Common Core Graduates Are The Worst Prepared For College

By Professor Doom


     I feel like plucking some low-hanging fruit today, and so let's take a look at Common Core. I've written of it before, how it ignores science, how it's just another excuse to inject more indoctrination into our schools, and how by changing the approach to how mathematics is learned, will further separate the children from their parents, since the latter won't have a clue how to help their kids with homework using the convoluted new methods.

     Predicting the failure of Common Core is about as easy as predicting Epstein's "suicide" in prison, but now we get to see how well the "new ways of knowing" methods of Common Core are working, but it's now been 4 years since this idiotic idea was proposed--enough time for a kid go through all of high school, using Common Core as preparation for college.

      My own eyeballs tell me something's gone wrong. Even though the endless cancer treatments make it impossible for me to teach a real class, I still do much free tutoring for the department. The advanced students fresh out of high school can no longer handle fractions unless they have a calculator to do it for them, and the non-advanced students can't handle fractions even with a calculator. This is just one example of how Common Core has gone a full step lower--before Common Core, the advanced students could add fractions without $50 of electronics to help, for example. And of course, as soon as a kind of fraction pops up which the calculator can't handle, it's mental lockdown time for the students. Even arithmetic like "15 divided by 5" has the "A" students needing a calculator now.

     But that's my own eyeballs. How about something less anecdotal?

First Common Core High School Grads Worst-Prepared For College In 15 Years


      I remind the gentle reader that the whole reason Common Core was slammed down the throats of our kids was because it was going to help them prepare for college, the ultimate goal (or so we're told repeatedly) of our public school system.

Further, the class of 2019, the first to experience all four high school years under Common Core, is the worst-prepared for college in 15 years, according to a new report.


     While the above might lead the casual reader to think that things were way better 15 years ago, there's a factor here which causes confusion: how well a student is prepared is determined by "standardized" tests. Every decade or so, the standards on those tests are lowered, or at least dramatically changed. Anyone who compares tests of today to tests of, say, a century ago can quickly see something has gone horribly wrong in our education system, as it's very clear the capabilities of our young humans have dropped off very sharply--top students of today would horribly the older tests.

      And so comparing student performance on tests of today to even a mere 15 years ago just isn't an "apples to apples" comparison. Still, just looking at the last few years of steady drops tells the tale. The people pushing Common Core needn't worry much, as I'm sure those standardized tests will change soon, so that Common Core will look better.

       The gentle reader's grandchildren, assuming they'll even be capable of reading, will absolutely marvel at material that kids today could do, but I digress.

“Students in the U.S. made significant progress in math and reading achievement on NAEP from 1990 until 2015, when the first major dip in achievement scores occurred,” reported U.S. News and World Report. Perhaps not coincidentally, 2015 is the year states were required by the Obama administration to have fully phased in Common Core.


            I can't answer in detail about the NAEP test, but much like with Epstein's "suicide," I predict with confidence that it'll be changed soon and scores will start heading up again.

As Common Core was moving into schools, 69 percent of school principals said they also thought it would improve student achievement. All of these “experts” were wrong, wrong, wrong.


      The article lists many of those experts, but much like with the principals listed above, none of the "experts" actually teach human beings. All the experts who teach human beings (which strike me as the ones you should ask about matters involving teaching human beings) that I'm aware of, including myself,  determined Common Core would fail, and it's not difficult to specifically identify why (as I discussed in four connected posts).

        It's so weird how the people accept lies being poured into their ears, even when those lies harm their children. Granted, I shouldn't throw stones, considering how many lies of cancer doctors I've accepted.

On the same day the NAEP results were released, the college testing organization ACT released a report showing that the high school class of 2019’s college preparedness in English and math is at seniors’ lowest levels in 15 years. These students are the first to have completed all four high school years under Common Core.


     Looks like they'll have to change the ACT, too. I should point out, it isn't just high school where we're seeing disaster, it's throughout the system. Again, no surprise, and I again remind we were promised that Common Core would really improve things.

“Readiness levels in English, reading, math, and science have all decreased since 2015, with English and math seeing the largest decline,” the report noted. Student achievement declined on ACT’s measures among U.S. students of all races except for Asian-Americans, whose achievement increased.


      It's an interesting result about the Asians, but I suspect there's a reason for this. Recall that one of the main goals for Common Core was to make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for the parents to help their children. Without this help, children will struggle. But the Asians? Children of new immigrants especially have been unable to go to their parents for help, because the parents came from a radically different system already. So their scores weren't going to be as negatively impacted as the "non Asian" students, and the improvement isn't all that much, really.

It is thus still the case, as it was when the Coleman Report was released 53 years ago, that U.S. public schools do not lift children above the conditions of their home lives.


      I cite the above to again reinforce the point: if the children can't get help from their parents, they will not get help from the schools. We've known this for at least half a century, and still our government works tirelessly to separate the kids from parents at every opportunity.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

The Result Of Common Core? The Worst ACT Scores In A Decade

By Professor Doom

     I recently realized this is the most time I’ve spent off campus in, well, my adult life, so allow me to wander off campus in my writings as well, at least for a little.

“…Back in 1952 the Army quietly began hiring hundreds of psychologists to find out how 600,000 high school graduates had successfully faked illiteracy. Regna Wood sums up the episode this way:

After the psychologists told the officers that the graduates weren’t faking, Defense Department administrators knew that something terrible had happened in grade school reading instruction. And they knew it had started in the thirties. Why they remained silent, no one knows. The switch back to reading instruction that worked for everyone should have been made then…”

I very, very, strongly encourage the dedicated reader to check out this source.

      I’ve written of Common Core before, several times even. It’s been very clear for a very long time that something is very wrong in public school system. While the above hints that an easy solution would be to revert to known, successful methods of teaching children, that option never seems to be on the table.

     The reason for this, I believe, is that if someone can come up with a method of teaching children, any method even incrementally superior to what we’re disastrously doing now, they get the endless rewards of being an Education guru (that, so far, such gurus have all been utter failures doesn’t seem to impact the rewards, however). There’s just no way to take credit for “let’s just use what we’ve known works based on the last few thousand years,” after all.

     So, it doesn’t matter that Common Core ignores science, that it further separates parents from their children (by changing the methods so much that parents can’t help their children learn, a critical part of learning), that it “teaches” in ways that any experienced teacher knows can’t possibly be effective…Common Core it is.

      The gentle reader might be curious how that could be, but part of the reason (beyond simple governmental force) is the effectiveness of Common Core is backed by “studies.” I’ve seen many such studies, and even when they’re blatantly rigged to generate positive results using statistical manipulations up to outright fraud, it doesn’t matter: nobody dares question these things.

      So, the fantastically rigged studies show Common Core is amazing, simply amazing, when it comes to the success of their weird, nearly inhuman, ideas about how to teach children. What happens in the real world when kids are subjected to Common Core?

Years After States Adopt Common Core, 2018 Sees Worst ACT Scores in over a Decade

     So, there it is, then. You can certainly criticize standardized tests, but the fact remains whatever the ACT measures…our students have less of it, thanks to Common Core.

Only 40 percent of high school students met the ACT College Readiness Benchmark in math. That’s down from an ACT high of 46 percent in 2012, and the lowest mark since 2004, the ACT report noted.

     I remind the gentle reader around 70% of high school students go on to college after graduation. When one considers only 46% (more like 40% today, thanks to Common Core) of graduates are ready for college, that means we have a large number of kids flowing on to campus who demonstrably are not ready for campus.

      The reason nobody asks our leaders in higher ed about this obvious discrepancy is similar to why nobody ever challenges those fake studies showing the efficacy of Common Core.

“We should be concerned as a country,” said Matt Larson, immediate past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “There’s a need to restructure how high-school mathematics teaching and learning is done in the United States.”

     The ACT basically measures two things, math skills and English skills. It’s clear Common Core has failed to help our kids with math, and I must particularly grieve over this. Is Common Core better with English?

The report also noted that high school graduates college readiness in English is also slipping. The report said 60 percent were considered ready, based upon their scores, a drop from 64 percent in 2015. The 2018 level was the lowest since current benchmarks began to be used, ACT said.

      More failure. Not to worry, I suppose, as I’m sure some new method of teaching (something called “Homeland Core,” perhaps) will be invented soon, and there will be plenty of studies showing how great it is.

      But, honest, we really have known since the 50’s how we can easily improve our public education system, and at least one school is getting a clue:

Florida School Drops Common Core – Soars To Number One

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Common Core Problems, Part 4

By Professor Doom

There is another issue to Common Core, possibly even more dangerous than making addition and subtraction so complicated that students will learn to become afraid of it long before they learn how to do it. The language is being changed, with a marked tendency towards lack of clarity and added complication. A Cheat Sheet, translating old phrases to new, is provided.

Let’s look at the changes:

“word problem” is now a “math situation”

I’m serious. First, note how the “old way” is three syllables, and the new way will use five syllables—high-falutin’ language is a sign of eduspeak, and this really emphasizes the theme of added complication for negligible benefits.

The whole point of word problems is establishing the relationship to the way we usually approach reality (word problem) to abstract world of mathematics. Calling word problems “math situations” actually breaks down this bridge, a big step backwards into making math into just math…with no relationship to the real world.

“Carry the one” is now “Regroup ten ones as ten”

Again, more words for the same concept. I’ve already addressed in the previous essay how the new method adds complication as well as separates the parent from the child. Neither of these are desirable.

“Borrow” is now “take a ten and regroup it as ten ones”

Again, more words for the same concept. Incidentally, the correct phrase should be “…break it down to ten ones”, since you’re breaking the ten apart. More syllables have been added literally for the sake of adding more syllables here.

“add” is now “increase”

Again, more syllables for no reason.

“subtract” is now “decrease”

I guess they couldn’t find a more complicated word for “subtract.” Perhaps “dis-addify”? I poke fun, and I admit that “increase” and “decrease” do at least sound more related than “add” and “subtract”…but I don’t see the net gain for the change in vocabulary.

“More than/Fewer than” is now “Compare”

It may seem like here we have a simplification, but the new word rather muddies the issue, and isn’t really a direct translation. “I have more than you” is meaningful. “I have compare you” doesn’t work, and even if it did, it doesn’t convey if I have more, or less, than you.

“How do you know?” is now “Evidence”

Again, this strikes me as a confusing translation. I just don’t see the point here, although of all the changes, this one, despite being confusing, is probably the least wasteful.

I can’t emphasize strongly enough how devastating it will be to separate the children from the parents like this.

“…When literacy was first abandoned as a primary goal by schools, white people were in a better position than black people because they inherited a three-hundred-year-old American tradition of learning to read at home by matching spoken sound with letters, thus home assistance was able to correct the deficiencies of dumbed-down schools for whites. But black people had been forbidden to learn to read under slavery, and as late as 1930 only averaged three to four years of schooling, so they were helpless when teachers suddenly stopped teaching children to read, since they had no fall-back position…”

“…Back in 1952 the Army quietly began hiring hundreds of psychologists to find out how 600,000 high school graduates had successfully faked illiteracy. Regna Wood sums up the episode this way:

After the psychologists told the officers that the graduates weren’t faking, Defense Department administrators knew that something terrible had happened in grade school reading instruction. And they knew it had started in the thirties. Why they remained silent, no one knows. The switch back to reading instruction that worked for everyone should have been made then…”

I very, very, strongly encourage the dedicated reader to check out this source.

     Much like the passage above, there’s considerable evidence of the devastation possible when children are separated from their families, so that only the teacher in the public school can “help” the child. This will be the true disaster of Common Core; already Americans are basically innumerate in many things, when these new “standards” come up, there will be no fall back for most families, to teach their children the necessary things (like basic addition) that will no longer be taught properly in schools.

      So far, I’ve identified three ways Common Core fails: by making the simple into something complicated, by minimal practice, and by devastating a generation of children by further separating them from their families. Alas, it fails in yet another way.

     Using a longer words for the same concepts is foolish, and perhaps this will be the one time in history separating children from parents will be a good idea, but what about simple practice of skills? In looking over the worksheets, I see there is minimal rote practice…what little skill building is in Common Core is minimally reinforced, further dooming the student. Even if he somehow figures things out, he’ll have no opportunity to truly learn.

    It’s almost as though the people involved with this don’t have human children: a human child needs to be told most everything many times, and repetition is a key part of learning. Repetition is not a part of Common Core, as near as I can tell; that’s a shame, because that means learning will not be a part of Common Core.

     But wait, there’s more.

 

     The last failure is trying and failing to teaching all this underlying theory to small children is going to delay things quite a bit. Just as much of higher education today is simply high school material repackaged for a higher price (over 90% of community college courses are identical or weaker than what is taught in high school), so too will the middle school material of Common Core simply be what used to be taught in the first few years of school, just delayed. What used to be taught to 6 year olds will now be delayed until they’re 8 years old, literally throwing away those critical formative years. I don’t know if throwing away those formative years will be the biggest crime, but those years will be thrown away.

I’m not kidding:

Under the Common Core Standards, students will not learn traditional methods of adding and subtracting double and triple digit numbers until fourth grade. (Currently, most schools teach these skills two years earlier.) The standard method for two and three digit multiplication is delayed until fifth grade; the standard method for long division until sixth.

Schools are already notorious for teaching very little considering how much time they imprison hold children. Common Core will subtract decrease the amount they’ll be teaching by TWO YEARS or more (note how “decrease” is the more appropriate word here than “subtract”, although Common Core says the words are the same).

Just as the overly theoretical method for fractions has created a generation terrified of fractions, delaying their ability to learn much math until college (if ever), so too will Common Core’s emphasis on theory first delay our children’s ability to perform basic math until college (if ever).

I realize I should just keep my mouth shut about this, since the disaster that Common Core will inflict on our children will provide ample job security for me in the future. But, it’s the right thing to do to try to prevent this disaster, even if doing so is not to my benefit.

Plenty of other educators are also taking the high road here…but not enough. What would happen if all the real teachers simply walked away from Common Core? Unfortunately, I fear it wouldn’t stop it. There are too many Educationists more than willing to sacrifice children for personal profit, and many of them are already in the schools.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Common Core to Eliminate “White Privilege”?

By Professor Doom

     I’ve looked quite a bit at Common Core, and frankly I’ve been puzzled at the curriculum, which seems to ignore common sense, science, and basic respect for humanity.

     A reason for this aberration has been advanced by someone in a position to influence Common Core: as penance for his white privilege. Here’s a part of the very disturbing key quote:

“The reason why I helped write the standards and the reason why I am here today is that as a white male in society, I’ve been given a lot of privilege that I didn’t earn…”

      I thought Common Core was about educating children, but this one man says otherwise. It’s not a one man show, and the shamelessness at which this guy says this gives me every reason to believe he said as much when he was talking to other Common Core bureaucrats. I bet these bureaucrats nodded their heads vigorously, and agreed with this point of view.

      This isn’t about education. It’s about a social agenda.

     I’m serious, watch the video and see with your own eyes. Also see with your own eyes as the crowd responds with disgust. It’s proper disgust, mind you, little different than when someone first starts smoking, and gags. Only with exposure does the body become accustomed to smoking, and only with exposure to this sort of ideology does the mind actually buy into “white privilege” without revulsion.

     I’ve certainly been lectured by “my betters” about how unfair things have been at times. I know, things have certainly been unfair in the past, there’s plenty of unfairness now, and I’ve been pretty blessed, no doubt about it.

     “Communism is very fair. It makes us all equally poor.”—attributed to a North Korean General

--there’s a certain ideology that, goshdarn it, just never seems to work out the way the believers think it will, no matter how utopian the social agenda.

     But is it really all about my being white, and male? Should we damn a generation of children, making them all illiterate and innumerate, just to eliminate the “white privilege” that is supposedly responsible for some children learning to read?

Around 40 years ago:

Dentist’s office: “We’re open Monday through Thursday, 10 am to 3 pm.”

My Mom: “Those are school hours, how am I supposed to take my son to see you?”

Dentist’s office: “Oh, parents just take their kids out of school.”

My Mom: “I’m not doing that. He can get through life without teeth, but he’ll never make it without an education.”

--My teeth are fine, by the way, Mom just got a different dentist for me. No, I didn’t earn having parents like this, but I am grateful, shouldn’t that count?

 

     I’m blessed, but that blessing didn’t come from being male, or being white. I had parents that cared about education, and didn’t allow anything to get in the way of that.

     Admin: “Your old boss, Mrs. XYZ, is leaving. Please welcome Mrs. XXX, your new boss.”

     I’m not really sure being male has been much of an advantage to me. I’m in a field, advanced mathematics, that, at my level, let’s face it, is very predominantly male. I don’t have the stats handy and it always depends on how you look at it…but any way you look at it, my students are nearly all male, my co-workers are nearly all male. On the other hand, for the majority of my career, my boss, the one who can fire me at whim, has been female. Even when my boss moves on, she is replaced by…another female, as though the position is reserved for that gender alone once a female has that position.

     It’s so weird to hear statistics about how “males occupy more than 50% of CEO positions and that shows gender bias” but I never, never, hear anything in the other direction. Ever.

A Woman Has Won the Fields Medal, Math's Highest Prize, for the First Time

--congratulations to her, it’s a major achievement. Hmm, why doesn’t the article mention there were three other winners this year, or even mention their names? Eh, life’s not fair, it’s not like Fields Medal recipients have ever been mentioned in mainstream media in prior years.

     I’m not complaining, however, at least about the gender of my bosses (I’ll happily complain about competence and integrity, or lack thereof), because, hey, life isn’t fair. Most alcoholics are male, too, after all, as are most people with serious genetic ailments, and most mass murderers. Life isn’t fair, like I said. That male privilege thing is overrated, in my opinion, even in “ideal” circumstances. In less than ideal?

     Admin: “The last open position had 250 qualified applicants. 5 were female. We offered the position to every female, they all turned it down, as they received better offers elsewhere. One of them had 11 different offers. We need to consider offering a hiring bonus to female candidates, because our position is still unfilled.”

     Because females are so rare in my field, admin trips over itself to hire them. Males simply need not apply if there are any females interested. Luckily, males still get hired, since there are so few females available. And, yes, many schools, so that there are more future applicants, have special programs to attract females into the field, with bonus offers. Males get nothing for being male.

      Admin: “We’re also opening up a new tenure track position with higher pay. There’s a specific minority candidate, already employed, that we’re hoping to lure away from [another university].”

     Faculty: “Has he indicated that he wants to come here?”

     Admin: “No, but he’s been here before. We want him back. We want minority representation here.”

--the thought that candidate was lured away by higher pay in the first place leads to a hysterical scenario: could he manage a pay raise by changing institutions every year? Can’t the two institutions work out a way to use the minority’s face and skin color on two sets of faculty rosters?

 

   Minorities, at least certain minorities (let’s just say “not Asian”), are also very under-represented in my field. A white male has basically no chance in a system that shows a disturbing favoritism towards, well, anything but a white male. Ok, “no chance” is an exaggeration, it’s more like “reduced chance” but I’ve certainly seen with my own eyes that, whatever “white privilege” that exists, certainly doesn’t exist in my field, and hasn’t for quite some time.

Admin, around 1986: “If a rejected candidate is female or minority, please fill out this special form explaining why the candidate is unsuitable for the position…”

--I can’t complain, I was warned very early on in my career that “my kind” was not particularly welcome in academia.

     And now, this noxious point of view that actually increases all the unfairness already in the world, is actually going to have an influence in Common Core? There are already mountains of evidence showing males are at a disadvantage in schools. It is completely irrational to make this bad situation worse.

     I’ve shown in the past how Common Core seems designed to create a generation of children that will approach basic mathematical thought, the very beginnings of rational thinking, with fear and confusion.

     “This man believes that minority kids aren’t as smart as white kids so the standards have to be lowered in order for them to be able to read,” she said.

---some people get it, at least. There’s quintessential hypocrisy to this ideology that any clear thinker can see.

      Being incapable of thinking rationally seems core to the ideology that infests a certain segment of the population.

      So, yes, disgust and revulsion are absolutely the proper responses to Common Core, at least for parents that care about their children, and want them to succeed despite the unfairness of life, without adding to that unfairness.

     Common Core, as a means to advance an already failed social agenda, must be abandoned.

(and, feel free to search my blog for other Common Core commentary)

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com