Have you heard any chitchat in your area about how Common Core is going in everyday life?

[HappyGrace]

Either from teachers, neighbors, etc? Just wondering how it is looking in reality so far!

[Renee in NC]

No problems here.  My kids are all in public school, and it really isn't as big of a deal as it was made out to be.

 

[mytwomonkeys]

it hasn't been fully implemented where i'm at yet.  i received a note from my daughter's middle school telling us about the change & that they would begin weaving it in this year. this is also the last year the school will have FCAT. next year the new common core will be full-on.  i have nothing to compare it too, as this is the first time we've ever been enrolled with a school. so far it all seems okay though. :) i'm interested to see how it actually translates into my daughter's academics for sure.

[*Lulu*]

I'm hearing complaints from teachers and parents specifically using the term CC.

 

The things I'm hear are not necessarily common core though.

 

The math program is a mess, but, as far as I can tell, the problem is a poor choice of textbook. Many math texts are CC aligned; our district just picked a super crappy one.

 

There are a lot of teacher complaints about administrative-type guidlines that are being introduced as part of common core.

 

But........

every specific complaint just sounds like the same old buricratic BS recycled, repackaged, and relabeled from NCLB to CC.

 

 

The most telling bit for me though is, whatever is happening in the district right now, my mother (teaching 30 years), who has hated the idea of me homeschooling her sweet darlings since day one, has begun to make comments that sound almost neutral about our educational choices.

[Dandelion]

Haven't heard a thing, and I have one child in public school (I homeschool DS but DD goes to our local school).  She's only in Kindergarten though, so maybe the impact is greater in the higher grades. 

[VinNY]

Alot of push back in pockets of NY. Not many parents/teachers happy with the way it was rolled out in NY. Testing, data mining issues, state modules not finished or with errors etc. are a concern. The commissioner and our regents are giving forums and hearing from a lot of irate parents about the stress of testing and the new material in the early grades not being developmentally appropriate. 

[momacacia]

Hearing it is a disaster from a private Classical school educator in my area whose grandkids are in a pilot school for CC in our state. The grandkids will evidently be pulled out of ps because of CC. I don't have details other than that.

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

Well, DW is a PS teacher and just turned in 120+ pages of make-work. Her colleague has many low scorers and is planning to HS her own kids if she's fired. Speculation among staff is this is a thinly veiled attempt to gain more support for vouchers.

 

It's early, but NCLB worked so well, what could go wrong?

[Joker]

The only issue we have seen is the jump in writing for history classes. Both of my dds are in ps for middle school and they both struggled with the written portion of their history exams (but aced the end of quarter exam which has no writing - that will change soon). Oldest is a talented writer and receives high praise and marks for her writing in every other class, but the history requirement messed with her a bit. She now knows what is expected and how it is different so I expect her to do well now. I was told by both of their teachers that all students were struggling with it right now because it is new and not what they are used to doing. I'm not upset by it, though, because it pushes them and I feel it will only help them.

 

Math changed about a year ago and they've become comfortable with explaining themselves in written form on exams.

 

I am waiting to see how the exams/state testing changes and that's all that's really left in our district. I assume they will contain a lot more writing but I am curious how that will be graded and by whom.

 

 

 

ETA: The only other thing that changed was late work and exam retakes. I'm not sure if it's due to CC or not, though. There is no more late work. Exams can now only be retaken if they score below a 70% and the highest they can score on the retake is a 70%. Everyone could retake previously and receive full credit for the highest they scored. There is a lot of remedial work that must be done to retake as well.

[redsquirrel]

Locally in my NY town I mostly am hearing complaints. However, one loud complainer is my SIL and she complains about everything under the sun. DH pointed out that knowing her track record, if she is squawking that probably means CC is fantastic, lol. She also lives in a very upscale school district and apparently the school is making the kids do math drills during lunch 3X a week and other things like that so they can justify their high property taxes. She claims her daughter is stressed out.

 

One friend in another district was complaining that her daughter is being asked to fill out tons of reading comprehension worksheets and all they care about is the correct answer, no attention is being paid to it being in a complete sentence or with correct grammar.

 

My school district is happy about having CC as an excuse to switch over to SM.

 

In NY the tests were rejiggered last year and something like 70% of the kids 'failed'. It was even announced before the tests were given to expect massively poor scores. I am so glad my kids aren't in a public school right now.

[Sara R]

My kids are in charter schools using Common Core. The 5th grader is still using Saxon, and the school says they will continue to do so because it's in their charter. So somehow they must be able to make that work with the Common Core requirements. 

 

The high school math transition has been a little rough, and that is my one complaint. But I think it is a transition issue and by the time my 5th grader is there I am confident it will be smoother. The books were missing this year, and last year I noticed a lot of errors in the books. I've read that in the rush to get the books on the market many textbooks weren't edited well.

 

The math curriculum has changed from an Algebra I/Geometry/Algebra II sequence to Secondary Math 1, 2, and 3. Often what is brought home I had never learned, and I am currently taking calculus so I just finished reviewing all that stuff.  I finally figured out that a lot of it was statistics, and then a lot is just taught in a different way. Quadratic functions were introduced with a pretty cool pattern of blocks. There's an emphasis on recursive functions (defining the next term in the function based on the previous term).

 

In literature, they study the classics with Socratic discussions. SWB would approve. I haven't seen the dreaded "informational texts" yet, but I am excited about it on behalf of my Aspie daughter who has trouble with literary analysis.

 

I have been disappointed with inflammatory rhetoric coming out from the local ultraconservative types. It has borne very little resemblance to what my kids are dealing with. 

[Pawz4me]

So far it's been a total non-issue as far as I can tell.  But oldest DS is taking all AP courses, and youngest is in an early college program where half of his current classes are college level.  Maybe that insulates both of them from the changes.

[mom31257]

Dh is a public school teacher, and it's no bigger deal than any set of standards before, which all states had.  These individual examples people keep finding don't make CC the main problem. Individual publishers are going to create curriculum that meet core standards but can have anything that helps meet the learning standard.  Teachers and school districts making poor choices is the problem.  

 

If you heard the example of the kids having to write a paper thinking like a Nazi and using Nazi propoganda to show Jews are evil, the problem was an insensitive teacher or an overworked teacher who threw something out there without taking time to actually read what the assignment was, not CC.  

 

 

[Renee in NC]

I think the issues with it are really implementation, not the standards themselves.  I've read the standards, and they don't seem any different than any other standards.

[snowbeltmom]

I have friends who teach at the elementary level who think the CC expectations for K are not age appropriate. They predict that the state will have to move the cut-off date up.

[Amy in NH]

There were some public Q and A forums/meetings that became so rowdy they canceled future meetings.  Probably the biggest "mistake" or whatever one calls it, was that they tested on CC before even implementing it.  So now it appears the majority of kids in the state are performing well below expectations (even kids in the good districts).  So a lot of parents are angry.  I think they are growing weary of their children being jerked around by the latest buzz word (that schools jump on mostly so they can get funding).

 

On the news 2 days ago they interviewed some parents.  Some said they liked what they saw, but they felt it was unfair how they basically just flicked a switch and from one day to the next and expected completely different things from students.  Those not beginning/starting out with CC are just somehow expected to grasp it over night. 

 

There may be nothing wrong with it, but the way they have so far gone about making changes has been pretty stupid and haphazard it seems. 

 

I would be willing to bet that this group of kids getting tested on CC methods/materials before full implementation are to get a baseline for comparison with post-implementation test groups.  It will take years for the kids in K to go through the curriculum before policymakers can determine if it has been a success based on testing data. 

[Carrie12345]

Most of the complaints I'm hearing are from teachers who are being expected to teach to the new standards without set curricula and with students who don't have the background to meet the new standards. MANY of them are talking about leaving the profession.

[Kim in Appalachia]

I've read that some of the teachers are not happy, but that has to do with the evaluations.  I did read of one problem with CC for this area.  Apparently a district has gone CC, but can not afford new curriculum, so the teachers are expected to make do with what they have.  :huh:

 

It reminds me of when we first moved here.  I met a local teacher who had been teaching for about 5 years, she was so excited, because for the first time they were going to be supplied with curriculum. I thought it was sad.  The teachers, and school, were expected to meet results (this was the No Child Left Behind) but were not supplied with materials.  

[klmama]

I see lots of elementary students  bringing a MIF book along and doing their homework at sibling activities. 

 

 

I've seen this acronym a couple of times this week.  What is it?

[QueenCat]

Teachers here seem fine with it. Just a new set a standards. Those change every few years, with different names. They can still be flexible and use their style to meet the standards.

[Susan in KY]

I train teachers to use a cc math program and what I see pretty consistently is that many elementary teachers themselves have number sense gaps and find it difficult to teach number sense well because of that. By and large, middle school teachers don't have that issue. Also, since cc requires kids to explain their thinking, I see a huge improvement in that department on the part of the kids. Where it is implemented well, it is beautiful to watch in action in the class room. Where it is implemented poorly, it can be disaster. Often, teachers don't have time to do the self-study they need to do to get themselves up to speed to teach it well.

 

On the other hand, I was in a school yesterday that was doing a bang-up job, and I have never been so impressed with a public school. So the news is not all bad.

 

I have no idea about implementation for Common Core in anything other than math.

[GSOchristie]

I have a whole group of friends whose kids are in elementary school at two different charters and they are constantly complaining about CC.  However, I don't think they know what the CC is or how it is affecting their children.  I think it is the new schools with tougher curriculum :).  One specifically was complaining the other day about her second grade son "having to always make 10's" and "why can't he just do it [subtraction/addition] the way he was doing it before".  I don't know that much about CC, but to me that sounds like a curriculum like Singapore versus whatever the math curriculum was at the old school.

[Library Momma]

Things here aren't very different at all.  When Common Core was first mentioned the state put together a document that essentially outlined each and every CC standard.  They then showed the state standards and listed for each item "Here is how our state standard meets the CC standard and here is how it surpasses it."  They have had to switch around the order of how some subjects are addressed and update books but nothing is too different.

 

I do have to say that I think that most parents have no clue what goes on in their child's school and what the children are learning.  I live in a good school district with parents who are "involved" in their kids' education.  I can't tell you how many times I've sat at a soccer game or been at a PTO function and listened to a parent complain about something I personally knew not to be true.  The other day I was listening to a woman complain that that her daughter had never learned fractions and shouldn't they have learned about fractions by now.  Her daughter and my ds are in the same class.  My ds had been addressing fractions since the previous grade.  Furthermore, they just had a math test (part of which addressed fractions) and I even know her daughter's grade on it because she was discussing it with my son! I take everything people complain about with a grain of salt and I think CC now is the new hot topic so people blame things on it. Things that have nothing to do with CC.  As soon as I hear someone call CC a curriculum I tune them out.

 

The factor with CC that might be a problem for our district is the testing.  The standardized tests the students will have to take are on the computer.  There are not enough computers for every student to test at the same time so sort of schedule will have to be put in place.  I know some districts have far less computers.

[Pawz4me]

There were some public Q and A forums/meetings that became so rowdy they canceled future meetings.  Probably the biggest "mistake" or whatever one calls it, was that they tested on CC before even implementing it.  So now it appears the majority of kids in the state are performing well below expectations (even kids in the good districts).  So a lot of parents are angry.  I think they are growing weary of their children being jerked around by the latest buzz word (that schools jump on mostly so they can get funding).

 

On the news 2 days ago they interviewed some parents.  Some said they liked what they saw, but they felt it was unfair how they basically just flicked a switch and from one day to the next and expected completely different things from students.  Those not beginning/starting out with CC are just somehow expected to grasp it over night. 

 

There may be nothing wrong with it, but the way they have so far gone about making changes has been pretty stupid and haphazard it seems. 

 

 

I would be willing to bet that this group of kids getting tested on CC methods/materials before full implementation are to get a baseline for comparison with post-implementation test groups.  It will take years for the kids in K to go through the curriculum before policymakers can determine if it has been a success based on testing data. 

 

 

Right, but as that child or parent of the child who was told they were meeting standards for years and now suddenly they aren't..it's not amusing.  I'd want my kid to get a good education, not be treated as an experiment. 

 

Aggregate scores for last year's end-of-grade/end-of-course testing here were just released yesterday.  I haven't had time yet to review the data.  But the media and the local school systems have been very pro-active in getting the word out that the percentage of students deemed proficient will be lower than in years past because of the new CC standards and that no one, parent or student, should panic about it and that these scores don't really impact any student's status.  No one I've talked to or seen interviewed on TV seems upset about it.  They understand that the goal post has been moved in the middle of the game and that it's not going to be held against students.

[MysteryJen]

The only thing I have heard is from one mom who has a son in 4th grade.  They changed their math curriculum this year to align with CC. For her son, personally, it has been a disaster. They have hours of work as they are trying to get the kids ready for the tests. It is a new way of teaching and for most of the parents a new way of learning. The worst thing is the writing/explaining of math problems.  This has turned her kid from a boy who liked math and felt confident to an insecure and frustrated kid who hates school with a passion.  

 

Hard to get the homework done with that attitude.

 

I do think that CC is necessary and will eventually work. They probably should have just started implementing the early grades first.

[Saddlemomma]

I have 3 friends who are teachers; two are upper elementary and one middle/high school.  All three are now actively trying to get out of teaching due to CC issues and total disgust with administrative interference in their jobs.  One of the upper elementary teachers (30 years + teaching) is definitely leaving after this year.  She has been my evaluator since we started HSing six years ago.

 

The middle/high school teacher is a math teacher and is disgusted with what she is seeing with CC.  According to her, the new standards want written explanations as to why the student arrives at an answer. That, in itself, is not a bad thing. However, the answer doesn't need to be correct, as long as they can explain correctly why they arrived at the answer given.  For example, if a student answers the equation 3X6 = 24 and explains in written form that they used the multiplication principle, that equation will considered correct, even though the product is incorrect. She is absolutely furious, but can't leave her position at this time.  She is planning out her exit within 6 years when she will be financially sound to do so.  Meanwhile, she is so frustrated about what this is going to do to "her" kids that she can't see straight.

[trinchick]

The only thing I have heard is from one mom who has a son in 4th grade.  They changed their math curriculum this year to align with CC. For her son, personally, it has been a disaster. 

 

They changed the math curriculum at my DD's school, too, but just for grades K-2 - I think to avoid the major disruption your friend's child is experiencing.

[Miss Mousie]

DS's school still has not received textbooks for the two subjects in which CC was implemented for this year.  We are now, I think, 11 weeks into the school year. 

 

So much for the study skills I planned to practice with DS using his science text.... Sigh.

 

[LibraryLover]

 Kindergarten CC standards from CA:

 

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/documents/glckindercurriculum.pdf

 

My dc is in high school, in an IB program, but what I have noticed most is that there is writing in every single subject, including math, and dc's art class.  I think that is fantastic. What I have seen (since Sept. lol)  I like.

 

 

[LibraryLover]

I have 3 friends who are teachers; two are upper elementary and one middle/high school.  All three are now actively trying to get out of teaching due to CC issues and total disgust with administrative interference in their jobs.  One of the upper elementary teachers (30 years + teaching) is definitely leaving after this year.  She has been my evaluator since we started HSing six years ago.

 

The middle/high school teacher is a math teacher and is disgusted with what she is seeing with CC.  According to her, the new standards want written explanations as to why the student arrives at an answer. That, in itself, is not a bad thing. However, the answer doesn't need to be correct, as long as they can explain correctly why they arrived at the answer given.  For example, if a student answers the equation 3X6 = 24 and explains in written form that they used the multiplication principle, that equation will considered correct, even though the product is incorrect. She is absolutely furious, but can't leave her position at this time.  She is planning out her exit within 6 years when she will be financially sound to do so.  Meanwhile, she is so frustrated about what this is going to do to "her" kids that she can't see straight.

 

That is not true for my dc's math class. If it's wrong, it's wrong.  I guess implementation is going to vary.

 

Let's hope that your friend will be able to explain why it is wrong, even as it is given credit.

[momma2three]

I have 3 friends who are teachers; two are upper elementary and one middle/high school.  All three are now actively trying to get out of teaching due to CC issues and total disgust with administrative interference in their jobs.  One of the upper elementary teachers (30 years + teaching) is definitely leaving after this year.  She has been my evaluator since we started HSing six years ago.

 

The middle/high school teacher is a math teacher and is disgusted with what she is seeing with CC.  According to her, the new standards want written explanations as to why the student arrives at an answer. That, in itself, is not a bad thing. However, the answer doesn't need to be correct, as long as they can explain correctly why they arrived at the answer given.  For example, if a student answers the equation 3X6 = 24 and explains in written form that they used the multiplication principle, that equation will considered correct, even though the product is incorrect. She is absolutely furious, but can't leave her position at this time.  She is planning out her exit within 6 years when she will be financially sound to do so.  Meanwhile, she is so frustrated about what this is going to do to "her" kids that she can't see straight.

 

LOL, that's exactly the thing people used to complain about "new math" when I was a kid. 

[mom2scouts]

I'm hearing some talk about it and most of it is quite negative.  My new neighbor is a high school teacher and was intrigued when he found I that I homeschool.  He told me that he hates the way his school is implementing CC.  He said he is allowed to choose from a list of books and then the lesson plans are dictated to him.  He feels like a robot could do his job and that he gets no say.  Another teacher in another district told me almost exactly the same thing.  She said that teachers were losing all ability to innovate or design their own lessons.  She also felt that the goal was to get every student to mediocrity and there were no allowances for children who are gifted or learn differently.  Other parents are saying that all academic or curriculum complaints to teachers, administrators, and school boards are being met with with "it's part of Common Core so we can't do anything about it".  I was recently contacted by a friend who wanted information for someone she knows who wants to homeschool after seeing the first several CC aligned assignments.  She took five children out of the public school in the middle of the week.  I'm not sure exactly what she's concerned about.  Another woman I've known for years has been teaching preschool for 30 years.  She thinks the early education CC requirements are so developmentally inappropriate that many children are going to be stressed and unsuccessful.  Then there are the complaints I hear every single week in the waiting room of the dance studio about math and reading instruction.

 

I didn't really have any opinion about CC until the past month when I started talking to people about its implementation.  It encouraged me to go online and read everything I could find, good or bad, about it and I'm starting to have my doubts about it being successful.  It seems to be the lastest educational fad and will probably be replaced with something else in a few years.

 

[Matryoshka]

I don't know that anything's changed much here.  I haven't heard anything - still using the same old texts (or none at all - dds don't have any textbook for science the second year in a row), reading lists for English haven't changed.  I'm not even 100% sure it's fully implemented, though, as the kids have still been taking the MCAS, which is the old NCLB test.  I know it's been said often here that our old state standards already exceeded CC anyway, though.  I do know our state agreed to adopt CC a while ago - is there an implementation deadline?  Are they required to make new tests if the old ones already exceeded CC standards?

 

 

[LibraryLover]

Posted the link to CC Kindy.