Some Factual Reasons to Oppose Common Core

My posts have been suffering from all the coordinating I’m doing behind the scenes but that does not mean I am uninvolved or not producing support for folks involved in our numerous education battles.  I’m actually sitting in a doctor’s office answering emails and I thought you all might find this one useful. I did not include hyperlinks to my assertions like I would do working from home, but they are Googleable.

The questiom behind this response is ” what are some fact based reasons to oppose common core”

It was not developed by educators but by text book companies and testing companies as a result it has many flaws and gaps.

It is widely accepted it is developmemlntally inappropriate for grades k-2

The standards were not written in an inclusive way that is attainable for all children (for instance they require students to “say” things instead of “communicate” Special Ed and 504 students have trouble attaining proficieny with standards for this reason)

Despite its billing as making children more prepared than before by making them college and career ready (pre-existing standards already did that as my degree and student loans will testify t) It is not more rigorus than what we had or what we could have.  Common Core is only community and technical college ready, not 4 year or advanced college ready.

The curriculum is not STEM ready; no calculus or advanced math. 

The de emphasis on classical and fictional works in deferrence to “factual” texts means children will be less prepared for advanced degrees and work in the liberal arts, but ideal for more menial and less imaginative jobs at Walmart, who is a chief proponent of Common Core

Testing prep and testing that goes with Common Core takes months of real instructional time away from children. That will have an impact on education

Overemphasis on reading and math and their test scores means other subjects like Art, history, math, science,civics, languages, PE and electives are scaled back and in some cases eliminated. 

CC Narrows the curriculum in tested subjects to just content tested. There is more to life than just test items, there is more to education that just memorization and rote learning. CC does not allow teachers to exercise creativity or to promote learning for its own sake -especially when linked to high stakes testing which is done to evaluate teachers and schools, not to help students.

CC requires teachers teach things a certain way, in many cases a very complex, tedious, confusing, inefficient, developmentally inappropriate and frustrating way that turns children off from learning or understanding.  

The Common Core never been tested successfully.  In small scale tests it has done poorly. In fact, in every state that adopted early, math scores declined across previous years and relative to all states that did not adopt it.

Creators of Common Core have called this an experiment that will require a generation to see if it worked. Are our kids just test subjects and can we afford to sacrifice a generation on a hunch? We would never do such a bizaree and horrendous practice in an experimental drug trial, yet we feel this is ok for our children? The FDA realizes tests should be done on small scale and compared to control group.  The DOE is pushing everyone to do this all at once to prevent control groups or criticism.  This is wildly irresponsible and ironic that the curriclum being pushed as a way to prepare our children for STEM careers ( Science Technology Engineering and Math) is being implemented in such a haphazard,  uncontrolled, unscientific and irresponsible way, devoid of any proof or factual basis.  Any yet, these are the folks we should believe in faith, not fact, that this curriculum is “superior” to what we had or what we could make on our own and will prepare our kids for fields of study they so obviously have such little comprehension of, or respect for???

Common Core’s superiority is a manfucatured myth, and that’s a fact.

How is that for starters?