Kentucky pioneers Common Core reforms, with mixed results
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LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Freshmen in Kate Barrows’ English class at Liberty High School, an alternative school in Louisville, Ky., were trying to solve a crime. A wealthy man had received a letter demanding money, or else his daughter would be kidnapped. Barrows guided the students through a series of questions to identify the extortionist.
Was the writer male or female? They thought female: the writer asked for the money in a “pretty blue pocketbook.” Could it have been a professional gangster? A gangster would just rob you and wouldn’t bother with threatening notes, the class decided.
Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday was a driving force in the state’s adoption of the Common Core State Standards. (Photo: Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear)
The exercise was a lighthearted way to demonstrate how Barrows will expect her students to read more difficult texts later in the year to meet the Common Core State Standards, which Kentucky schools have been teaching for the last three years. “We’re going to keep looking at this page of writing, and we’re going to tear it apart,” Barrows said.
In Karen Cash’s Algebra 2 class down the hall, students cut grid paper to make boxes, graphed the volume of the shapes they created and wrote algebraic equations