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Gates Foundation admits Common Core Mistake. What now?

Then please explain how I can "understand" that 12 x 4 = 48.

I think "understanding" is involved in knowing that multiplication is a kind of addition - that 12 x 4 = 12+12+12+12. The most ubiquitous example of "rote" learning is that 2+2 = 4. It saves a little time over counting, but counting also works. The vertical 12 x 4 arrangement is an algorithmic shortcut: Do these procedures and you will get the same value as counting.

Re the "what now" of the thread title: Does it make sense to explicitly emphasize such concepts when kids are taught multiplication? Or will they learn more from arriving at this conclusion mostly on their own? For schools that have spent money on Common Core textbooks, can they be used as a resource supporting both memorization and conceptual thinking?

ETA:

As homeschoolers ourselves it is wonderful.

Then why are you trying to get your kids signed up for public school?

ETA2: It may be a mistake to engage with you, but you do have the ability to be civil. If you choose to respond I will expect a civil answer.
 
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Then why are you trying to get your kids signed up for public school?

Why not try reading the posts in the relevant threads where I have made myself clear instead of evading the thread topic?

ETA2: It may be a mistake to engage with you, but you do have the ability to be civil. If you choose to respond I will expect a civil answer.

That civility would include you answering a question I have asked three times.

If you can't even determine what the status is with respect to your own state and Common Core, well - that sure is an indictment.

It was supposed to be a national standard, enforced with federal money contingent on adhering to the core.

Nobody has to adhere, made clear with ESSA. There is one Beta version test out finally, and it is unclear how revisions to the Beta version are going to take place for states that remain.

Nobody at the National Governor's Association is working on it. All they did was take a bribe from Gates to house the copyright. Gates has left the building. The Foundation has no grant announcements for Common Core development/revision. The Federal Government is prohibited from developing it by ESSA.

It looks like the states themselves are just taking charge. In Tennessee for example, they used the core as a template and revised where they thought necessary:


http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2016/04/15/at-long-last-phase-out-of-common-core-is-official-in-tennessee/#.V5UaIo-cHIU

There is no process and not even any entity in charge of this for the so-called national Common Core. It is without a ship captain. Because Gates isn't funding anyone to do it. Nor is the federal government.

It came like a hurricane, nearly sucked up every state in the union, and now...

disappearing into the mist.
 
Why not try reading the posts in the relevant threads where I have made myself clear instead of evading the thread topic?

What topic? Your OP was a rambling, repetitive screed of gloating, blame and righteous indignation. Stripping all that aside my takeaway was "Common Core fizzles, now what?" I was more interested in "Now what" than in finding a scapegoat.

That civility would include you answering a question I have asked three times.
You became fixated on what state I live in - when was that ever the topic? As you pointed out: A lot of states aren't all the way in or all the way out. I don't like to post identifying details about where I live. Basically, the relevant entity ditched the name Common Core but kept the standards. Schools are not required to administer the PARCC test. Further browbeating, mockery and name-calling aren't going to clarify it for you.

If you can't even determine what the status is with respect to your own state and Common Core, well - that sure is an indictment.
An indictment of what? My unwillingness to be bullied? An elected official declares victory over defeating Common Core; a teachers' rep says it affects nothing. On the ground and in my own experience, the school where I work was not particularly affected. New textbooks weren't bought. Some tests are online and some aren't. There are 3 or 4 computer carts, enough to be shared among teachers who were moving in the direction of online lesson delivery, plus there are a couple of rooms with 30 or so desktops. The devices were acquired at different times, and they are used as tools across the board. I did work at one school that had textbooks explicitly labeled "Common Core." People used them, but the syllabus wasn't based on the book.

Somehow you'll manage to turn that in to an indictment of someone or something, I'm sure.

I'm interested in how people learn math, and what that says about how to deliver instruction. Fortunately there have been decent discussions in other sub-forums where this has been productively addressed.

Now I ask you again: Why do you keep trying to enroll your kids in public school if you think they are full of such idiocy and abuse? What do you think it can add to your home school efforts?
 
What topic? Your OP was a rambling, repetitive screed of gloating, blame and righteous indignation. Stripping all that aside my takeaway was "Common Core fizzles, now what?" I was more interested in "Now what" than in finding a scapegoat.

Actually, you defended the lame math revisions, which have already reduced academic scores on the NAEC exam for the first time in its 25 year history.

And there is reason to gloat. Reason for indignation that the richest man in the world would cause this disruption to US education and then run for the hills blaming everyone else for its failure.

snipping snippiness...

I'm interested in how people learn math, and what that says about how to deliver instruction. Fortunately there have been decent discussions in other sub-forums where this has been productively addressed.

You actually defended the common core math which is one of the first things the rejecting states are eliminating. It was stupid on the face of it.

I was interested in teaching math too, and figured out how to get a six year old into 4th grade math. And that was rather quickly determined through experimentation. Solid objects they could touch, move around, put into sets, add and subtract, etc. over and over again. Coins, pool balls, candy, and the problems always involved mommy daddy and his brother so there was plenty of motivation to do them.

From drilling over and over and over again it became obvious to them that memorizing tables of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division saved time. How using spreadsheets allowed them to do whole columns of operations all at the same time. How programming language works.

That made algebra a snap at age six, and pre-calculus a breeze with the graphing functions excel has to offer.

All that I figured out without a single class in how to teach and especially not how to teach elementary students. No guidance from some national core.

Your teacher rep correctly told you that common core doesn't affect anything anymore as of the passage of ESSA. Nobody can be subject to it, there is no structure by which it can be modified in terms of curriculum and tests - it is over. Dead. In terms of any future. They needed a force of compulsion in order to keep anyone to its terms.

States can continue to adhere to the stagnant wreckage, but they've got to understand now that there is no reason, no money you can lose, for dropping it.

Now I ask you again: Why do you keep trying to enroll your kids in public school if you think they are full of such idiocy and abuse? What do you think it can add to your home school efforts?

Talk about fixated. My oldest wasn't even eligible for kindergarten until this last academic year. He was reading at the college level by December. Reading level, not comprehension level.

So "keep trying" is bizarre. The other son still isn't old enough for school. So how could we "keep trying" to register a child not even eligible? He is reading at 7th grade level. We're not putting him in public school kindergarten. It's only half a day and he would be learning the alphabet. Why would we do that?

Sure, we went in and looked at the competition and asked the older one what he wanted to do. They claimed to have a talented and gifted program. So we checked it out. But they really were every bit as bad as the professional literature says. The math teacher laughed at our six year old reciting the Pythagorean theorem..."ha ha ha, I haven't seen that since high school". That is the math teacher, through 8th grade. A Japanese teacher will have majored in math, then gone through education training that is zealous for its applied practice testing of effectiveness.

The head teacher told us we had a "problem", this advanced academics. But don't worry, it isn't as bad as being developmentally delayed. This is the school that is tied with the youth jail in its academic scorecard.

What a wonderful attitude! So no, we are not trying to get them in there.
 
And there is reason to gloat. Reason for indignation that the richest man in the world would cause this disruption to US education and then run for the hills blaming everyone else for its failure.

Which is not the take others have had on it, but if it makes you feel better have at it.

You actually defended the common core math which is one of the first things the rejecting states are eliminating. It was stupid on the face of it.

*Show me where I did that.* Seriously. I defended a lot of the same methods you use. I've never used Common Core materials; I was never trained to take a Common Core approach. If you can quote what I said I might be able to tell what you're talking about.

I was interested in teaching math too, and figured out how to get a six year old into 4th grade math. ... From drilling over and over and over again it became obvious to them that memorizing tables of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division saved time.

OK. In what way do you think I disrespected this?

Your teacher rep correctly told you that common core doesn't affect anything anymore as of the passage of ESSA.
*What* are you talking about? My teacher rep? I don't have a teacher rep.

So "keep trying" is bizarre. The other son still isn't old enough for school. So how could we "keep trying" to register a child not even eligible? He is reading at 7th grade level. We're not putting him in public school kindergarten. It's only half a day and he would be learning the alphabet. Why would we do that?

Sorry, maybe you were speaking of earlier incidents. It seemed to me you had a couple of dealings with the public school system, which I thought involved getting your children into the school, but maybe you had other motivations.

Sure, we went in and looked at the competition and asked the older one what he wanted to do. They claimed to have a talented and gifted program. So we checked it out. But they really were every bit as bad as the professional literature says. The math teacher laughed at our six year old reciting the Pythagorean theorem..."ha ha ha, I haven't seen that since high school".
Right. You've said that. It doesn't mean you have to do battle with me. I'm not a Common Core advocate; you don't have to be in order to defend teaching place value in 2nd grade. Place value gives you the base 10 algorithms for addition and multiplication. It's not a new concept.
 
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Why do Americans Stink at Math?
That turns out to be not exactly what this New York Times story is about, so I'm surprised at the headline. But accurately describing what it is about might not really suck in readers, because it's pretty "inside baseball." It's really about that perennial hit, "Why can't America be more like Asia?"

Homeschoolers need not read further, because that kind of school arises so organically out of life, as has been pointed out. It's a little bit different for "the system," where kids are sent en masse to be taught by a cadre of professionals who almost by definition are not specialists in any given area (at least, up until 6th grade). "Education reform" rhymes with "chloroform," and the phrase, like the gas, sends most people into a stupor. That includes the NYT magazine writer, apparently: He/she missed the point of the article, which IMO is: Schools, even big school systems, can change, but that takes a commitment to honing lessons to a very fine degree. That, in turn, takes time:

Finland, meanwhile, made the shift by carving out time for teachers to spend learning. There, as in Japan, teachers teach for 600 or fewer hours each school year, leaving them ample time to prepare, revise and learn. By contrast, American teachers spend nearly 1,100 hours with little feedback.

"Feedback" in the U.S. tends to be scattershot, leaving teachers to feel second-guessed by administrators in a way that can undermine morale. It's not comfortable to hear exactly where lessons are going wrong, especially if classroom teachers feel isolated or hung out to dry. But in a culture where lessons delivery is scrutinized as a matter of course, it might not sting so much.

Per the article American teachers spend nearly twice as much time teaching as they do in Finland or Japan, leaving me to wonder *who takes up the slack for straight-up child care.* The article doesn't address that. Which IMO is a great big gaping hole.
 
. It seemed to me you had a couple of dealings with the public school system, which I thought involved getting your children into the school, but maybe you had other motivations.
.

Last time we went, it was because they said they had a "placement test" or academic assessment. The district literature claimed that and we called the school to see if they could administer it to us. An independent assessment for our kids.

So we came prepared for the test. Pythagorean theorem. Roman Empire. Spelling, vocabulary. Brush up on chemistry.

The test consisted of putting on their coats by themselves. Walking in a straight line. Naming shapes and colors. We had explained carefully on the phone what kind of tests we had been taking. Where they were scoring in the different academic subjects.

They said they understood. College level reading, check. Middle School math, check. So the alphabet was not even on their test, nor counting. They told us if he could do the things in the box there, the colors and shapes, the six year old could be in first grade this year. The younger one could not, because he was not old enough.

They are so obtuse, so insulated in their dictatorial world they don't have to listen to you. Reminds me of the third world. Saying they understand, come on in and waste your time, putting their coats on and naming colors when we have been so explicit about wanting a math test. A reading assessment. Science.

He's doing Roman Numerals at the moment. I don't know where that goes normally in math but he keeps seeing it in history so we covered it.
 
He's doing Roman Numerals at the moment. I don't know where that goes normally in math but he keeps seeing it in history so we covered it.

This was one lesson when I helped in 3rd grade, part of cultural numeracy I think. I wonder what the Romans did if they had to do serious math.
 
The Common Core is copyrighted to two nonprofit organizations Gates has been paying to host their website:

http://www.corestandards.org/terms-of-use/

The National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. It is strange to be copyrighting a national standard, but bizarre to have these two groups doing it jointly until you understand Bill Gates' objective from the beginning.

I have a question. Why has no process ever been put into place, nor even the vaguest outlines offered for how the Common Core was to be revised from its initial stupid roll-out?

Bill Gates produces software that was not only tested before he rolled it out, but which is nearly continuously updated and revised. Why would he never think of testing common core nor having any means by which to modify the first untested version you rolled out?

It is fixed, for all time, until these two nonprofit groups agree to modify it. But they aren't working on anything. The NGA has a new darling idea called "Competency Based Education", something it says some states are experimenting with.

http://www.nga.org/cms/home/nga-center-for-best-practices/col2-content/center-divisions/education-list/content-reference@/expanding-student-success-a-prim.html

There is a 15 page position paper on their new educational initiative and it is an abandonment of common core:

In the traditional model of education, student advancement
is closely tied to time spent in a classroom
where all students are typically taught as a group and
expected to move ahead at more or less the same pace.
In contrast, a model based on CBE starts by assessing
what a student knows and then allows that student to
advance at a pace that reflects his or her knowledge
and skills. In the process, CBE encourages student
success by providing targeted learning support, thereby
creating a more personalized educational experience.

Wow - so the National Governor's Association, one of the two Common Core keyholders is abandoning the entire idea and going for educating individuals rather than making them all interchangeable wall sockets like Gates was so fond of comparing them to!

The Council of Chief State School Officers - same thing. Not one word about Common Core on their website either. Instead it is all about ESSA and how individual states are now all free to develop their own curriculum plans. They have a pdf of what they call their Stakeholder Engagement Guide. If you read through it, they are asking all the states to start completely from scratch and define their own educational goals.

http://www.ccsso.org/

They name dozens of states that are already have these public "listening sessions" and similarly named events where stakeholders are asked to define their own standard on what constitutes educational success.

So there's the answer. The so-called Common Core is this copyrighted thing that isn't going to be amended because the two organizations in charge of it are working on programs that are complete repudiations of the Common Core premise.

Bill Gates has left the room. He never intended to test Common Core or revise it because it was a hoax. All he wanted was a massive tech industry expansion for computerized, interactive online testing.

Nevertheless this is good news. Apparently ESSA provided money to states for holding these back-to-the-drawing-board meetings. The National Governor's concept of treating people like individuals, boy - that is a great sign.
 
Non-Common Core states like Alaska too are deep into this new back-to-the-drawing-board ESSA. I just reviewed ours. A waste of time and money. Nobody knows about it.

It's the same tactic as Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, and every other initiative: you get federal grant money if you do what they say. They say you have to solicit public input, draft a new state plan for education, how you will hold the system accountable, and submit that to the feds so you can get your grant money.

So right now the vast majority of states are in this cycle of completely re-defining what educational success is, based on attendance/comments at these public meetings nobody knows about. In one short year, every state is going to have a new way of evaluating the success of education. Here's Kentucky, for example, the first Common Core state now going off on this new program:

http://education.ky.gov/comm/Pages/Every-Student-Succeeds-Act-(ESSA).aspx

Draft%20Timeline.jpg



That's not ambitious at all, no - one year from now Kentucky will have this completely new educational approach in place, along with holding schools and teachers accountable to it.

Remember, that is what Gates wanted to do: make teacher evaluations based on the scores of the students on standardized tests.

Massachusetts has about the best program in the country and is low-profiling ESSA:

http://www.doe.mass.edu/commissioner/?update=4/29/2016

No public meetings, no hoo-rah, just an online survey. This grant money only represents 5% of their total education budget so it isn't all that important to them. The biggest share of money in ESSA by far goes to low income/low academic achievement programs. There isn't much of that in Massachusetts. It would be more important to a state like Mississippi.

Massachusetts went back to having high standards instead of following common core. I imagine they already were holding people accountable. Not much for them to do.

It looks like ESSA told state bureaucracies they would pay for the milk and cookies, travel and per diem for staff at these public meetings and such, and if you put together some boiler plate about how you are holding people accountable, you get federal money, the lion's share of which is low income/low achievement programs.
 
Speaking of Mass. education. My experience of how "accountability" worked was rather interesting. My high school had a reputation in the region as providing good science and math education for reasons unclear until near the end of my senior year.

The head of the HS science dept. knew virtually no science from what I could determine. He taught senior physics by turning the class over to those of us that had a clue. So we spent time playing with all the nifty props they use in HS as we went through the textbook during the year. When students had questions the teacher would just call on one of us that understood the topic to explain it.

Near the end of the year he passed out a "test" we were going to take the next day. He then told us the "test" wasn't going to be used for grading us and encouraged us to go over the test, talk about any questions we didn't understand, and make notes we could use the next day when we took the actual test.

It was then that I realized how a guy that was so ignorant of the subject he supposedly taught could be dept. head and how the school could rank quite high in the region.

Fortunately for me, almost all the stuff I learned was from library books and we had good libraries. I would bounce from math to chemistry to physics. Back and forth as things in one area would raise questions but also clarify other areas. A few other kids had enough interest to do the same.

Any system that can be gamed will be gamed.
 
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