New Common Core math curriculum a disaster

[FlightlessDuck]

It came straight from ACT, the company responsible for generating common core assessments for the majority of states when they become mandatory.

I assume this is the PARCC test.

The other test being developed is from SBAC.

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

I think we will find in 20 years that we have a generation that has no foundation of basic skills in english and math.

Christine

I think that generation is already here.

I see it everyday, and everywhere. I see where kids/teens/young adult just cant count !

It's really bad when you are given your total for a purchase paid, and give change over your amount in order to get an even amount back. ooohhhh, it's just mind bottling to them. You see them with a puzzled look on their face, a wiggle and squirm when you explain the correct change to be give.

They just cant function and do the math in their head. And I'm talking pennies and cents to make change, not large numbers here.

It's like if they can't type it on the computer screen they can't think for themselves.

Every year before selling girl scout cookies, we get out the monopoly money and practice our mental math skills. Quick mental calculations of cost x quantity, and quick mental calculations of correct change to give.

One year, we were set up in front of a bank and one of the employes kept telling the girls they were giving the wrong change back. I intervened to double check the math. no the BANK employee was wrong, she scoffed it off by saying she "doesn't do math in her head" and has to use a calculator for everything.

Later I told the girls "this my dear is why you need to learn math"

 

[dis-happy]

Is Pearson the company developing the CC assessment tests? They were the root of a huge, HUGE testing debacle in NYC last spring; tests that were supposed to allow fewer kids to qualify for G&T actually allowed more kids in than ever (for the lottery of seats), plus there were major scoring errors that they tried to cover up but later has to rescind publically. Surprised no one had mentioned this in response to Pearson's names used in this thread.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...valuated-after-errors-on-nyc-gifted-test.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/pearson-testing-errors-new-york_n_3132744.html

 

[DLgal]

http://ccssimath.blogspot.com/2013/04/good-luck-new-yorks-children.html

here are several questions from the tests. Problem is the answers are wrong, or unattainable because the questions are so poorly written or developmentally inappropriate, or the student hasn't yet been taught the skill to figure them out.

None of those questions have wrong answers.

All of those, IMO, are "developmentally appropriate" as presented by grade level.

I find the critique to be very nitpicky. My son was in third grade LAST year. He has autism, and is in a special Ed class but mainstreamed for Math. He had problems like those on his homework sheets last year and he was able to do it. While he failed two assessments (reading and social studies) he passes math and science, as we expected, due to his difficulties with reading comprehension.

I see nothing wrong with questions like the ones posed in this article.

 

[jodifla]

It's funny, I have barely changed my homeschooling curriculums in the past twenty years (started homeschooling 20 years ago and this year the youngest officially begins K). The tried and true methods work! In Saxon math every single lesson begins with mental math problems and a timed facts sheet. It doesn't have to be perfect, but eventually, with repetition, the kids learn it. They also make the kids count back change (the proper way!) in third grade. My son who now gets straight A's in college would have flunked out in school, never learning to read, of that I am sure (learning came with great difficulty for him). But good old Saxon math and phonics carried us through. Classical curriculum with Calvert assured they were well read. The paragraph shapes they learned in 4-5 th grade insured they could write coherent and organized papers in high school. It's not rocket science, and I hope more parents will be encouraged to look at homeschooling as an alternate way to achieve an excellent education. Plus, there are so many more resources available today that didn't exist twenty years ago; it's quite easy to fill in the parental gaps if needed. The reduced amount of time it took us to do a day's schooling allowed my older two to spend time pursuing their passions: horses for one, competitive tennis for the other.

Is Pearson the company developing the CC assessment tests? They were the root of a huge, HUGE testing debacle in NYC last spring; tests that were supposed to allow fewer kids to qualify for G&T actually allowed more kids in than ever (for the lottery of seats), plus there were major scoring errors that they tried to cover up but later has to rescind publically. Surprised no one had mentioned this in response to Pearson's names used in this thread.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...valuated-after-errors-on-nyc-gifted-test.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/pearson-testing-errors-new-york_n_3132744.html

Yes, Pearson is one of the companies.

 

[jodifla]

None of those questions have wrong answers.

All of those, IMO, are "developmentally appropriate" as presented by grade level.

I find the critique to be very nitpicky. My son was in third grade LAST year. He has autism, and is in a special Ed class but mainstreamed for Math. He had problems like those on his homework sheets last year and he was able to do it. While he failed two assessments (reading and social studies) he passes math and science, as we expected, due to his difficulties with reading comprehension.

I see nothing wrong with questions like the ones posed in this article.

ANd yet, in New York, more than 60 percent of the students failed these tests.

New York released nearly 2,000 pages of data parsing the poor performance of students in third through eighth grade. In Rochester, for instance, just 5 percent of students scored proficient in math. Fewer than 9 percent of students in Syracuse passed the reading test. Statewide, just 19 percent of low-income students made the grade in language arts.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/new-york-fails-common-core-tests-95304.html#ixzz2ecRZOlvh

 

[luvsJack]

None of those questions have wrong answers.

All of those, IMO, are "developmentally appropriate" as presented by grade level.

I find the critique to be very nitpicky. My son was in third grade LAST year. He has autism, and is in a special Ed class but mainstreamed for Math. He had problems like those on his homework sheets last year and he was able to do it. While he failed two assessments (reading and social studies) he passes math and science, as we expected, due to his difficulties with reading comprehension.

I see nothing wrong with questions like the ones posed in this article.

I didn't see one with a wrong answer either.

These problems require thinking rather than rote memorization of math facts. If the student is taught the process before the test, then I don't see how it could be seen as too difficult for the student.

 

[Schmeck]

In the 3rd grade math test bank generated from ACT, the company contrated to do common core assessments there was a question about nutritional requirments. It stated the nutritional requirments for carbohydrates, fats, and protien per person per day in grams, and gave the nitritional information for 5 different products consumed by a person in one day. It asked the students to claculate the percentage of daily value for each nutrient. There was no further instruction on how to do this. We as adults are capable of making the leap that we would need to add up grams consumed in each category and then divide by the daily value to calculate a percentage. I don't think a third grader who has never been shown this situation before would be. Particullarly on a timed high stakes test with upwards of 50 questions at this level of involvment. There are no questions that just ask the student to perform single operation. All of them require this level of thinking and intuitive leaps like this.

In high school biology there are genetics questions that fill a whole page and require upper level math skills form courses that are not prequesities for biology. These are concepts that have perviously been taught in AP biology, not a freshman servey course.

this is the company given the rights to produce common core assessments for most states, and thier interpretation of what fits common core is what we will be accountable for. Thier tests are the benchmark common core will be measured by, and IMO ther are developmentally inappropiate.

Life involves complex thinking - looking at a problem, and being able to visualize multiple steps is an important skill. Students need to work on this at an early age to get the neurons in the brain wired to think beyond one step and I'm done problems. It's one of the reasons the US is getting left behind! We don't think, we just wait for someone to make an app for us.

We teach genetics (double punnett squares, recessive traits, etc) to our freshmen. We give them 3 quarters of biology their freshman year. I don't know if this year's MCAS results are online yet, but we usually do great.

Most of these school issues would be resolved if more parents started the learning process with their children instead of waiting for the kids to learn all this in school. The brain does most of the important wiring at a very early age (before kindergarten for some processes) so setting the kid down in front of a TV or video game, or handing him the iPhone to keep him busy, doesn't really do too much beneficial wiring.

We used car rides, dinner, play time, laundry time, cleaning time, and even TV time as the perfect time to learn to read, count, think, and problem solve. My kids found learning things in school to be easy and enjoyable, passed all standardized testing with advanced recognition, and continue to be successful.

People constantly say "Oh, your kids are so smart" and I reply "I dedicated my time to teaching them how to think and learn. It made the difference." I don't think I am any smarter than other people, just that I took the time, when they were very young, to get them wired for success. I don't see that happening enough with the students I work with.

 

[Colleen27]

While I'm not slamming your decision to homeschool, the problem is that when people like you leave the system…well, the system wins. The Common Core will not end until parents scream at the legislators that approve this junk. Again, I'm not saying your should have kept your child in school. I just wish more parents were involved and would tell the govt. where to go and let teachers do what they know how to do.

I've heard that argument time and again, but I'm not buying it. At best - assuming it does work that way - you're asking a generation of caring parents to sacrifice their kids' educations at the altar of the common good. At worst, it doesn't work because in Washington money and special interests talk and outraged parents just aren't a well-funded enough lobby to get anyone's attention.

Parents and teachers have been virtually unanimous in opposing No Child Left Behind, and look how long it took to see any changes at all to that. And what have those changes been? After more than a decade of complaints about high-stakes testing and teaching to the test, the solution is.... More testing!

 

[Colleen27]

Life involves complex thinking - looking at a problem, and being able to visualize multiple steps is an important skill. Students need to work on this at an early age to get the neurons in the brain wired to think beyond one step and I'm done problems. It's one of the reasons the US is getting left behind! We don't think, we just wait for someone to make an app for us.

I disagree strongly with that. If you look at some of the most successful countries, and some of the more popular homeschool/private school math curriculums like Saxon and Singapore Math, you find just the opposite - less time spent on needlessly complex story problems at young ages, and more time focused on memorization (bad word in education these days, I know) and mastery of basic facts.

The reason we have kids who can't make change is because once a skill is taught and tested it is filed away. In practical terms, that means kids get a lot of practice at sorting through complex story problems with extraneous information to sort through, but very little review of basic skills like calculating sales tax or making change. They're taught to rely on a calculator for those things and only apply their brains to "problem solving".

 

[Colleen27]

I'm not clear on why it's such a horribly bad thing for a large number of kids to fail the test or find it unusually challenging in the first year or two.

People (me included) feel that we need to raise the standards for our kids' education and expect more of them. So when something comes along that DOES expect more than we've asked of them in the past, of course the first time they see it they will struggle. No biggie. As they continue to be taught the more challenging material, they will learn it and do better on the assessments. I don't think a mark of a good educational policy should be how easy it is for kids to pass.

You're assuming a rebound effect, rather than a progressive falling further behind as the curriculum goes on to build upon skills that were never grasped at the previous level. But from what I've seen so far, it looks like this is a concept that is going to leave a lot of kids behind - the scores might improve once the groups being tested have participated in common core from the start, but for those who are in 4th, 5th, 6th grade now you're talking about throwing them mid-program into an entirely new curriculum, lacking some of the foundational skills to keep up with the teaching, and trusting that they're somehow going to fill in the gaps on their own. The very bright and those with strong parental support probably will, but many will not.

Ironically, it seems like common core is subjecting all children to one of the problems it aims to solve - instead of only kids who changed schools or states finding themselves in a class that they can't keep up with because they missed an essential prerequisite, now most kids will get to experience that same feeling in their familiar classrooms.

 

[tvguy]

I have heard many educators complain that it takes 6 or 7 years for a new program to be in effect long enough to judge. Makes sense to me. If the program just started, give it a few years before judging.

 

[torinsmom]

Common Core is actually not a curriculum; it is a set of standards. The main reason we, as teachers, are told it is being implemented is so that all states have the same standards. This helps when kids move from district to district and also with standardized tests. The problem is with the math curriculum some districts are adopting.

We are in a district that does not tell us how to teach the CC standards. We have Unit plans that explain what standards we should focus on each quarter, and suggestions of activities and materials to use to teach them, but no particular curriculum. We do some cooperative activities in our classroom, but we also do individualized math.

I teach K and we are expected to teach what I consider beginning algebra. Example word problem--"Mikey had 4 cars. Jimmy gave him some more. Then he had 10. How many cars did Jimmy give him?" I think it is a little much, but then I am just a teacher.

 

[manning]

Sure glad I went to school in the 50s.

 

[jodifla]

I have heard many educators complain that it takes 6 or 7 years for a new program to be in effect long enough to judge. Makes sense to me. If the program just started, give it a few years before judging.

And if it's an utter failure, what do those kids do who have lost out on 7 years of education?

I'm not interested in my son being a guinea pig.

This curriculum should have been field tested. It has not. My district is jumping into it blind, and using it with all sorts of kits it's totally inappropriate for, like my son.

 

[cobright]

You must have been part of the common core curriculum then because no one said it was. Reading comprehension...

Then what did you mean when you wrote:

Common Core is another failure by those who support federal mandates.

If you were suggesting that people who support state-level initiatives are the same people who support federal mandates, I would question your logic. States-rights advocates and people that support federal mandates are generally not considered to be the same people.

And what did you mean by:

Centralizing anything destroys it.

If you were not suggesting that core curriculum was something of a federal mandate then you must consider a state educational initiative to be "centralizing" it. But this wouldn't make any sense because states have always had the power to determine their own curriculum standards.

I'm sorry, but from your post and especially the reference to the US DOE, it very much seems to me that you were lumping the core curriculum standard in with centralized D.O.E. federal mandate mayhem. In retrospect, I don't doubt your writing's intent, but instead its limpidity.

 

[ilovefh]

http://ccssimath.blogspot.com/2013/04/good-luck-new-yorks-children.html

here are several questions from the tests. Problem is the answers are wrong, or unattainable because the questions are so poorly written or developmentally inappropriate, or the student hasn't yet been taught the skill to figure them out.

While I'm not the biggest fan of Common Core, some of these seem nit picky. For example part of the argument about the 8th grade problem is that they say the standard states students need to solve equations not critique the correctness of alternate approaches.

Actually, yes it does. Included in Common Core are the 8 standards for mathematical practice. The third practice is construct viable arguments and critique the arguments of others.

Again, common core is just the standards to be taught but the assessment is very application heavy. I can tell you the sample questions from PARCC don't include multiple choice, but things like "select all that apply." It also has very lengthy questions that can contain many parts.

 

[Pixie Dust for Me!]

I am a huge fan of Singapore Math and Saxon. Pulled my kiddo who thought he was the dumbest kid in the class out of a private school in 5th grade. He did not know basic math facts, he was unable to write clearly, and his grammar was atrocious! Homeschooled through 8th grade. He's is an all boys Catholic high school now and is ahead of his classmates in many ways, taking mostly honors classes with a nearly perfect GPA. It's one of the top 50 Catholic high schools in the nation.

At his private school they used Chicago Math (aka Everyday Mathematics). I actually burned his book -- the only book I have ever burned! My suggestion is if your child is struggling with math, Singapore is great K to 6 or 7 and then Saxon for pre-Algebra and beyond.

 

[kaytieeldr]

"The testing sessions—two weeks of three consecutive days of 90-minute (and longer for some) periods—were unnecessarily long, requiring more stamina for a 10-year-old special education student than of a high school student taking an SAT exam. Yet, for some sections of the exams, the time was insufficient for the length of the test. When groups of parents, teachers and principals recently shared students’ experiences in their schools, especially during the ELA exams with misjudged timing expectations, we learned that frustration, despondency, and even crying were common reactions among students. The extremes were unprecedented: vomiting, nosebleeds, suicidal ideation, and even hospitalization."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-principals-why-new-common-core-tests-failed/

Interesting skip over the previous two lines in that report (including the beginning of the quoted paragraph):

And because the tests are missing Common Core’s essential values, we fear that students will experience curriculum that misses the point as well.

Even if these tests were assessing students' performance on tasks aligned with the Common Core Standards,

 

[kaytieeldr]

I tried to quote your post for anything that wasn't a strawman and that's what I came up with.

Perhaps a one liner would make it easier for you-

The people who failed so miserably at the DOE and NEA couldn't get all the federal mandates through so they settled for common core.

We could save taxpayers billions upon billions and bring the US back into the #1 spot for education if we abolish the DOE and cut off the federal teat so many school districts are latched onto and comply with simply for the money.

That's what this is all about after all. Money.

It hasn't been about what is best for the children for about 5 decades.

Lovely. So now you're negating the education of almost everybody here?

You're aware the Department of Education wasn't created in 1979, right? It was separated from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that year. That's all.

School districts don't have money for supplies; some don't have money for enough books for each student. Abolishing the Department of Education wouldn't reduce any taxpayer's taxes by a single cent.