While some have suggested that Californians may be able to reshape Common Core on their own terms, it has already arrived in force in the state's largest district, Los Angeles Unified. A teacher from Los Angeles shares her perspective.
Guest post by Coleen Bondy
I went to an LAUSD training on the Common Core State Standards in November, and after the training I had many more concerns about the intent of the standards, the educational appropriateness of the implementation of the standards, and the standards themselves than I did before I walked in the door.
The training was for English Language Arts at the secondary level. We were given an introduction to the revamped "periodic assessments" that would purportedly help prepare our students for the new Common Core year-end assessments that some students will be taking as soon as this spring.
Our trainer started the session by apologizing sincerely for all the anxiety and confusion surrounding the rushed implementation of the Common Core State Standards in LAUSD. The first slide in her PowerPoint presentation showed the governance structure of LAUSD. At the top was the elected school board. She was letting us know that if we had issues with the Common Core State Standards, we needed to bring these up with the school board. Everyone else down the line, she implied, was just following marching orders, and it would do no good to call and harass them.
We were lucky. When I returned to school, I found out that the math teachers had had a similar training session. However, theirs started with the trainer telling them that no "negativity" would be tolerated, and that it wasn't a question-and-answer session. In essence, they were told to sit down