COMMON CORE

THIS IS SO SCARY ID LIKE YOUR THOUGHTS AS WELL

All but four states have adopted the complete Common Core Standards. Those four states—Texas, Virginia, Alaska, and Nebraska—have been slow to warm to the uniform, but divisive, national standards for public school testing. Minnesota chose to adopt only the reading standards and declined the math standards. Meanwhile, several other states, according to the Associated Press, are pushing back against the standards after formally adopting them, and heated politics are now seeping into the controversy. Edward Fierros, a Villanova education professor, told TakePart that the standards have both “ardent supporters and loud critics.” He said, “Many educational experts agree that the CCSS in and of themselves will have a limited impact on improving student learning outcomes. However, states that fail to adopt CCSS or similar lose their eligibility for federal Race to the Top funds or NCLB waivers. States are required to adopt college and career-ready standards, and the CCSS are one way to demonstrate this goal. What is unclear is if states lose their eligibility for federal Race to the Top funds or NCLB waivers if they have already received such funding or been granted an NCLB waiver.” Earlier this month, Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence suspended his state’s adoption of the Common Core. He signed the Common Core “Pause” bill into law, which stops the implementation of the standards until state agencies, teachers, and taxpayers better understand what is at stake. “I have long believed that education is a state and local function and we must always work to ensure that our students are being taught to the highest academic standards and that our curriculum is developed by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers,” Pence said at the time. In Louisiana last week, the state Senate voted against a bill to block implementation of the standards, but only after a roaring debate about the standards and how they are “unduly influenced by the intervention of the federal government.” For now, the standards will go forth in Louisiana. Similar bills to stop the standards failed earlier this year in Kansas, Missouri, Alabama, and South Carolina. More bills are expected to pop up in legislatures in 2014. Common Core: What It Means for American Education Common Core: Will Testing Be Its Fatal Flaw? Common Core: What’s Worrying Critics Supporters of the standards say they are better than the mixed bag of educational goals that states previously had without any synergy. Opponents, however, have varied reasons why they are against the standards. The Tea Party focuses on the federal control regarding the standards, and Progressives also have issues with them because they could emphasize more standardized testing. Both groups are against the corporate influence around the standards, and some educators feel they didn’t have enough influence in shaping the Common Core. In New York City, principals sent a letter to New York Education Commissioner John King this month expressing concern over the standards and the testing that accompanies them. They state that the testing doesn’t align with the standards, thus creating a false sense of accuracy about what students are actually learning. “For these reasons, we would like to engage in a constructive dialogue with you and your team to help ensure that moving forward our New York State Exams are true and fair assessments of the Common Core Standards,” they wrote. States that have refused to adopt the Common Core are relying on their own standards and are adamant about keeping CCSS out of the classroom. Earlier this month, the Texas House of Representatives voted 140-2 to pass language prohibiting Texas from participating in the standards. Texas, however, has never adopted the standards and likely will not. As Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has said more than once, “The academic standards of Texas are not for sale.” Professor Fierros said that there’s a legitimate question “about whether federal and state budgets will be able to provide the professional support necessary to make the Common Core work for students.” Mark Naison, a professor at Fordham University and an expert on the Common Core movement, told TakePart that opposition is growing, and more states like Texas may very well reverse their adoption of the standards. “Because Common Core Standards are being imposed without trial implementation to test their effectiveness, or even see what they mean ‘on they ground’ in actual schools and school districts, they are looking more and more like a full-court press from the government and large corporations overriding the long-standing tradition of local control over public schools,” he said. “What makes this even more suspect is that test companies like Pearson stand to make huge profits from their implementation. Given this, we can expect opposition to the standards to grow, not diminish in coming years.”

Here are my thoughts on it: A thread I did back around August 4. I think the title speaks for itself.

Common Core: Indoctrination Disguised as Education

reply to post by Ex_CT2


well im new here so i wouldn't know about old threads sorry

Paragraphs, use them.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin



like i said im new still trying to figure things out but thank you any ways

Ignore those two. It's your first thread, you'll catch on.

calstorm
Ignore those two. It's your first thread, you'll catch on.

THANK YOU SO MUCH I WAS TOLD TO FIND A SUBJECT I LIKE AND POST ABOUT IT I DIDN'T KNOW I WOULD BE STEPPING
ON TOES OR THROWING MYSELF OUT THERE JUST FOR TALK I REALLY WANT TO HEAR OPINIONS ON THIS MATTER

reply to post by LadyLurker


I sent you a U2U.

As I said in my U2U, my husband is a teacher but I really know very little about it. I'll see if i can get him to get on ATS and give his thoughts.

LadyLurker
reply to post by Ex_CT2

 

well im new here so i wouldn't know about old threads sorry

I intended no criticism whatsoever. I hate to be "that guy" ("already a thread here, here, here, here, here, and here"). My only intention was to shed more light on a very important subject and a pet peeve of mine.

Please continue. I'll follow along; and if I have further comments I will contribute....

(Edit: I starred and flagged this thread. The more education on this the better.)

reply to post by LadyLurker


Sorry OP i did not notice that you were so new,

a few pointers for your future threads.

Firstly just so you meet the T&C's you cannot quote a entire article like that, i think usually about 3 paragraphs is ok but just a big quote of the whole thing is against T&C's and you also have to provide a link back to the original source or you are open to plagiarism. Also any time you post a quote the paragraphs are not included so you need to insert them yourself.

A few other things,

a title with all caps is generally frowned upon.

Your lack of input into the opening post is also frowned upon, you are expected to provide much more than a simple line of comment on your chosen topic.

reply to post by LadyLurker


In 1980 I went out and bought "The Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler. Having read "Future Shock" I was eager to read his new book on his views of the future. Though I find that most of the information from that book(as well as most others) has mellowed into the gel of vague impressions, it was his point blank interpretation of our public school ( and private I suppose) systems and what they were really teaching children that turned me around on my appreciation of schooling in general.

The idea that prior to the industrial revolution, there was little need for most children to go for schooling. They received what education they needed from their farms and communities. But with the coming of the industrial revolution, the industrialists that ran the manufacturing plants and such, were having trouble recruiting people to work in the industrial setting.

In order for these industrial plants to produce to capacity, what was needed was employees who would not only already be trained to go to work EVERY DAY, but would also be trained to begin work at the sound of a buzzer, (opening school bell) stop work for bathroom break(recess) go back to work at the buzzer until lunch with another buzzer( go to school cafeteria) back to work at the buzzer and work through the afternoon until the final buzzer( schools out).

This analogy also carried over to the unquestioning obedience to the teacher(foreman or supervisor) an ability to focus on specific repetitive tasks with little contextual meaning( assembly line routine)

From that time on, I have watched program after program come and go, all of which were oriented to improving and streamlining this agenda.

What I wonder about your rant is that you say it is scary. Yet you do not point out exactly what it is about this article that you find frightening. Is it the Core program itself or is it the increasing resistance to it?

calstorm
reply to post by LadyLurker

 

I sent you a U2U.

As I said in my U2U, my husband is a teacher but I really know very little about it. I'll see if i can get him to get on ATS and give his thoughts.

thank you so much

calstorm
reply to post by LadyLurker

 

I sent you a U2U.

As I said in my U2U, my husband is a teacher but I really know very little about it. I'll see if i can get him to get on ATS and give his thoughts.

i sent u2u as well thank you

Homeschooling! Even if it means each parent working different shifts or teaming up with other local parents to get all the subjects covered. A computer savvy kid hardly needs help learning things now anyways. Research the Khan Academy, and MIT and I believe Harvard have many first year courses offered on line for free. Everything you need is at your local library.

I'm not sure why we still have public schools, I don't know about other people but I learned far faster on my own than what the school could feed me. What a freekin' waste of time it was. All it did was make me into a little pissant anarchist, in the end what with their stupid Pledges and everything...

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


Much of this can be laid directly at the feet of the Rockefeller Foundations.

The Leipzig Connection: Sabotage of the US Educational System

...The indigenous American educational system was deeply rooted in the beliefs and practices of the Puritan Fathers, the Quakers, the early American patriots and philosophers. Jefferson had maintained that in order to preserve liberty in the new nation, it was essential that its citizenry be educated, whatever their income. Throughout the country, schools were established almost immediately after the colonization of new areas. Fine school systems were established by the Quakers in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The free school movement in New York, under the aegis of DeWitt Clinton and Horace Mann, was flourishing. A large number of "normal schools" (so-called due to their role in setting the norms and standards of education) turned out thousands of well-trained teachers each year. Major universities had been established early in the country's history, and yearly graduated intensely literate and well-educated people who were to be the leaders of our nation.

Educational results far exceeded those of modern schools. One has only to read old debates in the Congressional Record or scan the books published in the 1800's to realize that our ancestors of a century ago commanded a use of the language far superior to our own. Students learned how to read not comic books, but the essays of Burke, Webster, Lincoln, Horace, Cicero. Their difficulties with grammar were overcome long before they graduated from school, and any review of a typical elementary school arithmetic textbook printed before 1910 shows dramatically that students were learning mathematical skills that few of our current high school graduates know anything about. The high school graduate of 1900 was an educated person, fluent in his language, history, and culture, possessing the skills he needed in order to succeed.

[...]

The new organization, after an initial donation by Rockefeller, Sr. of over $1 million, quickly absorbed the major existing philanthropic groups working in the South - the Slater and Peabody Funds. The General Education Board first assisted Robert Ogden's Southern Education Board, established several years earlier, then broadened its horizons to include other aspects of education.The real motivation behind the General Education Board, however, was perhaps best expressed in the Board's Occasional Letter No. 1, written by Gates:

In our dreams, we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning, or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have an ample supply.

The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shops and on the farm.

Comment/Analysis
The obvious elitist and racist approach (common to all eugenic and genetic theories of science and psychology) rears it's ugly head in the above quote from the Board's Occasional Letter No. 1, written by Gates. The aim at "social control" was clear and no attempt made to conceal it. They have since modified their approach in public dissemination and hide this viewpoint. The aim of "education" was not intellectual or to make someone the best they could be. The aim is social manipulation and control. That has continued to be the aim of "public education".

Traditional financial conspiracy theories place John D. Rockefeller as a primary scoundrel. It seems while he may have been an intensely greedy and money-hunger fellow, the actual plans and actions to manipulate entire societies were initiated by others who placed themselves close to the Rockefeller holdings which enabled them to use these funds for their own specific interests....

signalfire
Homeschooling! Even if it means each parent working different shifts or teaming up with other local parents to get all the subjects covered. A computer savvy kid hardly needs help learning things now anyways. Research the Khan Academy, and MIT and I believe Harvard have many first year courses offered on line for free. Everything you need is at your local library.

I'm not sure why we still have public schools, I don't know about other people but I learned far faster on my own than what the school could feed me. What a freekin' waste of time it was. All it did was make me into a little pissant anarchist, in the end

what with their stupid Pledges and everything...

I agree, the money spent is significant and not justified.

Leave the education decision to the individual taxpayer.

reply to post by signalfire

I guess i should think about home schooling this way i know what my children are being taught. thank you for your post

reply to post by greencmp



I agree with you as well we spend so much money to buy school supplies and on top of all that we still have to buy everything needed for all their projects they spen all their grant money on new vehicles and things that benefits them as people not as teachers and staff were dose all the things we buy at the beginning of the year go and throughout. the year

my dearest wife.

you already know my stance on this topic, but i will share it with the interwebs anyway. my biggest problem (and there are many) with CC is the deliberate veil that is placed between the parents of the student, and the content itself.

this echos ol' Al Gore's approach to the global warming debate by going to elementary schools and preaching to students that they know more than their parents etc...

it walks all over the purpose of the Parent-Teacher-Association bridge. Actually, it completely burns the bridge to the ground.

the obvious fallacy of needing specialized representatives to explain the content to parents, instead of the teachers themselves, is that the content in its original form being delivered to the student, would possibly (and probably) be rejected by the parent. this tactic is called subterfuge

subterfuge is not what i and other parents pay for in a public school.

darling, i will help you elaborate on your position...what about common core do you find to be "Scary"?

in my case, the veil i described creates a pathway to indoctrination as others have pointed out. the teacher can say whatever he/she wants in the classroom without fear of reprisal. the parent has no avenue of recourse, and the only means of awareness for the parent is through the student. what if the student is instructed, persuaded, or intimidated into not making their parent aware of what is being taught? this effectively puts control of the students education into the hands of the teacher with the final arbiter being the student. the parent thus becomes a mere unwitting sponsor to the whole charade and nothing more.

some states are fighting it. some are realizing what they have signed on to and are halting all current initiatives until further research can be conducted. others however are ignorantly moving forward with it and are just happy to have their extra federal funds for the new softball field, gymnasium, library, etc...

i for one will make a minor attempt at awareness on the parental level, but if this fails our children will be home schooled or privatized.

but of course you already knew that.

ok well its too late to edit my OP, but i will elaborate on what exactly i find to be most scary. I have heard that the teachers are forced to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement with the school, stating that they will not even ATTEMPT to explain the curriculum to the parents. This, coupled with what really sounds like a national curriculum, potentially puts even the teacher in a tight spot. What if the teacher opposes what he or she is expected to be teaching?

it seems like Commoncore establishes a direct connection between the student and the chosen curriculum, with the teacher's being the tool, and the parents being well...nobody?

it also lowers standards in my opinion. it seems to shoot for a lower target if you will.... it looks like the math portion all but does away with calculus, and only the chosen few will make it to trigonometry. I worry for when the history and science portions are rolled out, for i will have no way of knowing if they have skewed it from how they have been taught previously.

I read something about subtle word changing in AP history classes in a Texas schoolbook changing the wording of the constitution.... whats next? rewriting physics?

if anything ive been told is nothing more than rumor, please correct me. I genuinely want to know what all of this entails.