velvetpage (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
velvetpage) wrote2010-08-08 07:23 am
velvetpage) wrote2010-08-08 07:23 am
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A Brief Exploration of the U.S.' new Core Common Standards
I followed some links on a friend's page and found a PDF of the new Core Common Standards, which are now adopted by 34 states and the District of Columbia, making them the basis for curriculum across most of the U.S. For the sake of simplicity, I'm starting with the math standards. Language standards tend to be harder to compare because they often differ by only a word or two from one year to the next.
I was hoping to find that the standards were based on the NCTM standards for primary/junior math. I confess myself somewhat disappointed in this regard. While the language all points to a constructivist method of instruction, it seems to move faster than the NCTM standards in a couple of areas, specifically multiplication and division, and much slower in others. There's no introduction of probability at all until grade seven, no statistics at all until grade six, no measurement of angles in any capacity until grade seven. These are all key mathematical understandings that can be taught effectively much earlier, and provide a context for other mathematical understandings.
Meanwhile, the standards for multiplication and division lead me to suspect that the authors of the curriculum subscribe to a back-to-basics model. The level of multiplication and division expected of grade fours is very high, and without the added context provided by a firm basis in measurement and probability, it looks like the constructivist language is nothing but lip-service. It's too fast, and the size of the numbers the students are expected to master goes past the level of abstraction that most kids in grade four are developmentally ready for.
As I go deeper into the primary grades, I'm looking for references to constructing understanding using manipulatives. I'm not finding them. There are occasional uses of the word "represent," which could mean anything from writing number sentences to elaborate models. It's so vague it might as well not be there at all. But the absence of specific expectations related to manipulatives really worries me. It strikes me that it would be very, very easy to teach to these standards using nothing but pencil-and-paper activities. Manipulatives should be an accepted part of the curriculum at all levels - yes, even high school, though obviously they'd be very different manipulatives there - and the lack of references to them is another indication of a back-to-basics philosophy. It's destined to fail because it pushes students to a level of abstraction they aren't ready for, without giving them the opportunities they need to move from concrete concepts to representations of those concepts to symbolic and then to abstract reasoning.
In short, after this very brief look at the core common standards, I'm beyond unimpressed - I'm actively concerned for the colleagues whose attempts to teach constructively are about to be undermined and for the children. They're going to get the kind of math instruction that led to a society where it's perfectly acceptable to ask someone else to calculate your portion of the tab in a restaurant because you're not very good with numbers. They're going to get that instruction on the basis of a political climate that sees knowledge in an outdated way that fits a certain political agenda, and the U.S. public education system will continue to be undermined by it as they see that, exactly as has happened before, it doesn't work.
Has anyone taken a closer look at the other subject areas?
I was hoping to find that the standards were based on the NCTM standards for primary/junior math. I confess myself somewhat disappointed in this regard. While the language all points to a constructivist method of instruction, it seems to move faster than the NCTM standards in a couple of areas, specifically multiplication and division, and much slower in others. There's no introduction of probability at all until grade seven, no statistics at all until grade six, no measurement of angles in any capacity until grade seven. These are all key mathematical understandings that can be taught effectively much earlier, and provide a context for other mathematical understandings.
Meanwhile, the standards for multiplication and division lead me to suspect that the authors of the curriculum subscribe to a back-to-basics model. The level of multiplication and division expected of grade fours is very high, and without the added context provided by a firm basis in measurement and probability, it looks like the constructivist language is nothing but lip-service. It's too fast, and the size of the numbers the students are expected to master goes past the level of abstraction that most kids in grade four are developmentally ready for.
As I go deeper into the primary grades, I'm looking for references to constructing understanding using manipulatives. I'm not finding them. There are occasional uses of the word "represent," which could mean anything from writing number sentences to elaborate models. It's so vague it might as well not be there at all. But the absence of specific expectations related to manipulatives really worries me. It strikes me that it would be very, very easy to teach to these standards using nothing but pencil-and-paper activities. Manipulatives should be an accepted part of the curriculum at all levels - yes, even high school, though obviously they'd be very different manipulatives there - and the lack of references to them is another indication of a back-to-basics philosophy. It's destined to fail because it pushes students to a level of abstraction they aren't ready for, without giving them the opportunities they need to move from concrete concepts to representations of those concepts to symbolic and then to abstract reasoning.
In short, after this very brief look at the core common standards, I'm beyond unimpressed - I'm actively concerned for the colleagues whose attempts to teach constructively are about to be undermined and for the children. They're going to get the kind of math instruction that led to a society where it's perfectly acceptable to ask someone else to calculate your portion of the tab in a restaurant because you're not very good with numbers. They're going to get that instruction on the basis of a political climate that sees knowledge in an outdated way that fits a certain political agenda, and the U.S. public education system will continue to be undermined by it as they see that, exactly as has happened before, it doesn't work.
Has anyone taken a closer look at the other subject areas?
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Things are pretty bad under both major parties. The Republicans' platform allows them to pander to both their bases (the ultra-rich and religious conservatives) at the same time by basically trying to dismantle public education completely through the voucher system. The Democrats have a hard-on for charter schools and teacher-bashing.
The Obama admistration and the DOE under Duncan have gone the route of bribery and extortion to get the states to buy into their reforms. States have to compete for extra education dollars by submitting reform proposals, which is problematic at the outset because it assumes all states are equally bad right now and that everything NEEDS to be changed. The states with the "best" proposals win the money, but best is currently defined as adopting the Common Core Standards, allowing more charter schools, tying teacher evaluations and pay to standardized test scores, and adopting a fix-it strategy for turnaround schools that requires at least 50% of the teachers to be reassigned elsewhere in the district at best, but more commonly flat-out fired. About the only thing I can say for it is that it's at least not a one-word "solution" the way the right has clung to ZOMG VOUCHERS.
Obviously, I'm not saying that I have all the answers to the school reform problem. But that, in itself is an answer-- nobody has all the answers. One thing I do know is that teachers-- classroom teachers and specialist teachers, people whose jobs have them scheduled to be with certain students at certain times every day-- need to be included in the conversation. Right now we're just the scapegoats.
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FWIW, the standards don't actually specify the method of teaching, just the content, so theoretically students could be taught from a constructivist perspective. Mandatory testing begins in grade three, but the standards start in pre-K, so that's 3-4 years of foundational teaching before there's any federal or state accountability. This is where good administrators come in, but unfortunately they're in tragically low supply.
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A few years ago, the school where I teach had low scores. They had been low several years running, but that year they'd fallen a bit, though we'd been a turnaround school (that is, money for resources and teacher training had been pouring in) for two years.
Well, in May of the year following that particular batch of low scores, a team of so-called experts came and assessed our school's effectiveness. The team included a couple of principals, some superintendents, the director of the board of education, and a couple of hired experts. They spent ten minutes or so in each classroom, looking at what was on the walls, what the kids were doing, what planning materials had been left out for them to see, asking the kids some questions - not actually talking to the teachers at all. All the teachers were supposed to be running a guided reading lesson at that time.
Well, they had nothing good to say about us. The walls didn't have the right stuff. We didn't show evidence of the kind of smart goal planning they wanted. The questions weren't higher order (i.e. from the top two levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.) Not enough student work on the walls. When they left, the teachers were demoralized and upset.
Two weeks later, our grade threes wrote the standardized test for that year. The scores skyrocketed - from numbers in the thirties the year previous to numbers in the eighties.
The same team came back in the fall and had nothing BAD to say this time. We were doing everything right. We had teams coming through from other schools to learn what we were doing.
What changed in two weeks, between the visit and the test? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Their preconception based on the previous year's test score was the source of everything bad they said, just like their preconception based on the new test scores was the source of all things good. The kicker, of course, is that neither test gave a really good indication of what those kids knew and could do. I taught both classes in grade five, and I could give you chapter and verse on why the scores were low and why they were high the following year. It had a little bit to do with teaching and a lot more to do with the home environments of the kids in question, their intelligence, and their willingness to work.
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I also think that if Tatiana had been in class with our neighbor last year her EOG scores wouldn't have been nearly as good. Because that teacher prepped her class for their EOGs by telling them it didn't matter what they did they were all going to fail anyways.
I have to ask (though it's only tangentially related at best) what do you think of a student having the same teacher for more than one year? A friend of ours son had his teacher for 3rd grade and 4th grade and it's looking like he's going to have her again for 5th grade. In 5th grade at least they are team teaching so he'll get some exposure to another teacher but I have to say on some levels it bothers me. I am also baffled as to why the school thinks it's a good idea to move this teacher's grade level every year.
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It has happened to me - I taught a 4/5 split class for several years in a row, so I occasionally got kids in grade five whom I'd had in grade four, but usually only one or two. Two years ago, we collapsed the 4/5 split class and went to a straight grade four and a straight grade five, and I got the five. So all of the grade fours I'd had the year before were back in my class. It was really tough - there were several personality clashes I had to deal with, a couple of kids I just couldn't fathom, and a bunch of kids who really, really needed to be split up from some of the other kids in the room. In grade four, they were a sweet bunch, but by the end of their grade five year I couldn't wait to see the back of them.
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My last student teacher said her son's teacher was stressing right out about it, and passing the stress onto the kids. She's with me - when her daughter takes the test in two years' time, she's considering keeping her home.
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