a very private pumpkin patch

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Common Core

Let me preface this by stating what is obvious to those of you who know me IRL. I am a teacher. I teach junior high special education classes in reading and language arts. I became a teacher through an alternative licensing program. I have my undergraduate degree in Recreation Management. I am currently a Level 1 teacher in the state of Utah and I will have my Level 2 license by June. I am highly qualified under NCLB. I teach for a public school district. I am in my third year of teaching and I love it. It's difficult and intrinsically rewarding work.

This weekend I spent hours working on linking the curriculum I teach to the Common Core. (Disclosure: I'm nowhere close to finished yet.)There has been much hate spewed around the internet about the Common Core. I wonder how many lay people have actually read through the actual core before forwarding, reposting, responding, remarking, etc. with increased vitriol about the core. I'm not sure if people are against the actual core, what they perceive to be the actual core, or how the core was adapted by various states and put into practice.

Example:
Language Standard 1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
Use common, proper, and possessive nouns (grade 1).
Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified (grade 2).
Form and use prepositional phrases (grade 4).
Use intensive pronouns (grade 6).
Form and use verbs in the active and passive voice (grade 8).

I am not an expert on the core but I am an expert on what happens in my own classroom. The Common Core is a set of standards. The Common Core is not a curriculum. The district dictates what curriculum I teach and what books I use. The Common Core does not dictate what assignments I give, what assessments I give, or what grading scale I use. My principal does not dictate what assignments I give or what grading scale I use. I decide what assignments I give and what grading scale I use. The principal cannot change any grade that I give a student (I say "give" lightly since I know my students earn their grades versus my giving them grades).

The state tells us which school-wide assessments we administer to our students. This year, my students take the Scholastic Reading Inventory (3 times per year), Acuity benchmarks and screeners (in math, science, and English), Acuity probes (a progress monitoring tool for SPED students), Direct Writing Assessment (only 8th grade), ACT Explore (only 8th grade), and SAGE. Do I think our students are tested too much? Yes, I do. But society has decided that in order to prove I'm doing my job, students need to be tested. As an employee who wants to keep my job, I comply with the testing requirements. I take ethics classes on how to administer tests and I encourage my students to do their best while taking these tests even when it feels incredibly overwhelming. We are entering testing season this week. I will be administering DWA on Thursday. Next week, I administer SRI. The week after that is the SAGE writing section. Next is an Acuity screener. After that, I give the rest of the SAGE test. As far as I understand, the end goal is that my students' results on SAGE will be tied to my paycheck. Keep in mind, in order to have everyone in the school test, we start the major portions of SAGE the last week of April. School is not out until June 6. That is six weeks of instruction that will happen after I administer a test that will determine how well I do my job. My paycheck, my family's livelihood, will rely on how well a group 7th and 8th graders happen to feel on test day. As a special ed teacher, I can tell you that by the time SAGE is administered, my students are tested-out. They are overwhelmed and they just don't care at that point. Why should they? Nothing is riding on the score for them.