what is common core?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are national standards for the country's education system. As of January, 2014, CCSS are in place in 45 states and some territories. The Common Core State Standards are a set of learning standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics. These standards replace existing state standards in ELA and Math.
“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.” – CCSS Mission Statement
Included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) {Stimulus Package of 2009} was the following: The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) program is a new one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Of the amount appropriated, the U. S. Department of Education will award governors approximately $48.6 billion by formula under the SFSF program in exchange for a commitment to advance essential education reforms to benefit students from early learning through post-secondary education, including: college- and career- ready standards and high-quality, valid and reliable assessments for all students; development and use of pre-K through post-secondary and career data systems; increasing teacher effectiveness and ensuring an equitable distribution of qualified teachers; and turning around the lowest-performing schools.” (http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/factsheet/stabilization-fund.html)
States accepted the standards as part of accepting Race to the Top (RTTT) monies in 2009. Included in receiving RTTT funds, states had to agree to the Common Core Standards, standardized testing, attaching teacher evaluations to the state standardizing testing and longitudinal data systems.
Common Core is more than standards it is national reform.
“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.” – CCSS Mission Statement
Included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) {Stimulus Package of 2009} was the following: The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) program is a new one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Of the amount appropriated, the U. S. Department of Education will award governors approximately $48.6 billion by formula under the SFSF program in exchange for a commitment to advance essential education reforms to benefit students from early learning through post-secondary education, including: college- and career- ready standards and high-quality, valid and reliable assessments for all students; development and use of pre-K through post-secondary and career data systems; increasing teacher effectiveness and ensuring an equitable distribution of qualified teachers; and turning around the lowest-performing schools.” (http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/factsheet/stabilization-fund.html)
States accepted the standards as part of accepting Race to the Top (RTTT) monies in 2009. Included in receiving RTTT funds, states had to agree to the Common Core Standards, standardized testing, attaching teacher evaluations to the state standardizing testing and longitudinal data systems.
Common Core is more than standards it is national reform.
what is wrong with common core?
Common Core is standardization. An attempt to standardize education at the national level. It allows for no flexibility. It is rigid and force everyone to conform within it. Gifted children, special needs children and mainstream children have the same expectations: no differentiation. Common Core’s focus on skill sets rather than true content is unlikely to genuinely educate students in English, reading, rhetoric, or composition. Nor do the ELA standards validate Common Core’s boast of “college-readiness. Common Core’s ELA standards (as well as the math standards) are designed to prepare students only for nonselective community colleges – which was in fact admitted by one of the Standards-writers when questioned. In addition to their technical deficiencies, the ELA Standards radically change the focus of instruction. They de-emphasize the study of classic literature in favor of reading so-called “informational texts,” such as government documents, court opinions, and technical manuals. In fact, the Standards dictate that well over half the reading curriculum, at least in grades 6 through 12, should consist of informational texts rather than classic literature Not only does Common Core limit the amount of literature that can be taught, but there are indications that it promotes the most intellectually disengaging techniques for presenting even the informational texts .But even more disturbing is that Common Core would deprive students of the intangible benefits of studying classic literature. A student who learns to love great books learns to understand great principles that endure throughout human history; to imagine himself in other times and other worlds; to understand different perspectives and points of view; to appreciate the history of his nation and others; and to love, and perhaps emulate, the well-crafted phrase, sentence, and paragraph. Most of these benefits cannot be obtained from reading informational texts.
Common Core’s embrace of the latter at the expense of the former is a surrender to the idea that most students should be trained for static jobs, not developed as creative human beings who can fulfill their own potential and take their place in society as leaders and as themselves. Teaching students informational documents rather than classic literature may train them to be adequate entry-level workers for existing factory jobs, but it will not educate them to be thoughtful Americans and empower them in the exercise of their liberty.
A few additional facts on why Common Core hurts our children, our education system and our nation. And why Common Core must be repealed!
- David Coleman and Jason Zimba, the architects and lead writers of the Common Core, have no experience in education or in writing any standards. The Common Core Standards are of mediocre academic quality. Even Common Core proponents have conceded that the Standards are inferior to those of several states and no better than those of about a dozen states.
- The federal Department of Education used bribes to coerce states to adopt Common Core. States were “coerced” with enormous stimulus grant money (RTTT), a waiver to get out of “No Child Left Behind’s” rigid requirements and the threat of Title One funds being taken away. The first question on the qualifying questionnaire (this process was conducted by the Gates Foundation) was, "Has your state signed the MOA regarding the Common Core Standards currently BEING developed by NGA/CCSSO? Answer must be "yes. Governors had to sign up by December 2009. The standards were not released until March 2010.
- The federal administration went to the Governors directly while legislatures were not in session, so neither a discussion, nor a vote by the legislators was held. The administration pressed the Governors to sign giving them just a small window of time even before the actual standards, curricula, and assessment tests could be seen or were even written. It is imposing a national, top-down standards and curriculum on all of the 45 States that have signed on to it. Common Core adoption required only two signatures: the Governor and the State Superintendent of Education. No votes by our legislators.
- The Common Core violates what we know about how children develop. This is evident as no experts on early childhood were included in their creation. The standards were "backmapped" from a description of 12th grade college skills. Basically the standards were written with the thought children are "mini adults".
- The Common Core creates a system where students and teachers are compared and ranked. This requires all new testing. More money for the companies This standardization is now being used to created a new national market for curriculum and tests. The individuals who wrote the standards work for the testing companies and the curriculum companies. Common Core is about money for educational companies and technology companies. The industry is expected to grow by the billions under Common Core.
- The Common Core equals more high stakes testing. 5th graders this year will spend 500 minutes taking baseline and benchmark tests, plus another 540 minutes on the Common Core tests in the spring. Testing alone is two weeks worth of instructional time lost.
The Common Core has no research to support it, and worst of all, has no mechanism for correction. There is no process available to revise the standards. They must be adopted as written. They are copyrighted. The biggest problem in education is the growing number of children living in poverty. The Common Core does nothing to address this problem. Poverty is the number one problem. Common Core only makes this problem worse because these kids have no help.
Common Core’s embrace of the latter at the expense of the former is a surrender to the idea that most students should be trained for static jobs, not developed as creative human beings who can fulfill their own potential and take their place in society as leaders and as themselves. Teaching students informational documents rather than classic literature may train them to be adequate entry-level workers for existing factory jobs, but it will not educate them to be thoughtful Americans and empower them in the exercise of their liberty.
A few additional facts on why Common Core hurts our children, our education system and our nation. And why Common Core must be repealed!
- David Coleman and Jason Zimba, the architects and lead writers of the Common Core, have no experience in education or in writing any standards. The Common Core Standards are of mediocre academic quality. Even Common Core proponents have conceded that the Standards are inferior to those of several states and no better than those of about a dozen states.
- Dr. Sandra Stotsky of the University of Arkansas, a member of Common Core’s Validation Committee who refused to sign off on the Standards, criticizes the ELA standards as “empty skill sets . . . [that] weaken the basis of literary and cultural knowledge needed for authentic college coursework.” Further she has stated after analyzing the "complexity" of high school reading assignments...."the average reading level of the passages on the common tests now being developed to determine ‘college-readiness’ may be at about the grade 7 level.”
- Dr. Miligram, the only mathematician on the Validation Committee and who refused to sign off on the Standards because of serious concerns: "the mathematics standards would put students two years behind those of many high-achieving countries. Dr. Milgram identified several specific problems with the math standards: standards are out of sequence in the lower grades; less emphasis on fraction; moving Algebra 1 to grade 9 rather from grade 8 and Geometry teachers being instructed to teach with an experimental method never used successfully anywhere in the world.
- Dr. Anthony Esolen of Providence College urged one state legislature to reject Common Core’s attempts to diminish our children’s literary heritage: What appalls me most about the [Common Core] standards . . . is the cavalier contempt for great works of human art and thought, in literary form. It is a sheer ignorance of the life of the imagination. We are not programming machines. We are teaching children. We are not producing functionaries, factory-like. We are to be forming the minds and hearts of men and women. . . . Frankly, I do not wish to be governed by people whose minds and hearts have been stunted by a strictly utilitarian miseducation. . . . Do not train them to become apparatchiks in a vast political and economic system, but raise them to be human beings, honoring what is good and right, cherishing what is beautiful, and pledging themselves to their families, their communities, their churches, and their country.
- Curriculum Expert Grant Wiggins described the math standards as “a bitter disappointment.”
- The federal Department of Education used bribes to coerce states to adopt Common Core. States were “coerced” with enormous stimulus grant money (RTTT), a waiver to get out of “No Child Left Behind’s” rigid requirements and the threat of Title One funds being taken away. The first question on the qualifying questionnaire (this process was conducted by the Gates Foundation) was, "Has your state signed the MOA regarding the Common Core Standards currently BEING developed by NGA/CCSSO? Answer must be "yes. Governors had to sign up by December 2009. The standards were not released until March 2010.
- The federal administration went to the Governors directly while legislatures were not in session, so neither a discussion, nor a vote by the legislators was held. The administration pressed the Governors to sign giving them just a small window of time even before the actual standards, curricula, and assessment tests could be seen or were even written. It is imposing a national, top-down standards and curriculum on all of the 45 States that have signed on to it. Common Core adoption required only two signatures: the Governor and the State Superintendent of Education. No votes by our legislators.
- The Common Core violates what we know about how children develop. This is evident as no experts on early childhood were included in their creation. The standards were "backmapped" from a description of 12th grade college skills. Basically the standards were written with the thought children are "mini adults".
- The Common Core creates a system where students and teachers are compared and ranked. This requires all new testing. More money for the companies This standardization is now being used to created a new national market for curriculum and tests. The individuals who wrote the standards work for the testing companies and the curriculum companies. Common Core is about money for educational companies and technology companies. The industry is expected to grow by the billions under Common Core.
- The Common Core equals more high stakes testing. 5th graders this year will spend 500 minutes taking baseline and benchmark tests, plus another 540 minutes on the Common Core tests in the spring. Testing alone is two weeks worth of instructional time lost.
The Common Core has no research to support it, and worst of all, has no mechanism for correction. There is no process available to revise the standards. They must be adopted as written. They are copyrighted. The biggest problem in education is the growing number of children living in poverty. The Common Core does nothing to address this problem. Poverty is the number one problem. Common Core only makes this problem worse because these kids have no help.