How Common Core’s More Rigorous Standards Dumb Kids Down?

There is a strange phenomenon apparent in how parents talk about the effects of Common Core standards on their children -- some parents see their once happy learners struggling to grasp the curriculum while others parents say the curriculum is too easy and is not challenging their child -- Can they both be right? This is a question I often get from parents researching Common Core and running into this contradiction. Those who are pushing the Common Core know how hard it is for parents to make sense of it and that works to their benefit. I will attempt to answer this question as simply as I can, so stay with me.

The problems with the Common Core Standards start with, and stem from, the fact that they were not developed with careful attention to what is developmentally appropriate for children. You might ask, how this could possibly happen. Hundreds of high profile leaders have said that the standards were developed by hundreds of experts. I too think it is shocking that the Federal Department of Education would push national standards that are fundamentally flawed. However, despite some warnings from early childhood development specialist, the committee of teachers and curriculum experts devising the standards did so “with no input from early childhood educators, only a few elementary school teachers, and no child development specialists, phychologist, pediatricians, or neuro-psychologist… There was no inter-disciplinary input on the committee; and it isn't apparent that the standards were tied to any research. "Normally when you see something this important, you see citations after it that indicate the research the standards are based on. Surely you would think that the academic standards for a nation of children would be based on research." 1

Since the standards were completely unknown to the general public until after they were introduced in the classroom, it has only been since there introduction into the schools that independent experts in the fields of early childhood development have had opportunity to examine the standards. I would encourage parents to read and participate in the lectures that have been presented by these experts that discuss the developmentally inappropriate nature of the Common Core and the harmful effects of the assessments being developed. Here is some of what we are learning about the standards.

"Being developmentally appropriate requires an understanding of how a child's mind is developing and then presenting information based on that." 1 So to understand how Common Core standards are developmentally inappropriate, let’s do a quick crash course in the stages of childhood development and use a widely accepted theory, Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

Kindergarteners are in a developmental period known as “pre-operational” (2-7 years old), this is because they cannot yet understand operational changes. For example, when you show them a picture of two cookies + three cookies = five cookies, they are going to struggle to understand how these two smaller groups can change to become a larger one, but if you wait just a little bit longer till they are in the “concrete operational” (7-11 years) period this kind of instruction becomes much easier and this is the optimal age for developing mastery in math facts and basic language skills. Children don’t begin to think logically and abstractly until the “formal operational” period (11-adult), this is the period where they are able to comprehend logically and grasp algebraic concepts which are abstract in nature. 1

Below is a look at how a typical 5/6 year old is developing:

· Practicing Being Independent
· Exhibiting Creativity
· Focused on how things look
· Thinks that others see things the way they do
· Can't understand another's perspective
· Can't reflect upon their own thinking
· Semi-logical
· Cannot think abstractly
· Confuses reality and fantasy

Below are a set of mathematical practices that Common Core Standards expect students from Kindergarten to 12th grade to exhibit. Based on the cognitive abilities shown above you should be able to pick out the practices that are developmentally inappropriate for K-3rd?

· Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
· Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
· Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
· Model with mathematics.
· Use appropriate tools strategically.
· Attend to precision.

After reviewing the Common Core Standards, Child Psychologist Dr. Megan Koschnick, concluded that the developers of the Standards saw this collage and career ready goal and they backed the standards down all the way to Kindergarten. So instead of thinking about what is developmentally appropriate for a Kindergartener, they are thinking about where they want that kindergartener to end up, “let's track this all back down to kindergarten and have them work on those skills in a kindergarten way"… There are some major flaws with that. "There're trying to push down heavier higher level things on the lower grades." This will take a lot of time that is wasted at the expense of more basic skills and other crucial areas of a child's learning: active, hands-on exploration, and developing social, emotional, problem-solving, and self-regulation skills.

Below are some specific examples of standards that are developmentally inappropriate:

1) Behavioral and Social Standards housed under writing for Kindergarten students: With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed. "So instead of proposing something that would be more in line with a Kindergartener’s goal of exploring, being creative, and independent they've suggested the social and emotional goal of being dependent on other people." 1

2) Math Standard for Kindergarten: “Require kids in Kindergarten to learn addition and subtraction within 5,” which doesn't seem like a lot, but they are in the pre-operational period and because their brains are not ready for operational concepts these will require lessons and strategies, such as "drill and kill" methods, to program Kindergarteners to test proficient on the math facts."

3) ELA Standard for 1st graders: Distinguish shades of meaning among related words and describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g. knew, believed, suspected, heard, and wondered). Here they are not looking for concrete definitions but rather to understand the nuances of the words which requires abstract thought. This is a cognitive ability not developed in a 1st grader.

So, why does it matter if the standards are developmentally appropriate? And how does that effect the student as they reach higher level courses?

"Kids that are subjected to standards that are inappropriate will be more stressed, this has been proven to be true in research... stress, anxiety, depression, physical hostility, nervousness, physical aches and pains” will all present in a greater number of children. Thus Common Core is causing parents to see their once bright engaged child withdraw from classroom instruction and sink in test performance, giving the impression that the standards are too hard.

Proponents of the Common Core standards say that they “are fewer but deeper,” but what this means in real terms is they will spend more years trying to teach children what they are not ready for while ignoring critical steps in their development. Then when they are ready for concrete operations, for example, they delay them in exchange for what is being called "fuzzy math" pushing off concrete mastery of the language of math and reliable algorithms even further. One math teacher described this insane practice as trying to "make little mathematicians who have no hope of being able to do math."

Dr. James Milgram, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, has extensive experience developing mathematics standards throughout the nation and served on the Validation Committee for the Common Core Standards. Regarding the math standards, Dr. James Milgram (the only person with an advanced degree in mathematics on the Validation Committee) refused to sign off on the standards because he concluded that they would place American students at least two years behind those of high-achieving countries by 8th grade. So while some of my friends have little children who are struggling in K-3 many opponents are focusing on the delay in algebra onward and the decrease in quality literary study that as evidence that the standards are "dumbing students down". Thus the apparent contradiction between parents who say their bright kids are struggling and others who say the standards are a step down, isn’t a contradiction at all. It’s the natural effect of standards designed to turn education on its head.

The proponents of Common Core are using this misunderstood contradiction to discredit what parents are experiencing. This was exactly the approach Arne Duncan took recently when he said that parental backlash over Common Core was coming from "white moms" who realized all of the sudden their child wasn't "as brilliant" as they thought they were. The real contradiction is the one Arne Duncan and the private backers of Common Core are selling American parents. That is that the standards are rigorous and go deeper to develop higher level thinking. It’s true that they are rigorous, extreme, and inflexible during the most fragile stages of brain development but it is also true that they foolishly attempt to make adults of 5 year olds while setting seniors years behind their international peers. Sure we will train some students to answer test questions proficiently, we can even train a second grader to answer abstract questions, but we will not have changed the internal process of understanding abstractly. While some students may seem to master the skills there will be many more who throw up the white flag and surrender.

1. Lecture by Dr. Megan Koschnick on how Common Core is Developmentally Inappropriate: http://youtu.be/vrQbJlmVJZo

There is No Place Like Home

In 2009 Obama's education secretary Arne Duncan, in all seriousness, shared his vision of American schools as the center of community life and I dare say family life. He said, “I think schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year.” The federal education agendas for decades have encouraged and even mandated that schools "increase instructional time" which is a term that disguises the real purpose behind increasing school hours and school years -- which is to replace family free time with an institutionalized childhood.

A news story out of Colorado today is only one of dozens of stories from across the country reporting significant increases in school hours for especially our youngest children. While living in Nebraska I organized several grassroots organization (here, and here) with the purpose of defending the integrity of the family, the innocence of children, and preserving the role of parents in directing the upbringing and education of their children. "Instructional time" and "attendance" agendas linked to federal education mandates and "initiatives" were of great concern because they challenged the central role of parents in nurturing and raising children. I wrote several articles warning parents of the damages children and family life suffer from the agenda to lengthen school calendars (here, here, here, and here).

The American Academy of Pediatrics released a report in 2007 warning parents of the relationship between increased depression and anxiety in children and the lack of the simple childhood pleasure of play. The report states that "the national trend, to focus on the academic fundamentals... has decreased time left for recess, creative arts, and physical education" at school and has "further diminished the child-driven play that is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth" that happens at home. Compound that with extended hours in after-school programs that emphasize academics, the hours of unsupervised video gaming and constant T.V. and you have a recipe for a nation that cannot create, work, or think.

It is not surprising, but no less disappointing, when I hear mothers complain that the precious little time they have with their children at home is further diminished by these national policies. It saddens me to hear so many parents complaining about stressed out kids who have no time to play and who feel their children are loosing their childhood to the ill conceived notions of "educational rigor". Like states across the country, my own county in Maryland has steadily increased school hours (primarily in elementary school) and they are even sending buses out earlier to make sure kids get to school for breakfast. A friend of mine complained that when she tries to make sure her kids are fed breakfast before they leave for school they say, "Oh mom, they feed us at school." She resents the loss of this family time and she should. Schools are encroaching on the role of parents to nurture and care for their young children to the great determent of the bonds between parent and child.

When your school board proposes an increases in the length of the school day and says they have to do it for "instructional" purposes be VERY suspicious! Even the Colorado story admits that this increased time will not be used for "typical course work" but for is an "extra 300 hours a year for things that usually don't fit in a regular school day, such as using personalized software or learning about world cultures, healthy living and even scrapbooking." After supporting the increased time for educational reasons, parents in Nebraska were surprised to find out that the 30 minutes added to the elementary day and 15 minutes added to middle school day was not used for instruction time but even if it were, the truth is that very young children tune out after about 2 o'clock and any instructional time after that is a complete waste.

When the School Board says they have "no choice" but to increase the school day and year because of state and federal mandates remember that in most states local school boards have constitutional powers over these choices. When the education "experts" tell you your kids need more "instructional time" for them to meet the new "rigorous" standards at school remember that though the school days and years have continually increased over the past four decades scores have remained flat.

If that doesn't convince you that these policies are wasteful and damaging to children and their families, if you are like many parents today who welcome these changes because it makes your work schedule easier, is lighter on the daycare pocketbook, or you simply believe this extra time is benefiting their child's learning. I would encourage you to read about the importance of unstructured free play and the detrimental effects of hyper-schooling on the developing mind and character of your child, you may conclude that the extra money for daycare (where at least they can run and play) is well worth it.

Arne Duncan's vision for a school centered culture rather than a family centered one is quickly becoming a reality and unless that is the world you want for your kids and grand-kids it is time for you to oppose these policies and persuade your friends that these changes are seriously harmful to their children. There really is "No Place Like Home" and there is no adequate substitute in a child's development for the nurture of a parent and the freedom of play.

U.S. History National Standards: America, the Colonial Imperial Oppressor

When my son came home from school yesterday asking about his history lesson on the "Philippine-American War," he explained the event as an example of American imperialist policies that denied independence to freedom fighters in the Philippines and caused the deaths of thousands of innocent natives. You can imagine that I needed to take some time to research the lesson from his text book and other sources in order to understand the frame with which this lesson had been taught. What I found did not surprise me at this point but I did begin to wonder how these history lessons will progress when America enters the world wars, for example. How will this curriculum continue the story of America in such a way as to disguise each and every event so that there is no virtue in the actions of our nation at any time in its history?

In my research to understand where this "telling" of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent American presence in the Philippines came from, I found that the National Standards for United States History sets these unit objectives for students in their study of the Philippine-American War:

• Students will explain the causes of American imperialist policies and values in the 1890's.
• Student will evaluate the arguments for and against the U.S. annexation and subjugation of the Philippine islands and their people.

What are the purposes of these objectives? What are the "values" the students will explain? Parents should examine the text books as well as the lesson plans created for these standards and their objectives. The lesson plans for this historical event teach that the U.S. victory over Spain in the Spanish American war made the U.S., the "New Spain", a imperial empire builder whose "values of assimilation" oppressed the native peoples. These lessons teach students to "examine" the American imperialist policies and values that stem from "the American people’s belief that they had a sacred obligation to spread their institutions and way of life." I have watched as this curriculum has progressed and it is clear to me that it is designed to convince students that America's "superpower" status was gained through religious oppression, capitalist greed, and "white" supremacy.

This characterization of America as an imperial colonial power steeped in hypocrisy starts early in history text books. The curriculum portrays westward expansion as American imperial designs on the globe and suggests that "American Values" were the height of arrogance and cultural insensitivity; that at best westward expansion was misguided and at worst it was a malicious destruction of cultures. These lessons have students evaluate America's past by asking students whether the U.S. was "justified" in settling Texas, the Southwest, Utah and the Great Basin, California, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest; purchasing Alaska, annexing the islands of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, and the "territorial expansion" involving Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the islands of the Philippines.

As we have daily discussed this series of lessons with my son and tried to provide more perspective and context that has been completely omitted in class, we have been receiving our own education in the political design behind this telling of our nation's history. Yesterday's lesson on the "Philippine-American War" was particularly interesting to me. How is it that in a discussion of international conflict the lesson contained no substantive discussion of the realities of international relations at the time? Britain and Germany had fleets in the region and McKinley realized the choice he faced was not whether or not to liberate the islands, but which of three nations -- the United States, Germany, or Britain -- would control them. Giving them back to Spain was ridiculous, turning them over to France and Germany (our commercial rivals in the Orient) was bad business, and even if they could be saved from the rule of a stronger nation they were in no state to be self governed.

The U.S. projected power in the Pacific as a reaction to the imperial designs of Japan and the other nations. In Hawaii for example, the Japanese were attempting to counter the American settlement in those islands by sending their own immigrants to the islands. The Hawaiians rejected these immigrants and as a result Japan sent war ships to the coast, not a fact you will find in my Son's history text book. My son was taught that capitalist interests in the Islands were the reason for the U.S. annexing Hawaii as well as the driving reason behind the entry into the War with Spain. There are many historical facts that were completely omitted that contradict that assertions. First, the Hawaii annexation was opposed by the business interests of the sugar beat farmers of the western continental United States and the southern Democrats who opposed it because of racial bigotry. These internal factions were the reason President McKinley couldn't get congressional support for the action. McKinley himself was not a fan of the idea of annexing Hawaii but felt pushed to by the presence of Japanese war ships in Hawaii and with the annexation of Hawaii, the Philippines as a military base seemed all the more logical.

I would have encouraged a robust evaluation of the decision to enter the Spanish-American War and a discussion of how history might have been impacted had America not projecting power in the Pacific at that time. Theodore Roosevelt saw the changing nature of the world, the fast pace of technological advancement, and the imperial designs of Japan and other nations and predicted an impending world conflict. It was his belief that America was not prepared for world conflict and needed to get prepared, that America needed to show those world powers that we could compete on the world stage. Those who shared this view sought to strengthen American Navel power, project navel power in the Pacific, and expand trade in our hemisphere. Certainly an examination of these ideas might contradict the idea that Americas designs were imperial. With proper context students might conclude that while the Spanish-American War was offensive the actions taken may indeed reveal a great foresight that contributed to a strong defense in a world quickly advancing toward world war.

While it is true that Americans believed that freedom was a gift from God and that their Republic was the most effective form of Government in preserving these God given rights, it is hardly "imperial" to want other nations to be as equally blessed by such freedoms. Among economic trade and military concerns about Spain's outpost in the western hemisphere, Americans were sympathetic to the plight of Cubans who struggled against a bloody military state only 60 miles from their shores. Wanting free trade with nations in our hemisphere and to extend greater freedom to those nations is hardly "imperial" either. Yet it is the effort to spread such freedom and prosperity that the curriculum portrays as arrogance and cultural insensitivity.

My husband asked my son if the lesson at school had taught them of the great strides America made to establish healthcare in the disease ridden island countries which reeled from epidemics of cholera, plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and malaria? Or the conflicts the U.S. engaged in with Muslim raiders who exploited tribal warfare and took slaves from native and colonists populations? Of course any noble effort was omitted. The greatest omission being the fact that if America were truly set on imperial interests overseas their actions are puzzling. They limited their presence legally by setting target dates for their withdrawal and the independence of the territories and they kept to it. Never before in history had a nation so willingly and, in general, peacefully rescinded control over so much territory and so many conquered people as in the case of the possessions taken in the Spanish-American War.

What are students meant to conclude when the so called "American expansion" is attributed to motivations arising from "capitalist greed", "christian zealotry", and "a raw competitive drive for national power and prestige?" When students are asked to evaluate "American values" and then taught that those values were based on arrogant "white, Anglo-Saxon" notions that "western nations were superior to the 'inferior' peoples of the world," that the American desire to advance the progress of the world and spread "their principles, institutions, and religion" was self serving and imperialistic, students conclude that America's rise to world leadership was unjustified and that America is a great imperial oppressor.

*For an example of the lesson plans for the Philippine-American War provided to U.S. history teachers under the National History Standards, see this lesson plan from the National Center for History in the Schools, at UCLA.

The Parent/Teacher Relationship

Until education experts and policy makers accept that what children at home and school really need is that personal touch that inspires them to learn and love it, we will continue to make the mistake of trying to improve education through standardization and technology. If we want children to get the very best education, an education that will develop their natural abilities to think, reason, and create then we are going to have to focus our resources and ideas in the two most critical areas, parents and teachers. Parents and teachers are the most important factor in the success of a student and anything that impedes the mutual respect between the home and the school is detrimental to the educational progress of children.

It is simply intuitive that the family is the heart and driver of a child's education. In order to foster the best educational nurturing for children, families and communities must develop a real commitment to family centered education reforms. A couple weeks ago I was listening to a NPR program in my car when the reporter asked her guest which teacher made the most significant impact in his life, she meant a school teacher of course, but my immediate response to the question was, my father. My father and mother nurtured my talents, instilled confidence, encouraged diligence, and fostered a life-long love of learning. I can remember only a few of my elementary teacher’s names or faces. What I remember is the overall impressions leftover from those years in school. I remember my second grade year because my teacher really liked me, my fourth grade year when my teacher completely ignored me, and my sixth grade year when my teacher made me feel stupid. I remember a few more of my high school and collage teachers but in the balance the one teacher who had the greatest impact was and still is my father. Through it all I remember my father and mother were always there answering my questions and helping me make sense of what I was learning, something they continue to do even now.

Being a mother and working in a 3rd grade classroom, I realize that more than my particular relationships with my teachers, it was my parent’s attitudes towards my education that had the greatest impact on my success in any given school year. Teachers should be able to count on the role of parents as the foundation for her students success and they should reverence this truth. Good parents work with their children's teachers, as mine did. Parents support the teacher in enforcement of standards, allowing discipline to take place, addressing at home with their children the issues teachers raise, and raising concerns with the occasional problem in a professional manner. Like two parents who are back each other up in parenting, parents who back up their kid’s teacher and work with them when problems arise, build a firm foundation for their child’s development.

Next to mom and dad, it is common today that children will spend a great deal of their time with their classroom teacher, and for this reason it is in quality teachers that education dollars should be most heavily invested in. Certainly the totally uninvolved parent or the "helicopter" parent who belligerently hovers undermine the efforts of their child’s teacher, but these bad examples don’t excuse teachers from their responsibility to work for the respect of parents. Having worked with many teachers, as a parents and an Para-educator, I have meant plenty of dedicated teachers who love their students and earn the respect of their parents. Unfortunately, I have also met too many teachers who speak with arrogant condescension of their students’ parents. One day during a teachers lunch I listened to several teachers talk derisively of the “stay-at-home” mom of one of their students, a mother that earned their derision for choosing to stay at home and care for her children and lacking a “higher education.” One teacher actually said “I can't listen to all parents.... sometimes my soon to be TWO Master's Degree's outweigh your thoughts as a parent”

I believe the most common reason that mutual respect between parents and teachers is suffering is that a family centered educational philosophy has been undermined by education policy that is shifting responsibility for a child's future destiny from parents to the state, and the purpose of public education from providing equal opportunity to guaranteeing equal outcomes. This shift is making parents feel less connected to their schools and a less valued participant in their child's education. It has angered some parents as they feel their influence diminished. This shift is making it more difficult for teachers to please parents as they have unmanageable pressures and burdens placed on them. It is systematically diluting the art of teaching, turning teachers into technocrats, and making parents inferior to experts. Teachers and students are being drowned in targets, testing, and technology. They are continually at the whim of the latest "educational trend" and the next technology. If only technocrats would leave the schools alone, teachers might be able to get on with teaching and parents may develop more natural bonds with their children’s teachers.

The attitudes of derision that an ever expanding technocrat class have for parents, and the mistrust they have for teachers who want to practice their art, is negatively impacting the extremely important bonds between parents and teachers. What we need to turn it around is a mutual recognition by teacher and parent that far off agendas are pitting us against each other, and that children are caught in the cross fire. Our mutual love for the children in our care is a strong foundation to develop an alliance of mutual respect. To build the education we want for our children and students we must set teachers free to creatively practice their profession in concert with parents in school districts whose policies are family centered and invest heavily in our quality teachers.