The Common Core: Godsend For Education Or Spawn Of Ze Devil?

[Elemental North]

Well ladies and Gentleman, the Common Core-the revitalization of the education system that obliterates "Memorize and Regurgitation" State Standards, and calls for the student to know why and how things work and are relevant, as well as builds off of knowledge learned in previous grade levels, is coming.

The states that have adopted it are below in green, those in blue have adopted Common Core for only English and Mathematics, those in gray have not yet adopted Common Core:



So the question is? Is this Bill Gates spear headed piece of legislation, a good thing, or a spawn of the devil that will only marginalize children further?

[Elemental North]

I mean I think it's all in how it's implemented...

[Kratinov]

Florida, at least in Volusia County, has tossed out the Common Core. I personally thought it was trash and helped bring the failure rate higher.

[Elemental North]

Florida, at least in Volusia County, has tossed out the Common Core. I personally thought it was trash and helped bring the failure rate higher.

why was it trash, because you cant understand it?

[Quintium]

It sounds like another 'advancement' in education that will turn out to be a train wreck. Like many plans supported by Bill Gates, it sounds nice but it's going to end up being a disaster. Bill Gates saved the lives of millions of African children twenty years ago, and those African children are now torturing and murdering each other in several countries. In the same trend, this plan - while it sounds benevolent - will end up creating a generation of young people entirely alienated from the education system because they lack the mental capacity to understand why and how things work as they do.

As Kratinov says, it would probably help bring the rate of people failing these courses higher, because you're demanding more and more results in education from a population where, realistically, a majority of the population is fairly dim (as is the case in any population) and uninterested in knowing why apples fall from trees or why the War of Independence was fought.

[Ashmoria]

its a good idea but I see the critic's point about over-testing. too much testing means too much teaching to the test. that's bad education.

what I don't like is the strange pretense that common core is a federal government program that is micromanaging the states. that crazy political shit that makes it hard to figure out what is good and what is bad about it.

[Deusaeuri]

I'm in Texas, so honestly, this is the first time I've ever heard of this. I guess it really doesn't affect me, and while it seems well-intended, I think it's gonna a take a lot more to make education in the United States a little less FUBAR.
In other news, OP could learn a bit from the English part of initiative.

[Blasveck]

As far as I'm aware, the implementation of Common Core here in Colorado has been pretty successful, save for a few bumps along the road due to inadequate textbooks. But that's mostly due to a lack of proper funding than anything else.

[Arkinesia]

Common Core is a step in the right direction, but generally needs work.

[Juggalo world]

Oh great next year is my last year of high school now they choose to fix this shit!

[Breadknife]

Not being in the US, I thought I'd actually look up what the Common Core was (a link on the OP would have been nice).

The Wiki page is a bit... unreadable. The link to the NGA site page goes to a deadlink (non-existant page, may have been moved) and the corestandards.org front-page site is horribly designed (failing, I susect, the Media And Technology section of the standard, but maybe it's better behind the front page... oh, nope, it isn't... looks like everything from the "Video" bit down to the bottom of the page is a constant 'footer' on every page, the "Resources" links opening a new window, needlessly).

All that being said, from what I understand, it seems like an admirable thing to do. Assuming I did.


Now, where's that list of "exemplar texts" appendix for the Reading standard? That's what I really want to look at, purely out of interest.

[Marshmellowstan]

I had a student teacher for the first half of the year in my history class who touted Common Core as the greatest thing ever and tried to impliment some of its ideas, the only thing different that she did that I noticed was call tests "assessments".

[Greed and Death]

I shall dub it No Child Left Behind 2.0.


Though my main fear is that we are allowing corporations way too much ability to influence education standards.

[Free Soviets]

the only real problem with common core is that the things that are being interpreted as minimum standards were largely written as aspirational goals (at least for the ELA standards) - by definition, a large number of kids won't be up to 'grade level'. and when you combine that with the overall shitty quality of education at teaching colleges and the insanity of school boards and administrators, things might not go well for those students that need the most help.

here's the one thing we know for certain: states cannot be left to design their own standards without some sort of national minimum. we cannot leave innocent children to be ruined by louisiana.

in other words, we absolutely need something like common core, even if not common core itself.

[Shnercropolis]

I had to write a paragraph about sine curves.
Common core is evil.

[Cetacea]

Common standards are great when they are well framed and delivered in good well resourced education systems by teachers who are trained to use them.

I fear that the US does not yet have those things...

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

Found it absurd- while it is true that one should be taught the whys of everything, rather then just memorize facts for a test, is it really necessary to retard the progress to new materials just because they need to know the many ways of adding twenty-five to thirty-three (as my brother, in second grade, and who should be learning Multiplication by now is), or count by five, tens, one hundred, and match out patterns? Or that grammar is not even taught very well by teachers who are almost as incompetant in the language as the children they are teaching?

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Found it absurd- while it is true that one should be taught the whys of everything, rather then just memorize facts for a test, is it really necessary to retard the progress to new materials just because they need to know the many ways of adding twenty-five to thirty-three (as my brother, in second grade, and who should be learning Multiplication by now is), or count by five, tens, one hundred, and match out patterns? Or that grammar is not even taught very well by teachers who are almost as incompetant in the language as the children they are teaching?

Having not experienced Common Core in person, I can't really comment directly, but the summary delivered to me by a teacher (full disclosure: who hates it with a passion,) is that "the slower learners love it, which is good, but it forces all of the talented kids down to the level of the slow kids."

Insert link to Harrison Bergeron.

[Quew]

Seen some of the content for the Common Core work sheets.
Everything in it tosses logic out of the door.
To call it nonsense is an insult to nonsense.
The kind of education you would expect to find in the movie 1984.
2+2=5

If i find a picture of a work sheet i will link it.

[Breadknife]

I had to write a paragraph about sine curves.

I don't think that's too much of a
hard task, personally, and at least it was
not an entire essay on the subject. But even
then it does not seem quite so onerous a task
(in my mind), given the many useful details of
sine curves, in both mathematics and outside
in the real world (engineering, physics, etc)
from the very interesting facts about the
integration and differentiation of
sines and cosines through
to their use (and, of
course, abuse) in
Imaginary and
Complex number
systems and in their
usefulness for defining the
relationship between electrical and
magnetic fields in electromagnetic waves.
But I'll admit that it depends upon the level of
understanding that you have so far been given
by your tutors, and "they go up and down (/side
-to-side) in a periodical manner" is not exactly
exciting information with no context of what
use these utterly exciting functions provide
to us. (Not the most exciting ones,
because I like fractals more.)

[Quew]

here we go this link has a few pictures of Common core oddness that will induce mental constipation in anyone who tries to use logic on them.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/22/epic- ... orksheets/

[Greed and Death]

here we go this link has a few pictures of Common core oddness that will induce mental constipation in anyone who tries to use logic on them.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/22/epic- ... orksheets/

The one about obey government officials is disturbing.

[Tekania]

Florida, at least in Volusia County, has tossed out the Common Core. I personally thought it was trash and helped bring the failure rate higher.

That's the general problem with any one-size-fits-all system of education.

[Tekania]

Not being in the US, I thought I'd actually look up what the Common Core was (a link on the OP would have been nice).

The Wiki page is a bit... unreadable. The link to the NGA site page goes to a deadlink (non-existant page, may have been moved) and the corestandards.org front-page site is horribly designed (failing, I susect, the Media And Technology section of the standard, but maybe it's better behind the front page... oh, nope, it isn't... looks like everything from the "Video" bit down to the bottom of the page is a constant 'footer' on every page, the "Resources" links opening a new window, needlessly).

All that being said, from what I understand, it seems like an admirable thing to do. Assuming I did.


Now, where's that list of "exemplar texts" appendix for the Reading standard? That's what I really want to look at, purely out of interest.

Common Core is a model and content system for educating public school children designed and written by a whole bunch of people who have absolutely zero qualification, experience, or training in education and pushed for and heavily funded by companies who would make a good amount of money selling materials for its implementation. So basically like every other historical educational flop system that has been contributing to the downfall of US education over the last few decades. People's kids will still get shit education, and those such as the Board of Directors at Pearson's Publishing will get more of our tax money funneled into their coffers.

[Free Soviets]

here we go this link has a few pictures of Common core oddness that will induce mental constipation in anyone who tries to use logic on them.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/22/epic- ... orksheets/

common core assigns no worksheets. that's on idiot teachers and the sloppy textbook and testing companies they lift materials from.