Parents on Common Core: Stop Using Our Kids As Guinea Pigs

Common Core is still making
parents everywhere
pull their hair out as they struggle to help their kids solve
Byzantine math problems.
Silive.com profiled some very frustrated parents who believe
their kids are essentially being used as “guinea pigs” by
government and corporate interests in service of an unproven
teaching methodology:

Ten-year-old Kate Reilly, a fifth-grader at PS 55 in
Eltingville, was doing math homework, seated around the kitchen
table with her younger sister, Emma, a second-grader at PS 55, and
older brother, John, who attends Bernstein Intermediate School,
Huguenot.

One of her math problems called for dividing 84 by 7. Looking
over her shoulder, watching her jot down pre-alegbriac equations as
she successfully solved the problem, her dad, Michael Reilly, just
shook his head.

“This is just ridiculous. 84 divided by 7. Why are we making
this harder than it has to be? ” he wondered.

Frustrated, Reilly posted a photo of the problem to his Facebook
page. Within minutes it drew close to 200 comments from equally
frustrated, puzzled parents.

Reilly isn’t just any parent; he is also president of the Staten
Island Community Education Council and frequently hears from other
parents who are fed up with Core-aligned methodology and
requirements.

Just because a certain way of learning is confusing for parents
doesn’t make it inherently bad, of course. It’s perfectly possible
for educators to invent an approach that makes math easier for
kids, even if older generations don’t get it.

But it’s hard to believe that that’s what is happening here,
since many teachers and students seem just as hopelessly lost as
parents. Misaligned tests, improper training for teachers, and
Common Core’s uncertain political future are all factors adding to
the confusion. And even if the standards eventually catch on and
have a positive impact on American education—and
the evidence there is underwhelming—the kids caught in the
transition years will have been undeniably ill-served. It’s no
wonder that some students resent being
forced to serve as conscripted product testers for Core-aligned
examinations.

More from Reason on Common Core
here.