Common Core Standards or Just a Common Con Job?

Common Core standards. Another "gift" from the federal government. As an educator anytime someone out of the classroom comes up with an idea, I get nervous. The further they are away from the actual classroom with real live students the more dangerous the directive. Common Core Standards fits right in with all the other "great ideas" from those who don't know or should know better. Rachel Alexander has written a great peace entitled 

"Common Core: What's Hidden Behind the Language".

Conservatives are in an uproar over Common Core, an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration, which is scheduled to be mostly implemented this year in the 46 states that have adopted it. Common Core eliminates local control over K-12 curriculum in math and English, instead imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down curriculum that will also apply to private schools and homeschoolers.

Superficially, it sounds good. It creates universal standards that supposedly educate all children for college. But along with the universal standards come a myriad of problems, which the administrators of Common Core are disingenuously denying. The American Principles Project released an analysis last year of Common Core, exposing the duplicitous language. Common Core describes itself as “internationally benchmarked,” “robust,” “aligned with college and work expectations,” “rigorous,” and “evidence-based.” None of this is true.

http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2013/03/18/common-core-whats-hidden-behind-the-language-n1537017?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Rachel lays it out pretty well. The more I read about it the worse it sounds. So, give it a read and let me know your opinion.

PTVoice

What's Wrong with Education?

Image via Wikipedia

I just shake my head when I read articles about the state of education in the United States of America, or in my home state California. Lately, my fellow teachers and I have taken quite a shellacking as the problem in education. 

As an educator, I know how hard it is to evaluate another teacher. I have been evaluated and I have evaluated other teachers. But, here in is the problem. I do not believe that the teacher is the center of the learning process. I believe the student is the center of the learning process and what happens within and and around each student is where attention needs to be focused. A few years ago some tried to focus on the learner. But, it is very difficult  to change an entire culture. 

Let me offer a few points of perspective, first from an educator and then from  a parent ( I am both). From a teacher's perspective you will always hear three basic complaints. #1 = "It's these kids!" #2 = "It's these parents!" #3 = "It's this district/ bureaucracy!"  In a public school teachers do not get to choose which students they teach or which parents will give birth to and raise said children, and few teachers have the political clout needed to direct an entire district. Since parent involvement and socio-economic factors have been shown to be STRONG indicators of individual student success or lack of success, both of which are completely out of any teachers control, it would seem unfair, to say the least, to ask any teacher to produce successful students where factors are out of there influence. In other words, "I can not change who the students are I teach, the parents who give birth to them, nor can I, as an educator, in my present situation, change this district I work for." Many give up at this point. 

As a parent I have been both pleased and not so pleased with my children's teachers. Granted, as an educator, I can have some pretty high standards. But, I do know one truth. Parents do most of the teaching. My wife and I have read to our children since they were infants. They entered school  knowing how to read. Many parents do the same with their children, as their parents did with them. I have taught children in south central LA for most of my 22 years in education. Many parents do not read with their children. I even had one parent tell me that she didn't learn to read until she was 16 so she wasn't to worried about her son in fourth grade not being able to read. I tried to encourage that the more help he received now, and the more SHE required of him now would help him BEFORE he reached 16. My point is that parents and what they are willing to do to ensure their child's success is really (in my opinion) the strongest factor in children's learning.

All that said, I think the question is wrong. The questions regarding educational success are currently focused on teachers when the focus should be on students. I do believe teachers should be accountable, but, accountable for what? 

It's the Parents Who Teach the Most

Image via Wikipedia

I am a parent. I have four children whom I love. I want the best for them. As a parent, I hope and pray each year that my children will have good teachers. I have had two older children pass through our areas schools and have two still in them. The schools in our area will succeed because the parents of the students will do what they need to do to make sure their children learn. 

In my local fishwrap they are a bit mystified why, even as class sizes increase, test scores are still rising. The educational researchers do not even no what to ask. Ask about parent involvement.  

I am also a teacher for another (much larger) district. I have, more often than not, done the real teaching for my children while Torrance teachers handed my children worksheets. My second son told me once his Calculus teaching was pretty bad but if HE (my son) read the book he could figure it out. My point, the scores go up in the district I live in because the parents care. Now, I have seen a few good teachers, but, they can only do what my wife's and my parenting will allow. 

As parents we are the primary caretaker, teacher and advocate for our children. It is our responsibility to make sure that our children learn.

All that said, school districts are usually classic examples of poorly run bureaucracies. More money doesn't necessarily mean more help for students who need help. Teachers are professionals not missionaries. Only police officers may be asked to take more grief with out reprisal.

Are you for us or against us?

Image via Wikipedia

Are you for us or are you against us? Simple question. Simple answer; yes or no.
Can someone be anti-American and be an American? Doesn't that sound...contradictory? It does to me. Yet, what I hear some groups saying sounds a lot like that.

Have you heard of LA RAZA? They are a group that basically doesn't believe in borders and profess anti-imperialism bla bla bla. Throw in some Marxist ideology, blame European whites for all your troubles and call yourself a re-conquistador and there you have it, LA RAZA.

What makes this sort of treasonous spittle dangerous is that it is being forced upon High School students by revisionist History teachers on a daily basis. I have a real problem with this. History teachers should be teaching the History and values of the United States of America, not a group that is set at destroying it. Honestly, I think any teacher that teaches such ideas should have their credentials taken away. I am a teacher and an proud American citizen.

Really, if you don't like America, go someplace else. I'm sure any other country would love to have large groups of anti-imperialist Marxist teachers influencing  their children. I'll bet any Central American or South American country would gladly take them all. If not, maybe Cuba?

Even Tony Blair, the former liberal Prime Minister of Great Britain basically said if immigrants didn't agree with British ideals they were free to go somewhere else. But, here in the USA we have a different form of liberal, the kind where the wife of the President to be wasn't proud to be an American. I am more than a little concerned that this faction has such freedom. As Americans we do have freedom, but not freedom to destroy American ideals from within and teach them to impressionable children.

America, we need to do some house cleaning. More on LA RAZA tomorrow.