It’s Time to Stop Complaining About Common Core

This was originally posted on The Chicago Moms
During our recent parent orientation, our daughters’ teachers explained that they would not have math books this year. The fifth grade students would receive math worksheets as the school decided to test Eureka Math. Apparently Eureka Math doesn’t come with a textbook. Now we get to spend our evenings doing online research so we can figure out how to help our daughters with this new math program.
It’s déjà vu for us. We spent last year trying to figure out Origo Math, a program with such terrible quality control that the fourth grade students spent a lot of time finding errors in the worksheets. Every math class became a game called “which problems are wrong today,” which annoyed the parents. It seemed to all of us that a company filled with mathematicians should have been able to create a program without so many basic errors. Origo Math didn’t donate the program. Our school district spent a lot of money on it. Last time I checked, no one was paying our fourth graders to correct Origo Math. This year we’re subjected to another new math program. We have been told that Eureka Math aligns with Common Core standards better than Origo Math. In other words, last year the district used our children as test monkeys for a failed math program so this year we’re testing another math program on these same students. In the end, they have to unlearn Origo system and learn the Eureka Math system. We left the meetings frustrated and angry with the ongoing Common Core excuses. It’s time for school districts to figure out how to implement Common Core. As a parent and taxpayer, I’m tired of hearing about how the school district is “trying” to find the best ways to implement Common Core. For years now our local school district newsletter has been heralding all the hard work being done to get ready for Common Core. They’ve outlined the arduous task in excruciating detail. Still, since Common Core has ruled our educational landscape, all we have heard is how our award-winning, high performing school district is “trying” to figure out what will best meet Common Core standards. Really? What have they been doing all these years? This week our girls had substitutes two days in a row so their teachers could receive Common Core training. Our very expensive property taxes funded these meetings. As a parent and taxpayer, I’d like to understand what exactly is getting done in these meetings? At some point don’t they have to actually teach Common Core? Simply meeting and complaining about Common Core isn’t providing our students with an education. I am not complaining about Common Core. I’ve read about it extensively. I’m pretty well-versed on the pros and cons. In the end, whether teachers like it or not, it is the new standard. At this point, I don’t understand why our school district, which had years to plan, can’t provide its core service – an education – to meet Common Core standards. From conversations I have with friends across our area, it’s a frustration parents in many school districts share. Please don’t tell me how it has caused schools to reinvent themselves. In the corporate world we do this all the time. I look at Common Core as a new boss. In corporate America, new bosses show up all the time. You have to figure out the new boss’s priorities and adapt. We don’t get years to plan. We don’t have training meetings during our work days to analyze and complain about the new boss. We just have to figure out how to keep the new boss happy. If we translate this into Common Core language, it’s time for teachers to stop complaining about the new boss and just get onboard.  It’s time for school districts to figure out how to implement Common Core so that an entire generation doesn’t get left behind while they are planning. Illinois children deserve better than what they are getting. Shari writes about life with her tween twin daughters at Two Times The Fun. Image courtesy of Free Images.