Saturday, November 30, 2013

Hey, teachers, we're going to hear more and more about The Common Core Curriculum, yes?

November 29, 2013

Common Core and Coddled Kids

To the Editor:

Re “Are Kids Too Coddled?,” by Frank Bruni (column, Nov. 24):

The problem with Common Core is not coddled kids; it is high-stakes testing. And the anxiety that kids feel is not from their parents but rather from their teachers, who fear for their jobs.

We can have high academic standards without high anxiety. In Finland, which is the best performing education system in the world, the first high-stakes test that kids take is the high school matriculation exam, which they have between two and four years to prepare for — their choice — and can retake if they are not satisfied with the results. Kids are assessed continuously in class, and get feedback that urges them to do better, but it is not high stakes. Grades are played down.

If we want Common Core to succeed, we have to dial back the high-stakes testing, and test only sample populations every few years. Otherwise, what we are going to get is just more teaching to the test, squeezing out of the curriculum everything that is not on the test and undoing whatever value Common Core may have.

TONY WAGNER
Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 24, 2013

The writer is a fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard and the author of “The Global Achievement Gap.”

To the Editor:

As one of the “white suburban moms” whom Education Secretary Arne Duncan has so caustically waved off, I can emphatically state that I’m not upset because my child isn’t “brilliant,” nor have I raised him to be “coddled.” I’m upset because the implementation of the Common Core in New York State has been an unmitigated disaster, which has resulted in wholly unnecessary stress and disruption in our classrooms.

Also, while I commend the goals of the Common Core standards, the approach seems to be that we must throw out everything that works and start anew, even in high-performing districts that send the vast majority of their students on to college. This one-size-fits-all mentality will end up costing school districts many dollars to implement, funds that we just don’t have.

I fear that this grand experiment — like so many others before it (remember No Child Left Behind?) — will fail, leaving districts disrupted and in financial disarray, worse off than when we started.

NATALIE BARRY
Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., Nov. 24, 2013

To the Editor:

Kudos to Frank Bruni for an excellent counterpoint to the hysteria surrounding Common Core. I acknowledge that the rollout of this initiative was suboptimal. I would also support a postponement in the recording of test scores until the rollout is considered adequate. However, the concept of national educational standards is valid, and long overdue.

It’s a national embarrassment where we as a country compare educationally with others. We have a problem when about 50 percent of incoming college freshmen need remedial courses. Students need to be better prepared. This is an objective of Common Core.

I grew up, survived and prospered in an era when students were left back if they did not get passing grades, not everyone made each team and, certainly, not everyone received trophies for sports attendance. In the “olden days,” we had realistic expectations and understood our skills and limitations. This is no longer the case.

We now reward subpar performance with good grades and trophies. Common Core is seen as a threat because it upsets the equilibrium.

RICHARD CWIAKALA
Wappingers Falls, N.Y., Nov. 24, 2013

To the Editor:

Frank Bruni defines Common Core as “a laudable set of guidelines that emphasize analytical thinking over rote memorization.” There is little that is laudable about holding students to academic standards that are patently inappropriate. They require abstract thinking, multi-step solutions to math problems and detailed analysis of text before young minds are developmentally capable of such tasks.

The Common Core teaching materials have been riddled with errors and often available only weeks or months after the start of the school year. Is it coddling kids to expect that teachers receive well-written and accurate curriculums before implementation and testing?

New York State education officials expected a 30 percentage point drop in the number of students who would pass the Common Core assessments for third to eighth graders. Remarkably, their prediction was right on the money. An elementary and middle school test with a pass rate lower than that of the New York State Bar Exam is inherently unreasonable.

Mr. Bruni says that some aspects of school should be “relatively mirthless.” A fourth grader who can’t participate in music, art or recess because she now attends a remedial class as a result of a low score on a standardized test aligned to the Common Core can tell you all about “mirthless.”

JANE GREENHALGH-WEINKRANTZ
Centerport, N.Y., Nov. 24, 2013

The writer is a high school English teacher.

More on the Comet, ISON..........

November 29, 2013

Comet ISON, Presumed Dead, Shows New Life

By KENNETH CHANG

Astronomers are marveling at the death and apparent resurrection of a comet that dove close to the sun on Thanksgiving.

Comet ISON passed within a million miles of the sun’s surface at 1:37 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday — by which time observers had already glumly concluded that the comet had disintegrated and vaporized.

NASA posted on Twitter, “It’s likely it didn’t survive.”

ISON, which spent several billion years at the frigid edge of the solar system before starting a long journey toward the sun, had been billed as a possible “comet of the century.” Its demise seemed to be an anticlimactic ending to the story.

But “then it appears again,” said Karl Battams, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Laboratory who has been observing the comet from Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. “We see something come out.”

Images taken by spacecraft showed an increasingly bright point at the head of the comet. Dr. Battams said that current data could not offer a definitive answer, but it appeared Friday that part of ISON’s nucleus was still holding together.

“It’s definitely maybe alive,” Dr. Battams said. “There’s a strong definite chance it might be, may be alive.”

Additional observations by spacecraft and ground-based telescopes could provide a clearer picture over the next few days. The Hubble Space Telescope should be able to take a close look in a couple of weeks.

On his Twitter account, Dr. Battams mused, “So, umm ... did I mention that comets are like cats??”

Video by NASAgovVideo

Comet ISON may have survived its brush with the sun.

Even more uncertain is whether there will be much to see in the night sky in early December, when ISON is to pass through Earth’s neighborhood. (One thing is certain, astronomers say: There is no possibility that it will strike Earth.)

The apparent resurrection raised the question: if ISON is not dead, why did it disappear during its close approach to the sun?

“At this point, we don’t have an answer to that,” said C. Alex Young, associate director for science in the heliophysics division at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The tale has gathered a wide following on the Internet, with Dr. Battams juggling media interviews and Twitter postings while also trying to digest the stream of data.

“We’ve got spotlights on us, literally,” he said in an interview, adding that he had slept only a couple of hours. “It’s a lot of pressure because at present we have a lot more questions than answers. But it’s fabulous. It’s an amazing event we’re witnessing.”

On Thursday, Dr. Battams and Dr. Young answered questions in a NASA-organized chat room on Google as ISON neared the sun.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft sent back an image that was expected to show the comet within the corona. It showed nothing, but it was possible the comet was not close enough yet. “We thought maybe we wouldn’t see something right away,” Dr. Young said.

Half an hour later, another image came back, again with no sign of ISON.

“We didn’t see anything — nothing — and we expected we would see at least a little bit,” Dr. Young said.

A much smaller comet last year had given an impressive show, and scientists expected that even if ISON started falling apart, there would still be big pieces left for the observatory to detect.

“We were extremely let down by the lack of a show,” Dr. Young said.

But a couple of hours later, another NASA spacecraft spotted something emerging from the other side of the sun. At first it seemed to be nothing more than debris from the comet’s tail. Dr. Young left for home thinking the day had been a bust.

As he was driving, he heard his cellphone buzzing as text messages poured in. He pulled over to take a look at the data. More images were showing indications of a surviving nucleus. He headed to a diner that was closed for Thanksgiving but whose Wi-Fi network was on. “I pulled out my laptop to see what I could see,” he said.

The news that reports of ISON’s death were premature ricocheted around Twitter. Richard Branson, the British billionaire who founded the constellation of Virgin companies, posted on Friday: “Our sun melts most of comet #ISON. A little survives to fly on.”

Scientists hope that observations of ISON will also provide information about the early solar system when ISON formed.

By now, comet experts are cautious about saying what they expect to happen next.

ISON, Dr. Battams said, “is taking every opportunity to do everything we didn’t expect it to do.”