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common core is stupid

John A.

Unconstitutional laws are not laws.
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Sorry guys, but I really needed to vent.

This is a worksheet that my fourth grader brought home for homework.

How anyone can say that common core is good, is beyond me.

common core is stupid 001.jpg

What the heck is wrong with:

$4.50
-2.75
-------
$1.75
 
That's one of the worst examples of calculation I've ever seen. This was written by somebody that's getting paid by the word.

Anybody can count on their fingers. anybody can do math with an abacus. anybody can do math with tokens or "counters".

This is what my wife has been teaching in kindergarten for thirty-plus years.

Once you get to the first grade however this method is pretty much baby stuff. The human mind has developed to where it can abstract this problem to paper and a pencil.
 
Let me say right away that I also think common core is baloney. However, I have to admit I have done some of these same convoluted mental gymnastics to solve problems. :oops: Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Tom, Algebra and finding an unknown equation is one thing. And something I think that all adults should know how to do.

But I don't think a simple mathematical question such as this should automatically fall into that category.

This is just asinine.

I consider myself a somewhat intelligent person. Graduated high school, had some college, then transferred to a vocational school where I obtained my electrical certification and have even done continuing education at work countless times and have obtained honor graduate status in some of them.

But if I had to do this stuff, I'm confident that I would find myself in special ed.

Or the principals office for telling the teacher how stupid they were.
 
I tend to do slme mental.gymnastics as well when working with large numbers. I understand trying to get kids to visualize what they are doing, I am a visual.person and learn better when.I can draw.things out. That said this example seems really overcomplicated for what they are trying to do.

Just teach then the regular way of carrying ones and let them learn tricks once they understand those basics.
 
Mind you, I went to elementary school in the 1960's. That said, I have always had some sort of mental block with certain common equations. Like 6 plus 7. For some reason, that one gave me trouble. But 6 plus 6 equals 12 gives me no trouble. So I just think 6 +6 +1. I know, it doesn't make any logic. But it works for me. Take care. Tom Worthington
 
I tried to help my kids with problems like this (4-5 years ago, not that they had any problems counting money ;)). "No dad, we have to do like the teacher showed us!" "Forget her, there is more than one way to figure things like this out! Why they even teach it this way is nonsense! Here, let me show you an easier way..." As far as I was concerned, if they arrived at the correct answer, then who cares how they got there. I still get resistance but they are surprised when I do show them a different way on doing something, especially math.

We'd go to the store and the deal was, if they could figure out the coin change before it was handed to me, they got to keep it. For example, total was $6.31, I hand the clerk $7 then I start snapping my fingers: "QUICK! QUICK! How much change am I getting back?!? :p

But it is agony sometimes watching a clerk make change. They glance at the register readout a half dozen times before finally giving the change. Or I'll throw them for a loop and give them an unusual amount. The total is $6.10 and I'll give them $11.25 (for example). I already know my change will be $5.15 but I've had them give me a ten back (which I return and then give them a math lesson).
 
I call common core the dumbing down of America. I believe the thinking behind it is to keep kids from having to memorize all the math tables we as kids had to. But the process is painfully slow. I would hate to be working with or helping someone who is using CC to do simple engine math. It would take all day. Some of the examples posted on the internet make my head hurt. Something as simple as 2+2 or 10 x 10 is converted to a 50 step process. And the designers and teachers who religiously push it are self-righteous numbskulls. Instead of being forced down our kids throats it should be removed from the school curriculum.
 
I call common core the dumbing down of America. I believe the thinking behind it is to keep kids from having to memorize all the math tables we as kids had to...And the designers and teachers who religiously push it are self-righteous numbskulls.

My kids had to learn attached. Sometimes nothing but rote memory of something will do. Started with to 10, then to 12 and now I like them to know squares up to 20. Any many formulas need to be committed to memory such as the Pythagorean Theorem and area of a circle. Don't get me wrong, I am the first to say "you may not know everything, but knowing how and where to get the info is the important part". But the time taken figuring out what 6x7 is when the answer should be instant is not acceptable.

PS: and ANYTHING that delays the rate at which my kids learn (such as CC) is UNACCEPTABLE. I'm sorry your kid is ESOL and needs more time to understand a concept but you better not even consider delaying my kid's progress so your kid can "catch up"! This is why my kids are in Honors and AP classes (Advanced Placement).
 

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I haven't yet met a teacher at our kids schools who likes it. They're teaching it only because they have to but some are including the traditional stuff as they're able.
 
That was over complicated.....

If you focus on the illustration you'll get kids coming up with $3.75

Whole thing is laid out by a retard.
 
.....If you focus on the illustration you'll get kids coming up with $3.75

Whole thing is laid out by a retard.

YES! The illustration is totally misleading by itself.

This "concept" is a bunch of bullshit promoted by people who are trying to reinvent the wheel.

Education in this country should have all gone to free mass television a long long time ago. Instead, television was used to educate us on what products to buy and what Jingles to remember.

Kids who can't memorize their multiplication tables can repeat the jokes and tales from every stupid show on TV. I don't believe that the age of computers has made this much better although it should have.

This being said, a big part of my life has been using Graphics to solve mathematical problems that do not yield easily to raw numbers. In the computer age, the computer is used to generate those graphics, and it does it exactly, by cranking out the (billions of) raw numbers for me in the background.

This is such a powerful method, that I have not needed to pick up an ordinary calculator of any sort in over 20 years. I own two fancy scientific calculators, and like my fancy slide rules, they collect dust in the drawer.

Anyhow I believe that modern methods can be far more powerful than the teaching methods of the past. But it appears to me, from watching what my wife was going through as a teacher for 30 years, that our educational system is run by a bilingual headless chicken.
 
My wife is a 2nd grade teacher and we hang out with a few of her co-workers. All I ever hear about common core is how horrible it is from them. I'm dreading the day my toddler goes to school so I can deal with this BS.
 
My kids school teachers and staff hate it too.

Again, they are forced to do it.

I actually received a nice reply from the state education department about just this today.

My question to them was:

When is common core going to be replaced by traditional and effective methods?

Their reply:

"
I appreciate your question. To clarify, the Common Core State Standards were not and are not a ‘federal program.’ That is a misconception that seems to be difficult to correct. In Kentucky, we have a set of learning standards for all required subjects called the Kentucky Academic Standards. These are expectations for what students should know and be able to do. They do not prescribe how teachers should design learning experiences for students in the classroom. Those decisions are all made by local boards of education and school based decision making councils.

Kentucky has a general practice of reviewing and revising learning standards approximately every 6 to 7 years. There is also pending legislation that would formalize that review and revision process to occur every six years. Since we have been implementing our Kentucky Academic Standards for mathematics for 6 years now, if that legislation passes, we will likely review and revise the standards in the very near future."
 
Common core isn't federally mandated but it was put out there to the states with some dangling carrots and then the states governors had to sign it in.
 
I just read an article and it looks like repealing common core is underway in KY. Still hasn't landed on the Governors desk, but I have no doubt that he will sign it because that's one of the campaign promises that he ran on is replacing this junk.

I can't paste anything in the article, but here it is if anyone wants to read it. KY Senate voted UNANIMOUSLY to repeal it.

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article133367274.html
 
From what my more liberal friends post on FB you would think Devos is the Antichrist for wanting to roll back common core.

The bigger issue is that too may students have parents that do not take an active role in their children education, or lives in general. Schools cannot do everything, some of the responsibility has to fall on the parents. For too may the school has become the only source of learning, only meal and only structure these kids have. The schools can only do so much. We laugh at Hillary's "It takes a village" comment but that is probably one of the only things she has said that has some merit to it. The schools should be there to educate, not raise the kids for parents who cannot or will not do it themselves.
 
People don't consider that the public schools here are the lowest common denominator in education.

There was a time when school was for people with money, and if poor people learned to read it was because they went to Sunday school (which was free because the church wanted you to come and read the Bible.)

Public Schools were intended to be for people who could not afford private school, but they have grown into an all inclusive and virtually compulsory Institution. ( ...absolutely sacred if the anti-DeVos liberals are to be believed.)

But here is a huge example of where government is competing with private enterprise, and our government is not supposed to do that.

On the other hand, libs claim that if middle class and well-to-do people pull out of public schools, then poor people will get a worse education. (And of course the well-to-do will get a better education.) This is the only arguement I hear against vouchers.

So is it my right to give my children the best education I can afford without undo competition from the government?

Where does the government get to mandate a low-level quality of education for us all, unless we be the very wealthy?

I attended 14 Schools in 7 states, starting in 1960, I have tutored adults, and I have been married to a teacher for 27 wonderful years. I have seen the good and bad things that our school systems have become.

And I see a whole lot of propaganda swirling around about this business. I am really hoping that Mrs. DeVos will be able to sort it out and expose it.
 
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