Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Mistaken about Core Curriculum
There seems to be an error about the understanding of what has been called 'core curriculum' by a new Board member. There was a core curriculum in the 1990's, but now we talk about the common core standards.The curriculum is developed around these standards. It's time to change the way people understand the changes and to update their vocabulary. We don't want to appear that we don't know current standards when the State Dept. comes calling......Just trying to get us all on the same page.....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
For those readers interested in learning more about the Common Core and how it will be implemented in Connecticut, you might find the link below (to the State Department of Education) helpful:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2618&q=322592
The Common Core is premised upon a belief, among other tenets, that literacy is promoted when children must read in all of their courses and that greater efforts must be made to help children make use of non-fiction texts. As a frustrated English major, I bemoan that the common core standards place less emphasis on the classics of literature due to the shift to more non-fiction (which is a point of contention that the Common Core zealots claim is an overstatement and those of us fans of traditional English literature education suggest is the sad reality of having to teach more non-fiction reading skills).
As chairperson of the BOE's finance committee, I also have concerns with the costs of implementation--- some preliminary estimations suggest that the state mandate to implement the Common Core will require Norwalk to invest nearly $1 Million in new textbooks.
However we may feel about the Common Core State Standards, and regardless of the how the state (once again) imposes unfunded mandates on our schools, teaching to the Common Core will soon be required and we will need to figure out how to most effectively implement the changes needed to make it work for all of our children.