So a couple weeks ago, I saw a tweet that Saxon was aligning their math curriculum with the Common Core. And the day after that, I received an email from Math-U-See that they, too, were aligning with the Common Core. And then I got all aggravated and vented on Facebook a little, and then I picked a fight about it with a public school kindergarten teacher, making me possibly the meanest person ever.
I am opposed to centralized decision making when it comes to education.
Even though I homeschool and couldn’t give a hang about government standards, I do believe that a well-educated populace benefits us all. And I believe that what constitutes a good education is best left to local and state control, to the families and parents who care more than a Washington special interest, power mongering, money-grubbing group ever could.
Furthermore, I believe the Common Core is just another experimental fad, like New Math or No Child Left Behind or every other ridiculous idea that has come along solely because the bureaucrats in the Department of Education have to justify their salaries. This time, however, the Common Core comes as an unconstitutional power grab by the executive branch, wherein the Federal Government is no longer doling out moneys to states to use as they see fit, but instead dictating that states must adopt this national curriculum “voluntarily” in order to receive their education money. The money, I think, is at the center of the homeschool publishers preemptively retooling their curriculum to align. After all, if Saxon or Math-U-See want to sell to private schools, or to homeschoolers in highly regulated states, they have to comply. It’s a business decision. And I find that disappointing.
The Common Core also includes other lovely little tidbits like non-consensual student tracking and sharing of personal data (see more here and here and an example of the kind of data collected here. Important Student Data Points include Bus Route, Dwelling Arrangement, and Religious Affiliation, not to mention Blood Type and even whether or not the student was a premie?). And even though Common Core spouts a bunch of innocuous and even warm-fuzzy-inducing yak-yak about “world class math instruction.” it seems to be in reality a lowering of standards – California, for example, is citing the Common Core as a reason to stop teaching algebra to 8th graders. And no longer will schools teach the classics in Literature, they will now use “informational texts.”
National Curriculum = National Tests. The SAT and ACT are already being reworked to align with the new standards. This way, we can all pat ourselves on the back about our improved test scores whilst still raising kids who can’t read or count your change back when the cash register goes on the fritz at Taco Bell. We have been continually lowering our education standards in this country since the 1960s, while remaining stupidly mystified at our inability to “compete in the global economy” and obsessing about “achievement gaps.” Did you know that Literature texts required for 12th grade English classes after 1963 were simpler than 7th grade texts published prior to 1963? So when our darlings bring home A’s we shouldn’t assume they’re actually learning.
Here is an excellent, comprehensive, and lengthy article on the Common Core at Daily Uncensored, the most surprising bit to me being the financial bribery involved with signing on. I suppose I am naive, though. Do you think if I praised the Common Core, I could get some money from Bill Gates, too? Speaking of Mr. Gates, insert massive eye-roll at one of the most successful education drop-outs in the country being so invested in standardizing schools.
If you want to get really freaked out, and I mean REALLY FREAKED OUT, read about how this is all just the beginning of a life long tracking plan.
And here is a very detailed explanation of the whole thing on youTube. There are five parts, with the second part going into what, exactly, the new standards are.
Is anyone else as worked up about this as I am? Is anyone planning to change what they do about Math?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my son told me he wanted to learn more about history, so we watched a bunch of documentaries this weekend, and I need to go admire his Lego re-creation of Kublai Khan’s warships.
“Give me the children, I will give you a nation
When an opponent declares,
‘I will not come over to your side.’
I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already…
What are you? You will pass on.
Your descendants, however,
now stand in the new camp.
In a short time they will know nothing
else but this new community.’”
March 13th, 2013 at 6:03 am
I don’t disagree, because I don’t think more government oversight is always the best solution.
However, I don’t know much about the “common core” and thus I would be interested to see (for instance) the Saxon book before and after the “alignment”. Would it be vastly different? Or is it more of a labeling issue? Is it that Saxon will start designating Common Core labeling on each topic they cover, but otherwise their curriculum is unchanged? Or is this a radical overhaul of all curricula?
What I’m saying is that if it is just Saxon (et al) showing that they do, in fact, cover all the topics “required” by Common Core (CC) in a particular grade but the curriculum is unchanged, then who really cares? If doing so allows great curricula to stay in business because they can now sell to schools under CC, that should be viewed as a win for homeschoolers, IMO.
I guess I need to read more about CC because maybe I’m just being naive. In general, however, I am mighty suspicious of anything that comes out of Washington, period. I think our education system is well past broken and I doubt this initiative will be any improvement.
March 13th, 2013 at 9:38 am
Right, that’s pretty much what I am wondering about Math-U-See, which is what we use. Did they really change or is it just some minor rearranging in order to meet the criteria? I read a couple reviews of the Saxon changes, and some people say it’s wildly different. I am hoping MUS is not, because I love it and I don’t want to switch. I’m prepared to stick with them for next year and see how it goes.
According to the video, though, the rules regarding the Common Core with schools means that they can’t add or subtract or do anything different than what is specifically laid out in the standards. So does that mean that Saxon has gotten rid of Euclidean Geometry and excluded certain Algebra II and Geometry content that is currently a prerequisite for college in order to align? I also read that the Common Core fails to teach prime numbers, least common denominators, and conversions between fractions and decimals. Have Saxon and the others made that change as well? This is the stuff I want to know, but am having a hard time finding out. I think I am going to email MUS and ask them.
Here’s more:
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/the-pedagogical-agenda-of-common-core-math-standards/
March 13th, 2013 at 10:56 am
*smh* I have no words. I think the important question is this: why is our federal government interested in withholding education from citizens? (Race to the Top of what? A big idiot pile?) If a person knows anything about history, a person knows the answer to that question. And if a person knows anything about Americans, a person knows why the slow burn is the only effective approach for those with less-than-noble motives. Just my humble, incredibly cynical opinion.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:12 pm
I recently read an opinion piece about the literature part being abused in that non-fiction is going to be encouraged at the expense of classic literature choices for the sake of inserting political propaganda into the curricula. The assertion made by the author might be a stretch or it might not. I’ll send the link to you privately.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for this post. We use Saxon and I have been mildly freaking out: should I just hurry and buy everything up through High School now? Should I switch Math curriculum? And to what?
I hate this and I hate trying to explain to people why this is such a bad idea. Any time something out of Washington is “For the children” people need to be wary and yet it feels like THEY NEVER ARE.
Karen@Candid Diversions´s last [type] ..Gratituesday – Generous Friend
March 13th, 2013 at 1:34 pm
*sigh* Makes me want to go buy all the books I ever want to use.
I don’t think a national curriculum is inherently worse than a state curriculum: at the classroom level, the inflexibility is the same. The thing is, the Common Core only helps the states that didn’t have very good standards before (Mississippi and company), and only then if they implement them well… and then, one may hope, the standards will be further improved rather than being made a sacred cow. It may take a couple of generations, though, moving at the speed of school.
Other states are *lowering* their standards to the CC to get the money, and then squandering the money on hastily-written CC-aligned materials. In the long term, their academic achievement may decrease–but hey, they got their share of the federal dollars! That’s winning, right?
March 14th, 2013 at 7:31 am
It’s extortion. Absolutely. But they’ve been dangling money for lots of things like this over the years. Just not at this massive scale, I suppose.
My sister (middle school math teacher) and I (former high school English teacher) talk about this all the freaking time. We agree to disagree. A lot.
The English standards (state ones, too) always make me crazy. There has been a push towards informational sources over lit for a while. Plus, my kid doesn’t need to name what STRATEGY she used for reading a source, she just needs to get the information. Standardized tests drive me bananas that way.
Math Mammoth has been making some changes as well, and from what I could see, they were minor. Basically changing when some things were taught, and adding small things. I don’t think they have to take anything out to comply. Like in a classroom, a teacher can go above and beyond the state standards, but not at the expense of skipping any standards. So you can do more, but not less or in a different yearly order. Unless they change that as well.
I didn’t know about the underlying tracking bull crap. Grrr…
Oh, gosh, I have to stop now.
Michelle´s last [type] ..Lightning Says . . .
March 14th, 2013 at 9:23 am
That is exactly the thing that concerns me… Apparently if a state adopts the Common Core, they have forfeited virtually all their control over the curriculum. That Race to the Top grant application states that “Common set of K-12 standards means a set of content standards that define what students must know and be able to do and that are substantially identical across all States in a consortium. A State may supplement the common standards with additional standards, provided that the additional standards do not exceed 15 percent of the State’s total standards for that content area.”
Meaning that there’s basically a 15% speed limit. As a district, and as a state, the public schools CANNOT to allow, for example, 9th graders to learn more than 15% of what Common Core mandates for a learning standard. If I were a Public School parent, I would find that outrageous.
So yes, I can see that there is nothing to worry about if us homeschoolers are using a curriculum that meets and exceeds certain state standards. We all know our standards are higher (she said obnoxiously), and our curricula has met state standards (and exceeded them) all along.
HOWEVER.
IF Math-U-See and Saxon and the rest of them adopt the Common Core, do they still remain better than the PS and it’s just an innocuous renaming of things (which is essentially what IEW said on it’s FB page about the Common Core), OR do they have to stay within that 15% guideline? Which, of course, would mean a dumbing down of the material.
That is my worry. Math-U-See INSISTS that they haven’t removed or rearranged anything, they’ve only added. However, I remain suspicious.
And I realize that as the parent, I don’t have to sit around and wait until 9th grade to teach my kids algebra. We can just blaze on and do it at whatever pace works for us. But how can I be certain that we are learning everything we should? If you read this http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/the-pedagogical-agenda-of-common-core-math-standards/, then you can see some of what the Common Core removes entirely.
I don’t have the time or energy to research every single aspect of math and literature and science (yeah, that’s coming too) that should be taught and I’d rather just trust my curriculum. I don’t like feeling distrustful…but I am.
March 16th, 2013 at 1:35 pm
As far as I can tell, The US and Canadian Powers-That-Be are determined to dumb future generations down into nations of easily malleable “sheep” – educated enough to perform specific job-allotted tasks, but not educated enough to realize how mistreated they are. It’s horrendous to think that Orwell’s 1984 was not so far off the mark, just a couple of generations later.
Eddie – The Usual Mayhem´s last [type] ..Searching For Signs of Spring