Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Common Core

Wow, I suppose anything is good if you refuse to listen to the arguments against it. Sheesh. Bloomberg is easily refuted by the data.

Poetry and Philosophy have a lot in common when it comes to education. Both are worthy subjects and certainly broaden the mind of those who study them, but neither is an area of focus in creating the future workforce of the US. As periphery subjects, they have great value, and they are not about to go away. The author of that article is saying that CC doesn't concentrate on poetry, that's a good thing. Math, science, and ELA are the focus of CC. Seems to be yet another grasping at straws argument against CC. Archery isn't covered by CC either, yet we have a great archery in the schools program here in our PE department.

I started the conversation with the hope that I would see some data from those opposed to CC. All that I've seen so far are arguments by conservative political pundits that fail to bring forth any factual information whatsoever in regard to why exactly CC is such a bad idea. Show me, within the CC curriculum, what is so bad about it. Give me concrete examples of how the federal government has pushed liberalism/socialism with this effort. It just isn't there. Bloomberg knows nothing about firearms, just as these pundits know nothing about education.

I have to apologize oldtrapper, I missed this video until now. I agree with the professor on almost every point. Ideally, education would be just as he describes it with the end result being happiness. The trouble is that he approaches education through the eyes of an educator who has dealt specifically with those who want it. From what I gathered, he works with the formation and facilitation of charter schools. The children that attend these schools are generally the cream of the crop. He isn't taking into account the realities of public education, the children that have terrible home lives, learning disabilities, etc. If I could eliminate all of the children from public school that aren't high achievers (private school candidates), I could instantly solve the problem of low achievement in public schools. Since that isn't realistic, we have to look elsewhere for solutions, bearing in mind that no solution will be perfect.

Now I would love it if the federal government would keep its nose out of my life completely. I also know that this would mean that I wouldn't have nice highways to drive on, huge areas of public land to play on, and many other things that I truly enjoy taking advantage of. Would it be a worthwhile trade? Possibly. But it isn't realistic to expect this. The strings that are tied to federal and even state funding of schools, remove a great deal of local control. One need look no further than the horrible school lunch program, pushed on us by Michelle Obama/fed gov, to see this point illustrated. If you don't want to follow the program, you lose federal funding for your lunch program. This is the simple reality of running a school today. There isn't enough local money to get it done.

For years I've heard fellow conservatives rail against public schools and the lack of accountability. When the federal government stepped in and tried to force accountability on public schools through performance based funding with NCLB, many of these same conservatives complained that the federal government dare get involved. If you want accountability, you have to measure success. If you want to measure success, you have to base your curriculum on this measure.

As far as CC goes, it's far from perfect. There is not enough focus on social studies, foreign language, and the arts. What it is, however, is a baseline for measuring the success of all schools. Good schools will go far beyond what is asked of them in CC, poor schools will not. The upside is that all schools should perform to this minimum standard in order to maintain funding. For many, this will result in a vast improvement, for others, the only change will be in the pacing of curricular events.

The way I look at this is that performance based funding isn't going to go away. I don't necessarily think that it should either. CC is an improvement over the shapeless means of determining performance that was seen with NCLB, so I can see no reason to fault it until it's had some time to grow. It isn't going to take away anyone's soul, it isn't a dumbing down of curricula, it's an attempt to align curricula with testing. Not at all perfect, but not a communist conspiracy either.

Thanks for your reasoned and in-depth reply. While I have current concerns about CC, it is truly my issues with the way the feds grow, morph, and metastasize, without fail, that has me most worried.

I grew up in a small town, not unlike yours. In fact, we occasionally played the Rangers. Small town public schools have historically been more like private schools, owned by the town. The results are, IMO, better. The more central planning gets involved with its "one size fits all" approach, including the "agenda du jour", thing go down hill. Educational ketchup gets to being a vegetable, so to speak. This includes the agenda of denial of varied capability.

What you are getting here is a lot of spin off of rightful mistrust of big govt., both in size, scope, and agenda. IMO, education, itself, will never be any better than the parenting that goes with it, but it can be worse. In many bigger places this has proven to be the case.

If I were czar of education, accountability, for all involved, starting with parents, would be very, very serious, indeed. ;-{>8

You are not alone in your apparent acceptance of CC, and I am not trying to argue you out of that. I merely replied to your posts, as requested. Please do not point to the notion that �schools� are not able to effectively achieve any particular set of arbitrary �standards� as any reason whatsoever for supporting another arbitrary set of standards.

In reply to your posts after this one, I never pointed to a "conspiracy" or came to this from a "conservative" position.
My analysis and comment is based on more than 50 years of work for educating people in public and private educational settings - as a teacher and then leader and then evaluator - doing the above in very rural K-9 schools, in rural and urban high schools and in colleges and universities.

Apparently you have not experienced two things simultaneously: 1. the benefits of local schools operating powerfully on their own at very high levels and with rigorous testing standards, as driven by the expectations of those who fund and manage the process; 2. the fact of increasing and pernicious federal intrusion since the 1970s.

Were you to have such perspective as a result of on the job experience, I believe that you would not see CC as some new and improved method thoughtfully based on "higher common standards and elevated learning expectations". Rather, I believe you would see it for what it is in the 30+ year progression wherein schools of all sorts across this country have been negatively affected by:

labor union activity,

diminished parental interest/ responsibility,

those who choose to become teachers because they can get paid and have more vacation time while easily dodging accountability and enjoying security (ask me about the opposite type),

gutless principals/superintendents who worship at the throne of political correctness and "don't make any waves" while playing the career ladder game,

the huge intrusion of the USDE/federal schemes/bureaucrats/etc.

and i could go on.

If you have not experienced the drift and have not seen the effects, you probably won't get the drift. In how many locations and for how long have you lived/taught/cared about public school education? As a result of that, do you truly believe that some governmental uniform scheme of standard curriculum and standard testing will be useful, let alone beneficial, to the students and families in the variety of settings and circumstances extant?

If it were funny and not so sad to hear, I would laugh at statements such as "the school always can supplement or go beyond" the expectations of CC. Great and even good schools ALWAYS have "pushed beyond" basic requirements for students prepared and willing to move beyond - so why is that something good about CC. If you have been awake to the developments, the overall outcomes of public education have fallen steadily and shamefully for almost three decades (see the list of reasons above) and that downturn is inversely proportional to the increasing intrusion of the federal government.

Do you really believe that, all of a sudden, we have a new concept or method that is going to reverse that downfall, and that this great success will be shaped and driven by federal action?

A wise person does not attempt to assess the shape/content/intent of CC as a stand alone concept. It must be assessed in terms of its context. Good schools help their students learn to see and analyze the bigger pictures, the concepts that drive movements, the values and mores involved in "new things". Excellent teachers working in excellent school environments supported by excellent taxpayers and parents make excellent education happen.

None of that intent can be found in CC. Kindly continue to think for yourself.

I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "That government is best which governs least".

Anything the government at any kevel touches is instantly corrupted. I don't want the government involved in education, the environment, jobs, mortgages, student loans, etc.

To me, that is enough to vehemently fight against common core or any other program conceived by a government bureaucrat.

You are free to believe what you want to. You are obviously sincere in your support for CC but as most the other posters have either said or insinuated, you seem to be looking at CC with rose colored glasses. History shows that our government is corrupt, why not limit it from further incursion into our lives?

I'm looking at CC from the glasses of someone who has actual experience with dealing with it. I'm not at all trusting of our government doing a good job of dealing with anything. What you and most of the other posters fail to understand is that the government is already neck deep in education. Killing off CC isn't going to change that, it will only mean that there will be no effort to tie curricula to the standardized testing that determines school funding. CC and the corresponding SBAC test series are an improvement over NCLB. That is the reality of the situation. I dislike Obama as much as the next guy. I would agree that nearly everything he has done as president has been a disaster. CC is just not one of those things. I think what I'm seeing with a lot of the posters here is that none of us trust a thing that comes from this administration, therefore, CC must be bad. All of the conservative commentators say it's bad, and it came from a bunch of commie libs, so it must be bad.

Welcome to the world of government. Most people are too simple to see beyond the cop, teacher and mailman when the government they elected do their thing.

Ranger, you are a damned fool, and a sucker to boot. I hope your "ranger" moniker isn't somehow connected to US Army Rangers. They are supposed to be smart enough to stay the [bleep] out of an ambush alley. You ain't that bright.

You really, really, need to get a copy of the US Constitution and try to read it.

RANGER 1, IF YOU THINK THAT OTHER POSTERS AND I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DEGREE TO WHICH GOVERNMENT HAS INTRUDED AND DEGRADED PUBLIC EDUCATION, YOU ARE NOT READING FOR COMPREHENSION. THE DEGREE TO WHICH I NEED TO BE TOLD WHAT I DO AND DON'T UNDERSTAND IN THESE MATTERS IS THE SAME DEGREE TO WHICH I NEED MORE GOVERNMENT INTRUSION.

KINDLY GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING SHOULD BE TIED TO THE OUTCOMES OF STANDARDIZED TESTING, AND ONE GOOD REASON WHY ANY CURRICULUM SHOULD BE DRIVEN BY, OR TOWARD, A STANDARDIZED TESTING SCHEME.

IT MAY BE DIFFICULT FOR SOME TO UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT, BUTA LOT OF REALLY GREAT EDUCATING OCURRED LONG BEFORE ANYONE EVER DREAMED OF NCLB AND SCAB OR THE CC. IT IS NOT A SOLUTION - IT IS ANOTHER STEP ON THE DOWNWARD STAIRWAY.

I agree with you wholeheartedly and appreciate the discussion from all who have posted. In order for me to be able to confidently defend my point of view to the public, I think that it's not only important to know the facts, but have answers for the misinformation that might exist. I also felt that if there were a group of people that could come up with legitimate reasons as to why CC should be done away with or how it was actually some heinous communist plot, it would be the guys here at the fire.

Performance based funding is here and it isn't going to go away. It is a conservative concept, in that it requires schools to perform to a level set by the government, in answer to complaints about the dismal performance of many public schools. Being performance based funding isn't going away, it only stands to reason that curricula must be tied to this performance assessment. The idea behind a test is to measure the success of both the student and those administering the curricula in acquiring/teaching the curricular content. We can both spend the rest of the night talking about how we hate government intrusion into any number of aspects of our lives and it won't change a thing. The reality is that within the current paradigm, CC is an improvement upon how things were being done under NCLB. I agree with you in terms of government intrusion, I'm simply realistic enough to know that the die has been cast in regard to standardized testing and funding. You may want to consider that there was almost no outcry from conservatives when NCLB was put into motion. Now there was a poorly conceived program! Why all the fuss now?

I don't know about CC ( and yes, my wife teaches it), but you're damn right about it being a Republican idea (not conservative).

Are you simply married to "what is"?

When the standards are mediocre, the system bogus and the educators can (and do) game it to their advantage - including teaching to the test - the scheme is worthless in terms of educational quality. In places/schools that care about students and expect quality, broad standardized test performance based funding WILL pass away - just as have other such band-aid fads in education. Read earlier - there is no substitute for - - -

The biggest problem I see with performance based funding, is that it depends on the one cog in the machine that does not care one whit about funding - the kids. I work with a lot of kids, and there are many good students who will succeed no matter WHAT the latest and greatest learning strategy is. This is where these stupendous ideas are tested. There are also a lot of kids that don't give a crap, and will not work. They do NOTHING. Seems to me, all this is designed to make it look like they are doing something, despite their best efforts...Bottom line, the kids simply MUST do the work, and a lot of them will not. The result will be exactly what the powers that be are trying to avoid - the schools that do not succeed will be the same schools that do not succeed now. It is the kids/parents that won't do the work necessary to succeed who will make it fail.

...and the best teachers always have the worst kids. That's a fact. There is no way good teachers with bad kids can "perform" as well as bad teachers with good kids. It's a mess.

Why? Are you kidding me?

the way math is being taught to our students is asinine from this ole rednecks perspective.


have always loved basic math

my kids have heard over and over math is a language that poor people never learn to speak

and that math never lies, but when 5+5 can equal 9,10 or 11, I say BS

also hate that ladder nonsense, and no texts to come home with kids

my youngest, I just taught him to do math the old fashioned way and forget about the BS they were teaching in school.

we have good schools btw and good teachers, it pizzes me off to no end how they are dictated to as to how to teach.

Thomas that posted above is a perfect example, he teaches at one of our local high schools here, good man for the job, but my bet is guys like Thomas will no longer be a part of our educational system in the future. Kids will suffer for the lack of teachers like Thomas.

More insight. Pay attention to the treatment of constitutional teaching.