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| Kansas Senate passes school finance bill stripping funding for Common Core standards |
| 2014-04-05 |
| [KANSAS] TOPEKA -- The Senate voted to halt state spending on Common Core on Thursday night, during debate over a court-ordered fix for funding inequities between school districts. If you haven't been watching, Common Core's yet another experiment in pedagogy. It went on to pass a school finance bill that provides more money for local option budgets if voters approve, grants tax credits to parents who have their children in private school or home school, allows tax breaks for corporations that provide scholarships for private schools and removes administrative due process for public school teachers. I went to help my granddaughter with her math a few weeks ago. I do arithmetic in my head and usually come out with the right answer. What they're pushing isn't arithmetic. Senators gave the bill final passage 23-17 a little after 1:30 a.m. Friday. Good riddance. The House will consider its own school finance bill Friday after its budget committee restored cuts to virtual schools, transportation and at-risk funds late Thursday. Sen. Forrest Knox, R-Altoona, introduced an amendment early in the Senate debate to halt state money for the implementation of Common Core, a set of national performance standards adopted by the Kansas Board of Education in 2010 without the Legislature's approval. It passed, 27-12. Knox and many others said this would help free up funding to address inequities, but the move caught many educational experts by surprise. Mark Tallman, front man for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said the vote causes uncertainty for districts in the midst of implementing the standards. "So what does that mean? What are we supposed to do? Because most districts have spent several years adopting curriculum, adopting textbooks that are based on the Common Core standards," Tallman said. "One Common Core standard is that essentially that first-graders have to be able to count to 100. So does this mean districts aren't supposed to teach how to count to 100, because that's a Common Core standard? Now, I don't think that's what they mean, but what do they mean?" He said the practical effect of this amendment was unclear. The Common Core initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers. It has been heavily promoted by President B.O. and has benefited from incentives offered by the U.S. Department of Education, leading some people to believe it is a federal program. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #13 I was a victim... Me, too. Cheap paperback texts from the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG). We learned set theory and how to convert numbers from base 6 to base 8. I loved it! Not so much Ms. O who taught a split 5th/6th grade class and was horrified to realize *none* of her 5th graders could do long division. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-04-05 23:12 |
| #12 Tom Lehrer's New Math seems required at this juncture. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-04-05 21:47 |
| #11 Geez this stuff is giving me nightmares. I was a victim of one of the earlier excursions into "New Math" when I was in 7th & 8th grade (circa 1961). The texts (and I use the term loosely) were thin paper backs and the only thing I recall is that they were really big oon Venn diagrams for everything. Took me 10 years to get over it. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-04-05 19:22 |
| #10 The New New Math, brought to you by the same people who failed to teach your kids to read. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-04-05 15:19 |
| #9 Gaan kak! |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-04-05 14:10 |
| #8 Wise move g(r)om. Hopefully the paternal mtDNA inheritance won't counterbalance your good efforts. ;-) |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-05 13:35 |
| #7 Grom, we are moving in the right direction Not fast enough. Me and the ex enrolling my kid in a democratic school---at least they don't practice ritalin as cure all. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-04-05 12:35 |
| #6 There are some things in life that simply must be memorized. Basic math is one of those things. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-04-05 12:28 |
| #5 Its a bit like this. Q: 24 + 26 = ? The answer is forty-ish. Then go and bring together the 4 and 6, and add that to the 40ish, to get fifty. If you learn your 25s, or column add, you know the answer is not close to 40ish. So what goes on is the smart kids get dulled because they are doing extra steps which are unnecessary with just some fundamentals. The dull kids are being outsmarted by the process and with no failure allowed they will learn enough Pavlovian math to pass but will be cheated of actually learning the basics*. The uninterested kids will be uninterested because their family never taught them to be interested in learning. *this has implications later in life, as making quick change, $0.68 out of a dollar is..., finance and investment become a second or third tier of thinking. That is, so long as the CC/EBT clears then so what? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-04-05 12:17 |
| #4 Kansas is a right to work state, teachers do not Have to join the union and many do not. |
| Posted by: bman 2014-04-05 11:39 |
| #3 EH2660 sums it up nicely, if you have not had the courtesy of trying to teach your kids that closeness in math is not OK. Grom, we are moving in the right direction; the education womps have their tamborenes out and banging; if we can undo Sebelius' Court then maybe we can attract business again. She was the crap tenant who on her last day went and hid candy bars all over the place and now we have an ant problem. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-04-05 09:55 |
| #2 From what I've seen on the net Common Core math teaches algorithms for solving arithmetic problems that are mathematically correct but also inefficient and needlessly complicated. Unfortunately CC insists that the students do apply these algorithms and document the process. The focus is on bad algorithms, not results or good algorithms. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2014-04-05 08:26 |
| #1 Bully for you Kansas. Now outlaw teachers' unions... |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-04-05 04:10 |