Common Core has its detractors to be sure, but it also has hordes of supporters in the education-industrial complex.
Take David Karnoscak, a fifth grade teacher at a public school in Glenview, Ill., a very suburban-esque suburb of Chicago. As Twitchy notes, Karnoscak adores Common Core.
He loves Common Core so much that he just can’t stop tweeting about how wonderful it is. Perhaps the most interesting one is Karnoscak’s tweet about an “anchor chart.”
@skibtech Using anchor charts to teach listening and speaking is very common core of you! Way to go. pic.twitter.com/BR0pCnDgyZ
— David Karnoscak (@dkarnoscak) February 28, 2014
It’s very Common Core. It’s so Common Core.
Using anchor charts to teach kids proper communication skills is so Common Core!
— David Karnoscak (@dkarnoscak) February 28, 2014
Some of the claptrap on that chart includes: “Feedback gives me a good feeling,” “We share ideas” and “What does communicating with others help me LEARN?”
Nowhere on the chart does there appear to be a single thing about the reading and math skills that are supposed to be the bedrock of Common Core.
At the same time, Karnoscak has expressed deep concern about Common Core standards for technology and digital media.
#ice2014 Why does the Common Core not have its own standards for Technology and Digital Media. Instead it is just embedded. Should it be?
— David Karnoscak (@dkarnoscak) February 28, 2014
@drezac Question… Are there Common Core Standards for Technology and Digital Media? If not, we need to get on that!
— David Karnoscak (@dkarnoscak) February 28, 2014
The elementary school teacher also appears to be laboring under the belief that Common Core is a worldwide phenomenon.
@pamallyn #ice13 Teachers can not learn the common core in isolation. Collaboration across the hall and globe are key!
— David Karnoscak (@dkarnoscak) March 1, 2013
On the Facebook page that appears to belong to Karnoscak, he lists the Illinois Green Party among the groups to which he belongs. The group describes itself as a haven for core activists and volunteers. Its top two values are “ecological wisdom” and “social justice.”
Karnoscak’s deep, abiding love for Common Core notwithstanding, the national curriculum – but don’t call it a curriculum – continues to garner waves of criticism around the country.
Just this week, for example, another absurd Common Core math problem reared its confusing head on Twitter. (RELATED: ‘Why are they making math harder?’)
Last month saw a number of state governments craftily trying to fool Common Core critics by changing the name to “The Iowa Core” or the “Next Generation Sunshine State Standards” or some such. (RELATED: Common Core proponents try to save flailing standards using this one weird trick)
Also last month, Massachusetts education secretary Paul Reville berated Common Core critics and asserted that “the children belong to all of us.” (RELATED: Pro-Common Core panelist: ‘The children belong to all of us’)
The Daily Caller also brought you a surreal, subtly cruel Common Core math worksheet. (RELATED: This Common Core math worksheet offers a glimpse into Kafkaesque third-grade hell)
In December, Twitchy found the most egregiously awful math problem the Common Core had produced yet until that point. (RELATED: Is this Common Core math question the worst math question in human history?)
In November, Twitchy collected several more incomprehensible, unintentionally hilarious Core-aligned worksheets and tests. (RELATED: EPIC FAIL: Parents reveal insane Common Core worksheets)
Over the summer, The Daily Caller exposed a video in which a curriculum coordinator in suburban Chicago perkily explained that students can be totally right if they say 3 x 4 = 11 as long as they spout something about the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer. (RELATED: Obama math: under new Common Core, 3 x 4 = 11 [VIDEO])
This year, 45 states and the District of Columbia have implemented the Common Core standards and curricula based on those standards.
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