Not talking directly about the test or the curriculum, but about the Common Core State Standards (nationally developed standards that states have adopted) or even state developed education standards? Do you believe they help children? Are they good for the education system?
-
Based on my friends who are teachers and my mom who worked in the school system for 25 years until she retired last month… no. I don't know anyone who works in education who thinks they are a good idea.
-
I think the goal behind the Common Core Standards is good. The problems are that 1) they are pretty hard (which is a good and a bad thing) 2) the desire to further test students to "see how everyone is doing" is behind the standards movement in general.
I think standards are good and important, but I do not think that most tests are good nor are they used in the most beneficial manner. I think testing companies have ridiculous sway over the course of education.
I think we need to devote more attention to improvement teacher education and the status of the teaching profession and then trust the teachers to teach the kids.
-
I think there should be very basic, fundamental national standards for public schools. Not testing standards/requirements, but goals/expectations that should be incorporated into schools' curriculum.
I think states should also be able to raise/elaborate on the standards as they see fit, but cannot drop below them. I think it is fundamental to running a socialized education system.
-
I think you have to have some measurable standards in order to run a system, otherwise, how do you measure performance?
I don't know too much about what's going on in our schools at the moment, but I know that the answer is not inside our borders. We need to look at the education systems of other countries and determine why those students score consistently higher on standardized test compared to American students.
-
I think the real problem is that education has become too skills oriented. Instead of teaching in ways that engage thought processes, like problem solving or critical thinking, we've geared the system to teach to discrete skills. I'm super weirded out by college courses being developed in partnership with corporations like Microsoft so that the students are "work ready" when they leave school. This trickles down to middle school and high school. For instance, friends' junior high school kid has to do homework assignments in Excel and PowerPoint, work in group pods, practice running meetings, and give oral presentations (using Power Point). Our friend's 2nd grader is given a syllabus for the semester and expected to manage long term projects as well as daily homework assignments to learn project management and multi-tasking. I feel like we've lost that liberal-arts based "well rounded student" idea and have shifted over to training cogs from pre-K on. Freaks me out.
-
@gingerbebe: follow the standards to Bill Gates! Haha
-
Coherent, rigorous standards are a good thing; Common Core standards are neither those things. And the politics behind how they were developed and implemented stink way too much.
-
I do agree that we need some sort of national education standard. The thread of education in other countries got me thinking that this is a key fundamental that the US is missing.
Plus I think in general, its not fair to the students/children. Especially military families that could move several times in a child's education and the child ends up repeating content, being behind in content, etc all because there is no common standard to say this is what you should know by the end of 3rd grade.
I also think that there has been a lot of focus in the past on drill and kill activities and simple memorization of facts. Which really doesn't help the student understand and comprehend the material. Some people are just very good at memorization but don't grasp the concept. I do think in most states and the common core tries to address this issue.
@TemperanceBrennan: I agree, in FL they had adopted the common core, but after input from the public, they edited (and essentially raised the standards) where the public saw fit. This included adding topics like cursive writing and calculus. They are now called the "Florida Standards".
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
8 comments