"Never, in all my 25 year of teaching, have I ever received a graded test returned (and it won't happen with the new testing, either). Never have I ever received scores from the state in time to adjust instruction."
They are responsible for shaping the lives of our children. Now, five of Albuquerque's former and current teachers said they are facing major challenges in that mission.
"My biggest concern as a middle school teacher is the loss of instruction time I have with my kids,"said Karen Kiefer, who teaches at Taft Middle School.
Regular readers of my Huffington Post columns have seen my position on the national Common Core Standards change during the last two years. At first I opposed the standards as mandates but thought they could be useful as guidelines. When the standards were paired with high-stakes assessments, both for students and teachers, my opposition intensified. As a teacher and teacher educator, and as a parent and grandparent, when curriculum was rewritten and instruction became constant test prep, I was angry. In this and my next post I directly challenge the Common Core approach to teaching younger children to read and older students to better comprehend sophisticated written material. The more I look at the Common Core approach to reading, the more it seems to be a shill for publishers like Pearson to sell new "Common Core" aligned textbooks, workbooks, and online packaged learning programs. - Read More
By Eun Kyung Kim | Today A teacher in Massachusetts who has spent more than a quarter century in the classroom is drawing attention after she quit her job over her growing frustration with the school system’s emphasis on standardized testing. - Read More
As a teacher myself, I can tell you that personalization is one of the things that separates good teaching from bad teaching. Anyone who’s been responsible for what happens in any sort of classroom can tell you: standardization just doesn’t work. Everyone learns differently and therefore needs different kinds of teaching. - Read Full Article
Former teacher John Eppolito is an Incline Village, Nevada resident, President of Stop Common Core Nevada and Americans for Better Schools, groups that were started in Las Vegas, Nevada and who later asked John to act as president.
He made this one-hour presentation to a local business networking group, Tahoe Business Exchange. He will give this presentation to any group who is interested. He has devoted a year to the opposition of Common Core and is passionate about educating people as to its numerous pitfalls.
Today, again, I found myself in a situation where my eyes were bubbling up with tears and I had to remove myself from a meeting for a little while and try to go walk it off and regain my composure. The stress the state is putting on teachers (not to mention what is coming up for children) is beyond abusive. Honestly, as much as I feel the stress for me, I feel it even more because I am so worried about what my students are going to have to go through. I can tell you honestly that if my own children were in school, there is NO WAY I would allow them to endure this.