Posted on 08/12/2014 1:41:51 PM PDT by Kaslin
The highly acclaimed school standards called Common Core are becoming so unpopular that they may soon be politically untouchable. The critics are piling on from Glenn Beck to the Wall Street Journal, with senior academics and activist parents in-between.
The latest is a detailed criticism of the mathematics standards by a prize-winning math professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Marina Ratner. It is refreshing that her criticisms are very specific and include examples of assignments that parents can see are ridiculous.
Professor Ratner became alerted to the stupidity of Common Core by looking at the homework assigned to her grandson in 6th grade Berkeley middle school. Fractions are taught by having the kids draw pictures of everything, such as 6 divided by 8, and 4 divided by 2/7, and also by creating fictional stories for such things as 2/3 divided by 3/4. A student who gives the correct answer right away and doesn't draw a picture or make up a story loses points.
Ms. Ratner concluded that Common Core is making simple math concepts "artificially intricate and complex with the pretense of being deeper, while the actual content taught was primitive." The bottom line is that Common Core is inferior to the current good California standards, and the $15.8 billion spent nationally to develop and adopt Common Core was a gigantic waste.
College ready? That's another deceit. Math experts are saying that Common Core standards are not preparing students for colleges to which most parents aspire to send their children.
The Common Core History Standards have just become available. Real scholars say they are a "stealthy" plan to teach kids a leftwing curriculum.
Scholar Stanley Kurtz says that the new plan for teaching American History is spelled out in the SAT college entrance and Advanced Placement exams. They pitch out "traditional emphasis on America's founders and the principles of constitutional government" in favor of a leftist "emphasis on race, gender, class, ethnicity."
According to Kurtz, "James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the other founders are largely left out of the new test unless they are "presented as examples of conflict and identity by class, gender, race, ethnicity, etc." The text of the new AP U.S. History exam has been closely guarded, revealed only to a few certified AP U.S. History teachers who are sworn to secrecy.
Parents who are attentive to their children's studies and homework have been up in arms against Common Core for many months. Now Common Core has become such a big issue that it's beginning to bring the politicians into line with what the public is demanding.
Indiana was the first state to show the political power of the anti-Common Core movement. The activist moms defeated a superintendent of education and several legislators on this issue.
Oklahoma made the biggest splash when the state legislature voted to repeal the state's earlier endorsement of Common Core. The governor signed the repeal, but the unelected state board of education impudently filed suit to nullify the repeal, and then the Oklahoma state Supreme Court wisely upheld the elected legislature's repeal.
South Carolina's governor signed a bill repealing that state's commitment to Common Core. North Carolina's governor signed a more modest bill authorizing the state school board to tweak the standards.
The state of Texas, under Gov. Rick Perry, was smart enough to be one of the five states that never signed on to Common Core in the first place. But now the pressure is on to force Texas to use the new AP U.S. history exam anyway, and Texans claim that is illegal under state law.
Louisiana was one of the original 45 states that endorsed Common Core before the standards were even written. But one day Gov. Bobby Jindal actually read his son's Common Core math homework, was shocked, and then issued an executive order to block its implementation in Louisiana.
Two more governors have just seen the light and turned against Common Core. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced that he wants the state legislature to repeal the standards when it reconvenes in January, and Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah ordered his attorney general to conduct a review of the controversial standards.
Hoping to line up the support of teachers, the Gates Foundation education chief is now urging states to wait two years before using Common Core tests to make decisions about teacher performance.
Like many do-gooders, Bill Gates is obsessed with the problem of inequality. However, Common Core's way of trying to overcome inequality is by dumbing down all U.S. students and pretending, like the Lake Wobegon kids, that all children are above average.
Reacting to the growing opposition to Common Core, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest money bag for Common Core, is now urging states to have a two-year moratorium on all states and school districts about to make any high-stakes decisions based on tests aligned to the new standards.
As far as I am concerned ‘Common Core’ is a MAJOR attempt at dumbing down America’s children. I bet you that the children of the ‘elites’ are getting a good education with sound fundamentals in Math, English, Reading and Writing. That will eventually translate to the point where only the children of the ‘Elites’ can qualify for the ‘Elite’ universities and ivy league schools.
Think about it... in one generation the gulf between the have’s and have-nots or if you will; the ‘elites’ and the non-elites will be nigh insurmountable for the average American to overcome.
“...math professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Marina Ratner...”
She’s a woman math prof from Berkely, I’m thinking that makes it almost impossible that she is in any way a conservative.
Which is good, because this nonsense needs to go and one shouldn’t have to be a conservative to see that.
In fact, I think this is a good example of something that can provide common ground for those who still have common sense. It’s those who would rule us and who think we work for them who support this.
Bill Ayers and his commie buds. He crows about it to anyone who is forced to listen to him.
He says he is very proud of all the work they have done to "improve" education.
The Democrat CC states will be known as the Stupid States, after adopting this Leftist propaganda and then finding their students can’t pass the SAT. By the way, the central planners know this, and that is why the Ivy League is moving to dump that standard test. They want to accept the miseducated offspring of the well-connected and the obligatory minorities, who won’t be able to add large numbers because it will take too long to draw the pictures.
Ping
Common Core is geared so kids attending public schools don’t get any funny ideas of having freedom and liberty in this fundamentally transformed United States. Jebby, the hildahag and most if not all democrats and the RINOs in DC support Common Core so it’s reasonable to conclude that anyone supporting CC are NWO order pukes and traitors.
Standards that come with a curriculum aligned to mandatory high-stakes testing are not academic standards. They are, in effect, regulations.
When I entered school in 1940 (yes) it was the day of pencil and paper. Teacher TAUGHT the children of immigrant parents who could barely speak ENGLISH at a time when the very word “computer” was an entry in the dictionary only.
Parents, English speaking or not, saw to it that their children were TAUGHT Math, Geography, American and World History, science, and even music and art. These students grew up to build what we now live in.
After their parents’ generation saved the world from facism, the kids took their turn and shouldered the responsibility.
I ask, how well would the product of COMMON CORE do in the eighth grade test we had to pass? I bet I know.
Common Core=Obama’s “No Child Left Behind”.
I have a hint for legislators: Why don’t we return school control to states, locally, parents and the free market?
The NY GOP gubernatorial candidate, Rob Astorino, is running on an additional line, the ANTI-Common Core line, as well as the usual Republican and Conservatve Party lines.
Where in the Constitution is the federal government given power to dictate education. This is one area where people should just say stuff it.
“Which is good, because this nonsense needs to go and one shouldn’t have to be a conservative to see that.”
One would be very HARD PRESSED to find a legitimate math or other STEM professor who has anything good to say about the mathematical proficiency of students entering college.
And THEY ALL say it to people on a personal level...and then they all (or nearly all) retreat to their classrooms and they live with it.
The curriculums used in Common Core math are virtually NO DIFFERENT than what’s been in use for the past two decades, at least. They are HORRENDOUS. And if you look at the authors, you will ONLY find “Education” and related professors writing these “math” books, no MATHEMATICIANS at all.
What? They don’t like regimentation and adherence to the principles of social justice?
Outrageous!
/s/
IMHO
Follow the money to Pearson.
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