Did the Common core encourage your HSing?

[displace]

I'm looking more closely at educational practices and standards. I knew the common core for young kids was not appropriate, but I was a little surprised the people drafting it had no experts consulting for K-3 grades. Makes me really question why I haven't been questioning things sooner. It's just piling up why a HSing option may be more beneficial. Another mom today was discussing redshirting to allow her child to mature. I feel that schools should be appropriate places of education, not that parents should have to place kids in other classes. IDK. It just seems like a big cluster.

[MistiDelaney]

No, it had no effect on my decision since we planned to homeschool from the beginning.

 

I think the basic ideas of the Core Curriculum are good and we are using them ourselves. 

 

I do not, however, have any faith at all in the Powers That Be implementing them in a way that makes any sense - and the test, test, test and punish the teacher methods are not being replaced, they are being supplemented with more stuff that will distract the teachers and students from actual education.  *sigh*

[Desert Strawberry]

We were homeschooling before Common Core. 

 

NCLB may have been an influence. High stakes testing does not appeal to me at all. But my child was a toddler at that time, so I'm not sure how much things were different before. 
 

Mainly I homeschool because I believe an individualized, family-centered education is ideal, and it's what I have always wanted to do. Schools can do whatever they want. 

[BusyMom5]

I just pulled of my children from PS, and yes, CC did play a role.  It was not the sole reason, but it was a contributing factor.  The way my PS implemented CC is just awful, and the ripple effect was not good for high-testing students.  The better students were left, while the teachers and staff concentrated on helping the lower students get to 'basic' level. 

[Momof3littles]

No, we were HSing prior to the recent CC situation, but yes, standards, NCLB, high stakes testing, etc. did influence our decision to a degree. I had a friend who was a talented teacher, and she was told she could no longer give science essay tests and had to switch to multiple choice scan tron only because it was necessary as prep for standardized tests.  That type of thing made me start thinking about what I wanted for my kids.  I didn't want to have to afterschool extensively, and suspected I would not be pleased with the quality of education my kids would receive in PS.  I want to be able to customize their education, free up time for play and exploration, etc. I want to give them the freedom to try things and fail  without fear of penalties.  I don't want our lives loaded up with homework in the early years when it is unnecessary and an obstacle to family time, creativity, exploration, and time outdoors, which are things that do matter to me.  I want to be able to accelerate as needed, slow down as necessary, and tweak what materials we use to their learning style, interests, etc. 

[lazzaroni]

Oh my goodness "YES"!!!  I agree in theory with most of Common Core except the exclusion of great literature in favor of questionable nonfiction and "modern" literature that seems determined to expose my 9 YO to issues he is not interested in and does not understand anyway.  (Sorry but I do not understand the need to have him read The Giver at 9 years old.)  We tried PS from K to 3rd grade.   My kid made excellent grades, but he was terribly unhappy and STRESSED.  So here we are in our first year of home schooling and loving it so far!  I used and will continue to use Common Core in designing my own curriculum.  In our area, implementation of CC has not worked for us.  Math, for example, was a disaster. Although my son made good grades, he went from loving math to absolutely hating it and thinking he was "stupid" because he didn't do it "fast" enough for the bureaucrats.  I could go on for pages with concrete examples but math was the worst.  So, yes, in order to implement Common Core in a way that does not cause unnecessary emotional and education harm to my child, we decided to home school.

[JustEm]

Not at all. my own experiences with both public school and private school is what made me choose homeschooling. I was an advanced student who was not given any challenge in school. I was bored out of my mind throughout my entire time in school and didn't want that for my children. My education was stifled so much that I had to teach myself to love learning again as a young adult. I want my children to love learning and not feel neglected by their educator because they are ahead of others or behind others.

 

The Mount of testing that is required is also quite ridiculous and even if their was a school that i felt could properly educate my kids I wouldn't enroll them if it meant state testing had to waste precious learning to e

[My3girls]

I'm generally opposed to the fedral government passing down curriculum standards.  "The hand the rocks the cradle contrls the world" and all.  I don't think the government should have that much control over the next generation.  As far as the standards themselves, I have no issue with most of them.  I think they start too young, test too much, and don't include enough classic literature but other than that they are ok.  The implementation is horrible, though.  My kids were stressed!!  One of them really struggled to keep up which led to severe self esteem issues and depression.  Plus some of the ideas they use the standards to pass down like anti-patriotism, inappropriate sex-ed, using emotions and feelings  to persuade instead of facts and information, etc... I have serious issue with.

 

We brought our kids home not because of the common core in and of itself, but because of the the stress, my middle daughter's struggles, and because of teaching to the test.  So many things were being left out of their education in favor of teaching them which bubble to fill in.

[AK_Mom4]

None at all.

And I don't expect Common Core to impact the 5 years I have left, either.

[SeaConquest]

Not at all. Most of the curricula we use are CC aligned anyway.

[Farrar]

Just for clarity's sake... I wasn't sure until I clicked which "core" curricula the OP meant. So...

 

Core Knowledge = a content based set of standards about history, science, grammar, vocabulary, etc. for students, what's in the What Your ___th Grader Needs to Know books

 

Common Core = the current set of skill based standards for math, reading, and writing being implemented in most schools in the US

[KarenNC]

No, the biggest influences on us when we started were the resegregation of elementary schools in our area after the end of court-mandating busing and that I had a kid who was reading well ahead of kindergarten level and did not suffer boredom gracefully. We continued because it fit our lifestyle well, even after we moved into a very good school district. 

 

I've actually chosen to have her do a Common Core 9th grade English class through our local school system and I'm very pleased with the quality of it, as is my English lit major husband. She's reading quite a bit of good quality literature along with some speeches and essays related to the literature. Her reading list for the class includes:

6 short stories, and an essay accompanying each (essays on different topics--origin of Gothic literature, magical realism, theme, symbols and character, etc)

6 poems along with essays on meter, form, etc

myth of Daedalus and Icarus and essay on how artists build on source material

a novella (Kafka's "Metamorphosis") and essays on lit in translation, metaphor, background material on author, etc

Macbeth, with essays on Shakespeare's language, the supernatural in Shakespeare, the tragic hero

essays on logical fallacies, analyzing rhetoric, bias and reasoning, persuasion, and then analyzing several other essays for those elements

2 speeches on women's rights, 2 on civil rights, 2 on human rights

one novel, "War of the Worlds," with essays on invasion literature, hoaxes, historical context

 

I can't speak to Common Core in younger grades or in math (we are happy with Saxon), but I have no complaints with it at this point for this class. Next year will be focused more on non-fiction reading, but still includes fiction from Shakespeare and others.

 

[Jackie]

Not at all. Some of the resources we use are CC-aligned and some are not; it simply has no influence on me.

 

A one-size-fits-all-with-just-a-smidge-of-leeway educational system is precisely why we chose homeschooling. But that's been the way the educational system has been set up since long before CC.

[AimeeM]

I despise Common Core...

but we homeschooled years before I had even heard of it, so no, it did not impact my decision to homeschool. 

Now, the decision by the local Catholic schools to implement it HAS meant that our long term goals and plans are changing.

[displace]

Interesting for me to see all these responses. Yes, I was referring to the common core curriculum. I was theoretically supportive until I started to understand what was happening for the young kids. I thought the common core for older students was made first, then one was implemented for the youngest.

[Mandylubug]

No

[Farrar]

I'll add...

 

I dislike greatly nearly everything I've seen about Common Core's implementation in schools, its testing in schools, its rigidity, the method through which it was created, and the assumptions about education that it holds.

 

I feel the standards themselves are mostly okay. Too much, too fast in the early grades, too little in middle school. I'll happily use CC aligned resource if it's the right one for us.

 

We started homeschooling before CC. It wouldn't be our tipping point now. There would be so many other potential tipping points that it would barely rate. Just another reason among so, so many.

[regentrude]

No. I pulled my kids out of school because they did not learn enough.

[Crimson Wife]

I didn't like the effect of state standards and NCLB on government-run schools and CCSS is going even further in the wrong direction.

 

Our district went from having 4 options for 8th grade math (geometry for the accelerated track, algebra 1 for standard college prep, "algebra readiness" aka pre-algebra, and remedial) to having only "Math 8". Math 8 is the new name for the previous pre-algebra course and now all students have to take it. The special ed teachers are up in arms because many SPED-classified students need the remedial course, which is no longer offered. Many parents are upset because algebra 1 in 9th means that students will not get to calculus by 12th unless they double up on math one year (which means less room for electives).

[Kathie in VA]

I started homeschooling before common core. I don't like it. We might move and dh was considering public school once there but that location is following common core, so we both consider that no longer an option for us.

[catz]

No.  We've been homeschooling longer than CC has been around.  I will say all the math posts/memes I've seen lately labelled common core were things that were certainly around before CC. I have a math degree and know quite a bit about math education and curriculum.  I don't think one size fits all is the right way to teach it. 

 

What led to us homeschooling was the feeling that "no child gets ahead". 

[sbgrace]

I originally started homeschooling because I'm a former public school teacher and knew that one of mine just wouldn't succeed in a classroom setting. This was before common core, so it had no influence on my decision.

 

But schools have been expecting too much of the wrong thing from young kids, especially boys, for a long time now. That was an indirect portion of my decision back then. 

[Reefgazer]

CC didn't influence my decision to homeschool, but it has reinforced the decision.  I had several academic reasons for deciding to homeschool, but the main reasons were a lack of academic rigor in general and that schools had turned into test-prep factories with actual academics being replaced by mindless and low-level test prep.  I think the test prep factor is a result of NCLB and punishing teachers for student failures.  I also think this will be exacerbated by CC, since the stakes appear to be much higher and the enforcement mechanisms more inflexible.

[Elisabet1]

I have home schooled for way longer than that. 

 

Originally, when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's, I was a fast learner and wanted to learn. We moved from a district where everyone learned at their own pace, in 1979, to one where the classes were done like today. Everyone had to read the exact same thing, on the same day, and do the exact same thing, regardless. I hated it! I was desperate to work ahead and learn. I was miserable. I decided then that I wanted to home school because I never wanted to hold my children back like that. Years later, when I had children, I justified that the schools were fine and did not concern myself with it. Then, I pulled my children over bullies and abusive staff. At that time, I realized how little they were doing and how I could, in a very small amount of time, do so much more and much higher quality. Even when I unschooled for a year, my children still learned and did more than what they ever would have in the public school.

 

The public schools are just a bunch of politics, using our children as pawns. I do not want my children to be play pieces in that sick game. My children are worth way more to me than that. I will teach my children myself. And the public schools can continue their little game, at the expensive of the children, without my children being wrapped up in it.

 

Common Core is just another part of that political game.

[Erin]

And in case anyone missed it, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS CORE CURRICULUM!

(not that this annoys me or anything.   ;) )

 

As mentioned above, Common Core is nothing more than a framework of standards that schools are supposed to be hitting at certain ages.   

Technically, states/districts are allowed to implement them the same as they always have, since most states have had some sort of standards framework for 20 or 30 years…  Or, they can opt out entirely.  Nebraska, for example, was a state that never signed on to CC in the first place.

The tricky wicket isn't so much the standards, but rather the testing of success at each level, as well as what is done with those test results.

 

Also, there are dozens (hundreds?) of "curriculum" providers who will be CC compliant.  BUT IT WON'T AFFECT HOMESCHOOLERS, EVEN IF IT'S A SERIES WE'VE ALWAYS USED.  No more so than Clinton's Goals 2000 did, or Bush's No Child Left Behind… (though because of the high-stakes testing implemented, NCLB was probably the most disastrous piece in the last 20 years.  If people want to get worked up about this, get rid of that little gem)

As homeschoolers, we set our own standards and find our own methods of testing our success.

 

Common Core is just the current political pawn that's being used to drive the educational system batty and whip a political base (in this case, Republicans) into a frenzy.  

[Erin]

PS:  I see I forgot to answer the original question.  
I started homeschooling under No Child Left Behind, because I had a kid who was being left behind.  ;)

[MysteryJen]

The Common Core will only come into play for homeschoolers as it affects testing, especially the SAT and ACT. So in that sense, it is important to know what it is, how it is being implemented and how the tests are going to align with it.

 

The SAT is rolling out a new version, supposedly aligned with the Common Core, in 2016. But we have no idea what that really means right now.

[HS Mom in NC]

No. I started homeschooling in 2000.  I'm a  philosophical homeschooler so what is happening in ps or other institutional educational settings isn't relevant to my motivations as homeschooler.  I only care about whether or not my tax dollars that go to public education are being used as effectively and efficiently for the students using them.

[OneStepAtATime]

The Common Core will only come into play for homeschoolers as it affects testing, especially the SAT and ACT. So in that sense, it is important to know what it is, how it is being implemented and how the tests are going to align with it.

 

The SAT is rolling out a new version, supposedly aligned with the Common Core, in 2016. But we have no idea what that really means right now.

:iagree:

 

No, common core did not encourage me to HS.  Struggling kids who did not function well in a standard classroom setting (dyslexia, dysgraphia) caused us to HS.  

 

BUT, Common Core will affect some things for us even though we homeschool.  As mentioned above, SAT/ACT are affected as well as some curriculums commonly used by HSs.  So we didn't start homeschooling because of Common Core but we will be affected by Common Core in some ways, whether we want to be affected or not.

[Erin]

Not really.

Most of the standards are really nothing new. For that matter, most of the *educated* complaints aren't so much about the standards themselves but rather the timeline of their implementation and the assessments.

 

Neither of these things really have much to do with college-level admission tests...

[displace]

And in case anyone missed it, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS CORE CURRICULUM!

(not that this annoys me or anything. ;) )

 

As mentioned above, Common Core is nothing more than a framework of standards that schools are supposed to be hitting at certain ages.

Technically, states/districts are allowed to implement them the same as they always have, since most states have had some sort of standards framework for 20 or 30 years… Or, they can opt out entirely. Nebraska, for example, was a state that never signed on to CC in the first place.

The tricky wicket isn't so much the standards, but rather the testing of success at each level, as well as what is done with those test results.

 

Also, there are dozens (hundreds?) of "curriculum" providers who will be CC compliant. BUT IT WON'T AFFECT HOMESCHOOLERS, EVEN IF IT'S A SERIES WE'VE ALWAYS USED. No more so than Clinton's Goals 2000 did, or Bush's No Child Left Behind… (though because of the high-stakes testing implemented, NCLB was probably the most disastrous piece in the last 20 years. If people want to get worked up about this, get rid of that little gem)

As homeschoolers, we set our own standards and find our own methods of testing our success.

 

Common Core is just the current political pawn that's being used to drive the educational system batty and whip a political base (in this case, Republicans) into a frenzy.

Yes, sorry. I should have said core standards or common core. Curriculum is the wrong word. I apologize for spreading inaccurate information. It's a phrase I hear so often and repeat though it's not correct. I'm going to try to phrase it properly :)

[chepyl]

No. I homeschool because it was what was best for my kids. My state pulled out of CC, so it would not have been an issue right now.

[Penguin]

Not at all. We live overseas :)

[Crimson Wife]

  For that matter, most of the *educated* complaints aren't so much about the standards themselves but rather the timeline of their implementation and the assessments.

 

CCSS is less rigorous than the old CA state math standards, and that is one reason why Dr. James Milgram, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Stanford, who sat on the committee to develop them, voted against them: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/how-common-core-and-the-new-sat-lower-college-standards-in-the-u-s/

[EKS]

We started homeschooling in 2003, long before the Common Core came into being.  Common Core has not changed what we do nor will it.

 

However, I've read through the standards and think they are generally pretty good.  I absolutely think that we need one set of standards nationwide. I think the implementation of the standards has been a horror show.  

[8filltheheart]

I've been homeschooling since 1994. Back then, there were 5 homeschooling families in my entire county. I didn't have internet. I was clueless what other homeschoolers were doing in their homes. I simply wanted to teach my kids, so I taught. ;) I didn't compare myself to anyone or any system. I strictly focused on my kids and what they were individually capable of doing and focused our academics around developing their skills and fueling their interests.

 

My standards are why we homeschool. My goals and objectives for my kids are for them to achieve individually their highest possible level of academic studies. My goals have been and continue to be superior to what is found in the ps system. It is precisely bc their educations are tailored to their abilities and goals that their educations are superior to the ps system. I don't teach to norms. I teach my children. Not one of my kids has had an education that has resembled a siblings', bc none of them have similar abilities and goals.

[myfunnybunch]

We've been homeschooling for many years, well before Common Core.

 

Red-shirting has been around since before Common Core too, especially for boys, who sometimes need time for their social and fine motor skills to mature in order to be ready for the increasing academic demands of kindergarten. If I did have kindergarteners now, homeschooling would be appealing because of the push to read and write beyond what I believe is developmentally appropriate for many or even most children that age. (And I had early readers and writers.) No child should feel like an academic failure right out of the chute because they can't read in kindergarten, but that has more to do with the breakdown of our education system in general than it does with Common Core.

 

A  national set of common standards for education is not bad idea. What is a bad idea is deciding to do it, then rolling it out willy-nilly and leaving the schools at the mercy of the curriculum companies' rush to get "new" curricula out the door asap  without proper development and review. We'd have been way better off with a solid implementation plan, with a development and curriculum review phase, between the decision to implement a national set of standards and the actual implementation. The implementation and planning issues are also, imo, symptoms of the larger systemic problem.

 

Cat

[NittanyJen]

We have been homeschooling since before the Common Core, and no, it has not affected our homeschooling.  We don't shy away or purposely adopt it; we just do what is right for our kids.

 

I will say that the core math standards seem to be really excellent though, and are basically modeled on what Singapore Math has always done-- they are very well time-tested and when correctly implemented, superb.  I think the core writing standards are not age-appropriate at least in the younger grades; there is no need for young elementary kids who are still mastering the physical aspect of writing, sounding out grammar and spelling, and learning to read to worry about writing a persuasive writing piece.

 

Locally we still have state standards that seem to encourage teaching history in a very nonsensically patchwork and piecemeal fashion; I just encountered a second-grade teacher the other day who informed me cheerfully that it didn't bother her that SHE had no idea how to find Asia on a map (or that Russia was largely in Asia) because after all, why would a second grader ever need to know where Asia was?  <head thump>

 

Ah yeah, we'll stick with homeschooling and just ignore the standards, be they local or national.  We got this.

 

But if we ever get the opportunity to weigh in on how we've been successful, we'll be happy to consult with the schools on what we have found works, and what kids really can do when approached logically.

 

 

[Erin]

CCSS is less rigorous than the old CA state math standards, and that is one reason why Dr. James Milgram, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Stanford, who sat on the committee to develop them, voted against them: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/how-common-core-and-the-new-sat-lower-college-standards-in-the-u-s/

 

Yes, and schools are STILL allowed to require higher standards than CC.

 

But that article actually supports my point.  

It says the SAT will test lower Algebra II standards and that more students will enter college with sub-par math skills.  This means colleges will then have to offer more remediation courses to get those students up to level for higher math classes. 

 

OTOH, if you are a student coming out of a somewhat rigorous school/homeschool, you're already ahead of your peers.  (But personally, I would just avoid the whole SAT issue and take the ACT instead.  It doesn't change every few years like the SAT does!)

[VeritasMama]

Common Core doesn't bother me, as a caveat (if you're going to have a national public education system, minimum standards are appropriate).

 

But no, despite some of my curriculum being Common Core compliant and some not, I was planning to homeschool long before it ever hit the scene. And every argument I've seen against Common Core is an argument I'd use against public secular education in general - systemic and fundamentally ideological issues are the reason I avoid institutional education, and they are well over a century old.

 

Common Core, as well as the original version of NCLB before all the benefits were stripped out of it, are attempts at fixing something already broken, not the cause of the issues I am personally concerned about.

We don't have a national system of public schools. In the state I grew up in each local school district was completely autonomous. Common Core is supported by many people who also support nationalizing the school system in the US, and many who oppose Common Core also oppose it because they oppose the nationalization of public schools.

 

I oppose the math standards because they are not developmentally appropriate for most children. I think that the classical education model that breaks education down into various "stages" (grammar, logic, etc.) is actually very well suited to how typical students grasp mathematical concepts.

 

Of course, there will always be gifted children whose development does not follow the path of typical children. They should have advanced options available to them, of course.

 

The idea that you should explicitly teach the average child to think the same way a gifted child naturally approaches things sounds great in theory, but doesn't work in reality. Accelerate the gifted children and allow neurotypical children to develop at an appropriate pace.

 

My oldest child is gifted and is on an accelerated math track at his private school. My son with learning disabilities has always homeschooled. My average 2nd grader is homeschooling this year because the developmentally inappropriate common core aligned math curriculum his school adopted made him hate math, and the fact that he was expected to read at what would have been a 2nd grade level when my gifted oldest DS was in first grade, meant that my average son hated school with a passion.

 

We are now using Singapore Math and he is much happier.

 

I say this as a former teacher. NCLB was implemented while I was still in college and was universally panned by all my professors. I see Common Core as having most of the same problems as NCLB, only worse. Everything is tied into testing. I don't understand why Common Core doesn't have more vocal opposition from teacher's unions.

[Crimson Wife]

Yes, and schools are STILL allowed to require higher standards than CC.

 

 

Except that's not how states and districts are implementing it.

 

Singapore CCSS edition got rejected by my state because "chapters are not grade level, therefore students do not spend the large majority of their time on the major work of the grade", "content progressions grade-by-grade are based on concepts within the program and not progressions in the Standards", and "components make students responsible for topics before the grade in which they are introduced in the Standards."

 

That's a ceiling, not a floor.

[Erin]

But again, they can do whatever they want.  It doesn't affect me as a homeschooler.  

For that matter, it doesn't affect my public schooler, either, as we're in a state that never adopted CC...

[HeWillSoar]

No but after seeing how my son was taught to do multiplication and division, going through extra steps, taking much longer and still getting the answer wrong,  I'm pretty skeptical of the way math was being taught.  This is a kid who is a quick learner, in the advanced math class and more than capable of performing these operations, getting them wrong because of a screwy method.   He had the same teacher as my oldest son, so something about the teaching method has changed. 

[redsquirrel]

No it did not. But I live in a state that has had state wide educational standards and state wide tests for much, much longer than CC has been around, so the idea of standards doesn't phase me in the least. I think standards are a good idea.

 

I have liked the way that CC has forced lots of curriculum line up with each other. It has given me some freedom to try a few different things. For example, I switched from SM to BA. I never would have switched math curriculum before, but because both are CC aligned, I knew that if BA didn't work out I could come back to SM the following year without having to play a huge game of 'what did we miss'. I think in that way, CC can be a big help to homeschoolers. There is less worrying about material missed when switching curriculum.

[Southern Ivy]

I am currently a 4th grade teacher in MO. Missouri has repealed CC, however my district which typically is progressive in it's thinking and implementation of things has been teaching CC standards for the last 4 years, heavily so for the last two.  
I love the curriculum we have. I think it's great and there are methods of differentiating the teaching already included. So, theoretically, they don't get left behind. 

That being said, I have seen a dynamic shift in the amount of testing we do. In my district, we have a precheck (to see what they know), a midcheck (to see how they are doing), and then a postcheck (same test as the precheck; this grade goes on the grade card). This is done per skill. 

Math, we have 16 skills + 4 summatives (one per quarter) = 52 tests 
Language arts - 13 skills + 4 summatives = 43 tests
Grammar - 4 skills = 12 tests 
If we ONLY tested them on the skills, that would already be 107 assessments that they have to take a year. 

Add into that all the practice tests we do. Just this last week, we took 3 online assessments and 4 paper assessments to predict how they will do on the state test. This alone took about 7 hours of our week. We will take these assessments two more times through the year just to collect the data. Nothing more. THEN, we will get the practice tests for the state test. We will practice 2 times (which will take up 7 hours if not more of the time). THEN, after all this, we will finally take the state standardized test. 

I had toyed with the idea of sending my child to school and afterschooling on important subjects like history, science, writing, and spelling. (No, we do not teach these because they are not tested; our district does make the laughable statement that history and science are integrated in the reading program, but my students still think Columbus came over on the Mayflower.)
However, based on the testing that has only become more intense through just the last 4 years, I am working diligently to get to the point of being able to stay home. I HATE teaching anymore and I can only imagine how much my students hate learning. 

So, there's my little rant. haha 

[VeritasMama]

[quote name="BushMommy" post="5960841" timestamp="

 

I had toyed with the idea of sending my child to school and afterschooling on important subjects like history, science, writing, and spelling. (No, we do not teach these because they are not tested; our district does make the laughable statement that history and science are integrated in the reading program, but my students still think Columbus came over on the Mayflower.)

However, based on the testing that has only become more intense through just the last 4 years, I am working diligently to get to the point of being able to stay home. I HATE teaching anymore and I can only imagine how much my students hate learning.

 

So, there's my little rant. haha

 

This is what I've heard and what I've witnessed, that the amount of testing is so much higher. Considering all the anti-testing rhetoric I heard in college during the roll out of NCLB, I can't imagine why teacher unions aren't speaking out like they did against NCLB. It all seems so policital, how do you even begin to fix that.

[Southern Ivy]

I know there are groups of teachers against it, but I know my teacher's union hasn't been against it at all. And you're right, it's very political. 
All I know is that I never did this much testing in 4th and I'll be darned if my daughter's "educational achievement" is based solely on how well she circles or bubbles in an answer. 

[MistyMountain]

I am an afterschooler. Common core has nothing to do with my schooling decisions at all. I looked over the standards and I see nothing scary about them at all. They are fine to me. People attribute things to common core that aren't even related and freak out if they don't understand something right away or if poor junior gets marked wrong on their homework.

 

That said I do not think common core is a fix to the problems in our education system. We are sliding in international ranking for multifaceted reasons. Implementing standards will not fix the problems which comes from many reasons such as extreme inequality and economic insecurity. The gap between the haves and have-nots is huge here compared to other industrialized nations. When basic needs are hard to meet then things like education take a back seat. There are also lots of other reasons that a set of standards will not fix.

 

I think the expectations can be a bit much but the standards themselves aren't too bad. I don't have a problem with testing but the high stakes testing and all the time devoted to it is a problem.

 

I still am considering homeschooling in the future but it would be because that the school isn't working out and there are too many educational holes not because of anything in the common core. I think schools in our country are very mixed. There are some good ones and some poor ones and some ones where they are really doing all they can and provide a good education but it isn't enough to overcome everything.

[Momling]

In order to meet CC standards, our local district has had to dump TERC Investigations for math and switch to something more mainstream. They've also ditched their previous whole language non-textbook reading program and gone with something more balanced and traditional. In our community, CC has raised academic standards and makes me far *more* willing to have my kids attend public school.

[redsquirrel]

I didn't learn about Common Core until a friend that works in the public school system warned me that if I ever wanted ds to enter the public school system I should have him using CC products. I was like, "wait, what?" This was probably the beginning of last year? And possibly the first year the state had started using it? Then I found out how a lot of materials stamp Common Core on them but the labels can be misleading. I started do do research on it, but it was not the reason we chose to homeschool. Our reasons are due to the local school options. But some of the things I have heard about CC regarding the lower elementary levels really turns me off so I am leery of it.

 

This thread reminds me I had a Common Core documentary I was going to finish watching.

 

 

And you figured out pretty quickly that what your friend said isn't true, right? Because it is not.