re: Grigsby on Jindal's common core reversal

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Having "accepted standards" for any grade level is a stupid concept, and goes against everything involved with developmental appropriateness

People do not act, learn, perform or behave on the same pace. Anyone suggesting otherwise should be ignored

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By that logic, we shouldn't have grade levels. Unless teachers are just moving kids on to the next grade level without testing whether they earned that, a grade level by its nature is an academic standard. You met the standard for the 4th grade level, so you get to move onto the 5th grade level.

You're right, some kids are developmentally different. That's why we have special education, at one extreme for the gifted and at another extreme for the handicapped. We don't have the resources for schools to create an individual standard for each individual student, so we have to have objective standards by which most kids are measured.

I am not an educational professional, but have several friends who are & who are on both sides of this fence. That & reading & hearing about all the disagreements on CC's value or lack of same from teachers & principals across the State is telling enough to know there is not one sure, definitive answer,no set right or wrong. But what is evident is BJ's track record of only looking out for his own political interests; were it different and/or not so factual, I'd be inclined to cut him some slack on CC. Bottom line, I do not trust him, period.

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Because when test scores depend on teachers keeping their jobs, they focus on teaching those questions. Not every child develops at the same rate. How will teaching a test encourage critical thinking?

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We need to have a way to measure whether schools are performing to standards. The easiest way to do that is a test. Again, we should have programs to accommodate gifted and handicapped students, which we have already. But we can't create one individual program for every individual student, which means we need baseline standards.

I would keep the test questions and answers sealed with huge criminal penalties for divulging them, and I would tell teachers the subjects on which students will be tested. Hopefully critical thinking will be developed as the students learn to master those subjects.

Ultimately, we as a society have to decide what basic knowledge you need to have to graduate high school, and we need to make sure our students are gaining that knowledge. I'm not saying testing is the perfect way to do that, but to steal a Churchill phrase on democracy, "it's the worst form of measuring educational progress, except for all the others."

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Like I said earlier, I'm not against education standards. Our education system absolutely needs an overhaul. I am against the government deciding what is taught in schools. Read the link that I posted. Children should be taught history, not that Obama is famous.

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I'm agnostic on Common Core because of what you indicate in that last sentence, namely what is taught in history courses, and because I don't like the federal government. But we know that we're going to need more students in the STEM-related fields, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We know everyone needs to be able to read and write. So someone's got to set a standard, and I don't trust the school boards to do it because typically they're controlled by union cronies, at least in the big cities, and all they want to do is to protect union jobs. At some point, we will need to set a basic standard, and the federal government probably will need to have a voice in that.

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How about you stick with the subject of this thread and answer my question, since IB refuses to?

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I could completely care less about Grigsby and the question of who owes what. For every Grigsby you can find a teachers' union devoted to what he doesn't want, and they will butt heads until the end of time. That's immaterial compared to the more important question about how we educate our children.

This thread is about Grigsby and Jindal.

Start another thread about educating the children. You're stealing IB's thunder.

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Why?

This whole CC philosophy is based on getting kids ready for college, yet when you get to college, there is no standard

If you want to put off Biology 1001 until your senior year. No bigee. If you want to clep out of 1000 level scores, sure feel free. Want to load up on the arts rather than the sciences. OK. There is no requirement that every student takes the exact same curriculum, at the exact same age

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So what's your answer to how children should be educated then? The only indication you've given me is you want a heavily individualized K-12 educational system. So if some children want to go on an engineering track, are you prepared to have objective engineering track tests at the K-12 level? If some children want to be chefs, or mechanics, are you prepared to have objective level tests for those fields at the K-12 level? Because I'll tell you, I don't want my tax dollars going for schools and programs that let students do just what they feel like doing. There needs to be evidence that we're getting results.

As well, how do you re-engineer schools to meet those goals, and how do you train up teachers? I'm not necessarily opposed to any of this, but I am opposed to the idea that you can't have objective standards that aren't measured, whether it's for a grade-level system or a tracking system.

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What will Grisby do in retaliation if anything?

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Un-invite him to his birthday party at laser tag?

Look common core is not the monster people are making out to be. Just go to the website and take the practice there for third grade math.

It would be wonderful if we could elevate our education system to the point our third graders as a whole could pass that test.

It is not some conspiracy to make your children democrats.

Teachers are going to whine about any change.