From Sputnik to the Common Core
This article is an assignment abstract from Dr. Perry Marker’s Sonoma State University MA EDCT 585 Class When the Russians successfully put Sputnik into orbit America flipped out. How could the Russians have technologically jumped so far ahead of us? The answer, it was decided, lay in the education. If we the U.S. was going to be able to compete in the space race we had to a better job of teaching science to American students. The federal government poured in billions of dollars and the K-12 education philosophy knee jerked once again....
read moreA Philosophical look at the Common Core
The backlash to the Common Core State Standards movement is quite ironic. It’s interesting that the CCSS, which was developed to promote education, has produced such anger-based ignorance. Just like any good teacher or parent those of us who support the common core and understand the spirt of the movement must continue to find ways to explain it to those that don’t get it or maybe they do but are ideologically opposed to it. I think a quick look at basic western philosophy and the four educational philosophies that have emerged from it might...
read moreEvolution of the Common Core
Evolution of the Common Core This article is an abstract of Final Reflective Paper EDUC 570, 6/26/14, Sonoma State University The purpose of schooling in the United States has taken many shapes since the American Revolution. Originally public schools were established to serve the public good and not necessarily individual desires. Thomas Jefferson saw public schooling as a way to find the best politicians while Horace Mann, often called the father of public schools, thought the purpose of schooling was to instill a common political creed, the...
A New Dynamic
I recently had the opportunity to meet with Annie Millar, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Healdsburg Unified School District, to discuss, among other things, how the new Common Core State Standards are affecting the way she goes about her work. She said that the big change for students is what she called “Habits of the Mind.” It’s the universality of how we think as humans. It’s subtle; it’s design-based thinking…the same thinking engineers use to solve problems. Educators are now being asked to solve problems in a similar way....
read moreSchool Discipline and the Common Core
Dr. David Sortino’s article in the Santa Rosa, Ca. Press Democrat (Zero tolerance or restorative justice?) got me thinking how the suspension of Reilly Austin, Amanda Quon and several of their classmates from Sebastopol’s Hillcrest Middle School (Sonoma County parents fight back after alcohol sip leads to students’ 22-day suspension), relates to the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS). As creators of K-12 curriculum we use the standards as guides to develop progressive programs and their related supplements. We also use other...
read morePutting our Students First
It’s so sad. In a recent article by David Brooks (“When the Circus Descends” Press Democrat 4/20/2014) he talks about how elements from the right and left are attacking the Common Core Standards even as thousands of teachers are embracing the standards as a way to give our children a 21st century education. What is it with these people who refuse to put our students and our country’s interest ahead of their own? I guess it’s pretty easy to understand the right’s point of view. They really don’t care about anything but their own ideology which...
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