Have you heard of the Common Core State Standards Initiative?
The entire video of some thirty-six minutes is well worth watching. If you don't have time to watch the entire video, however, please watch at least the portion from time marker 2:00 through time marker 8:00 in the video below the fold.
Read the rest of Gulag Bound's post "Clinical Mental Health Therapist on Common Core Techniques" HERE.
Gulag Bound has more information about Common Core HERE in a blog post different from the link hat-tipped above.
Meanwhile, please note THIS INFORMATION about David Coleman, the new president of College Board and his affiliation with Common Core. A May 16, 2012 article in the New York Times (May 16, 2012) provides this additional information about David Coleman:
David Coleman, an architect of the common core curriculum standards that are being adopted in nearly all 50 states, will become the president of the College Board, starting in October.Why tie college entrance tests so closely to Common Core? Ensuring that students admitted to the better universities will be students amenable to even more influence along the lines of Common Core?
The College Board, a membership organization of high schools and colleges that administers the SAT, the Advanced Placement program and other standardized tests, helped design the standards — an outline of what students should learn in English and math from kindergarten through high school — meant to ensure that all high school graduates are prepared for college.
Mr. Coleman’s new position will involve a continued focus on college readiness. “We have a crisis in education, and over the next few years, the main thing on the College Board’s agenda is to deliver its social mission,” he said....
As I was working on this post, I found myself thinking about the bigger picture, the picture beyond that of education.
I am referring to all the animosity in our society today.
So many people relish wallowing in their own anger to the point that they can relate only to other who are also wallowing in their own anger! Indeed, many seem unable to stop themselves from participating in this cycle of bitterness and surrender to the emotional reactivity. I am not speaking of justified anger but rather of unleashed rage.
Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the Twenty-first Century's irrational rage stems from cultivating such an attitude by means of the post-1955 prevalence of limbic-based, negative materials — not only with regard to reading materials but also with regard to Western culture's focus on emotional reactivity and negativity. Certainly, we have witnessed a significant increase in lack of empathy.
From National Review:
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times published a wonderful op-ed by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreyfus acknowledging that Common Core is a radical experiment adopted with almost no public discussion and that it is fueling parents’ anxieties.
They also note something I did not know: Kentucky adopted Common Core in 2010, and the results was a huge drop in students’ test scores:
Students in Kentucky were the first to undergo the Common Core’s testing regimen; the state adopted the standards in 2010. One year later, its students’ scores fell across the board by roughly a third in reading and math. Perhaps one cannot blame the students, or the teachers — who struggle to teach to the new, behemoth test that, in some cases, surpasses their curriculums — for the drop in scores.
HERE is full op ed in the NYT.
"Included on New York state’s suggested reading list for ninth graders are Doris Lessing, Albert Camus and Rainer Maria Rilke."
ReplyDelete========
9th graders reading Rilke?
Can't see how that leads to socialist indoctrination.
Can't see how that leads to socialist indoctrination
ReplyDeleteIt's simple Duck...
You teach the kids that there are people who "know" the answers, and obviate their need to "know themselves" the answers.
So instead of giving the kids the source materials from which the answers come, you give them the teacher's crib sheets.
Rilke was a great analyst of source material, Greek mythology, etc. But how are the kids supposed to recognize it if the kids are never taught the "myths" from which Rilke derived his analyses?
Ninth grade. How about some Latin and Greek? How about an exercise in "translation"? How about some attempts at iambic pentameter instead of an analyses of the motivations of Eurydice?
It is going to take a revolution in the mind set of the average American to save principles on which America was founded. We are like frong in the pot and they ruling class has been gradually raising the temperature for the last century. If you want the frogs to jump out of the pot, maybe you'll need to turn up the heat to "high".
ReplyDeleteHeck, I just came from a preschool graduation and the skit my friend had all the kids doing was from a little book where a certain fish had particularly beautiful fins and they all wanted one...there's no happy ending until the fish gives a fin to everyone. The Director of the school is a good friend and I swear it was all I could do not to say "Teaching them socialism a bit early, aren't you!?" :-)
ReplyDeleteCommon Core...such irony in the name .. it's pretty darned COMMON.