The best way to sum up Common Core is that it is a set of goals.
The good part about Common, shouldn't there be some minimum standard of literacy for all? And I mean literacy in the general sense. You can meet and beat those standards and get there any way you want. You can exceed them. Nobody is telling a district that is where they stop.
When Common Core was fully implemented at the Junior High level with my oldest and we went to curriculum night at the start of the year, The teachers on the team gave the overview of the general math, and for the honors math, they basically said, they're doing something else, no need to concern yourselves if your student is in honors math. Why? They probably were roughly a year or up to two years ahead of the standard curriculum conceptually with some of the topics.
That being said, CSpan is my mass for shut-ins. I have encountered some passionate vocal opposition to Common Core, in one instance in a forum sponsored by the Pioneer Institute I think. It has been a few years. Among the ardent opposition was a woman, retired I think, university English Professor. I think she was involved with earlier standards for language arts in Massachusetts. She bemoaned the fact that the emphasis on endless citation of evidentiary examples in literary analysis at even the most basic elementary level would hamper student's creative thinking and result in too lawyerly or technocratic of a mindset. The professor feared that students would miss out on too much classic literature and a passion of pure reading for pleasure with the increased emphasis on non-fiction reading and writing. Those were among the concerns if I recall correctly.
One of the anti-Core arguments during this broadcast was the fact that they felt that Common Core actually lowered the standards that Massachusetts already had. Except they missed the point that that is a minimum goal.
Another example: Within my school district, we have lots of transferees. Just like military families. Someone moves from out-of-state, expecting that their son or daughter will continue in honors programs here because they did elsewhere. Very often, our district has a rubric that these kids will not qualify for. Why? The totality of our district standards, a rubric of nine components, are set at a higher level.

I like cherries....

@bgriffin wrote:

It sounded like you were trying to argue with me.

Like if someone asked why oranges were some people's favorite fruit and I gave you their reasons even though I think bananas are better and you started telling me all about how bananas were better.......

@ShopWhisperer wrote:

Hey, I'm not sure how they teach kids to count change in common core, or if they do at all. I can tell you that most of my millennials cannot (or more likely, will not) do basic subtraction (100 - 80) or multiplication (75 x 2) without a calculator. Yes, those are real examples from my students. The idea is that nowadays if you have a calculator or a computer, you don't need to do all that evil rote memorization. It's scary.

I'm confused. My generation grew up without phones and calculators, so we were forced to do our arithmetic by hand. What Millennials are your students? Like college students?

@ShopWhisperer wrote:

Hey, I'm not sure how they teach kids to count change in common core, or if they do at all. I can tell you that most of my millennials cannot (or more likely, will not) do basic subtraction (100 - 80) or multiplication (75 x 2) without a calculator. Yes, those are real examples from my students. The idea is that nowadays if you have a calculator or a computer, you don't need to do all that evil rote memorization. It's scary.

This is too true and too scary. The lowest level of math I teach is Algebra 2 - which is the last class that all kids have to pass in Washington in order to graduate from high school. My school district "ranks" very well, but we still have a lot of kids who are terrified of doing anything they cannot plug into their calculator. There is also are large population of educators (especially those at younger levels) who agree with the idea of handing kids calculators "so that they can do higher levels of mathematical analysis without getting hung up on the computational work." In some respects they are correct: If you are attempting to solve a complex problem that involves a significant amount of computation, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the minutia of endless arithmetic and, thereby, find the problem too cumbersome to solve. This is exactly why scientists have computers and calculators.

What they don't realize is that the ability to quickly manipulate numbers and understand various algorithms allows kids to see the patterns in numbers and build fluency with their work - thereby opening up more complex mathematical work. For example, learning how to do long division has fallen out of favor with many elementary school educators. However, the process of long division is needed in order for students to be able to do polynomial division and find oblique asymptotes for rational functions - which leads to the concept of "limits," which is the foundation of calculus. Calculus, of course, is a foundational class for all the hard sciences. In other words, by giving students too much access to calculators at young ages, we are hampering our ability to to develop folks ready to to into STEM fields.

I am not at all opinionated on this subject....

@MFJohnston wrote:

In other words, by giving students too much access to calculators at young ages, we are hampering our ability to to develop folks ready to to into STEM fields.
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Exactly! We do a disservice when we remove struggle and the development of problem-solving abilities.

Similarly, there was a recent study by a German neuroscientist that showed negative differences in the brain in children who were exposed to early technology (before age 9) when compared to children who were not. This shows up most significantly in sustained attention and social development.

If I had the choice, I'd take the money being spent in our local school district on technology and open up a Forest Kindergarten (or Forest Elementary) instead. [www.slate.com]

I, too, have mostly stopped MSing. After years of busting it and really, really busting it all last year, I realized it was way more work than I was getting paid for. I have deactivated from many MSCs, b/c I now work specialty retail. I said I'd never work retail again 25 years ago, but this company is somewhere I shopped IRL, and they are run very differently than any company I've worked for in the past. I net more in 2-week pay than I would gross, including reimbursements, from a month of MSing. I love what I do, and there are no reports! Oh, I still do the occasional restaurant that I really like (with 5 minute report), and the mail collection. I'd do a nicely bonused, interesting shop if it came my way and fit my schedule. But chasing the work lost its luster for me, and we needed a bump in income.

The secret is finding what works for you. This works for me. Congrats, OP, on finding something that works for you.

An entirely interesting thread! Yay!

I am enjoying all the views presented here. I wish we could study "us" without compromising our offline identities and careers. I wonder how many of us shine in the maths and sciences and how many are stronger in languages and other arts. Are any strong in all the fields? Do these strengths show up in the work we choose or are offered by the MSCs?

Thanks to the OP for opening up an interesting topic for us.

Only one is still in college, and she's one of the worst. It's strange bc she knows the rules for stuff like when to add exponents vs multiply them, which is fairly rare for my students, but ask her 28 minus 16 and you get a blank stare. Then she says 14. (Yes, this really happened.)

The rest are college grads. The ones who didn't have to take math beyond algebra 2. The oldest has been about mid-30s and the youngest are mid- to late twenties.

The only student I have who, like me, is more apt to do long division than use a calculator, is the 4th grade boy. BTW, they are doing pretty much the same math as my GRE students. Adding and multiplying fractions. They are often much better at it.

Another strange thing, is I have several students who claim to never have seen simplifying fractions by crossing out terms in the numerator and denominator. I guess they just put it all in the calculator.

I'm confused. My generation grew up without phones and calculators, so we were forced to do our arithmetic by hand. What Millennials are your students? Like college students?[/quote]

I was talked into doing a bonused shop last week and it only helped confirm that I made the right choice.

Still, I did two of my favorite burger shops with my favorite MSC, and I keep checking for another casual resto in walking distance.

I'm glad you found something that fits you, too. I'm actually really curious where you wound up. Can you PM me? My sister is desperate for work and she has specialty retail exp.

I have to ask: Do you get shopped now, where you work? lol

@LGRM wrote:

I, too, have mostly stopped MSing. After years of busting it and really, really busting it all last year, I realized it was way more work than I was getting paid for. I have deactivated from many MSCs, b/c I now work specialty retail. I said I'd never work retail again 25 years ago, but this company is somewhere I shopped IRL, and they are run very differently than any company I've worked for in the past. I net more in 2-week pay than I would gross, including reimbursements, from a month of MSing. I love what I do, and there are no reports! Oh, I still do the occasional restaurant that I really like (with 5 minute report), and the mail collection. I'd do a nicely bonused, interesting shop if it came my way and fit my schedule. But chasing the work lost its luster for me, and we needed a bump in income.

The secret is finding what works for you. This works for me. Congrats, OP, on finding something that works for you.

I'm glad you enjoyed this thread! I worried that people might be offended. Anyone who likes MSing and feels they get paid fairly, be my guest.

But nearly everyone here has writing skills well above average, and that's worth something — more than MSing pays, imo.

BTW I am about even in math and verbal in nearly every test I take. I've taken the GRE twice and got the same score in quantitative and verbal each time. Language and math are handled by the same side of the brain, the left side. Both math and writing deal with symbols. Unfortunately, brain hemisphericity is almost completely misunderstood and misrepresented in the pop science magazine articles out there. It has nothing to do with "creativity" or "learning styles" etc. Anyone who's interested in this subject, which is fascinating, should read Left Brain Right Brain (or is it Right Braiin Left Brain?). All I remember is the author's first name is Sally. It's fairly old but I think they may have updated it.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

An entirely interesting thread! Yay!

I am enjoying all the views presented here. I wish we could study "us" without compromising our offline identities and careers. I wonder how many of us shine in the maths and sciences and how many are stronger in languages and other arts. Are any strong in all the fields? Do these strengths show up in the work we choose or are offered by the MSCs?

Thanks to the OP for opening up an interesting topic for us.

Congrats to you. My motto is plan your work and work your plan

Sounds great! I would also like to tutor. Math is my forte I used to work in tutoring center in college. I will PM you for more info. Or please PM me

My dad always said if you fail to plan you plan to fail.

@Angelbug wrote:

Congrats to you. My motto is plan your work and work your plan

Please PM me the tutoring info! I have actually been considering adding tutoring to my work and would love some information about what companies you have found worthwhile. Thanks!!