New Common Core math curriculum a disaster

[sam_gordon]

It's not so much that I think testing is bad, I think testing for the sake of evaluating schools and teachers is ludicrous. Unless the results for anyone school are GROSSLY off the bell curve, there isn't any way to really judge if a school is failing because of it's teachers. There are so many other factors involved. (Parental support, enough sleep, enough food... and all of those are lower in poorer neighborhoods.)

Testing kids and taking those results on an individual basis and comparing them against the norm is a great way to see where that student is at.

I agree 100%. But I still think testing can be used to see if teachers are doing their job. If someone gets to high school (to say nothing about graduation) without being able to read, shouldn't teachers have noticed that LONG ago? Why is he passed along to the next grade if he doesn't have the basics?

I'll readily agree testing may not be the best way to solve that problem, but I haven't heard a good solution yet.

Rather than trying to get every kid at some unreasonable percentile why don't we focus on giving the kids everything we can to ensure they are primed to learn in school? Then teachers could go back to um, teaching!

If teachers haven't been teaching, what are they doing? Even "teaching to the test" is still teaching. And *IF* (I admit it's a big if) the tests are a valid judge of what the kids know, don't we want teachers teaching that information?

Here's the problem, every child will learn differently. We (and I use that term very generally) are tying to find a way to measure ALL students. Is it realistic to have tests weighted to all individual students?

 

[Nette]

I agree 100%. But I still think testing can be used to see if teachers are doing their job. If someone gets to high school (to say nothing about graduation) without being able to read, shouldn't teachers have noticed that LONG ago? Why is he passed along to the next grade if he doesn't have the basics?

I'll readily agree testing may not be the best way to solve that problem, but I haven't heard a good solution yet.

If teachers haven't been teaching, what are they doing? Even "teaching to the test" is still teaching. And *IF* (I admit it's a big if) the tests are a valid judge of what the kids know, don't we want teachers teaching that information?

What I mean about teacher's getting to teach is that they will have the FREEDOM to work their own way. There are so many teachers in my family and all of the teachers I've spoken to at my daughter's (private) school stated that even though it pays less, the freedom to actually teach and the smaller classes (which allows more freedom because you aren't bogged down by a 30:1 ratio) is why they chose this school.

Teachers (really good ones) are so creative and can go out of their way to make a student understand something. But when their butt is on the line, it becomes forcing the kids to learn a certain number of rote facts. They are on a timeline and there is really no way to slow down for a class to catch up or speed up when the class really gets it.

ETA: Re: if testing is telling us what kids know.... Teachers used to teach WHY stuff worked the way it did. (At least my teachers and my family members who also spent time teaching me did it that way. It's way more important to know what it means when we say 47x34=1598. Many kids don't know. They just know how to eek out the numbers using the memorized multiplication tables (which is definitely important to know... but it's also important to understand the functioning behind multiplication).

Here's the problem, every child will learn differently. We (and I use that term very generally) are tying to find a way to measure ALL students. Is it realistic to have tests weighted to all individual students?

I don't understand your question, but I agree with the first two sentences 100%. That's why we pulled our daughter out of public school. She learns differently (and much faster) than other children. Her teacher's at her present school understand this and have accommodated for it over the years.

 

[nugov2]

Here's what you are missing: SOME kids are ready for that. Many kids developmentally are not.

I think what you are missing is that almost all kids are ready for that, but sadly the bar is so low that we do not introduce them to things they are ready to learn. I worked very heavily in my dd/ds preschool class that had a very high academic bar, but was also a fun and innovative program. Those kids learned so much and all the kids left it with very solid mathematical/reasoning skills as well as reading/writing skills. It wasn't high tech, it just raised the bar and the kids were up for the challenge. Now this is only a sample of 40 kids(and I will be curious to see how my youngest does when he starts next year), but in the 4 years I worked there those kids all got it. Some more than others, but I can say without a doubt the kids in that program were doing what typical K student was doing in Pre K with no problems. They don't have to be doing rocket science, but if we start introducing these things earlier the kids will be better off.