “Institutionalize” or “Structure” teaching as a system. This may come from our experience in our Military but has been adopted to, and been destroyed by bureaucrats within the system.
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I guess you could say so. I have to admit that I do not understand p-adic numbers ( Chapter 6 of NUMBERS, above. )
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