Negativity Towards CCSS - A Jumble of Thoughts
Recently I was on a guided running trip, that amounted to way more miles than the 42 the customers ran, and one over-exhausted starving self, I commonly get questions about oh you teach math, oh and middle school, then more questions follow from there.
This last group of clientele were middle aged women who all had kids at elite schools (mostly private). One commented to me on how poorly she felt the CCSS was and how it was taught was not beneficial to her child. She then asked what I thought and all I could think about was an article published recently in USA Today (Of all sources I know).
It brought up some valid points as highlighted in the pictures below. Key points included quotes stating "As a professional mathematician, I'm as firmly against fuzzy math as they come." and "Common Core is a list of topics everyone knows we should teach. It doesn't tell teachers how to teach them (though it does ask that they teach them coherently, with understanding). It is also not a test, not a curriculum, not a set of homework problems, not a federal mandate and not a teacher evaluation tool."
The article in its entirety can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/09/15/common-core-math-education-standards-fluency-column/15693531/
Between these two quotes I feel CCSS has been mixed up into a jumble of stuff and misconstrued to the public and teachers despite many of the benefits it could lead to. When I emphasized the above quote to the parent she was like "huh... I'll have to look into that" where she had linked CCSS to a curriculum and teaching style of her child's classroom.
As an educator the explanations of each standard are rigorous, and many curriculum's use manipulatives and rote practice to teach in multiple modalities. I am also humiliated as an educator that educators denounce curriculum's that are "aligned" to CCSS because of the rigor to understand the material and how it is presented within the text. While an educator can be against a curriculum there better be a reason for it. For example citing numerous errors in manipulative illustrations (Oregon Focus has a few not numerous); not we rated it a 2 because it isn't aligned (Engaged NY); what isn't aligned can't be explained other than it wasn't good. This troubles me as a large group of individuals were paid to create this material strictly for CCSS and many questions in Engage NY are duplicated in other aligned curriculum. As educators must have a reason for their beliefs, individuals who are against CCSS better understand that all it is is a "list of topics everyone knows we should teach."
This last group of clientele were middle aged women who all had kids at elite schools (mostly private). One commented to me on how poorly she felt the CCSS was and how it was taught was not beneficial to her child. She then asked what I thought and all I could think about was an article published recently in USA Today (Of all sources I know).
It brought up some valid points as highlighted in the pictures below. Key points included quotes stating "As a professional mathematician, I'm as firmly against fuzzy math as they come." and "Common Core is a list of topics everyone knows we should teach. It doesn't tell teachers how to teach them (though it does ask that they teach them coherently, with understanding). It is also not a test, not a curriculum, not a set of homework problems, not a federal mandate and not a teacher evaluation tool."
The article in its entirety can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/09/15/common-core-math-education-standards-fluency-column/15693531/
Between these two quotes I feel CCSS has been mixed up into a jumble of stuff and misconstrued to the public and teachers despite many of the benefits it could lead to. When I emphasized the above quote to the parent she was like "huh... I'll have to look into that" where she had linked CCSS to a curriculum and teaching style of her child's classroom.
As an educator the explanations of each standard are rigorous, and many curriculum's use manipulatives and rote practice to teach in multiple modalities. I am also humiliated as an educator that educators denounce curriculum's that are "aligned" to CCSS because of the rigor to understand the material and how it is presented within the text. While an educator can be against a curriculum there better be a reason for it. For example citing numerous errors in manipulative illustrations (Oregon Focus has a few not numerous); not we rated it a 2 because it isn't aligned (Engaged NY); what isn't aligned can't be explained other than it wasn't good. This troubles me as a large group of individuals were paid to create this material strictly for CCSS and many questions in Engage NY are duplicated in other aligned curriculum. As educators must have a reason for their beliefs, individuals who are against CCSS better understand that all it is is a "list of topics everyone knows we should teach."
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