Under The Influence: Your private school could be using Common Core!

Perhaps you didn't know that many Catholic dioceses adopted Common Core as the standards for their schools.  It's true.  It's also true there has been significant push back among Catholic school parents against this initiative.

This is happening in Oklahoma to be sure, but what about other private schools?

One of the most insidious things about Common Core is the change in the way mathematics is taught.  This particular issue has been addressed to the nth degree among bloggers and mainstream journalists alike.  All one has to do is internet search the term "Common Core math" to get pages of dialogue on the topic.  In addition, I researched the genesis of the Common Core math and found that there is definitely a reason for concern.

One of the most concerning arguments about this particular situation was expressed recently by Erick Erickson of RedState.  He says:

The math does not make sense to the children and the math does not make sense to the parent. Kids are taught multiple ways to add totals together, must still add the totals correctly, but then must explain their answers — often having to write essays for math problems.

The best answer common core supporters have is to literally produce studies claiming that kids whose parents do not help them with homework will, over the long term, out perform kids whose parents do help them.

I am not kidding. That is their defense.

So imagine I was NOT surprised when I received the following letter from a friend whose child is in a private school here in Oklahoma.

I am unfortunately colored by my experience as an unwilling participant in some Everyday Math adoptions where it is being used exactly as envisioned by the authors... As I am wont to say, "one-size fits 60 million."

OKCPS, for example, ended up spending more in supplemental curriculum to support Everyday Math than it did on the original material and teacher training, not including the tutoring support OKSDE bought in bulk for frontline support (a $400k no-bid contract). I saw that repeated at a lot of other places too, plus one of the country's pioneering elementary STEM programs essentially re-silo-izing math out of its superb integrated curriculum. Tragic. Bottom line, though, is that I have yet to see any institution with outcomes even approaching the level of investment made in Common Core-aligned instruction! Exponentially tragic. I understand and support the goal of developing deeper understanding of concepts, particularly the "why" behind an algorithm. Youth coaching rule #1: You can teach a kid how to block and who to block, but until he understands why it's important and how it fits in the overall play, he's probably not going to be very good at it.

My bone with Everyday Math is that it's not very good at that approach. Generally speaking, it has a tendency to introduce the underlying logic of a algorithm in a vacuum, before the concept is covered, and only tenuously tie the underlying logic back to the applied algorithm. It's something akin to teaching a kid the Magnus effect before you train him how to throw a ball. 

Because of the way Everyday Math is written, it dovetails beautifully with the Common Core.  McGraw Hill is even proud to point that out.  In fact, they have a page on their website devoted to detailing how well Everyday Math performs with Common Core for each state - including Oklahoma.  To understand this connection fully, you'll probably need to see the video linked above detailing the document that founded Common Core math, but trust me, the connection is quite brilliant.

Here are the biggest problems:

1. Everyday Math stinks on ice.  Reviewer after reviewer will tell you this, outlining in specifics Erick Erickson's portrayal of the dismal reality at dining room tables all over the nation.
2. Because Everyday Math dovetails so well with the ridiculous Common Core math standards, it has been adopted by school after school after school in order to support the Common Core State Standards - including PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

So, if you thought, "Heck, my kids go to a private school, I don't need to worry about Common Core", you'd be wrong.  Please get in the fight and help us kill Common Core in Oklahoma today!  Contact your House and Senate member and tell them 1.  No Common Core while we're re-writing standards and 2.  No Common Core testing ever.

Why Would Legislators Want Our Kids in Public School MORE?

Several months ago I wrote a blog, "Please Put My Child In School MORE to Learn Less". I chronicled how I'd read Karl Springer's (Superintendent of Oklahoma City Public Schools) idea to increase the number of hours children should be in school. In fact, Springer wanted the Legislature to mandate a seven-hour school day to improve "education standards". 

[Education standards. Is there a definition for this phrase? I haven't really been able to find one as it appears to be nebulous and apply to whatever money-grubbing activity or liberty-stealing legislation the speaker intends.]

In the blog I outlined the many things my two children still in public education do during a day that apply to absolutely NOTHING educational (as would be indicated by my title). 

Though I am loathe to finish out the school year with the two (especially since our school adopted the absolutely HORRIFYING math curricula, "Everyday Math" - see below), it is certainly a way to keep tabs on the educational nonsense spewing out of even one the most affluent, well-placed elementary schools in the Oklahoma City Public Schools district. For examples, see my posts, "The Zombies Are Coming" (on the global warming nonsense and how it affected my child), and the Pièce de résistance "One Oklahoma Teacher, "Do I Teach To The Test or Teach for Knowledge" (where my youngest son's teacher basically tries to explain why she can't keep my child on a single task long enough to actually master it - basically, I've found, it's my responsibility to do it AFTER school).

So, can you imagine my glee when I found this while reading through the bills assigned to committees for the week - HB3089; Schools; changing the length of the school day; effective date; emergency. The bill was authored by Representative Jason Nelson of the larger Oklahoma City metro area. Guess who argued FOR the bill? That's right - none other than Superintendent Springer.

Peter J. Rudy at Oklahoma Watchdog provided the blow-by-blow discussion on the bill in the Common Education Committee this morning. 

Lynn Habluetzel - ROPE Board member - was watching Watchdog's tweets today and forwarded this tweet to me in a text, "Nelson: we’re trying to make value statement as a legislature that we want a longer school day."

What? A VALUE STATEMENT? Wait a minute. I guess I must be wrong on the whole idea of this Constitution thingy. Apparently, the objective of the legislative process is NOT to create freedom for citizens, but to tie them up with mandates and laws to make VALUE STATEMENTS. The only problem here is that my VALUES are apparently not those of the Oklahoma City Public Schools and Representative Nelson.

I think the final sentences in the debate are important here:

Kern: I think there are more fundamental problems in education. This isn’t increasing time teachers would be working. I don’t think this bill is the answer to what we need.

Nelson: there are some things I’ll never understand. We have people concerned we’re mandating we go 6.5 hours. Well we have a mandate for 6 hours right now. Let’s take that away and give districts billions of dollars to districts and let them do what we want. We’re not talking about creating a standard, it’s increasing the standard. We’re talking about establishing a new base so we’re not the bottom of the barrel. To me this is a common sense approach. We’re not micromanaging any more than we are right now.

Clearly - and according to the first hand knowledge I have of my two children - a longer school day will not solve the issue of the mess that has become public education. How Representative Nelson feels this idea is a "common sense approach", "I'll never understand". 

Trapping children longer in a building where - no matter how much many teachers want to make sure their kids leave their classrooms schooled in needed subjects;

• the curricula school boards adopt are HORRIBLE - and in some cases hurtful, 
• there are too many outside hour-eaters (assemblies, plays, field trips, etc.) that take time away from actual teaching and study,
• teachers have to 'teach to a test' to the extent that they can't teach their children to the level of mastery or the kids won't score well on the tests, but the test scores have to be good to keep the schools AYP number up and eventually to keep from being fired
• kids don't get the support they need at home because the family unit has been destroyed and teachers aren't to be babysitters (and simply can't be) - nor schools a home or substitute for family

Fortunately for us, the bill didn't pass in a 4-11 vote (I would like to know the four that voted yes, but the votes have not been posted on the legislative servers). 

Unfortunately for our kids, the common sense approaches that will work best for them, don't cost enough money, provide enough kick-backs, elevate anyone's political standing enough or rely on yet another 'program'. Taking off the mandates, letting teachers teach, giving them good resources and concentrating on only Math, Science, Reading, Language Arts and Social Studies, will do the trick. When will we find enough legislators and administrators to concentrate on these factors before themselves? I hesitate to guess, which is why my children will never darken the door of a public school again after this year. 

Reviews of UCSMP Everyday Mathematics (http://nychold.com/em.html)

An Evaluation of Selected Mathematics Textbooks, by Wayne Bishop (May 1997). Prepared at the request of the Core Knowledge Foundation, this is a review of 2nd and 4th grade mathematics materials from Sadlier, SRA McGraw-Hill (CMC), Saxon, and Everyday Learning Corporation (Everyday Math). Bishop ranks Everyday Mathematics a distant last. About Everyday Math 2nd grade he writes: "In normal classrooms with normal teachers, I would characterize these materials as `dangerous.' My impression is that it would be very difficult to be sure that appropriate material has been covered adequately. One can expect a very high degree of teacher variability. Knowledgeable teachers, well grounded in the materials, may be able to pull it off; at least it's clear from the assessment book that there are some things that the children are supposed to know. There is almost no routine practice, although a small amount is built into the activities." The same criticism is amplified for the fourth grade Everyday Math materials.

PS: here is Lynn's letter to Representative Nelson following the meeting:

Dear Representative Nelson,

I was monitoring the Common Ed committee meeting this morning and was glad your bill HB 3089 failed. Once again I think your intentions maybe good, but too many unintended consequences will occur.  Please look beyond the surface problem of "not enough time".   I want to comment specifically on your statement:

Nelson: why do we have schools? To educate children and the longer we can do that every day is a good thing.

I refer you to Jenni White's blog she wrote about how they ( public schools) do so much except TEACH the basics.  

http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2011/10/please-put-my-child-in-school-more-to.html

If the schools would go back to the basics  our reading and math scores would go up, which is what everyone seems to want.  

Thank you,

Lynn Habluetzel

One Oklahoma Teacher, "Do I teach to the test, or teach for knowledge?"

This post stems from the meeting I had with my 7 year-old's teacher on Teacher Conference night. Well, that's not true, it stems from years of research I've done on public education, but it came to a head in NEON LIGHTS for me last night and I had to share.

I have had three children darken the doors of the same public elementary school from kindergarten. From the beginning of the year, when I began to work with Sam (7) on his homework, I was troubled. The math seemed WAY too fast. I mean, he started with addition, but after three or so short weeks, he started subtraction. I couldn't believe it - he in NO WAY had his addition facts down before subtraction began. Consequently, the MINUTE subtraction began, he was lost. It took hours sometimes to sit with him and explain until he could even get the CONCEPT, let alone actually do the problems himself!

But wait! Several weeks later he actually brought home a math paper where he was to ADD THREE NUMBERS IN A ROW!!!! I simply couldn't believe it. I had to show him how to do it and he got it pretty well actually, but I have a Master's Degree in Biology and my husband is an ELECTRICAL ENGINEER!

After weeks of frustration over this situation, we met the teacher and she began to show us Sam's grades.

"Well, Mrs. Jones (not her real name for obvious reasons), I don't really care that Sam's grades are low. I'm going to be taking he and his sister Betty out at the end of the year to home school anyway - and frankly, I am simply disgusted at the nonsensical speed in which your class is going through math. I don't think Sam's grades are necessarily a reflection of his knowledge base, because he keeps moving on to something else before he's really grasped the subject at hand, so he never knows anything well enough to get really good grades."

Mrs. Jones responds,

"Oh, I know Mrs. White. I hate that. I NEVER get to teach for mastery, I can really only teach to the test and NOW I might have to do that to an even greater degree to keep my job!"

Clearly frustrated, she continued,

"I have been a teacher in OKCPS nearly 20 years. We teachers are all kind of conditioned to just teaching whatever new fad the district puts out, knowing it won't last and we'll have to spend our summers getting trained on something else as soon as a NEW fad comes along. It's the testing that causes so many problems. They keep telling us we have to teach more and more every year it seems. How in the WORLD can I get my kids to develop MASTERY in a subject when we can't spend but more than three weeks on it before I have to move on to something else. But then, I have to teach what's on the test, or the kids scores go down and we all look bad."

THANK GOODNESS EDUCATION IS ALL ABOUT THE KIDS! Public education today is about nothing more than what administrators - some who have never even set foot in a classroom and have no idea what a teacher can or can not do in a set amount of time - SAY it is. "They" implement new programs at the speed of light and expect things out of children and teachers that could only be possible in some parallel universe made up of Einstein-like scholars!

Yes, we want our kids to be the best they can be, but THIS is not the way! Why do you think test scores haven't risen in decades and kids get so frustrated and hate school so much they drop out!? Every administrator wants the newest, cutting edge approach to learning. The only problem is, studies show that the donkey works better than the racehorse! Why does better equate with NEW? Why don't we seem to understand that tried and true methods become "tried and true" because they have been shown to be!

I get so sick and tired of being told that home school students perform better because they have one one one direction at home and their education is catered to them. Come on! Many of us put our kids on lessons and let them go at their own speed - when they get a concept they move on!

Mrs. Jones said, "I don't worry so much about the higher kids because they tend to get stuff anyway, and I don't worry about the lower end kids because many of them will need remediation of some kind anyway. I worry about the kids in the middle! I can't even seem to serve them because even they can't keep up."

She also went on to tell us that next year, the school would be using Everyday Math - the WORST example of fuzzy math curricula in education today!

Well, I wonder...maybe that's the way "THEY" actually want all this testing, and new Standards, and crummy curricula, and constant meddling. The more the kids are confused and the lower the test scores get, the MORE "they" get to justify spending money and staff on programs that 'might' work to 'fix' it! After all, who cares about the kids when they're just a means to an end.