Two experts. The first is a mom, the second is a mom and child clinical psychologist. Common Core’s standards are developmentally inappropriate for young children. That’s one of the criticisms I’ve heard from multiple teachers in the younger grades.
This post was made on Facebook by Staci Tawbush about her experience with Common Core. Click her name to see the whole thread and other parent comments with similar frustrations.
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I’m about to be controversial but it’s about damn time somebody be…For more than a year now I’ve talked about the effect that Common Core is having on my family and on my life in general – and what it’s doing to the morale of my children. CC has now been fully implemented. And just as other parents are starting to wake up – I’ve absolutely had all I can take!We had another 3-hours-of -homework-night tonight. The kind of night I’ve told you all about. The kind of night some have called me a liar about.
Tonight, though, instead of taking a picture of the ridiculous math my child is being forced to do, I decided to take a picture of my child doing it. Call me insensitive, but I don’t care what you think. What I care about is my children. I see this on a regular basis and it’s time for others to see it, too… Because this is what Common Core really looks like.
This is Savannah. This is a 3rd grader at 10 o’clock on a Wednesday night literally crying over her homework. This is a child hungry for knowledge – a child who loves to learn. This is a child with a broken spirit. I didn’t have to take several pictures to capture one that happened to include a tear, because the tears were pouring down her face. This is a very smart kid in the midst of feeling like a failure.
So: To those of you who tell me Common Core is a good thing. To those of you who claim it’s no different than what children have always done. To those who speak against it but don’t act. To those without the spine to stand up against political pressure. To those in which CC has just become another political talking point. To those who think we need the money from the federal government to sustain AL education. And to those who had a chance to stop this and didn’t…
Tonight I’m mad at YOU.
Tonight you share blame in making a child feel stupid and her [single] mother feel like a disappointment.
And guess what? This happened all over the state tonight. Not just in my house. You had a hand in that, too.
Finally: To the warriors out there who’ve been fighting this as long (or longer) as I have. To the parents who just heard about CC yesterday. To the few politicians who refuse to back into the darkness. To the moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends who are seeing this everyday in your own home…
This is why we’re so passionate.
This is why we fight.
Fight On.
Second, this link will take you to an excellent article and presentation which I’ve embedded below. Dr. Megan Koschnick spoke at a Common Core conference at Notre Dame and does a fantastic job explaining child psychology and how Common Core is developmentally inappropriate for young children. It’s a very fast 25 minute presentation. I strongly encourage you to read or watch this.
The first thing that drew me into being concerned about common core was the developmental INappropriateness of the standards for young children. I think this is an aspect that has been kind of ignored in the fight. The first time I heard about common core was when I was directed to the Alliance for Childhood website. They are probably my favorite advocacy group for young children. Here is a link to their position statement on common core: http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Joint%20Statement%20on%20Core%20Standards_(418%20).pdf . It is signed by dozens of early childhood educators and professors of early childhood education. I believe there is another place on the website where you can read some of the comments from these experts that signed this statement. I believe common core has NOTHING to do with what’s actually good for children; it is only about adult interests.
(I noticed on my above comment that the end of the link was left off–I don’t know how to fix that. The “pdf” part should be part of the link.) I will try it again below: http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Joint%20Statement%20on%20Core%20Standards_(418%20).pdf
Here’s a shortened link that works for that pdf Lisa. http://bit.ly/16Lyc6t
Wow. What a great letter. I can’t tell you how many nights last year my 4th grader cried over common core math. She was convinced that she is just stupid because she can’t figure out how to do common core multiplication. I was unable to help her because we had no book or instructions on how to do it. I could teach her how I learned multiplication but if she didn’t have the common core steps she got the answer wrong. Drove me crazy that there was more interest in the steps than the correct answer.
My 2nd grader no longer has a love of math.
I am now homeschooling, but math is a subject I struggle to teach because my kids have bad memories of common core math.
If you want to understand the reason behind why constructivist, Common Core math is being taught this way, check out this post:
http://blog.oaknorton.com/report-suggests-improvements-to-asd-math-program-alarming/
I had the same experience as you, not having instructions when the teacher did not send out instructions for some of the material they were covering in class. Usually the “Dear Family” tear out sheet they send out with each unit helped. I was able to talk to her and get a copy of the few pages of the instructional material we were having trouble with. For one of my kids, I was able to borrow an extra copy of their math textbook for the school year. There was one year when I went on Amazon and bought a used copy of their school math textbook. ( an older edition but the concepts and instructional steps were the same ) Hope this helps a little.
Last year my 5th-grade daughter was doing the same thing- crying over math at 10 pm. The last straw was when I discovered a communist slant in her American History textbook. I pulled her out and began homeschooling. It’s taken several months to get her confidence back in her ability to learn.
CommonCore (I call it CC for short- “Carbon Copy”!) claims to have a focus on creating ‘grit’ for students. Remember that word; you’ll see it again in their explanations.
I just finished reading “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Power of Character” by Paul Tough. I highly recommend it. He has a very different definition of ‘grit’ than the CC people; he says it means “perseverance in pursuit of a passion”. From what I’ve seen, CC does its darnest to drive every bit of passion out of children- in math objectives it overwhelms them when young, then sells them short as teens.
Paul Tough talks a bit about grit here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETu6yXCcfyM
See if ANY of it sounds like CC!
It sounds more to me like the strengths that were automatically taught in the schools when God and the Bible were there.
I am a teacher. I was speaking with a wonderful old lady I met about the Common Core. I explained to her how the government planned to have NCLB collapse on purpose, and how they planned from the beginning to take over education. I explained that I had researched the system for the past six years and had learned what the future will bring if we allow the Common core to continue. I explained that it is a smaller scale of Obamacare, used as a trial to see if they could get away with it. She asked me “get away with what?” I answered with passing laws without congressional approval. They did it you know. And they got away with it. Now on a much larger scale they are repeating it again with Obamacare. Glenn Beck commented that bypassing congress had never happened before. It actually has – through Common Core. Nobody voted for it, legislation went past congress and was directed by dictation from the White House. There was no democratic process, just an imperialistic takeover of education that was stolen from the states. She then asked me if I was educating people like her about it. What was I doing to let people know. I told her that that’s why I wrote my book…
I’m having a promo free download for 48 hours on kindle; It’s not about the money, it is about letting people know about the travesty and dishonesty that is taking place in our country. It is about preserving our rights and our freedoms, and our constitution. It is about letting people know what the Common Core is, why the education system is failing, why so many parents are frustrated, and what we can do to repealthecommoncore.com. Please tell everyone to pick up my book for free on ebook kindle in the next 48 hours. Please think of anyone that can benefit from being educated without the hype.
It is a free promo for people like you.
Feel free to share the link with whomever you like.
But do your part to stop the Common Core from becoming the World Core
Have a great day
Mr. Noriega
(paperback also available at Amazon.com)
Free ebook 48 hours: http://www.amazon.com/Its-Broken-Dont-Fix-ebook/dp/B00GAP6FHG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1383253845&sr=1-1&keywords=mr+noriega
http://www.readersandbooks.com/
http://www.repealthecommoncore.com/
“Prisoner of Paradise” http://www.synergebooks.com/ebook_prisonerofparadise.html
Mr. Noriega,
I applaud your efforts. I am also “Fighting the Machine”. I am building a web-site in Louisiana, called Killcommoncore.com. And get this…I don’t even have any Children!
This is about the Future of our Country.
If Common Core Lives, Freedom Dies.
http://www.killcommoncore.com
THANK YOU! Your link was shared with me from a friend after I was venting about our frustrations as parents over my daughter’s third grade year. My daughter is an extremely bright child, she literally SURVIVED 1st and 2nd grade after having MULTIPLE teachers and did so with extremely good grades. Now entering 3rd grade with common core being implemented, all of a sudden she has been labeled as “at or below proficient”?! I was explaining to my friend how we had just had a discussion with her teachers how I felt as though we have failed my daughter as her parents by not speaking up before now, but didn’t know she was having “issues” because she always has excellent grades and we’re ANGRY with the school system for failing her….they have managed to take an ABOVE AVERAGE student and make her barely proficient?! The material she is learning is LITERALLY material that is typically covered in middle school (7th grade), but yet she’s made to endure this “learning” that only amounts to self deprication. Seriously considering homeschooling!!!!!!!
TNMama, I recommend you watch the video on this page:
https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/the-great-escape-homeschooling/