There's a lot of buzz about common core math and what everyone thinks of it. I am not going to try to pretend to be unbiased or to profess I know everything about it. My only contribution to the conversation is obviously merely my own experience and maybe it will help someone else going through the same thing a year behind me to at least understand what is happening to their poor kids education if not to help annihilate common core before more damage is done.
We started our fifth year at Flagstaff Academy in Longmont the fall of 2012. I had no other expectations than that we would continue to be as happy as ever there. I was entrenched in the school. It was the only school my children had ever attended. I was proud of the school. It was academically challenging and we had to work to stay on top of all of the homework and assignments and stem fair projects. I was the room parent coordinator for the school. I volunteered wherever allowed with my baby in tow. I had a fourth grader, a second grader and a kindergartener. I was in a carpool. It was going to be another great year of fantastic support for my amazing kids.
I had heard that the school was buying a new math curriculum a year early to stay ahead of a new national standard being implemented nationwide in 2013 but I didn't worry about it much, just sounded like mumbo jumbo to me and I was sure the kids would still learn everything they needed to. At Flagstaff, the kids are assessed at the beginning of a year and the end. The end scores determine which math group they will go into the following year. Eden had come off of a very good 3rd grade experience and scored very well at her end of year NWEA's so she was placed in the second from the top math group. Within weeks of some very confusing, obfuscating, redundant and time consuming math homework she came home with a sigh of relief and announced that she had been bumped down a group but she was happy and thought it was a better fit. The math continued to be ridiculous nonsense of hundreds of tally marks and purposely trick questions. Lord how I wish I had saved some examples to post here. Meanwhile she was being required to do advanced multiplication problems as well but was not learning her multiplication tables. Now I remember 4th grade. You had to be able to write the answers to all of the multiplication tables through 12x12 within 2 minutes or you missed recess every day until you got it. I started asking around about why the kids weren't required to know their multiplication tables. I was told that we needed to do that at home. Well, we couldn't because sometimes her math took so long it was 10 at night when we went to bed after tears, drama and my husband wanting to stick an icepick through his hand. Meanwhile with all of this going on, my 2nd grader was barely keeping her head above water and getting practically no attention or help with her homework. My kindergartener was so overwhelmed he had several "shut downs" in class and would not participate. We all dreaded school and wished for it to end. I could go on and on about the minute details of what happened in that semester at that school but the bottom line is, my fourth grader was being passed over, ignored and unsupported by a teacher who only liked gifted and talented kids and my middle child was treading water and my youngest was having a simply horrible experience. On top of that, my fourth grader was going to another classroom for math and failing there as well because of the new curriculum. It was a nightmare. I went through several steps to try to correct the situation but we were just falling further and further and the administration placated me with things that didn't fix anything. I was at my wits end so I wrote a letter to the school board telling them about my problems and that though it broke my heart I had to remove my kids from the school to salvage the second half of my daughters fourth grade year. We left school for Christmas break and I cried like a baby hugging all of those dear friends/teachers goodbye. I couldn't believe I was having to do this. The teachers were shocked.
I moved the kids to Aspen Ridge Prep in Erie around the corner from our new home. When my fourth grader started I had some great conversations with her new teacher and he supported her and believed in her and helped her believe in herself again. All of the students were of course far ahead of her in math. She was very ashamed and embarrassed and afraid she couldn't learn long division especially since we didn't have the multiplication tables down but she plugged away and finished out the year strong. The real victory was when she took the standardized test at the end of the year and owned it. Her horrible teacher at Flagstaff had said she was behind in writing but her scores came back advanced after just a semester at Aspen Ridge. By contrast, the scores for the poor kids who stayed at Flagstaff were not so thrilling. Just searching the school grades website and looking at the downward curve of Flagstaff over the last three years tells me that the common core curriculum is tanking a perfectly good school and wrecking some great kids education. Aspen Ridge was required to conform to common core standards this year but rather than buying a new unvetted curriculum, they have added supplemental things and maintained their proven curriculum. I'm happy but vigilant at this point, we have now completed two semesters at Aspen Ridge with nothing but wonderful results for all of my kids.
We started our fifth year at Flagstaff Academy in Longmont the fall of 2012. I had no other expectations than that we would continue to be as happy as ever there. I was entrenched in the school. It was the only school my children had ever attended. I was proud of the school. It was academically challenging and we had to work to stay on top of all of the homework and assignments and stem fair projects. I was the room parent coordinator for the school. I volunteered wherever allowed with my baby in tow. I had a fourth grader, a second grader and a kindergartener. I was in a carpool. It was going to be another great year of fantastic support for my amazing kids.
I had heard that the school was buying a new math curriculum a year early to stay ahead of a new national standard being implemented nationwide in 2013 but I didn't worry about it much, just sounded like mumbo jumbo to me and I was sure the kids would still learn everything they needed to. At Flagstaff, the kids are assessed at the beginning of a year and the end. The end scores determine which math group they will go into the following year. Eden had come off of a very good 3rd grade experience and scored very well at her end of year NWEA's so she was placed in the second from the top math group. Within weeks of some very confusing, obfuscating, redundant and time consuming math homework she came home with a sigh of relief and announced that she had been bumped down a group but she was happy and thought it was a better fit. The math continued to be ridiculous nonsense of hundreds of tally marks and purposely trick questions. Lord how I wish I had saved some examples to post here. Meanwhile she was being required to do advanced multiplication problems as well but was not learning her multiplication tables. Now I remember 4th grade. You had to be able to write the answers to all of the multiplication tables through 12x12 within 2 minutes or you missed recess every day until you got it. I started asking around about why the kids weren't required to know their multiplication tables. I was told that we needed to do that at home. Well, we couldn't because sometimes her math took so long it was 10 at night when we went to bed after tears, drama and my husband wanting to stick an icepick through his hand. Meanwhile with all of this going on, my 2nd grader was barely keeping her head above water and getting practically no attention or help with her homework. My kindergartener was so overwhelmed he had several "shut downs" in class and would not participate. We all dreaded school and wished for it to end. I could go on and on about the minute details of what happened in that semester at that school but the bottom line is, my fourth grader was being passed over, ignored and unsupported by a teacher who only liked gifted and talented kids and my middle child was treading water and my youngest was having a simply horrible experience. On top of that, my fourth grader was going to another classroom for math and failing there as well because of the new curriculum. It was a nightmare. I went through several steps to try to correct the situation but we were just falling further and further and the administration placated me with things that didn't fix anything. I was at my wits end so I wrote a letter to the school board telling them about my problems and that though it broke my heart I had to remove my kids from the school to salvage the second half of my daughters fourth grade year. We left school for Christmas break and I cried like a baby hugging all of those dear friends/teachers goodbye. I couldn't believe I was having to do this. The teachers were shocked.
I moved the kids to Aspen Ridge Prep in Erie around the corner from our new home. When my fourth grader started I had some great conversations with her new teacher and he supported her and believed in her and helped her believe in herself again. All of the students were of course far ahead of her in math. She was very ashamed and embarrassed and afraid she couldn't learn long division especially since we didn't have the multiplication tables down but she plugged away and finished out the year strong. The real victory was when she took the standardized test at the end of the year and owned it. Her horrible teacher at Flagstaff had said she was behind in writing but her scores came back advanced after just a semester at Aspen Ridge. By contrast, the scores for the poor kids who stayed at Flagstaff were not so thrilling. Just searching the school grades website and looking at the downward curve of Flagstaff over the last three years tells me that the common core curriculum is tanking a perfectly good school and wrecking some great kids education. Aspen Ridge was required to conform to common core standards this year but rather than buying a new unvetted curriculum, they have added supplemental things and maintained their proven curriculum. I'm happy but vigilant at this point, we have now completed two semesters at Aspen Ridge with nothing but wonderful results for all of my kids.
2 comments:
Hello, I came across your blog entry during my research on Aspen Ridge Prep and mathematics. Thank you for sharing your observations. Funny, I also pulled my children out of Flagstaff Academy early in the school year, for similar reasons. I detest Common Core. However, that is not the problem with Flagstaff Academy. Flagstaff has a lot of problems.
First they tried to get ahead of Common Core by investing in a new math program a couple of years before it had been vetted. We now know that Envision Math is one of the worst math programs in the country. It is confusing and dumbed-down. When the advanced 4th graders are still learning single-digit multiplication and they still don’t know their times tables, that is a lousy math program.
Also, the school is poorly run. The administrators and the board members have collected data and survey results for two years that all point to a big problem with the math instruction. To this day, they refuse to spend the money to change the program. Yet they have $3 million in emergency reserves. They claim this is not an emergency. I say when the State of Colorado gives your school a D+ due to a dramatic decline in math test scores across grade levels that this is an emergency.
Their latest solution is to purchase a subscription to a video game site that will cost the school about $2000 for about 50 struggling kids. They also plan to offer a math club for any students who are willing to pay extra for it. They do have a path for a select few bright kids (usually board parents’ children) to jump ahead a grade in their traditional math path. Then they dumb down that math class to the lowest level. So again, the average and bright kids get screwed.
The other crazy decision the school made was to take every single elementary school child and push them back a year in math. So last year, my 5th grader, in the advanced math group, was forced to suffer through a repeat of 4th grade math. It was so bad, she did her homework on her lap in the car and tried to beat the clock and get it done by the first traffic light. Sometimes her assignments were identical to the assignments she had the year before. At that time, the math curriculum was not posted and there was no communication from the teachers, so parents were clueless. We weren’t even allowed to meet with math teachers during conferences. I believe that the administrators made a conscious decision to hold the elementary kids back in math for two reasons: 1. to please parents who were complaining about the stress levels, and 2. to improve test scores since Common Core is also a dumbed- down standard.
It’s too bad. Those of us who figure it out are going to move our kids ahead and Flagstaff’s children will be left behind.
Thanks for chiming in. It's becoming the cry of every parents hearts. I find it almost laughable when people tell me not to worry because people will figure out this is awful and it will go away. Um... no they are dumbing down the SAT as we speak. And how will we ever get our kids caught up? Cuz I'm all happy for whoever doesn't get this crap curriculum in the future but my JOB is these four little monkeys I'm in charge of.
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