Most of you know that I'm not arguing against the standards when I bitch and moan about Common Core. Usually I'm arguing against the way testing is used or against the way many states are using Common Core to advance other agendas. Sometimes I also bemoan the absurd sums of money flowing around but never really seeming to impact the students.
Two articles from NPR popped into my stream today and I'll focus on those here. The first, Teachers Hit The Common Core Wall, is pretty standard fare. Note: an audio version is included for the reading disinclined and part 1 of the story is here. Cory Turner writes that schools' responses to Common Core all pretty much fall into three categories: 1. do nothing. 2. buy stuff from companies. 3. develop CC materials in-house. As you might expect, the focus is on schools that develop CC aligned materials in house; although, I love this bit about percentages of alignment:
Lain started the company to help schools with Option Two. Districts pay a subscription fee. In return, they get access to Learning List's private database, which includes reviews of products that may or may not line up with the Core standards. And a quick run through those reviews reveals serious variety in alignment. One product is 88 percent aligned, while another is just 63 percent aligned. A few are better. Some are far worse.I for one want all my CC materials with a Chaotic Neutral alignment. More seriously, I have, uh, serious doubts about this kind of "alignment" measuring. It's clearly designed for the bureaucrats who are charged with making large purchasing decisions on behalf of districts. They either know nothing about teaching or don't have the time and resources to vet instructional products properly. Saying something is 88% aligned vs 66% aligned is great marketing but not much more. How, after all, could a Shakespeare play or the Federalist Papers be reduced to a percentage of alignment? Oh sorry teachers, were's going to have you cut Ophelia out of Hamlet because there's no gender standards this year. It's not in alignment!
Looking toward the third option, NPR links some great resources for those of you currently teaching, and discusses how they're generating lesson plans, .ppt slides, and more! All for the picking. I definitely support the beg, borrow, steal approach to writing curriculum. There just isn't the time to always generate new material for every class, every lesson, and every school day. What used to happen to me was, I'd find a good lesson and then adapt it to other units. Basically making it my own over the course of the year. I also realized that most teachers are making the same kinds of lessons and covering the same kinds of materials. This despite CC being relatively new and supposedly fixing the great disparities between schools.
The article profiles a district pulling apart old materials only to find out that, surprise, they mostly align to Common Core:
Baumann had her teachers take this old workbook (which the district couldn't afford to replace) and pull it apart. Then they went through every lesson, every page, every line and figured out what pieces corresponded to the new standards. Some sections worked but were in the wrong order or assigned to the wrong grade. Once a page had been matched up with the Core, it was color-coded based on the appropriate grade level and taped to the wall.And here, in this quote, is the absurdity of it all. Most of what teachers were doing before Common Core is exactly the same as what they will be doing after Common Core! When they point out that something is "in the wrong order" or "assigned to the wrong grade" these educators are not saying "research shows the order of learning needs to be x,y,z and these should happen all in 10th grade." They're merely saying that their district decided to put it in a different order than before. So they make the changes and build a big color-coded wall chart and all settle down for a good night's sleep safe in the knowledge that they won't really have to change anything at all. In fact, that's the first sentence of the concluding paragraph!
When they finish, those old materials made new will be handed out.It's funny that the real story is there the whole time, plain as day: Common Core is neither new nor novel. Honestly, it rehashes the same tried and true ideas made into a "new" silly set of standards. My education career has been really, really short. Yet in the 3 years I was in the classroom (not always as the teacher) I saw 4 different sets of standards. Strangely, that didn't entail 4 different lesson plans or 4 different text books or 4 different approaches to learning. When I got my classroom did I write my lesson with Common Core in mind? Not really. I wrote my lessons based on what my students needed. Then, I looked back to the standards and made changes as necessary. More often than not, few changes were needed and those which I did make were mostly to satisfy the administrator who would be reviewing my curriculum looking, I suppose, for that magical alignment percentage. I think I will just write "This Curriculum is 100% aligned to Common Core" in big bold letters at the top of all my lessons from now on.
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