Know whether our kids are doing well overall and whether they can compete for a job some day. Thats why we need common goals, thats where common core, consistent strong benchmarks for english Language Arts and math. If our show is the first time youre hearing about common core youre not alone. 62 of americans nearly twothirds of you have never heard of common core and those of us who have heard of it neither understand nor embrace the standards. Initial testing of the standards in new york and kentucky produced less than ideal results. In both states fewer than onethird of students in grades 3 through 8 scored at a proficient level in math and reading. Our editor wadged ali is mere. People are confused about it. Confused and opinions all across the board, clarissa saysmentful i believe they will get up to par to where they need to be. And vicky says its an equalizer. But the con, unequal School District budgets and disparity in teacher training and theres mark at wage beauty who represents lots of teachers, the big question is why those on front lines are asked to respond to policy instead of guiding it. You the viewer are third host of the show, youre part of the stream team, you drive the conversation as always, using the ajamstream. Join the conversation. Founder of the education job, the chock face. Michael brickman, the National Policy director at the forwardham institute, conservative thinktank. Wajnam mementi, and henry graby with a Freedom Group for less taxes and more freedom. Michael, can you explain to us how common core came to be . How were these standards created . Sure, they were developed by states, they were an Initiative Led by individual governors, individual School State Officers because they believed that the standards in place in each of their stairts were not adequate and they wanted to make sure they were being honest with their parents with their students about whether or not students were succeeding. So henry, im curious, your perspective on this. How did something so sweeping and so expensive and well get into that a little later in the show, that affects a million kids across the United States, how did that ever get to the point of integration in almost all of the states yet twothirds of adults and most parents in the United States dont know anything about it . Right, well, it was a very sneaky process, started back in 2007. They began, special education began funding a lot of the development of it and in 2009, through top funding states were able to sign on to common core before the standards were even written and they were dangled with millions of dollars in front of them to accept the standards. And if they did so then they would receive the money. But they did not shove it down someones throat, they went dormant for a while and if they gave states by 2015 to begin implementing it and as long as no one was paying attention to it, then no one could really cause any backlash to it. But now that its finally beginning we see a lot of parents being outspoken, a lot of states beginning to either defund or delay the program. Well heres our community tony says look, we need to pay our teachers more especially elementary teachers, we need to rethink the public school, common core is a great start, next comes new buildings. American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science lisa and 14th in reading compared to students in 17 industrialized countries. How will common core address this ga . It wont, quite simply, one is stunned by the common mediocrity of common core, it is like everything we have done before. The kids i work with in swecht d. C. , the last southwest d. C. The last thing we need is the common core. It will help us do absolutely nothing. Nothing. If you compare apples to apples, the Public Schools in the United States are not failing because we educate a huge number of children in poverty with significant special needs. And other kinds of disadvantages. The Public Schools are not failing and the common core is not what we need in any way shape or form its an expensive average experiment, thats it. Wajma you are a Science Teacher in your school, what differences have you seen it make . The measurable differences weve seen of my students ive just increased significantly the amount of literacy instruction ive given to my students and they have responded. Rather than delivering content in a more traditional way, i deliver text the way learned my content when i was a college student. My students intreas embrace it. I think people thought this was something not for students that scores were going to drastically decline. I think we showed if you had the right instruction in place and teachers that were adequately trained that even the lowest performing schools in the district can improve. But wajma, we must point out that common core doesnt have teacher manuals or lesson plan. Wouldnt someone just argue that youre a teacher, ant teachers can do exactly what youre doing without investing billions of dollars in it . Our professional Development Days were based on literacy strategies that we could actually implement in the classroom. An i think ive been in the district for five years and my pd the last year or so around common core has been way more effective than anything ive had before. So i think that for me personally did it make me a better teacher to get that professional development, deliver it to my students, yes. Would i have been using some of these strategies anyway, probably. But in the science classroom weve got katie from new york, gave a different perspective. She submitted a video. Im against the common core, the standards dont stand alone, they cant be separated from high stakes common core state texts. In new york city, for example, english Language Arts and math curriculum has become test prep for the state tests. Instruction is no longer meaningful its all about preparing for state tests. Michael how would you respond to that criticism . I think new york is a great example. You brought them up, they did see scores decline, its not because of the standards. Were being more honest with the parents and the community about how kids are doing. If students arent reat ready for College Ready for college or careers, we should tell them so. What we took in school, these are tests done on computers usually, they are adaptive so as students learn more the tests get a little bit harder and challenge the students and they as one of the tweets brought up earlier they encourage students to focus on Critical Thinking skills. And other skills that arent just about repeating facts. They are bernt tests better tests Higher Standards and they will make a difference in new york and the other 49 states. The estimated cost for these standardized test, about 2. 25 billion a year according to the larkest Test Development largest december development groups. Well delve into who likes common core and why, this is a list of people who are tweeting us right now. If you are one of them youll probably see your avatar. vo every sunday night gripping films from the worlds top documentary directors. This is just the beginning of something much bigger. I am now in this place where you should never come. vo tomorrow night, the premiere of skydancer. Theres this myth out there that mohawks dont get scared. vo how do mohawk iron workers balance work in the sky with life on the reservation . Its two different lives hes leading. Welcome back. Were talking about some controversial education standards called common core that are adopted by districts around the states. Where we have seen the results of common core and how the results have been lower but that doesnt really reflect a failure in common core but shines a light on shortcomings in the common system. We need to make sure that when we get people talking about these issues that they had twool classroom experience or perhaps in the classroom currently. Because i feel a lot of people who have the greatest voice or the loudest bullhorn in this debate dont have any classroom experience or minimal. Im in the classroom every day and i can say schools are now test prep academies. Theyre all called prep this College Preparatory that, ready for achievement central focus rocket ship. All this kind of stuff this double speak this corporate kind of addvert mumbo jumbo. These are test prep academies. Schools are preparing children for tests. Social studies have been on the decline, what is an understanding of what goes on in the classroom, i have a doctorate, i think i know whats going on and common core is not what schools need. We have community here, common core is teaching as usual, gifted students, english as a second language students are left behind. Many places are just getting going with common core, its hard to say whats working and whats not. Jonathan says, if new york and North Carolina are any examples the implementation of it is clearly not working. Wajima how do you respond to that . Im a classroom teacher and i think common core is new. Anything to me increases the rigor of what teachers are supposed to be delivering to students cant be a bad thing. We need to prepare students to Enter College and were not doing it right now so we need to try new things. We need to try what things that go with what the research says. This is what we need to do in education and not be afraid to kind of take these risks and go with it. I think a lot of people who are opposed to the common core are nonteachers and i know several teachers many of my colleagues are very happy with the new standards. Instead of cramming in a bunch of content theres more focus on skills on Critical Thinking on application, things that a lot of students didnt get before because we were so busy with test prep. So i dont think this is going to increase testing at all, eventually it will kind of go in the reverse. Henry yeah go ahead. I just wanted to say that during professional developments ive been through or during situations where people say common core is research based, it isnt, where they say its internationally based, it nt spm the d. C. Casts and once a year state tests we are talking about interims benchmarks tests throughout the school year dibbles maps, all these interim maps, kids are tested one or two times throughout the week every single year. She talked about literacy, i thought she was a Science Teacher. Were trying to cram reading and math into every other subject and pushing the rest out. So michael talk a little bit if you would about the cost of all of this. Its been estimated to be about 2. 25 billion a year for the testing. Justify that for folks for parents for taxpayers. Well, i think the and weve done some research on this, other organizations have done research on the cost and what we found is it really depends on how states implement it. If they kind of go on with business as usual yes, they might have, use the common standards as a reason to change what theyre doing and to incur practices, they will see some benefits and a lot of the costs will be offset if not offset entirely. To respond about some of the points about overtesting an common core is going to mean dramatic more testing i think thats a big exaggeration, because while you may have more days of testing its not one huge block of testing where you sit down and fill out the bubbles like many of us are used to. I think thats what people have as an impression when they think about standardized test. These tests will be done on computers, adapted as i said before a really different ballgame when it comes to testing. If teachers were this excited about it academics were this excited about it why did it take 4. 3 billion in incentives for states to sign up for common core . Otherwise they wouldnt do it. They need some money to sign on. The cost of the tests are absolutely astronomical. We see it costs about 15 to test students. Not just the sats or geds, this is every single grade level. This is about to double every single state for the cost. They are seeing the Sticker Price as far as testing every single year and theyre saying we literally cannot afford it they are backing out. To see the flawed testing around poor test scores are a result of the current system, i say its the exact opposite, the new tests dont make any sense. We are able to teach our students four times three equals 11, whether its right or wrong youll be given a passing grade. Right. Yes and thats absolutely ludicrous because i would like to see an accountant an organization to completely screw up their companys books and say let me show you how i reach my answer around ill be able to continue my job. That doesnt play in the real world. Before this alt became an accountant he had to go to college and graduate and have those literacy skills to get to that point. And you know back to the previous statement im a Science Teacher, i am oScience Teacher. But what does it mean to be literature and give a science degree, means you have to have good literacy skills. Im teaching students at a third and fourth grade level, if we dont tackle the issue of literacy, we are kidding ourselves. Sorry to cut you off. Wajma mentioned, Getting College degrees, correct me if im wrong but my understanding from what i found in common core, it prepares children to get a college degree, and highly competitive universities they are probably going to fall behind the mark, is that a case . I think theres obsession about career readiness. Over and over again, marketing slogan. Im not preparing my students fiveyearolds for college and careers. Im preparing them to do basic things. To learn how to be productive happy and Healthy Human beings, thats my goal. When im told i can only have 15 or 20 minutes of recess a day for ive five and sixyearolds because i have to cram in mandated curriculum, theyll tell you thats wrong and akin to malpractice. Im not going to engage in malpractice. How do countries with higher performance do it . Most are centralized. Tony says Critical Thinking is the most important aspect. Derrick says, will common core stifle teachers . Yes, it will regurgitate, its politics simple, it stifles individuality. There are some common criticism that there will stifle have itity. What is your comment . Far from it. As the comments are mentioned, students are expected to regurgitate facts, these new standards are all about Critical Thinking. There are a lot of falsehoods out there and ive heard a couple of them mentioned on this show. Unfortunately the idea that you somehow dont have to get the right answer. It is a falsehood on the internet simply not true. There are other falsehood spread about the common core. We should have a debate, i personally welcome the debate, its good were talking about the debate and some of these policies but we need to be honest about what these standards actually are, what they actually are covering which is high quality english and Language Arts standards. And its going odrive i think better instruction, not mandate how that instruction is delivered but really encourage states, districts and local leaders, to deliver a better product for students which is i think something beyond this. Joining my classroom any day of the week and see what its really about. Were going to continue this in just a second guys. Were going to look ahead to the future of education with or without common core, when we. This is the on al jazeera. Still seeking support for action in syria. U. N. Secretary of state takes his case to arab nations. The hard work begins for tokyo thaeuf are chose on the host the 2020 olympic games. The Opposition Leader is