Watched a 9th grade English teacher yesterday who gave this example of a Common Core task. After reading Romeo and Juliet each member of the class drew a character name from the hat. They then had to decide what astrological symbol best fit that character's personality and give an example from the text of the play supporting their decision.
She is considered to be such an exemplar that Student Achievement Partners paid her way in April to Denver as part of 100 teachers nationally selected for training.
Not clear if pom poms came with the plane tickets.
I'm less worried about the "indoctrination" angle. My main objection to this stuff is that it's just way above the heads of your average first-grader, and, typical of language arts instruction, it will tend to turn kids off of reading.
Honestly, can't we find interesting stories and get kids involved with reading them? All this meta-meta-analysis is just baffling and discouraging to kids.
CCSS doesn't create this stuff. However, the standards are so vague that educators use them to justify whatever they want. It institutionalizes what they want. It gives them one more reason to prevent more charter schools and keep parents away from being in the decision process.
Even now, our state converts really bad raw state test scores into low proficiency levels. Then, our schools talk about how so many kids achieve this low proficiency level. (There is not much to crow about when the high school achieves only 60 percent in math.) And then, our school talks about how their level is near the top in the state. Stinking bad is translated into fourth best in the state. Our town newspaper has even quoted school committee members as saying that this shows that our schools provide a quality education. But it's OK if their kids get a lot of help at home or with tutors. Then they see that other kids do well and end up going to top colleges.
It would be interesting to pick one specific standard and see all of the different ways it's implemented and tested by the different tests. I'm sure it would show how meaningless the "standard" is.
Watched a 9th grade English teacher yesterday who gave this example of a Common Core task. After reading Romeo and Juliet each member of the class drew a character name from the hat. They then had to decide what astrological symbol best fit that character's personality and give an example from the text of the play supporting their decision.
ReplyDeleteShe is considered to be such an exemplar that Student Achievement Partners paid her way in April to Denver as part of 100 teachers nationally selected for training.
Not clear if pom poms came with the plane tickets.
I'm less worried about the "indoctrination" angle. My main objection to this stuff is that it's just way above the heads of your average first-grader, and, typical of language arts instruction, it will tend to turn kids off of reading.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, can't we find interesting stories and get kids involved with reading them? All this meta-meta-analysis is just baffling and discouraging to kids.
CCSS doesn't create this stuff. However, the standards are so vague that educators use them to justify whatever they want. It institutionalizes what they want. It gives them one more reason to prevent more charter schools and keep parents away from being in the decision process.
ReplyDeleteEven now, our state converts really bad raw state test scores into low proficiency levels. Then, our schools talk about how so many kids achieve this low proficiency level. (There is not much to crow about when the high school achieves only 60 percent in math.) And then, our school talks about how their level is near the top in the state. Stinking bad is translated into fourth best in the state. Our town newspaper has even quoted school committee members as saying that this shows that our schools provide a quality education. But it's OK if their kids get a lot of help at home or with tutors. Then they see that other kids do well and end up going to top colleges.
It's business as usual.
It would be interesting to pick one specific standard and see all of the different ways it's implemented and tested by the different tests. I'm sure it would show how meaningless the "standard" is.
ReplyDelete