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I agree with most of your points, but I don't think common core is a disaster. I couldn't agree with you more on the homework front. However I don't think home

I agree with most of your points, but I don't think common core is a disaster. I couldn't agree with you more on the homework front. However I don't think homework is intrinsically the problem, I think the problem is the fact that our current educational system is based around pedagogy, of which doing homework is only a part. I personally think the fact that Common Core is designed to be more Socratic.

btilly 10y ago
I agree that homework is only a symptom, not the key problem. The key problem is that Common Core is an ambitious set of ideas that requires everything to be done differently than it had been before. While there are a lot of good ideas in there, there are going to be inevitable mistakes and a shaking out period while the challenges get figured out and people learn best practices for how to make it work. In the meantime our children are guinea pigs with widely differing experiences. My son's experience being on the bad side. However we have seen this picture before. Everything that I just said about Common Core could have been said 50 years ago about New Math. The result was Why Johnny Can't Add, and the "Back to Basics" movement. Want to bet on whether something like this happens again with Common Core? And so I predict that our educational system won't figure out how to do Common Core right. Instead we'll have another reform movement, which will likewise have good intentions, good rhetoric, and in the end will likewise fail. As has been happening to us in math since the launch of Sputnik convinced us that the US is behind and needs to catch up. If your awareness of reform efforts starts with Common Core, then there is a lot of history that you're missing. Every reform movement convinces people that it is working. And they will continue believing that it would have worked until long after it is dead.

btilly 10y ago

I agree that homework is only a symptom, not the key problem. The key problem is that Common Core is an ambitious set of ideas that requires everything to be done differently than it had been before. While there are a lot of good ideas in there, there are going to be inevitable mistakes and a shaking out period while the challenges get figured out and people learn best practices for how to make it work. In the meantime our children are guinea pigs with widely differing experiences. My son's experience being on the bad side. However we have seen this picture before. Everything that I just said about Common Core could have been said 50 years ago about New Math. The result was Why Johnny Can't Add, and the "Back to Basics" movement. Want to bet on whether something like this happens again with Common Core? And so I predict that our educational system won't figure out how to do Common Core right. Instead we'll have another reform movement, which will likewise have good intentions, good rhetoric, and in the end will likewise fail. As has been happening to us in math since the launch of Sputnik convinced us that the US is behind and needs to catch up. If your awareness of reform efforts starts with Common Core, then there is a lot of history that you're missing. Every reform movement convinces people that it is working. And they will continue believing that it would have worked until long after it is dead.