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2020-04-29 Home Front: Culture Wars
Study Finds 'Historic' Drop In Math, Reading Scores Since Adoption Of Common Core
[PioneerInstitute] As we approach the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the United States Department of Education in May, shocking trends in student performance should lead us to reconsider the federal role in education and whether the initiative for policymaking should be returned to local schools, communities, and states.

Breaking with decades of slow improvement, U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

While Common Core was promoted as improving the international competitiveness of U.S. students in math, our international standing has remained low while the skills of average and lower performing American students have dropped in both math and reading.

Nationally, fourth- and eighth-grade NAEP math scores were rising gradually in the years before Common Core was implemented (2003-2013). Post-Common Core, scores at both grades have fallen, eighth grade at nearly the same rate as it was previously increasing.

The declines are most acute for the lowest-achieving students, increasing inequality. Scores for students at the 90th percentile have mostly continued their pre-Common Core trend of gradual improvement. But the farther behind students were, the more substantial the declines, with the biggest drops occurring for those at the 25th and 10th percentiles.
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ]  Top

#1 Has anybody ever met someone who was a staunch believer or proponent of this rubbish Common Core? I haven't. So, with so many people/parents loathing this, how did it become reality and get introduced into US schools? BTW, do any other nations do this in their primary education systems?
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 00:16||   2020-04-29 00:16|| Front Page Top

#2 The real question is if Common Core is so bad that this has made public school teachers even worse, or if it has made the testing show a drop because to pass you need to use Common Core and its various absurdities, or else be deemed to be lacking in proficiency with the material.

Both could be true, but saying it is a cop out. One is undoubtedly more true than the other (I personally never bet against public school teachers becoming even bigger idiots, but these tests are clearly moronic on their own).
Posted by Vernal Hatrick 2020-04-29 00:52||   2020-04-29 00:52|| Front Page Top

#3 Bill Gates' handiwork. Nice job, genius.
Posted by Lex 2020-04-29 01:02||   2020-04-29 01:02|| Front Page Top

#4 Figures, Lex. He's pathetic.
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 01:03||   2020-04-29 01:03|| Front Page Top

#5 Do his kids learn Common Core?
Posted by Lex 2020-04-29 01:05||   2020-04-29 01:05|| Front Page Top

#6 I hope they are learning Linux!
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 01:06||   2020-04-29 01:06|| Front Page Top

#7 A tragedy of a nerd trying to fit with the cool kids - who, IMO, worthless scum.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-04-29 02:54||   2020-04-29 02:54|| Front Page Top

#8 Thye didn't teach negative numbers in common core so no-one understands the concept of a drop.

Plus this article assumes school for the proles (adolescent-creche) is for anything other than making sure both parents work.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2020-04-29 05:34||   2020-04-29 05:34|| Front Page Top

#9 Surprising absolutely no one.
Posted by DarthVader 2020-04-29 08:51||   2020-04-29 08:51|| Front Page Top

#10 The fad before common core was "outcomes based" education. The focus was on test results. Sound familiar? Hmmmmm?
Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-29 09:42||   2020-04-29 09:42|| Front Page Top

#11 They're literally making the nation more ignorant.
Will anyone be called to account for this disaster?
Posted by Lex 2020-04-29 09:55||   2020-04-29 09:55|| Front Page Top

#12 Prior to common core: New Math
Posted by crazyhorse 2020-04-29 09:58||   2020-04-29 09:58|| Front Page Top

#13 See also: How stack ranking cost Microsoft.
Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-29 10:05||   2020-04-29 10:05|| Front Page Top

#14 On it all, it turned into a nice fig leaf for grade school teachers who don't understand math themselves to kinda shrug, "Eh, its how its done now."

My first was a pioneer in the program. It was an exercise in frustrating classmates (and parents) into outright disgust of math. Teaching algebraic concepts to 2nd graders before they even had their math charts memorized, using English as Second Language word problems and proto-woke themes.

The Drag Queen Story Hour of hard sciences.
Posted by swksvolFF 2020-04-29 10:08||   2020-04-29 10:08|| Front Page Top

#15 Even back in the 80's, we used to run multiplication/division tables, and other math games, with our kids at home.

Teachers got upset with us for doing that because it gave our kids an 'edge' over the other students.

All our children are now in math-heavy fields and are part of the 'essential' work force. Plus they get paid really well (no 'parent loans' needed from us...ever).
Posted by Mullah Richard 2020-04-29 10:57||   2020-04-29 10:57|| Front Page Top

#16 Math isn't hard. We homeschooled K-12, and our oldest got her degree in math from an Ivy.

I like to make an analogy to history, which is essentially just the best stories humanity has to tell. How do you make *that* boring? Takes lots and lots and lot of government, incompetence and whackadoodle ideas.
Posted by Iblis 2020-04-29 13:21||   2020-04-29 13:21|| Front Page Top

#17 Math isn't hard. We homeschooled K-12, and our oldest got her degree in math from an Ivy.

Which implies an inborn (and rare) talent, Iblis.

How do you make *that* boring?

A pity you don't read Hebrew, I could show you my son's 9th grade history textbook.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-04-29 13:52||   2020-04-29 13:52|| Front Page Top

#18 A pity you don't read Hebrew

Indeed, but I do know the words to Hine Ma Tov.
Posted by Iblis 2020-04-29 14:10||   2020-04-29 14:10|| Front Page Top

#19 Don't forget that Jeb Bush was a proponent as well.

You know, the anointed GOP nominee for 2016.
Posted by charger 2020-04-29 14:14||   2020-04-29 14:14|| Front Page Top

#20 #18 šŸ˜Ž
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-04-29 14:16||   2020-04-29 14:16|| Front Page Top

#21 More reason to push home schooling options when this virus-stuff ends.
Posted by rjschwarz 2020-04-29 16:56||   2020-04-29 16:56|| Front Page Top

#22 Home-schooling + courses at the local community college.

The educrats must be running scared. If the masses get wind of the above formula for success, they'll leave the public schools in droves. Every child the public schools lose costs them ~$12,000 a year in state funding.

= downward spiral for public schools, with no way out except...

...Improve their offering? Naahh. Too much work.
Posted by Lex 2020-04-29 18:49||   2020-04-29 18:49|| Front Page Top

#23 Looking around Khan, it appears that they are using common core practices as the main way to teach arithmetic.

I donā€™t think they teach addition/subtraction tables at all - they use an intuitive method involving counting and a collection of what Iā€™d call tricks to get it done. That works for him, but heā€™s brilliant. I think it is not the optimum way to teach the average (or less - remember, half the kids in elementary school are below average!) pupil. Common core is ok for bright kids, but it mystifies the average person.

Personally, I know some advanced math, but my addition/subtraction skills are very poor. Something went wrong in first or second grade. I actually use techniques similar to Khan, but Iā€™m very slow on things like when the nurse practitioner checks for mental acuity with ā€œcount backwards from 100 by 7ā€. That should be nearly instantaneous, if you really learned the tables.

My multiplication is fine - I learned those tables properly :-)

Granted, people use calculators these days, but they should be able to do quick estimates in their heads.

He does make the comment that learning the multiplication tables would be useful. They have vids on subjects like ā€œpatterns in multiplication tablesā€, which is typical common core.
Posted by KBK 2020-04-29 20:26||   2020-04-29 20:26|| Front Page Top

#24 @ #15 - Teachers got upset with us for doing that because it gave our kids an 'edge' over the other students.

Absolutely f*****g mind-boggling. And sick.
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 20:54||   2020-04-29 20:54|| Front Page Top

#25 Study Finds 'Historic' Drop In Math, Reading Scores Since Adoption Of Common Core

All according to plan.
Posted by gorb 2020-04-29 21:04||   2020-04-29 21:04|| Front Page Top

#26 I actually loved New Math. Set theory was fascinating. But I'm weird, I know.

Common Core, OTOH...
Posted by Lex 2020-04-29 21:34||   2020-04-29 21:34|| Front Page Top

#27 I still consult mine now and then. It's here in my desk somewhere.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-04-29 21:41||   2020-04-29 21:41|| Front Page Top

#28 Is there a slide rule in there somewhere, B?
Posted by Clem 2020-04-29 22:25||   2020-04-29 22:25|| Front Page Top

#29 George Dyson tells a story about the Manhattan Project days: Ulam or Metropolis (I forget which) using a Marchant desk calculator, one fellow using a slide rule, and John Von Neumann doing the math in his head. Typically, they all finished in about the same time.
Posted by KBK 2020-04-29 23:14||   2020-04-29 23:14|| Front Page Top

#30 Anyone here remember Chisanbop
Posted by KBK 2020-04-29 23:18||   2020-04-29 23:18|| Front Page Top

#31  I actually loved New Math.

Sets made sense to me. But I remember the others in my class struggling back in 1967. Then ā€” being the child of educators and stubborn ā€” I refused to memorize the the multiplication table because rote memorization does not lead to deeper understanding, and therefore is pedagogically unsound. I just added really really fast when called up to display my progress to the teacher... and of course, as one progresses through the table, there is ever less to learn, 6x7 having the same answer as 7x6.

By the time I was a parent I had figured out I hadnā€™t been nearly as clever as I thought when I was nine, and drilled my toddlers in their addition, multiplication, and squares facts as a car game. So by the time they were nine, any silly conclusions they might draw were already superseded by prior knowledge. ;-)
Posted by trailing wife 2020-04-29 23:29||   2020-04-29 23:29|| Front Page Top

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