Why I'm Against Common Core: Part 1

-Common Core has not been field tested, and it is now the curriculum being used in most of our states. Nor is it modeled after one of the numerous countries (at least 16) that is ahead of us educationally.

-This was not written by educators. It was spearheaded and financed by Bill and Melinda Gates.

I heard a testimony this morning from a lady who used to write the state curriculums and set teacher licensing requirements in Minnesota. She explained the part that she had in its implementation in her state. It went as follows...

Sandra Stotsley, whose position is equitable to that one of the big dogs at the NC Dept. of Public Instruction, was chosen to be on a validation committee for CC along with about 26 others. She was one of only two content experts or professionals in the field of education chosen for this committee. The other 24 were people who worked for testing companies. Everyone except this woman and another experienced teacher gave the common core their seal of approval. Note...Testing companies are all for this. Pearson, especially is getting big bucks through its implementation.

-If you thought testing was a problem with No Child Left Behind, you will see that Common Core blows that completely out of the water. In many states, Kindergartners are being tested. They are being required to fill in bubbles while many of them don't even know how to hold a pencil yet. This is ethically, morally, and developmentally wrong.

-Here in Person County, a select group of teachers met last year to create lesson plans for the classrooms in the county. Teachers are expected to follow these lesson plans. This curriculum is taking away their freedom to create lessons that they feel will best suit their students.

If you've never worked in a classroom, you may not be able to begin to conceive the problems that come along with this. It can best be summed up in my opinion by the following quote...

"If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn."

Common Core takes away teachers' ability to do that.

-I've seen math problems as they are taught in CC. Though throughout school, I was always in the top math classes (I really don't know how that happened), I couldn't make heads or tails of it. The following  well represents the change in the math curriculum.

"The classic method of, for example, adding two-digit numbers is to add the digits in the “ones” column, carry the remainder to the “tens” column, and then add the “tens” digits. This “standard algorithm” works first time, every time. 

But instead of teaching this method, which enables students to solve problems quickly and routinely, Common Core creates a two-step process. 

The first is to let students choose from several alternative algorithms (number lines, estimating, etc.) for doing one-digit additions, subtractions, and multiplications. 

The second is probably to extend these student constructions to more complex calculations. (We say “probably” because the standards are not at all clear on this point.) 

There is no point where the student-constructed algorithms are explicitly replaced by the very efficient standard methods for doing one-digit operations.

Why does Common Core adopt this convoluted method of teaching math? The stated reason is that learning the standard algorithm doesn’t give students a “deeper conceptual understanding” of what they’re doing. But the use of student-constructed algorithms is at odds with the practices of high-achieving countries and is not supported by research. Common Core is using our children for a huge and risky experiment."