Perfectly Incorrect: Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound
We just stumbled upon a book that caught our attention. It looks like this might be a good book to send to your local Superintendent after you’ve read it.
In fact, it might be a good idea to take it to the School Board and present the book to the Superintendent and then ask them all to read it. Then follow up later with some questions and ask for evidence, data, facts to back up the claim that Common Core is good for your kids.
For instance in the summary on Amazon it says this:
Then, in Chapter 4, the author again demonstrates his research skills when he lays bare much of the deeply flawed pedagogy of the Common Core. For example, one of the trendiest of trends in contemporary education is “collaborative learning.” The problem, however, is that all available research strongly suggests that collaborative learning only works if everyone at the table is an expert to begin with. Otherwise, students end up exchanging ignorance and/or a disproportionate percentage of students end up doing the heavy lifting for the task at hand.
Collaboration is a big fad in the schools right now and much of that comes from the Competency Based ed element in the Obama Redesign. As you can see, we’ve been trying to raise awareness and problems with pushing this kind of pedagogy (teaching method) in the public schools.
Some of this comes from the what was addressed above but some can also come into your school from grant foundations like Nellie Mae.
Nellie Mae and the other progressive education reformers continue to push pedagogical fads that have been around for years. When’s the last time they ever produced independent studies that show any of this improves academic achievement? Good luck finding that.
Complaints we’ve heard from parents:
1) My child ends up teaching their peers, can’t they collect the teacher’s salary?
2) Group learning or group think?
3) So much for rugged individualism in this class
4) Collaboration or collectivism?
5) My child says he’s learning nothing
6) There’s a lot of socialization but little learning going on
Teachers should be free to use the methods they believe work best for their students. Parents should have input if the methods are not working for their children. However when Nellie Mae or an education reform like “Common Core” pushes a pedagogy on teachers, then they are not free to change up their methods as parents and teachers might like.
If federal or grant money is tied to reforming your school, it will make it almost impossible for parents to have their concerns addressed.