Carmine-James Pitaniello - Thank you for your posts. You are the voice of reason in a state full of inarticulate, narrow-minded and uninformed people. You give me (faint) hope!
Hello, Debbie T.
Carson says
He doesn't believe in evolution.
He thinks the pyramids were used as grain silos.
He lied and admitted he lied about being offered a West Point scholarship.
And he said about climate cahnge, "There is no overwhelming science that the things that are going on are man-caused and not naturally caused.”
He believes and says these things in public forums - How is reporting statements and beliefs like this an "attack for the color of his skin"?
Count me as one who left the ranks of teachers. Teaching in AZ is a disaster. It's pretty hard to justify staying in the profession. I spent a pretty large percentage of my paltry paycheck on classroom supplies. My school wouldn't even buy books to use in our English classroom! I managed - through Donors Choose - and others to get over $5,000 donated to buy textbooks and novels. Students were subjected to testing 5 or more times a year. And the plethora of charter schools (some ARE good - but most aren't) only further waters down the quality of instruction. But some of those schools are making BANK. And now we have Doug Ducey and Diane Douglas? Hang on, kids - education in AZ is going to get MUCH worse.
David,
I think that there can be some adjustments to the standards. Maybe. However, here is some of the wording from the AZ CCSS for reading in high school:
Key Ideas and Details
1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Craft and Structure
4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
There are more, obviously, but I honestly don't see how anyone can argue that these are bad in any way. I think we can AT LEAST expect that by graduation students can have facility with these skills.
I would love to know how many of the people who are "against" CC have actually read them.
As an English teacher, who has worked in both AZ and CA public schools, Common Core is the single best thing to happen to English Language Arts classrooms in my career. Standards as curriculum guidelines make sense, but both the pre-Common Core sets of standards in CA and AZ were far too specific and far too content driven. Common Core is skill driven and allows states, schools and teachers flexibility to find effective ways to teach students to master the skills outlined in CC. I understand the need for accountability in educational outcomes, but standardized testing is THE biggest element hurting education. They are far too costly in both dollars spent on their purchase and time spent administering them. And when states make test scores part of a teacher's evaluation (instead of coming up with better measures of teacher effectiveness) then teachers will quite often "teach to the test" so that their students' test scores increase and they keep their jobs. Common Core - at least in English Language Arts classrooms is a tremendous boon to teachers, students and the workplace. To (mis)quote a phrase - it's NOT Common Core... it's the tests, (that are) stupid.
Recent Comments
Carson says
He doesn't believe in evolution.
He thinks the pyramids were used as grain silos.
He lied and admitted he lied about being offered a West Point scholarship.
And he said about climate cahnge, "There is no overwhelming science that the things that are going on are man-caused and not naturally caused.”
He believes and says these things in public forums - How is reporting statements and beliefs like this an "attack for the color of his skin"?
I think that there can be some adjustments to the standards. Maybe. However, here is some of the wording from the AZ CCSS for reading in high school:
Key Ideas and Details
1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Craft and Structure
4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
There are more, obviously, but I honestly don't see how anyone can argue that these are bad in any way. I think we can AT LEAST expect that by graduation students can have facility with these skills.
I would love to know how many of the people who are "against" CC have actually read them.