Connecticut is Waking Up

OK I admit I've been slacking; I haven't been consistent in my postings here. But to be fair, so much of the attention regarding Common Core has been on New York, and there has not been much to report here in Connecticut.

Well times are changing. This has been a busy week.

This past Saturday, January 25th I attended a Common Core infomercial presentation, hosted by a myriad of organizations that I first mentioned here. I had actually gotten an email from my middle schooler's PTA telling parents about it.

I have to admit, Sandra Alberti, of Student Achievement Partners (founded by the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards) did a great job as keynote speaker. Much of what she was saying made good sense. For example, she talked about how it used to be possible to get by in Language Arts without having to read any of the assigned material because the questions asked afterward made it unnecessary, but under Common Core the questions relate to the material (click the image to see it larger):



And how can anyone really argue with that? In fact, Ms. Alberti did a great job talking about all the stuff surrounding Common Core that makes sense. And some of it actually does. But that's all she talked about. Although she never became visibly flustered during her presentation or during the Q&A afterwards, it was clobber-over-the-head obvious that she was evading the tough questions that people asked.

In fact, I have to say I was pretty darned thrilled with the questions people asked. I had a couple I had thought I would ask, but teachers were in the audience and really pressing for answers, so I kept my mouth shut. Questions were about the developmentally appropriateness of the material for the younger kids, income disparity and classroom size contributing to our problems but not being addressed, the SBAC testing and how so much time is being taken away from class to teach the kids how to take the thing, teacher evaluations, and on and on.  One "member of the audience said that Connecticut’s state standardized tests, the CMT and CAPT, already ask students for evidence — evidence that is a feature of the new Smarter Balanced Assessments tied to CCSS. The audience member explained that it does not make sense to switch to the CCSS linked tests when the Connecticut tests already do some of the same things;" she asked outright why we were switching.

It was so encouraging to see all those teachers voicing their concerns. It's an election year here in Connecticut and Governor Malloy needs the teachers' votes.

You can read more about the day, and the questions asked (including the one quoted above) here.

And come back here tomorrow to read more about the increasing awareness of the realities of Common Core. It's starting to get interesting.