On Common Core I do not know if Gates just listened to the wrong - TopicsExpress

On Common Core I do not know if Gates just listened to the wrong people, is actually masterminding a private takeover of public schools or something in between. It doesnt matter which. If he had talked to real teachers, who werent to grateful or indebted to him, from schools like mine who realize what our job is, he would have gotten the right answer. The answer is not standards, yes they are a good tool, but a hopelessly incomplete one. A teachers job is to teach, mentor, supervise, and counsel their students. Creating stand alone standards does nothing to help teachers focus on their real jobs. Standards are a framework to start tackling the problem not the solution. There is a reason that standards have never had a serious effect on educational outcomes. Standards still leave the materials up to committees, local school districts and teachers. This creates huge amounts of Variety in the system. There are ways to check and find the flaws in a system so you can use that results to make improvements. Common core is at best a band-aid that will have little effect on the current state of affairs. Gates could have used this money to create a universal curriculum based on the most up to date tech, education research, and subject research. There are three major problems in low-income schools. Poverty is number one. Students often dont know where they will be living month to month, go hungry, and have to either work or look after their siblings instead of studying. The way to deal with that is through a solid social safety net, universal child care, nutrition programs, low-income housing, fair schedule laws, a livable minimum wage was, and sick days. Number two is lack of resources, poor schools often use out of date textbooks, or no text books at all. This leave teachers to fend for themselves and this creates more lecture focused classrooms. The third problem facing low-income schools is low expectations. This is the least of the problems but still a big one. Most parents in these schools arent pushing their children to pursue an education. Societys expectation of these student is even lower. Teachers have an uphill battle convincing their students that they are something and that school is a key to their future. When everyone else is saying the opposite. Teachers have been shouting about these problems for decades, and research backs them up. Politically, few are willing to do something useful about these issues. Yelling to take responsibility for yourself and cutting funding to schools and community programs, does the opposite of addressing these problems. If you want low, middle, and high income schools to have the same educational opportunity, then you need to create and give to all teachers the best tools. A non-partisan curriculum created by current teachers, education professors, and researchers is what teachers need. This curriculum should use a set of standards as a framework then create lessons that are scaffolded and modifiable for the following types of students, Learning Disabilities, English Language Learner, Gifted and Talented, high achieving, and the statistically average student. The videos, games, audio files, Powerpoints, long and short readings, and assignments will be available online for when kids miss school. While this would primarily be for tablets and every student and teacher should have a tablet, it must also be accessible through printers for schools that dont have the money to buy the tablets. Each class should start with a short entrance and exit activity, to judge what students have remembered from the earlier classes and learned in the current class. Then the quizes and test need will be accumulative so the information has to be retained. Units should start with mini lectures or demonstrations. Then there should be a mix of small group and individual assignments. The assignments will be based on the activities in Mid Continent Research Education Laboratory guide for creating lessons and should circle through, Gardeners types of learners. Then elements of AVID (AdVancement through Individual Determination) and IB International Baccalaureate like classroom etiquette, note taking, Binder organization, and tutoring must be included in the curriculum. Then through the use of data the teacher will be able to pick from multiple lesson types, have the modifications and scaffolding automatically included, and be able to individually make changes for unique student issues. This curriculum will need a computer program that tracks how students do on each type of question and assignment and give graphs per class, and per student to guide the teacher into making the right choices for their students. Then their will be an end of semester test that replaces state skills test to see how students are learning compared with their classroom data this would give a better view of teacher performance. Teacher performance is not an issue in any other country, because they give the materials that follow what is on the test, there are no surprises, or home based knowledge questions.. Some will say this is too much paperwork or that they dont like canned curriculum. Answering both complaints is easy. For those worried about paper work, you still give them their planning periods to work with the data instead of trying to find materials and organize them. Those that would argue against canned curriculum, you can show them it is highly individualized, and that they are experts in teaching not subject matter. Though there will be a way for teachers to anonymously file opinions, corrections, and updates to the curriculum and program. About teachers being experts on students not subject matter experts. Over half of all US teachers have at least a Masters degrees, a majority which are in education. What is less common are subject matter graduate degrees, for these teachers and teachers that have become subject matter experts through hobbies, the program has a mechanism for them to suggest with valid proof, updates, corrections, and opinions. These suggestions would be analyzed and acted on by a non-partisan committee of teachers and researchers in that subject and grade area. The only thing that would have to be modified per state, are state history and culture lessons which are usually done in primary grade levels. For those small differences there will be blanks in the curriculum that allows for state specific materials. These materials will be suggested to the committee for that grade and subject level of the curriculum. then the subject matter will be verified and the lessons will be modified to run through the system. This would keep school fidelity to the curriculum. This type of curriculum would work well for the four cores, Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science. It could be used with some modification for art, music, industrial/business/healthcare skills classes. The downside logistically would be manipulatives. This could be address either with a grant to make and distribute the manipulatives. Or a team can find existing solutions and create and test new make your own manipulative instructions. Providing patterns to cut out, and Powerpoints on how to make your own tools would both cut down cost, cut the logistics problems, and create hands-on activities for classes.