Author Archives: victoriamyoung

At The Core of The Common Core

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by Victoria M. Young

At The Core of “Teaching to The Core”
“The standards emphasize critical thinking and real-world applications of what students learn in math and language.” (Idaho Statesman, Bill Roberts, 3/9/14)

Critical thinking and real-world applications are not ideas that are properties of The Core. These things were the basis of the teaching philosophy of Aristotle and brought into the modern era by many including John Dewey (1933).

And significant research has been done on the topics surrounding what we are now calling “college and career ready” students with The Eight Year Study being particularly significant to our situation today. Continue reading →

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Part 3

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Something that has gotten little attention from the public or the Task Force is the one line

Good Advice.

Good Advice.

recommendation statement that “the committee supports the efforts of Idaho’s high education institutions to increase and enhance clinical field experiences for pre-service teachers.” That’s it!!!!

This good —no, very, very good — idea could have been made much better and addressed a specifically identified problem if the Task Force had not discounted the importance of the Workforce Issues Affecting Public School Teachers Evaluation Report. Continue reading →

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Part 2

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By Victoria M. Young

Many have been blinded by this tale of Ugly, Uglier, and Ugliest that we have come to call Common Core. If you missed the showdown at the O.K. Corral, the Common Core Forum at the statehouse, I’ll hit a few points here but encourage you to watch it because the Idaho Task Force recommendations are based, in very large part, on a blind faith in these standards to do miracles.

"It's not a joke, it's a rope, Tuco. Now I want you to get up there and put your head in that noose."

“It’s not a joke, it’s a rope, Tuco. Now I want you to get up there and put your head in that noose.”

First, the award for ugly goes to the people who glorify the virtues of Common Core for bringing “reading and writing correctly” into the curriculum. Those that were schooled under the standards-focused education model, and the narrowing of the curriculum that it produced under Idaho’s first adoption of “higher standards,” probably don’t know that teaching children to read and write correctly used to be THE standard. That’s an ugly fact; we restricted the amount of writing students did. We did harm. But we don’t NEED the Core to return to what we should have been doing all along. Continue reading →

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Part 1

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By Victoria M. Young

Let’s dive right into the middle of the recommendations from the Governor’s Task Force for Improving Education and pull “the bad” to the surface. Let’s get it over with — again.

This should sound familiar; Bad for children. Bad for teachers. Bad for Idaho. Yes, the Luna Laws—Students Come First. They’re back!

The one based on the false premise that changing contract negotiations improves education has already come to the surface through the collaborative efforts of the Idaho School Boards Association (ISBA) and budget writers last year. Voters said no to Prop 1. We wanted to “preserve a teacher’s freedom to speak up on behalf of Idaho’s students.” ISBA, administration, and lawmakers made other plans. And we swallowed that small bite last year without much fuss as teachers’ bargaining was limited. Continue reading →

OBJECTION!

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By Victoria M. Young

DSC_0300_ppI say potāto; you say potåto. Some say, “blueprint”; others say, “roadmap.” The way Betsy Russell rightly put it, from her perspective at the statehouse, “everybody overall agrees” — at the statehouse —with the 20 recommendations made by Idaho’s Task Force for Improving Education.

Objection; foul; time out!

We learned from the “resounding rejected” of the Students Come First LAWS that process matters. Right? Those laws passed despite demonstrative objections in hearings, on-line, and in the streets. THEN, they were defeated by voters as referendums. That process squandered people’s time and it put Idaho two years behind others in a true improvement process. Continue reading →