Common Core Learning Standard

[Cayo]

So, Common Core is a new learning standard that several states have adopted, as opposed to their old state tests.

I'm still in middle school and I have taken the first part of this testing. It was three days of English\Language Arts, and two days of math. In about a month, we have part two of testing. Two more days of each. So, it is a lot of testing.

Now, all kids are going to hate testing, but my friends and I have agreed that we didn't mind our old state curriculum as much. Actually, we miss our old state tests now. I have spoken to several adults, most of which aren't a fan of the Common Core. My teachers haven't outright said it, but some of them have dropped hints that they aren't too big on it either.

I haven't looked into it too much, but from what I know, Common Core is supposed to become something like the "National Learning Standard". Used so that everyone learns the same things.

Now, what do you guys think about Common Core? Do you believe it is good, bad, stupid? Is it really helping kids?

 

[Tek]

I'm going to drop this and come back in a few days. This is a paraphrase of a qoute from an NCR scientist in Fallout New Vegas: "Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. The less they know, the more opinions they have."

Humor aside, I find the quotation poignant. The nature of educational culture and the educational system are incredibly important. These things shape every member of our collective. In the spirit of productive, enlightening discussion, I suggest that we present well-informed statements and leave political prejudice at the door.

What is the structure of Common Core? What are its driving values? How do these differ from previous educational systems and cultures? What is the purpose of education?

It's my opinion that if you're seeing Common Core as all good or all bad, you're oversimplifying. I propose we discuss specific strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Livewire]

On one hand, standardizing educational standards across the country is a good thing; where you're from shouldn't dictate the quality of your education. A child in Alabama should be receiving the same quality of education as a child in Ohio should. The problem with common core, aside from the evil side of standardization in "teaching to the test", is that common Core is basically a co-op between states, it's not a federal law. And for educational standards to truly improve across the country, you need federal intervention there. Obviously, not every state is the same. Let's say that Louisiana, as a state, is deficient in science and math scores compared with other states. A federal bill would look at each state's strengths and weaknesses, when it comes to funding, test scores, graduation rates, etc., and go from there. It would be a tall task either way though.

 

[Haunter Z. Ghost]

As a sophomore student in high school, which common core is the main educational value that is still a bit unstable to everyone in my school. Common core has some positives and negatives for instance in a Language arts class instead of reading the textbook and given worksheets the teacher's will go in-depth on the lessons for the student to understand. While you see in a Math class the teacher while give you "necessary" definitions and many, many formulas to solve just one problem. I believe that common core should be a choice value to the student if they want to go into common core or to continue with there old school system. Also if they choose common core they should also be able to choose what class(es) that they want to use common core in.

 

[Sydian]

We talked about this today in my social psychology class, actually. We were mainly talking about how common core treats elementary school math, so I'm just going to use that as the focus for this post, haha. But anyway, I see so many people resistant to the teaching methods of it because of how confusing it seems and how they learned it being different. Well, if the child is understanding it, what does it matter? I think part of the dislike is just the unwillingness to change because we've internalized the methods we learned growing up. However, there is a negative to it as well. The fact that we did learn this different means it's going to be difficult to help our children with their homework. How are we supposed to help them when we don't understand the method they've been taught? And if they're not good at math, they probably won't be able to explain it to us to help. Obviously you can just look it up online to understand it and be able to help your child with it, but still, children look to their parents to know and understand anything and it can have some negative connotations. "Mommy doesn't know how to do this math, so why do I have to learn?" That's how I felt with certain math classes, but later in school, not early, haha. But anyway, as far as teaching children math goes, I think there are some ups and downs here, but I do think that the hooplah about it from older generations stems from the "oh well I learned it this way, it's the only way" and an unwillingness to change and try something different. I think that's why my state of Alabama is so far behind in education, honestly. Lack of alternative teaching methods and not wanting to change things up. But that's a topic for another day. :)

Anyway, I haven't really looked at much of the upper level stuff like the standardized tests, the effects in secondary education, etc because admittedly, I try to stay away from education stuff. I was once an education major and obviously, I didn't make it as far as learning common core stuff, so I'm a bit in the dark. But I felt I'd at least respond to this thread since we did talk about it in class today, so it was on my mind!