So are there certain facts and skills that all kids should have upon graduating high school?

Wouldn’t nonfiction be covered by classes other than English?

Your history book, your science book, your math book, your French or Spanish book, and theb your novel for English class.

I hope so. My fear is that in twenty years we won't have learned anything from this and will still continue to casually inflict gender reassignment surgery on children.

Ugh! I'm taking the rest of the day off from posting here!

First post, forgot to the put the link. Second post made to supply the link somehow got posted twice. Now I'm posting in a topic thread a link that was intended for the links thread.

I'll see you all tomorrow! Bye!

Nothing new under the sun: 9 Reasons Why Common Core is Bad for Education

https://www.tfpstudentaction.org/blog/9-reasons-why-common-core-is-bad-for-education

"#6 Common Core English Harms Literature

Progressive education has always been hostile to the teaching of the classic works of Western Literature. The Common Core English standards take this hostility a step further by replacing up to 70% of traditional literature with so-called “Informational Texts.” According to Common Core, an “Informational Text” is a non-fiction, non-literary type of document that includes newspaper articles, technical manuals, government documents, genres that most students find boring or that do not contain any wholesome moral or life lesson.

The Common Core “Recommended Reading List” contains a few enlightening examples of “Informational Texts”:
“The Evolution of the Grocery Bag” by Henry Petroski

“Invasive Plant Inventory” by the California Invasive Plant Council

Recommended Levels of Insulation - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/U.S. Department of Energy

Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management - U.S. General Services Administration6

Although these documents are only “Recommended Reading” in the Common Core, the Common Core tests will virtually guarantee their use in the classroom.

@Amy - I think you left out a at the end of your post.

Doesn't come through - a

close the blockquote

So are there certain facts and skills that all kids should have upon graduating high school?

Not sure what that has to do with anything. Who doesn't think that?

So are there certain facts and skills that all kids should have upon graduating high school?

Yes.

Reading a book, being able to write a report on the book in a proper language (not tweet-speak), being able to balance a checkbook, calculate interest payments, to be able to do a 5 minute public speech from prepared notes. By the time one is 18, none of that should cause one to suffer cold sweats. And that isn't even getting close to Heinlein's list:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

"My fear is that in twenty years we won't have learned anything from this and will still continue to casually inflict gender reassignment surgery on children."

You are likely to be correct. In my time, I've seen a lot of educational fads come and go, and the bulk of them have been demonstrably harmful to students.

"the 'mystification' of education"

This. I'm not up on the Common Core humanities standards, but I am up on the math, and it's mystery-guild mumbo-jumbo pig-Latin stuff. I'm stunned at the roundabount ways that they go about doing straightforward problems. A lot of elementary school teachers can't even add on their fingers, so they're just going by the study guide (the one that the textbook publisher gives you if you make your students buy enough $100 textbooks), and checking off homework against the answer sheet. The students are being mal-educated; whether or not Algebra is taught in the school is almost immaterial because only the students who are getting help from their parents or outside tutors will be prepared for it. If I wrote about everything that's wrong with Common Core and math education in general these days, it would break Amy's blog.

As for the natural sciences, students are being taught a bunch of stuff that is flatly not true. Global warming is presented as an unchallenged fact; biology is teaching Lysenkoism and chasing the latest nutrition fads, physics isn't understood by most of the teachers who are teaching it, and chemistry just isn't taught at all.

The Millennials are going to wind up having to reinvent the wheel. There is a bunch of knowledge that the older generations need to pass on, but the education that the Millennials have received hasn't prepared them to comprehend it.

The Millennials are going to wind up having to reinvent the wheel. There is a bunch of knowledge that the older generations need to pass on, but the education that the Millennials have received hasn't prepared them to comprehend it. ~ Cousin Dave at November 19, 2018 7:09 AM

Nor do they want that knowledge. Millennials have been taught that the older generations are old codgers and out of touch; that any generation that came before theirs is to be ignored and written off.

When your old-ass parent is like, "I don’t know how to send an iMessage," and you’re just like, "Give me the fucking phone and let me handle it." Sadly, that’s what we have to do with our government. Our parents don’t know how to use a fucking democracy, so we have to.

The Millennials' generation was so large that the entirety of society rewrote the rules and reconfigured itself for them. Why should they now bend to society?

Old RPM Daddy, you'd be surprised. But the whole point of the Common Core is to provide, well, a common core or basis.

It's amazingly hard to get people to agree on what should be taught.

I do think there should be a basic national standard, which leaves room for municipalities and states to have their own standards.

Some things I hope we can all agree on (I am aiming low to reach consensus):

Students should be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide real numbers.

Students should be able to read and write.

Students should know who George Washington is.

Students should have learned about the Constitution and know what the Bill of Rights is.

Students should know the branches of government.

What else would you put on the must-know list?

"Education" in the USA is the tacit exercise of power, not a program to enrich lives.

-----

"My fear is that in twenty years we won't have learned anything from this and will still continue to casually inflict gender reassignment surgery on children."

Still? Johns Hopkins stopped years ago, didn't they?

I read recently that one of the authors of the Common Core curriculum is now on The College Board (or whatever company owns the SAT), so now the SAT tests will reflect some of the new standards/jargon. We'll see how that goes.

The article is correct that Common Core is in most public schools, including in states that specifically banned Common Core. The textbook publishers simply changed the name but adopted the new curriculum, including the screwy teaching methods. I'm on one of the inconsequential, check-the-box-because-title-nine-requires-it committees, and learned that grade-schoolers aren't even taught how to construct an essay any more. The teachers can't teach the kids that an essay will need an introduction, supporting facts or arguments, and a conclusion.

As far as the math goes, it seems like the focus is on learning abstract concepts and visualization rather than finding the answers. Cousin Dave has it right: "...mystery-guild mumbo-jumbo pig-Latin stuff. I'm stunned at the roundabount ways that they go about doing straightforward problems." It's math for people who need pictures and line graphs and finger-counting for everything. I had to do some research online to find a cheat-sheet so I could help my third-grader with her homework. I will probably order some more traditional workbooks from Saxon to supplement what she's getting from school.

We think that at least part of the curriculum re-write was intended to keep parents out of the education process. If we don't understand the new teaching, we can't help our kids.

The other purpose of the new curriculum is to sell new textbooks and education seminars. Since the textbooks are being purchased by the districts, not directly by the parents, we don't see those costs directly. But, what better way to ensure that schools are going to purchase all new textbooks than to completely change the standards and the way the subject is being taught? Make the old textbooks obsolete, even though math hasn't actually changed!

So, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, we'll have gone in about 3 generations from being able to put a man on the moon with mostly paper & pencil calculations (with some digital computer and calculator assistance) to not being able to do those calculations even with a computer.

Is that about right?

"Give me the fucking phone and let me handle it."

Ah, yes, Mr. Hogg. Query: can you actually write a program for the phone, or are you simply a consumer? I'm going to guess consumer is the right answer.

The Common Core “Recommended Reading List” contains a few enlightening examples of “Informational Texts”: “The Evolution of the Grocery Bag” by Henry Petroski “Invasive Plant Inventory” by the California Invasive Plant Council Recommended Levels of Insulation - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/U.S. Department of Energy Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management - U.S. General Services Administration

Although these documents are only “Recommended Reading” in the Common Core, the Common Core tests will virtually guarantee their use in the classroom.

I'll bet you a cookie they're not.

I like Common Core, though some of the math instruction done in the name of CC is as dumb as the old "new math." But any set of measurable standards that enrages "progressive" as well as conservative teachers, along with parents, has got to be a good thing.

Those kids whose parents actually give a shit will be fine under CC, as they were pre-CC.

"But the whole point of the Common Core is to provide, well, a common core or basis."

No NicoleK it isn't. That was part of the advertising for common core but it very clearly isn't what common core is about. In reality the point was to mystify and jargonize things so you can't tell if teachers are right or wrong. Another key point is to keep changing the standards and tests so nothing is comparable. Which is why "many other states have made a show of throwing them out, then re-installing them under some new name." If you keep changing the standards then you can't judge how well people are doing. And that is the point. The people driving this don't want you to be able to tell is something works better or worse. They want you to take their word on faith.

"Those kids whose parents actually give a shit will be fine under CC, as they were pre-CC."

That just proves the point that the schools are worthless Kevin. Not exactly an endorsement.

Are there any colleges left that we'd still want to go to, or send our kids to? All of them seem to have been taken over by the "check your privilege" loonies, and I'd bend over backward NOT to hire anyone who made it through one of those.

Algebra 1 in eighth grade, a necessary step for any student who wants to pursue a math or science college degree without remediation.

Say what?? I was the only one in my eighth grade class to take Algebra I (teacher let me study it on my own in her office during math class). Everyone else took it in 9th grade, and as far as I know it didn't cause them any problems in college.

Algebra 1 in eighth grade, a necessary step for any student who wants to pursue a math or science college degree without remediation.

Say what?? I was the only one in my eighth grade class to take Algebra I (teacher let me study it on my own in her office during math class). Everyone else took it in 9th grade, and as far as I know it didn't cause them any problems in college.

Rex Little at November 19, 2018 6:42

Like anything else, you can call a course anything you want, and take it at any time when you have the necessary arithmetic skills to advance on to algebra, trig and calculus, but if your arithmatic skills are shaky, higher math will be a struggle.
When I was in Junior high back in the Stone Age, and we were doing pre algebra, i had a really good teacher. And still I could have used double the class time, and double the homework, to really learn what I needed to keep college math from being challenging.
I knew it was getting bad when less than ten years after my husband graduated from West Point in 1980, they introduced remedial math classes in frustration over the number of students unprepared for the traditional first semester Calculus. Used to be sink or swim, but I guess the percentage of sink got too high for them to justify. At the same time, the were admitting more and more minority students with lower academic qualifications, and were under significant pressure to keep them there, and not wash them out. I suspect some sort of connection there.

They have been trying hard for years to obfuscate real differences in learning math between both women and men, and certain minorities, and I am afraid this struggle has led to elimination of any kind of real measure of achievement in education, that can’t be kept under lock and key so the wrong people can’t use these numbers to argue for political changes that will not be in line with the progressive agenda.

"But, what better way to ensure that schools are going to purchase all new textbooks than to completely change the standards and the way the subject is being taught?"

The existing scheme: change the textbook slightly in the page-layout program, reissue without changing actual contents, require the NEW textbook.

"...and I am afraid this struggle has led to elimination of any kind of real measure of achievement in education,..."

As has been noted here before, that's already in progress.

Radwaste: Still? Johns Hopkins stopped years ago, didn't they?

I checked out your link (even though I'm a dumbass who posted it to the wrong thread; it was intended for the links thread). And it looks like they are doing the gender reassignment surgery for different reasons. In John Hopkins' case, it seems they making decisions for children born with ambiguous genitalia.

This is nothing new. The early Progressives in education such as Dewey believed that true literacy was an impediment to society. Whole Language method was devised to produce people who could read instructions, or fill out forms, but who did not read well enough for reading to be pleasurable, because reading for pleasure is a solitary act, and does not foster proper collectivist thinking.

Way back in '08-'10 when I was teaching French they switched to online books.

The cost the same as regular books, but so much better!

You can't sell them, because every semester they change slightly and to use them you need to use a code. Your code expires after a set time. So you can't keep it for years and review your French ten years from now before your trip to Paris.