Common Core Truths
Click to viewThey're trying with Common Core, but he's right -- it doesn't quite work. How can you quantify learning to the degree to Common Core requires? It's a valiant effort to try to think of and implement educational standards across the nation, but it's not working the right way.
Common Core is all about test scores. But life and learning are not all about tests. They can't be -- learning is so much more than that, and testing and assessments CANNOT measure certain aspects of learning (like in the pic below).
And what about learners who are not test-takers? I had classmates who were smart as heck but couldn't show that knowledge on a paper-pencil based test; they could show it in real-life situations, or in discussions. Doesn't that matter, too? To demonstrate knowledge in real life and not on paper -- doesn't that actually mean so, so much more than some scribbles on paper that are quantifiable by a percentage correct?
And for me, who's passion is special education. What about my kiddos with various impairments in cognition and/or language? What about motor impaired kids with cerebral palsy, who cannot fill in a bubble on a standardized test due to uncontrollable muscle tone and control issues?
How can Common Core measure the learning of my area of students?
It can't.
Yet on my paperwork I have to match my functional, real-world language goals and objectives with dumb Common Core correlates. My goals look like: "Student will demonstrate knowledge of age-appropriate spatial, temporal, qualitative, and quantitative concepts;" and then that's tied with something like IL-CC.4A - Listening. Another one is "Student will increase intelligibility by reducing deletion of final consonants in words" is tied to IL-CC.4B - Speaking. It feels really stupid to fill in that part of the paperwork. What I do with my students is so much more than 4A-Listening or 4B-Speaking. Bleh.
