But this shows that the students are thinking less...so doesn't that make CC a success? That IS the goal after all....

As a teacher I saw very odd things over the years, growing in number - left before Common Core, barely.
Combined with "F" being redefined year by year, differing ideas of passing going in and out of fashion, listening to administrators desperately discussing ways to finagle the test scores and what were they going to do with "so-and-so" so" so they don't ruin their test scores for the school, watching public shaming sessions of teachers who don't meet the scores, yet watching those same teachers being told repeatedly that they can't use any of their own methods prior to that - they have to use the school approved methods and watching great teachers turned into robots for the newest "research-based" method only to have it tossed out the next year due to disaster, or just to get new books at half the cost to the district - this after teachers spent most of the year aligning the new materials to the standards and curriculum, often resulting in teachers having to teach well-designed textbooks out of order in ways that leave them hunting for resources no one anticipated or have abandoning entire threads of lessons for artificial decisions by people who are paying only cursory attention to the possible consequences...

...and if it seems I don't know what a run-on sentence is it is because this is exactly how it feels to be a school teacher in the public schools.

I hate to say it, but my most productive years, EVER, were in a private school with an administrator which was owned by a corporation that lacked ethics and just saw the bottom line. I got thrown into the classroom and told, "Keep the parents happy."

Virtually no resources, kids running the gamut from unable to read or do math in second grade, to the boy who acted like a chicken (literally, all day, no talking), and more.
WE had the BEST two years. I taught that boy to read. He was getting 90s on high school spelling lists. He was reading above grade level. The boy with the chicken schtick became a class leader, with an imagination that wouldn't quit.

There is nothing we can't fix with our kids. But the teachers, the TRUE innovators and creators of new methods have been stifled into silence and obedience, or left. What we could do with a bit of freedom even with open observation of our methods. I'll take a full observation and recording of my teaching time in exchange for leaving judgment (anger/emotional games) OUT of it and the freedom to teach the way I know how.

When Galt's Gulch opens a school - I'm ready to advise. Pay me what you think it's worth. The public schools won't know what hit them.

Common Core is a sham, it is "1984" come to life.
The goal never was to educate, rather to indoctrinate. Kids must believe global warming, they must learn property rights are not sustainable, that population control starts early and with them. Academic, oh well, who needs that! We were already 25th in the world, the goal is to level the field internationally, so we need to drop more. Just think how wasted your tuition money will be for colleges, which will have to dumb down accordingly, so everyone can go and learn nothing.

The article would have been better if it cited a comparison with private schools and home-schools that did not espouse CC. It is possible (though not likely to be true) to attribute this decrease in educational level to a more extensive social climate. If information had been added for a 'control group' which did not change, then it would have been clearer that CC was the variable being tested.

Jan

"Bad Idea" does not even begin to describe it. "Diabolically evil" would be more appropriate.

I will approve of the first public school program that tells the truth about politicians quest for power and bankster corruption.
Until that happens, its all propaganda.
America is a good country with good people.
The leaders (political and business looters) of the United States are corrupt traitors and deserve impalement.

Btw- the only non-common-core I could find in Los Angeles is $35k/yr!

When are people going to realize that obama us purposely trying to destroy the US??? Again, I say, READ Return of the Primitive!!!

if the truth be known it makes no difference what program is instituted in the public school system today the people charged with teaching these kids are products of the same scholl system.

No worries. The tests will be adjusted to be in line with CC. It's amazing how much time kids spend just preparing for these tests.