EXCELLENT letter from a Catholic mom in Ohio to the Superintendent of Catholic schools in Cincinnati on the developmentally inappropriate K-3 Common Core standards: Dear Dr. Rigg: I wish to thank you formally for meeting with us last week. We appreciate the time that you took with us and have great trust and comfort in knowing that your best interest is for the Catholic school students in the Archdiocese. It was a pleasure meeting you and Dr. Roberts, as you are both lovely and obviously dedicated to the mission of Catholic education. As a follow-up to our meeting, I would like to stress again more thoroughly my immediate concerns for children in grades K-3 grade. I mentioned that I believed that the Common Core standards are too developmentally advanced for grades K-3. Since our meeting, a Holy Angels mother of a 1st grader reached out to my husband recently explaining that she has assigned a tutor for her son as he is not doing well in math. We also mentioned that eight children in one of the second grade classes were being tutored in math at 7:00 a.m. in the morning once a week. While we can wonder if this is a local problem, a Pearson issue, a teacher issue or student issue, I strongly believe that there is a bona fide argument that the Common Core standards for K-3 are developmentally inappropriate. While we discussed that Pearson Math is not your recommendation and that Success Maker is not necessarily the most useful tool, I realize this is an immediate concern that we will discuss with Father Greg and our principal, Mr. Fortener. However, please understand that I still strongly believe that this issue needs to be addressed on a larger scale. At our meeting, I explained to you and provided to you work that our younger children were doing and our concern that this work is too advanced. A child as young as seven or eight years old is not able to reason or explain in writing how he arrived at certain math problems. Math should be numbers at this age and quite honestly, fun -- not to be so challenging that it destroys their love of math and learning, which is my immediate concern for all K-3 children right now, in Catholic school or otherwise. I believe, as Dr. Dan Guernsey from NAPCIS stated in his annotated CCSS that this forces rote learning. I can only describe my own personal experiences with our Thomas who says, Oh mom, I just write anything. I really dont understand it. In my opinion, I do not think that this is benefitting students to the degree that the Common Core proponents hoped to achieve. Does this really allow them to think higher if they are just answering the question just to answer it? Children at this age do not think abstractly as the standards outline. I sincerely hope that you review the math work that I have left with you in hopes that you will see that this work is too rigorous and not age-appropriate for 2nd graders. In addition, as a result of our discussion with regard to Pearson, I am wondering if you will consider formally recommending that schools in the Archdiocese not use Pearson Math as an immediate remedy since Pearson does not publish workbooks and is computer generated and you believe that GoMath by Houghton Mifflin is preferable. Further, the K-3 standards cause unnecessary stress that many early psychologists are testifying across the states that will have long-term affects on our childrens future learning capabilities. The idea of rigor is a wonderful one, but as I expressed, if they are not developmentally ready for such rigor, then it needs to be seriously questioned. It is possible that we rushed into these standards without ascertaining what the ramifications will be especially that there is no research supporting the outcome of this new teaching method especially with regard to math. I mentioned that I am from New York and they have had Common Core in place longer than Ohio. It is important to note that there are serious concerns from NY parents, teachers, and principals that agree that these standards are too advanced for K-3. I am on private Common Core Facebook groups that have close to 7,000 members from NY and I am alarmed by the very real concerns from parents who are fearful for their children who are crying, having anxiety, calling themselves stupid, not wanting to go to school, loss of self-confidence and self-assurance. Are these very manifestations the result of the new Common Core standards, the assessments, the new teaching methods for math that involve extra and unnecessary steps that are counter-intuitive, confusing and extremely unorthodox? Are they the result of the fundamental change in this teaching and learning process that has never been tested? Time will tell. But as a concerned parent, I do not want to wait around to see. I am also on a private FB group from parents from Celina, Ohio with close to 1,000 members and another Ohio group with close to 4,000 members. It is noteworthy that when I first joined a few weeks ago, there were only 280 members in the Celina group. Parents are just learning about the PARCC assessments and as time progresses, more and more parents will no doubt become concerned about what Common Core means for their children. These concerns are based on very personal and very real experiences with regard to homework, assessments and the inability to help their children. Common Core is not a political issue. For parents, it is a very real and disturbing imposition that has been placed on our children and many feel helpless. But many are awakening and taking action. A big question for me with regard to the standards as a whole is -- are we wasting valuable teaching and learning time while experimenting with these new standards only to find out that they really are not the best approach? For the young children in K-3, I worry about the real possibility of serious short-term and long-term implications, as the three videos below that I have provided will refer to. Each video spoke volumes to me on what I am experiencing with our younger children. While psychology is my major, I by no means am an expert in early childhood development. However, one video is of an early childhood development psychologist named Dr. Megan Koschnick that spoke at a Common Core conference at Notre Dame. Another video is of a teacher, Donita Brown. The third video is of a Social Worker and pycho-therapist in New York, Mary Calamia. They all discuss early cognitive development. Two of them discuss cognitive development with regard to the pre-frontal cortex, which can be a highly complex subject. To summarize, the pre-frontal cortex is not fully developed in K-3 children. Actually, the pre-frontal cortex is not fully developed in some people until the late teens to the early 20s -- girls develop earlier than boys. The stress that is imposed on these young children from these standards that are too developmentally advanced and because they do not have the function of the developed pre-frontal cortex, causes the limbic system to be engaged, which is part of the brain where fear, anxiety, anger and aggression (emotions) take place. As a result of this stress, what occurs is that the pre-frontal cortexs development is then hindered, perhaps permanently from ever being able to fully develop. Ironically and sadly, the pre-frontal cortex is where critical thinking and abstract thinking occur (the very thing that Common Core pursues pre-maturely) and those abilities risk becoming absent, or at least severely damaged to the point of never functioning properly. I sincerely ask you to please watch the information. I believe knowing this basic cognitive development information is crucial to the health and well being of our children. I am urging that this information be prayerfully considered on whether or not this information is something that the Archdiocese will consider looking at and whether or not we consider throwing out the K-3 Common Core standards all-together, which is what my hope and prayer is. I really dont think that we need to sacrifice an entire generation of children just to get the correlation. Mary Calamia, LCSW Science shows that exposure to circumstances that produce persistent fear and chronic anxiety can have lifelong consequences by disrupting the developing architecture of the brain. Center on the Developing Child: Harvard University Teacher, Donita Brown: https://youtube/watch?v=erq5_LzkKPs Dr. Megan Koschnick at Notre Dame Common Core Conference: https://youtube/watch?v=vrQbJlmVJZo Mary Calamia, LCSW from New York. NY schools have been subjected to the assessments and the fundamental change in teaching and learning far longer than Ohio. youtube/watch?v=oCaXTNcNJRI&feature=youtu.be I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to view each of these videos. I believe that the information is important enough for the sake of our young children to consider and invoke future discussions about this immediate concern. I believe that there is enough evidence that Common Core as a whole is not in the best interest of school children and teachers alike but the immediate concern is the standards for K-3 and the health and well being of our precious little ones. For your convenience, I have provided Dr. Dan Guernsey’s, National Association of Private, Catholic and Independent Schools, annotated Math Common Core Standards. I very much look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter. napcis.org/commoncore/napcis-annotated-common-core-math-standards/
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:38:26 +0000
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