10 Reasons to Be Against Common Core

I would like to start this article with an introduction. My wife and I work in the education field. She is a curriculum specialist and I teach after school classes while I am finishing my degree. We have two children that we are planning on homeschooling through a philosophy of unschooling. This article is purely to inform parents who send their children to schools that adhere to the common core standards (private, public, or homeschool).
1) Common Core are National Standards
By having compulsory education and then dictating what every single child should know we are reducing the individuality of a child. Education is not like a factory line where we want all the products (students) to eventually look the same. There should be diversity among schools in what they are teaching, how they are teaching, and why they are teaching. Every student is different and a cookie cutter education leaves the children on the fringe to be thrown away.
2) Parents, State politicians nor Teachers Had a Say in Common Core
Common Core was presented to governors as part of an educational package to replace No Child Left Behind. This new program is called Race to the Top (RttT). Only governors reviewed this deal. It was never presented to the state legislation or the people. If we are being fair the governors actually did not even get to see common core, because it had not been completed at the time they accepted, yet it was still part of the deal. It was one of those government programs where you have to adopt the standards in order to find out what is in them.
3) Common Core is Part of Race to the Top
Race to the Top is an incentivized educational program that basically says that if a school is performing well and meeting the criteria then they will get federal grants. This program costs the tax payers $4.35 billion a year. Common Core is just one facet to RttT. The other facets are: Longitudinal Student Data System, Teacher and Principal Evaluations, and becoming a National Assessment Consortium member.
4) Race to the Top is Data Mining Students
The data mining part of Race to the Top is where the schools supply the federal government with all the information about all of the students. The department of education focuses on collecting data about “health-care history (which bypasses HIPAA laws), disciplinary record, family income range, family voting status, and religious affiliation,”. This data information will be available to the school, government and future employers.
5) Common Core is Entirely Experimental
According to a journal article by ReThinking Schools, “Written mostly by academics and assessment experts—many with ties to testing companies—the Common Core standards have never been fully implemented and tested in real schools anywhere. Of the 135 members on the official Common Core review panels convened by Achieve Inc., the consulting firm that has directed the Common Core project for the NGA, few were classroom teachers or current administrators. Parents were entirely missing. K–12 educators were mostly brought in after the fact to tweak and endorse the standards—and lend legitimacy to the results.”
6) Common Core was Designed by Bill Gates’ Foundations
Most people know Bill Gates to be a strong liberal billionaire. His Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided all the funding for the three organizations that produced Common Core: the National Governors Association, the Council for Chief State School officers, and Achieve, Inc. There was no diversification when it came to the minds that were producing these standards.
7) Common Core Has Major Flaws in English Language Standards
The core problem with the English standards in Common Core is that they take away the critical thinking skills that we all grew up learning. Reading texts that made us think and have to develop an opinion and then articulate that opinion through writing. Now with Common Core standards they are more focused on informational texts and content-free skills. Many of the “standards” are several objectives bundled into one statement. They also are putting a more prominent stress on writing than reading at every grade level.
8) Common Core Takes Away Parental Feedback
Under Common Core there is no process for parents, teachers, and school boards to provide feedback or gain flexibility on all or part of the Common Core as students begin encountering it.
9) Common Core Math Delays
Using Common Core students will not learn traditional methods of adding and subtracting double or triple digit numbers until they are in 4th grade (9-10yrs old). The philosophy behind Common Core is to have the students understand the why in mathematics. This is a great idea, but in practice most children do not have the capacity to understand the why until they are older. Click here to see a list of 10 example math problems from a curriculum that adheres to Common Core.
10) Quote from Marc Tucker (designer) on the Purpose of Common Core
“to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.”
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Toni Sopocko September 9, 2014 , 2:37 pm Vote0
I love the things I’ve read regarding the ‘unschooling’ process. I hope you and your wife will be writing about what you do, how you do it, and your childrens’ progress. I never had kids, but I know a lot of home schoolers, and the freedom even those kids have is inspiring, after coming out of a parochial school upbringing, myself. The current public school system is even more restricted than my own schooling was, and it appears horrendous and so limiting to a child’s development.
Thanks for your writing.
Stephen Wildermuth September 9, 2014 , 5:54 pm
What micturates me off the most is the mathematics perversions. I believe mathematics education is in dire need of a complete overhaul. But kommon kore (amazingly) makes the problem worse.
Number bonds? WTF?
If I were king, kids would be playing with a compass and straightedge, and being introduced to calculus ideas before the creativity and fluid abstract thinking had been beaten out of them. Turn the motivation upside down, as well: show the kids fractals and images of Chaos the same way you show them works of art or symphonies.
Mandie Koeckes September 9, 2014 , 7:05 pm Vote0
I withdrew my child from public school this year. After 4 weeks, she has learned more life skills and self responsibility than I ever expected. We spend the most time with math.
I love the love I see out of my child now the most. Homeschooling/unschooling is giving her the right to be herself. Her favorite part: not having to ask to go the bathroom. She gives herself permission to do that. It’s the best choice we ever made.
Thank you for writing this. It’s dialogue that is much needed.
Michael Esch September 10, 2014 , 2:22 am Vote0
Thank you for reading the article. My wife and I are starting to write our own books for our children. The first one should be coming out after the artist finishes (my children are 3 &1). For more information on unschooling I highly suggest http://daynamartin.com/.
Michael Esch September 10, 2014 , 2:25 am Vote0
I agree that the motivation to learn math is completely gone by the time a student is starting to learn complex mathematics. My wife and I are working on a book that we hope will help people move from traditional school of separated subjects to a more realistic approach of having the subjects merged. Many times students do not associate the math that they are learning with anything relative and thus lose interest. I think that if students could see the endless possibilities of the subjects merged together and the depth of understand, our society would be in a better place.
Michael Esch September 10, 2014 , 2:28 am Vote0
I teach school age students in an after school program. It has taken them months of me telling them they do not have to ask to go to the bathroom and still most of them ask. Children are so inundated to be submissive in all aspects of life, even those as simple as going to bathroom. The children also look at me like I am crazy when I ask if I can see their folder instead of just taking it out of their bags. Last week a student finally told me no, they did not want me looking in their backpack and I put it down and walked away. They looked thunderstruck. I love it! I hope that moment sticks with them forever.
RJ Miller September 11, 2014 , 7:14 am Vote0
Pretty spot on, I think my biggest criticism about the CC standards are that they emphasize meaningless abstract material where none need be discussed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc3Pv5Q_AdA
Instead, simply memorizing problems and their respective answers *later* is probably a better way to go because that appears to be what effective schools actually do:
http://educationnext.org/what-effective-schools-do-cognitive-achievement/
Daniel Phillips September 11, 2014 , 1:00 pm Vote0
Fractals won’t do anything for little kids. You need complex numbers for that, but they haven’t even learned how to use natural numbers yet.
I did some quick investigation of “number bonds” just now, and I actually think it’s a pretty good idea.
Here’s a random video I found explaining the concept to (ostensibly) kindergarten and first grade kids. It’s not a very good video, but it presents the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDC9YzWYkU
Basically it’s just a different—hopefully more intuitive—notation for addition. It’s a graphical notation. (By the way, this sort of notation is used all the time in, for instance, computer science. Why? Because it’s so useful.)
I think it could very well make algebraic concepts more accessible to kids.
It is true that education of children goes through stupid fads and fashions. Back in the day they had “new math”, where they tried to teach arithmetic and algebra to little kids via university-level abstractions, which was a really, really dumb idea. But not everything that is new is bad.
Daniel Phillips September 11, 2014 , 1:21 pm Vote0
“students will not learn traditional methods of adding and subtracting double or triple digit numbers until they are in 4th grade (9-10yrs old)”
The traditional method of adding and subtraction multi-digit numbers isn’t very useful. (That is, going from right to left carrying the 1.) I’ve probably used it a couple of times in the last two decades. Everyone carries a calculator around with them these days in their phones. Google will calculate arithmetic expressions for you.
The traditional method isn’t even useful for mental arithmetic.
There is nothing special about it. It’s just an algorithm, a technology.
Should we still teach kids how multiply numbers using logarithms and log tables? That’s how they used to do it back in the day. The answer is no, of course, that’s not a useful technology for most people.
Michael Esch September 11, 2014 , 5:38 pm Vote0
Daniel I agree that there are multiple ways to teach a student math. As I said at the top of my article, my wife and I are doing unschooling with our two children. Much of what are children do is with technology and learning when they need it. I think that some parents are having trouble with the math homework because the teachers, students and parents are confused by the methods. You are right about not returning to logarithms and log tables (they were awful). I think that we do need to move forward with technology, but this technique of teaching math is not “new” it has been around for decades. It is just different and not necessarily, better.