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Sunday, February 10, 2013

Common Core math blues + The emotional violence of the accountability regime: part one – @ the chalk face

Common Core math blues – @ the chalk face:

@TCF on Blog Talk Radio



Common Core math blues

So parents, have you noticed that your children’s math homework is much more difficult this year?  Are you having problems helping your child?
Welcome to Common Core math.  This new education reform is permeating our children’s classrooms and the result is not pretty.  44 States and D.C. have signed on to the Common Core Standards, many for the opportunity to get the Race to the Top bribes, err, grants.
Ask any veteran teacher: there have been many educational movements that have come and gone over the years.  As time goes on these new programs fade into the background and new revolutionary ideas appear promising to improve our children’s educational outcomes. The massive undertaking of the Common Core is unprecedented in terms of widespread use and financial commitment.
So how will the Common Core affect your child?
In math look for much more difficult work.  Students may be asked to understand concepts that may not be


The emotional violence of the accountability regime: part one

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?-  Talking Heads
When I came to education later in life, I had two pictures of the work in mind. One was of conversations with students about literature—poetry, novels, stories, essays and treatises. Works I selected. Works they selected. Our own writing. I had some sense of the web of interactions and interpretations that would connect and challenge us. The other thought was that these conversations would grow for each of us and us together a possibility for community, for action, for democracy.
As a high school English teacher I had five rules in my classroom: speak up, listen, speak true to yourself, no on goes it alone, and imagine the life of others. It was my sense that we were creating and discovering new ways of being with each other and with the texts we encountered and created. As a teacher educator who was given the


Press release from @unitedoptout, share widely #optout

Occupy DOE 2.0 Press Release FINAL PDF: Click that link to download it.