Can you hear us now, Rep. Behning?
A letter submitted by Hoosiers Against Common Core on behalf of 54 state organizations and over 900 signatures was presented to Mike Pence today. While the intent of the letter was to urge Governor Pence to act on the legislation to stop Common Core SB193, it should catch the attention of Representative Bob Behning, who is holding the bill up in the House Education Committee. Many of the individuals who signed the letter are from Hendricks county- his district.
If the principles of local control of education and high quality academic standards aren’t enough to motivate Rep. Behning to give this bill a vote, maybe pressure from those who put him in office, and can vote him out, will motivate him.
As a former school superintendent and more importantly as a father and citizen, I know that Common Core is not only foolish but dangerous to the nation’s health. The last thing we need in this country is for all of us to be on the same page. Local school districts should determine their curriculum. They are accountable to their local citizenry and that is the core of federalism. The survival of our nation depends on spreading power, not unifying it.
Thanks for your great comments. Are you in Indiana by any chance?
Common Core Standards are NOT curriculum – they are standards. Most (all?) states already have set standards to which local school districts need to adhere if they want to perform well on state assessments. Who doesn’t, right? Curriculum is written FROM the standards and while it generally has some standardized components for each grade level in a district, it is ideally DELIVERED as individually as each teacher in the classroom. There are no compulsory components in the Common Core on HOW teachers are to teach. What the Common Core is, however, is a well-researched, coherent design of learning standards that is based on research about cognitive development of children, the logical structure of mathematics content (I am a math specialist), and what has worked well in high-performing districts, states, and countries throughout this world. This approach has not traditionally been taken when writing state standards but it sure makes a lot of sense to me! We NEED to be preparing kids to live wisely and productively in a GLOBAL society, not just the town, county, or state we live in!
Your comment:
“What the Common Core is, however, is a well-researched, coherent design of learning standards that is based on research about cognitive development of children.”
You are a liar!
Common Core is not well researched at all. The proponents of Common Core have had to admit that they lied about the, “International Benchmarks,” that Common Core supposedly matched up with.
In reality, if you were to teach the 1st Grade Common Core standards in Japan, you would lose you teaching credentials because they are so far removed from what is appropriate to teach children at that developmental level.
And your comment about curriculum is a joke. Do you not understand that teachers are now being given links to curriculum that does not even coming close to the standards that they are supposed to be matched up with?
Common Core does not match up with what we already know about the cognitive development of children.
Force feeding curriculum to children who are not developmentally ready for it will result in all kinds of problems.
So, if you want your young children to be frustrated, turned off and demoralized right at the foundational level of their education, Common Core is for you.
Otherwise, save Indiana’s children from this abusive initiative and dump Common Core.
And yes, I’m an educator. A very experienced one in a number of capacities.
How so? Do you have a specific example of a standard that outlines skills or knowledge that is not developmentally appropriate? I have been working with Kindergarten teachers teaching to Common Core standards who tell me that their kids are developing number sense at such a deep level that when they PRE-tested them for a unit on subtraction, (a unit they normally would not have gotten to by this time of the year!) the students excelled because they made the connections themselves between the addition they had already MASTERED and subtraction. That’s applying knowledge! Frustration, demoralization – wow! – ask a group of middle or high schoolers right now what they think about math! By and large, they hate it – and they have for decades!
Are these teachers at liberty to tell you how they really feel?
I doubt it.
Every highly competent Kindergarten teacher that I know is opposed to Common Core. Every single one!
the majority of states are against this common core …we have done the reserch. the bottom line isnt education but control,indoctranation, spelling is wrong but u get the point,manipulating,controlling americas children teens ect… via this common core curriculum .the majority of Americans no matter rep/dem dont want this and wont tolerate this intrustion concerning:parental rights of there children,the gov does not dictate the curriculum ..there minds are vulnerable and that is why common core is being pushed and the majority of all american wont tolerate this intrustion which would result if common core is adopted.im writing this fast so theres errors, vote no sincerly Lisa
The structure of Common Core is dictatorial. A corporation was funded to write and copywrite the curriculum. States, local administrators, local teachers and parents have no input to the content or testing represented by Common Core. In addition there is no recourse; no local person is capable of making changes for individual students or to correct flaws in the materials. (Is the corporation publicly traded?) The schools must pay for the materials and teach using the materials. Since the education business is a huge publicly funded industry, I wonder how much the corporation expects to collect from their copyrights. I also wonder who the principals are in that corporation.
Furthermore, online testing is required for Common Core. Sounds good. However, the purchase and implementation of the infrastructure required to make this feasible will be extremely expensive. Who pays for that and who gets the contracts to make it work and what is the final benefit to the students? I doubt that a cost/ benefit study could justify the expenditures. Since the Microsoft Foundation(OOPS! I meant Gates Foundation) “donated” ~$300M to support the development of Common core, maybe it was considered an investment with huge expected ROI to the Microsoft Corporation.
I would like to know more about the teachers that Chris Sheffel claims have praised Common Core for Kindergarden. I tend to disbelieve the laudatory comments Chris claims were made.
Have a Great Day
Bill Stowell