OECD is out with the latest PISA results. This time, the focus is on the problem-solving skills of the world’s schoolchildren. As we typically see, the U.S. students tested score above average, but definitely aren’t leading the class.
Check out my look at the topic here on a new blog launched by Collaborative Communications Group. And watch for interesting posts from a collection of smart, forward-thinking individuals there.
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 
Some introverts as you call yourself, shut people with different feelings about CCSS. You have no tolerance for a debate. You think you are in charge of everybodys education. You think you know whats best for everyones children. You have power and have silenced people in the community where you live, especially in Branford.
Think you’ve got the wrong guy. I am a firm believer in conversation and believe everyone has the right to voice their opinions and should do so, particularly on topics related to their children’s education. If anything, I think families should be more involved in the process. The should be able to question authority. And they should be given voice. One of the reasons why our schools face such issues is that we have shut too many out of the process. We need more conversations, educates conversations, about what we do and why we do it in the classrooms.
How do you explain a first grader going from a 94% fluency in math for September thru December, to 41% fluency from Jan. thru June? This is the effect of CC math. And she is not alone. I am seeing children who excelled in math suddenly have math scores dramatically gone down. This is a child who has her own business and reinvests profits back into her business. This is extremeley discouraging for children and this is what the silenced uproar is about.
It saddens me to hear such stories. My only hope is that that first grader gets a second grade teacher who can get things back where they need to be.
Personally, I can’t tell you his frustrated I have been to hear one of my children’s teachers blame everything that happens in the classroom on CCSS. Far too many times, she is doing things that are NOWHERE in the standards. It has become an easy thing to scapegoat. Even the dreaded math problem that has been going around the Internet, credited to CCSS, has been around for a decade prior.
We are quick to forget that CCSS are just expectations of what to learn. It isn’t curriculum. It is up to schools and teachers to teach well and in a way those standards are learned. Parents need to make sure that is happening, and we are implementing the standards well. Not in the way publishers want. Not how politicians want. But what makes sense for kids and their learning.