Common Core.... someone please explain

[SmallWorld71]

I haven't read all the responses, but here's my opinion, FWIW.
I am a first and second grade special education teacher and so far I am really pleased with the positive effect I am seeing on my students. I have seen huge improvements in my second grade students' abilities to reason and understand math and in their ability to perform mental math as compared to my students in the past.
This year's crop of first graders is the lowest academically that I've ever had and I am excited to see what kind of progress we can make.
It's too early to see if their success will be long term, of course, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

While it is always a challenge for any district to have to change curriculum, the transition has been relatively easy and the teachers have seemed to embrace the change.

It saddens me to read about all these districts that have really messed up the implementation of these standards. What a huge disservice for their students!

 

[SmallWorld71]

Normally I wouldn't (since we currently don't have to deal with it) BUT, we were considering our local public HS for our son after he's done where he is (only goes to 8th grade). I'm having serious second thoughts now, because of common core.

IME - High School math is High School math. DS15 is taking Pre-Calculus this year. Pre-Calc is pre-calc. If math hasn't been an issue for your DS up to this point, there is no reason to think it would all of a sudden be a problem.

 

[meliss8599]

While it is always a challenge for any district to have to change curriculum, the transition has been relatively easy and the teachers have seemed to embrace the change.

It saddens me to read about all these districts that have really messed up the implementation of these standards. What a huge disservice for their students!

I'm curious what Math curriculum your district is using. I, too, think Common Core will be fantastic in the long-run, especially for students who start with it in Kindergarten; however, when teaching the upper grades it is very difficult to change old habits.

Teachers here are having a very tough time teaching CC Math b/c there are no print/book resources. We are only pulling from various websites such as Engage New York or our state's Live Binders. It's time consuming and tedious to weed through all of the resources on the web.

 

[nugov2]

I haven't read all the responses, but here's my opinion, FWIW.
I am a first and second grade special education teacher and so far I am really pleased with the positive effect I am seeing on my students. I have seen huge improvements in my second grade students' abilities to reason and understand math and in their ability to perform mental math as compared to my students in the past.
This year's crop of first graders is the lowest academically that I've ever had and I am excited to see what kind of progress we can make.
It's too early to see if their success will be long term, of course, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

While it is always a challenge for any district to have to change curriculum, the transition has been relatively easy and the teachers have seemed to embrace the change.


It saddens me to read about all these districts that have really messed up the implementation of these standards. What a huge disservice for their students!

I feel the same way as you about how it is a huge disservice. It shouldn't be that way for any students and I hope they do something to give these districts struggling more time to look at and fix their curriculum. It does make me even more grateful than I already was for our district and teachers. It is nice to hear another positive experience though.

 

[SmallWorld71]

I'm curious what Math curriculum your district is using. I, too, think Common Core will be fantastic in the long-run, especially for students who start with it in Kindergarten; however, when teaching the upper grades it is very difficult to change old habits.

Teachers here are having a very tough time teaching CC Math b/c there are no print/book resources. We are only pulling from various websites such as Engage New York or our state's Live Binders. It's time consuming and tedious to weed through all of the resources on the web.

We are using Everyday Math. The district has actually been using Everyday Math for many years so we were very used to its approach/ basic format of the lessons. (Though there have been a number of changes). We now have the "Common Core aligned" EM at the K-2 level. The 3-5 version won't be out until next year, so the 3-5 teachers have a tougher job since they have to do a lot more supplementing to meet the standards. But, they were already doing that before this year. The first and second grade teachers and students that I work with seem to be doing well with the program and we are all enjoying the greater emphasis on games that EM has put in. Of course, it is way to early to know what the long term results will be like.

I have to give our district credit. We have had many, many hours of training/ professional development on the new standards as well as on the new version of EM.

I absolutely agree about the difficulties of teaching the upper grades. I do know that the transition has definitely been easier for the elementary school and high school than it has for the middle school, grades 6 and 7 in particular if I recall correctly.

 

[jodifla]

We are using Everyday Math. The district has actually been using Everyday Math for many years so we were very used to its approach/ basic format of the lessons. (Though there have been a number of changes). We now have the "Common Core aligned" EM at the K-2 level. The 3-5 version won't be out until next year, so the 3-5 teachers have a tougher job since they have to do a lot more supplementing to meet the standards. But, they were already doing that before this year. The first and second grade teachers and students that I work with seem to be doing well with the program and we are all enjoying the greater emphasis on games that EM has put in. Of course, it is way to early to know what the long term results will be like.

I have to give our district credit. We have had many, many hours of training/ professional development on the new standards as well as on the new version of EM.

I absolutely agree about the difficulties of teaching the upper grades. I do know that the transition has definitely been easier for the elementary school and high school than it has for the middle school, grades 6 and 7 in particular if I recall correctly.

I'm surprised to hear about your success with Everyday Math for special ed students. Most parents and special ed teachers I know say the spiral curriculum just doesn't work for these kids.

I have a child with severe receptive language problems, and Everyday Math was a total bomb for him (this would have been starting in 2008.)

 

[SmallWorld71]

I'm surprised to hear about your success with Everyday Math for special ed students. Most parents and special ed teachers I know say the spiral curriculum just doesn't work for these kids.

I have a child with severe receptive language problems, and Everyday Math was a total bomb for him (this would have been starting in 2008.)

I should clarify. I've been having great success with the redesigned EM and the CC with my students and am very interested to see if the success continues with my students (who are only in 1st and 2nd grade) in their later elementary years.

The whole notion of the spiraling program definitely doesn't work for everyone and I will agree that it was a big challenge to teach to certain student populations, English Language Learners and students with Special Needs at the top of that list. EM seems to have done a better job with the redesign in meeting the needs of these populations. (IMO)

 

[castleview]

Normally I wouldn't (since we currently don't have to deal with it) BUT, we were considering our local public HS for our son after he's done where he is (only goes to 8th grade). I'm having serious second thoughts now, because of common core.

Common Core hasn't infected the high schools as much as it has elementary. My thinking (and what I see with my own kids) is that since my current high school kid received a traditional math background from day one, she can deal with the occasional "try it this way now". For the most part though, she hasn't had to because most of her teachers have been on the older side and have seen the "next best thing" in education come and go a thousand times over so if they do show them the common core aligned way to do something, they also show them the normal way to do it.

My nine year old son however has gone from doing well in math to struggling in the beginning and finally getting it by the test (still gets a few wrong though). Even though his test grades are fine, he doesn't retain a single thing from this. Our school does use boxed curriculum which will hopefully change but I doubt it. We had a spectacularly bad rollout where the teachers were pretty much given the curriculum one day and told to teach it. Can you say absurd?

While I'm willing to bet CC will be gone in a few years, I fear for anyone currently in elementary school. Not just because they've been educated with these questionable methods, but because they've been denied tried and true math instruction.

 

[castleview]

It saddens me to read about all these districts that have really messed up the implementation of these standards. What a huge disservice for their students!

When the state gives you little time to acclimate, that will happen. And if you doing have administrators to stand up and say "we need more time, we need more training" etc, that will happen. I had the discussion with our own curriculum coordinator who said that we have to catch up and every district in our adjacent county (a very wealthy one) does Singapore Math. I told her I had plenty of friends working in that system and they didn't do it in one day, the principals fought and demanded a year of training. They got that and the program was implemented one grade at a time. She agreed, but I think her job should have been to push for something similar.

 

[AnAmericanInDisney]

A lady I barely know started spouting off about her daughter's and the kids in her class' struggles with the new Common Core Math. They were all good students in elementary. The parents went to a class so that they could help their kids with the new Math, but she said it was still too confusing. She made me think of this discussion, lol.