Saturday, December 07, 2019

Common Core Is Rapidly Losing Favor Nationally



























Back in 2010, administrators, politicians, and education reform organizations set up a working group to come up with common national education standards that would allow the Federal Deportment of Education to compare one state with another and compete with other countries.  The Obama administration, led by his basketball playing buddy Arnie Duncan convinced the President to support "Common Core" which included testing and linking student scores to teacher evaluations.

To ensure states would comply with the Federal Department of Education's policies, the Obama administration dangled money at the states in the mist of a recession and states that did not link student growth scores to their teachers would not get the money.  The federal government encouraged states to develop "junk Science", like in New York State, that ended up to be thrown out  by a State judge.  Under governmental pressure. the "Common Core" rollout was a disaster as the major education publishers had no materials or books and teachers were not trained to teach it.  Worse, students were forced to adapt to a different Math program that parents did not understand and could not help their child. Moreover, the reading of non-fiction of boring books rather than reading fiction like "1984" was not good as students disliked the books.. Finally, the emphasis on testing has resulted in parents to "opt out" and in New York State 20% opted out with middle class Long Island having a 52% "opt out" rate.

The Common Core saw the Republican Tea Party and the Left wing of the Democratic party both come out against it.  In addition, most teacher unions soon realized that the extra funding the federal government provided never trickled down to the classroom but instead was used to pay high priced consultants , develop tests, and even pay for office furniture!    The Common Core is rapidly losing favor since there is no longer funding attached to it.  With  politicians like President Trump and most of the Democratic Presidential contenders are against the Common Core, the future of the program does not look bright.

The Common Core, combined with the Obama administration's support for charter schools who, for the most part did unrelenting test prep that emphasized English and Math while Social Studies and Science were given  little time since they did not have a Common Core requirement.  Savvy principals in the traditional public schools saw that and many students got a double period of English and Math while Social Studies and Science were taught every other day and even less.  The result was an incomplete education for the students..

The New York Times has an interesting article about Common Core but seems to slant it favorably  for Common Core and did not mention the linkage between student growth and teacher evaluations so read it with a grain of salt and look at my posts about NYS teacher evaluations. 

5 comments:

Greg said...

If you are an ATR, can I please get a list of the Physical Education, Math, and Special Education vacancies from the open market. You can e-mail WeaponX12232016@gmail.com or gcraig121379@gmail.com for more details. I might resign from the DOE, and just in case if I have to come back there is no way of seeing the vacancy school unless you are an ATR. We can meet for coffee in a public place, buy lunch what ever you need. Just a guy who needs a job.

Mr. Guy who needs a job

Jonathan Halabi said...

Modified versions of Common Core, with some of the worst parts removed, and renamed, are popping up in states across the country.

"Common Core Lite" standards are still designed to punish teachers of students in poverty, and schools in poor neighborhoods. They do not represent anything close to the best education we could provide our youth.

The entire "test and punish" standards movement needs to be junked. Squeezing out Common Core is just a start.

Jonathan

Anonymous said...

Common core came down to three things:

1. Give students harder (rigorous!) material that they were not ready for, based on the fallacy that they 'would rise to the occasion.'

2. Make everything as boring (endless re-reading of 'informational' text snippets) or as convoluted (new math) as possible because it is more 'real world.'

3. Use common core, along with Danielson's to beat teachers over the head with lower evaluations and an endless array of mind-numbingly irrelevant PD and high priced coaches.

Anyone who disagrees is lacking in wisdom and 'big picture' assessing skills.

Anon2323 said...

Thank you for exposing one of Obama's many many mistakes as president. He really did not do much to help the education dept and yet people are blasting Trump on education, even though I do disagree with his Devos pick. At least he has at least allowed school choice which has helped, as well as wanting to keeping education local, and against common core. Trump knows school's are not safe while Dibalsio and the dems want no suspensions and no discipline. He hasn't done the harm the Bloomberg, Obama and Diblasio have done to public education.

Anonymous said...

4:39: There is no sense going through open market. Open market is a big joke. I'm an ATR with an ELA license. There are only 3 vacancies listed in Queens and one in Brooklyn. I'm having trouble believing there is only one ELA position in Brooklyn which alone is supposedly the 4th largest city in America. Schools hide their vacancies. I applied to over a dozen vacancies last June and didn't get one interview. As for Common Core, it is clear it was a fruitless endeavor as students are still coming to high school years behind where they're supposed to be just like they did 10 years before. The Common Core was supposed to be the panacea for the lack of skills students came to high school with, but nothing has changed. Ask anyone who teaches at a high needs high school.