Common Core Frustration

Now the that the school year has started and the homework routine is taking shape, tempers are flaring over the Common Core.  I completely understand people's frustrations and can sympathize.  I have been helping my daughter with her math just about every night and the days of doing drill and kill are over.  She is not being assigned 30 problems with the goal in mind to simply get an answer right.  Now, students are asked to rethink how they find answers and to be critical of their own work.  As a building administrator I am in no real position to take a side as to whether or not the standards are "good" or "bad".  I have the task of making sure my teachers have the tools to teach them to my students.  In this post I would like to offer some Common Core thought to fellow parents from a person in a unique position to see it a different way.

First off, the Common Core is not a bad thing on its face.  The way it has played out has given us a bad taste in our mouths.  You see, when No Child Left Behind was the mandate, all the states had their own standards but were held to a national expectation.  In essence, a state could have very easy standards to help their kids test into compliance or a very difficult set of standards and hurt their kids and schools.  There had to be a level playing field if a national mandate was to be fair.  It became a political issue when the transition began, people got mad about harder homework and the fight against Obamacare started to fizzle.  There always has to be a boogeyman.

I will use my daughter as my example.  The last sheet I helped her with was multiplying base ten exponents.  This was daunting to my 5th grader because it was new.  A quick Googling of the Common Core State Standards would show that this is to be taught in the 5th grade.  It is also to be covered in 3rd and 4th grade too.  It was  because the school had not yet moved completely into the CCSS and jumping into them was a shock to the system.  It's a completely new skill that will not look new to the next classes to come in.

There also seems to be a "new" way to do math with the common core.  I will say that the reason for this is two fold.  Yes, the CCSS do ask kids to think more critically about the process of math.  Yes the CCSS do seem to be a year beyond what kids were doing last year.  My question is this, is it wrong to expect more out of our kids?  The other way to look at it is that schools rushed to purchase CCSS aligned textbooks.  My personal approach was to let our teachers review the standards, examine the materials they had and be able to answer the question, "do we have what we need?"  The answer was yes because teachers are still artists and content experts.  If we rush to buy new books then everyone feels like a robot to the CCSS.  Creative teachers know how to make it work.  Besides how much has math changed?  Textbook profits are soaring right now because we were looking for a magic bullet.

Right now we are upset over the transition to the CCSS.  The idea is not a bad one.  Our kids do need to have better critical thinking skills and new careers require more math and technical skills.  It cant be the worst thing in the world.  We will survive this and another new movement in about ten years.