Fuzzy Math Coming Home to Roost in Common Core State (sic) Standards?

In a recent email,  GovExec.com Today: Pay freeze limbo; fuzzy math on BRAC savings, from govexec.com:

The 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission may have achieved recurring annual savings, but flawed cost estimates produced a doubling of anticipated expenses, the Government Accountability Office reported on Thursday.

Auditors also recommended improved methodology for predicting new costs in base construction, information technology and personnel during future BRACs.

“By implementing BRAC 2005, DoD closed 24 major bases, realigned 24 major bases, eliminated about 12,000 civilian positions, and achieved estimated net annual recurring savings of $3.8 billion,” GAO said. “However, the department cannot provide documentation to show to what extent it reduced plant replacement value or vacated leased space as it reported in May 2005 that it intended to do. Also, DoD did not establish a target for reducing excess infrastructure, as it did in the 1995 BRAC round.”

In projecting savings from base closings and related infrastructure adjustments, the Pentagon uses a quantitative model known as the Cost of Base Realignment Actions. Overall, GAO said, that tool is reasonable, but in many instances planners underestimated costs--military construction costs increased from $13.2 billion estimated by the BRAC Commission in 2005 to $24.5 billion after implementation ended in 2011.

“Most of this 86 percent increase was caused by requirements that were added or identified after implementation began,” GAO acknowledged, but other costs estimates rose because of initial under-estimates or failure to document all relevant inputs from staffing cuts and required IT improvements. “For example, the initial information technology cost estimate for one recommendation was nearly $31 million,” GAO said, “but implementation costs increased to over $190 million once those requirements were better defined.”

To improve the accuracy of projecting future BRAC savings, auditors recommended that the Office of the Secretary of Defense identify suitable measures of effectiveness in achieving savings and set a target for eliminating excess military infrastructure. GAO also recommended legislative changes to the BRAC statute to give Congress greater visibility of the potential savings.

Defense officials, reviewing a draft of the report, disagreed with five of its 10 recommendations, citing a need to stress military value over simple savings from capacity reductions, and attributing more of the changes in the estimates to requirements added later in the process.

The Obama administration, in its fiscal 2013 defense budget, asked Congress for a new BRAC round, but lawmakers were not receptive. Implementation costs of the 2005 round exceeded the initial 2005 estimate of $21 billion by 67 percent.
 

Note the readers' comments and how they also pertain to the decisions made by the private trade organizations (NGA and CCSSO) and the US Department of Education in the crafting and funding of Common Core State (sic) Standards:

Obviously, they used the same method that has always been used by the US Government, namely - use the absolute BEST CASE scenario when planning so they can show the most savings from a completely idiotic plan, then pretend surprise when the savings don't materialize, but the costs to the taxpayer multiply geometrically!! As long as we keep electing people whose main loyalty is to their own power and the power of businesses, and not to the taxpayers who voted (by the way, if corporations, etc. are persons, then why can't they vote? Oh, I forgot, they put millions into the lies broadcast by PACs so they get lots of votes from people who can't be bothered to find out what's real!) them into office, we are going to have this kind of corrupt idiocy from our government!

and

Until they make it so that the folks on the commission are personally responsible for their decisions it will be a joke. Imagine if upon finding that things weren't done right they could go in and take all of the personal assets of the BRAC commission members then this will not happen.

Could this be the reason the CCSSI standards are copyrighted and have a disclaimer (noted below) stating the organization can't be sued if the standards don't deliver as promised ?



At least with BRAC, there was at least an implementation cost estimate.  Missouri DESE has not yet officially given the Legislature a figure on the CCSS cost to taxpayers and school districts.  Is this sound practice and operating procedure?  

The GAO recommended legislative changes to give Congress a better visibility of potential savings.  The Missouri legislature needs legislative oversight on how the governor and DESE want to spend taxpayer money and on specifically what programs so this fuzzy math issue is not a concern.

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Disclaimer from CCSSI:

Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer:

THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED AS-IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND NGA CENTER/CCSSO MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTIBILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE.

Limitation on Liability:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL NGA CENTER OR CCSSO, INDIVIDUALLY OR JOINTLY, BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY LEGAL THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER FOR CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR A COMBINATION THEREOF (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH RISK AND POTENTIAL DAMAGE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, LICENSEE WAIVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK LEGAL REDRESS AGAINST, AND RELEASES FROM ALL LIABILITY AND COVENANTS NOT TO SUE, NGA CENTER AND CCSSO.


 

 

Common Core Math Taught to an 8 Year Old.

House Bill 616 was heard early today in Jefferson City and pro CCSS folks testified how wonderful and clear and concise the new standards are.  Missouri is beginning to implement them in classrooms so the results of using the new standards are difficult to measure.  Since a big attraction for some teachers and administrators is that the standards/assessments are all the same across state lines, maybe those proponents might just want to read the story below about an actual CCSS math problem encountered by a third grader in New York and think if this wonderful and clear and concise set of standards will actually raise student achievement.  Such standards might not raise achievement, but rather, frustration and a distaste for math.

If this is a typical day in the life of a child in math class, it's no wonder CCSSI puts a disclaimer on its standards so it can't be sued if students don't reach proficiency levels.



From huffingtonpost.com and Misadventures in the Common Core:

My daughter -- a bright, fun-loving 8-year-old who isn't easily rattled -- was reduced to tears in school yesterday. Apparently, while working on a math lesson involving fractions, she wasn't "getting it" the way that she thought she should, and her frustration mounted and her eyes welled up and, later, when her teacher talked to her in the hallway on the way to gym class, she lost it and she cried and cried.

I know this because her teacher -- a committed professional who does wonderful work with her class of third-graders -- cared enough to call us at home to tell us. When asked, she said that lots of kids were feeling frustrated by this particular lesson. The reason, we learned, is New York's recent embrace of the "Common Core" that has been adopted by 46 states. It's the latest experiment put into place by educational policy experts who continually jockey to get the newest big ideas into the classroom.

When I first heard about the Common Core, I was excited. Many of the college students I teach are unprepared to do the kinds of textual analysis and critical thinking that I expect of them, and what I had heard about the Common Core made it seem promising. One article that I read in The Atlantic made it sound, well, revolutionary.

Maybe it will be. The Common Core might turn out to be one of the best reforms in K-12 education in decades. It's all still pretty new and its cumulative impact on the intellectual development of students might turn out to be a great thing. What I know right now, though, is that it is asking third graders to approach math in ways that seem terribly unsuited to them.

I don't just mean things like the worksheet that included a rectangle divided into six sections with written instructions asking students to shade one-fifth of it.

[Note: As I wrote the above sentence, my daughter -- who had been in bed for an hour and should have been asleep -- came downstairs in tears, saying that she was still upset by what happened in math class. After talking about her frustrations, she fell asleep beside me on the sofa.]

No, I'm not talking about the typographical error on an official New York State Common Core third-grade math worksheet, though such a boneheaded mistake does little to inspire confidence.
What I mean by math problems unsuited to third-graders are ones that go something like this: Two kids are served brownies. One kid, "Julian," eats one-half of a small brownie and the other kid, "Debbie," eats one-eighth of a big brownie. Julian claims that he ate more than Debbie (because one-half is more than one-eighth). The students are asked to explain why Julian's claim is false, using words and pictures, and then use words and pictures to make that supposedly false statement into a true statement.

I guess that what the students are supposed to realize is that because the brownies are different sizes (though what kind of adult would cut unequal-sized brownies for kids?), one-half isn't necessarily bigger than one-eighth. That's true, but without knowing the size of each brownie, there really isn't enough information to determine which brownie piece is bigger. Maybe Julian really did eat more than Debbie.

More to the point though, is this question: How in the world is that problem supposed to help a third-grader learn fractions? Third-graders are concrete thinkers and they are just learning the basics of fractions. Why throw in a poorly-written word problem that asks them to explain an abstract concept such as the idea that one-eighth of a larger whole may be bigger than one-half of a smaller whole? Until they fully understand the basics of halves and eighths -- and unless there is a picture showing the relative sizes of each whole -- such abstractions only muddy the waters of learning.

Then there is the problem of dividing a "whole" into two "halves," calling each half a new whole, and then asking the students to divide the new whole into new halves. My daughter looked at the problem and she knew that she wasn't seeing two new wholes. She was seeing two halves of the original whole that still stared back her from the page.

More insidious still is a worksheet that seems determined to confuse students by its use of two very similar sounding, and similar looking words. The instructions for Column A read: "The shape represents one whole. Write a fraction to describe the shaded part." Below the instructions are a variety of shapes with different fractions shaded. The same shapes and shades are found in Column B. This time students are instructed: "The shaded part represents one whole. Divide one whole to show the same unit fraction you wrote in A."

These third grade students are expected to keep in mind not only the lesson on fractions, but also the fine distinction between the words "shape" and "shade" in determining wholes and fractions. It's absurd.

I don't know how my daughter will do in math today or in the coming weeks. I hope that with her teacher's guidance, and with the support of her mother and me, she'll make the adjustments she needs to make in order to regain her confidence in understanding the math concepts that she was already beginning to understand before the new standards and their worksheets came along.

Until then, we'll just keep reassuring her that the problem isn't her ability to understand math; the problem is how she's being asked to understand math. The problem is the experimental "big idea" that she's unknowingly become part of.

(Note: All of the math problems I've described -- including the one with the typographical error -- can be found here.)

Follow Mark Rice on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@RankingAmerica

To remind our readers: per the Common Core copyright, the standards/assessments may not be changed or altered in any way.  What would you do if your child came home with such a math problem?

Indiana Legislation Opposing Common Core Gets a Hearing

On Wednesday the Indiana Senate Education Committee heard testimony on SB 193, sponsored by Senator Scott Schneider, which calls for Indiana to withdraw from the Common Core Standards.

A crowd of close to 300 people showed up to the rally before the hearing to voice their strong support for this legislation. Among those speaking at the rally were former Secretary of Education Bill Evers and former TX State Superintendent Robert Scott, in addition to Heather Crossin and Erin Tuttle, the two moms who started digging in to Common Core when they noticed their children's math education had changed, and not for the better.

Tuttle recounted for the audience her frustrating search for someone accountable for how math was being taught in her child's school. This fuzzy math was confusing for both child and parent. It did not contain the standard algorithms most of us grew up with. More disconcerting than just the poor choice of teaching methods was the way responsibility for the math program was kicked down the road from teacher, to principle, to superintendent, to their state department of elementary education and finally to PARCC, the government funded assessment consortia that their state had signed on to with their No Child Left Behind Waiver application.  While Tuttle was able, with increasing difficulty, to get meetings with each successively higher office to find out why her child's school was using fuzzy math, she could not get a meeting with anyone at PARCC.

That's because PARCC is not accountable to the parents who ultimately have to deal with their children's experience with Common Core Standards. PARCC and SMARTER Balanced Consortia are private corporations, who are selling trademarked assessments to their forty five member states.  They are accountable to their governing states only in the aggregate. If any one state has an issue with the assessments they produce, neither consortia is obligated to do anything about it.  There are various rules for what form of majority is necessary for change to take place in each consortia, but that is not the point.  The point is that Indiana, and also Missouri are no longer in charge of their own state education standards. They must now negotiate them with a number of other states. If you as a parent or a school district want something different in your schools you cannot have it.

This is the core issue (if you'll pardon the pun) that we have with Common Core State Standards.  There is zero local control. Teachers may not deviate from or alter the standards in any way. They are trademarked. There is no path for correction, even for obvious mistakes like a simple math error that was identified early on in the draft phases, but was still not corrected three drafts later. There is no path identified for this because the roll out of these standards has been so fast there has been no time to consider everything that is needed for them to operate. That means that an error on the assessment will be repeated in 45 states and count against teachers in those states whose performance reviews now take into account how their students score on these assessments. 

Contrast that to the way MO DESE has handled our GLE's in the past. Yearly, teachers and districts were able to submit complaints or suggestions to DESE for ways to add clarity to our standards or identify errors that needed to be fixed. DESE had been reasonably responsive to this input and made most changes in a timely manner. That process will be completely gone by 2014 when Common Core is supposed to be fully implemented.

The one thing each district, and ultimately tax payer, will be accountable for is the cost of implementing the Common Core standards and assessments. No one really know what this cost is going to be for a number of reasons.  Missouri's DESE was not required to estimate this cost to each district, nor inform them that such costs were coming. If you ask your local shcool board or superintendent what their cost will be to implement Common Core, most of them will not know. More shocking will be the number of them who do not even know what Common Core is or that it is coming. 

Opponents of the legislation in Indiana said most implementation costs would be replacement cost for things already in each district's budget like professional development or materials. Proponents disagree, noting that teacher training will be far more extensive than traditionally done, possibly including out of town sessions in regional training centers. There is currently only one approved vendor for textbooks, Pearson. One teacher has looked into buying a replacement ELA book for the new CCSS in her fourth grade class and found the new book to be two and half times as expensive as the one she had been using for the last several years.  Districts will have little control over these costs, because they have virtually no control over the standards or assessments.

The assessments are an even larger portion of these costs as they are supposed to be done on line, which not only requires input devices like comptuers or tablets, but also sufficient broadband to accommodate all the students taking them at once. Once you add technology, you must also add a host of support staff to maintain and troubleshoot that technology, adding further cost to a district. In Missouri, we have no room in our state budget for these extra costs. That means local districts will have to find the money because the foundation formula is not going to give it to them.

Representative Kurt Bahr will be introducing legislation again this year to get Missouri out of Common Core. If Indiana's experience this week was any indication, he ought to find tremendous support for his bill here in Missouri, not only from public school families, but also from private school and homeschool families. Common Core is reaching in to all these education venues. As the realities of Common Core, which is being rolled out in various districts right now, come to light, our representatives in Jefferson City should start hearing a lot more from their constituents who want us out of this federally pushed national standards program.

What's REALLY Happening in Schools? Common Core Control Coming Soon to Your Public School...or Home School...or Private School.

If you have stories about your child's Common Core implementation and would like readers to know how it is impacting your child's learning and testing, we'd like to pass it on to other readers.  Since it's "common", your experiences are likely to be similar to those of parents/students in your consortia.  Homeschooling and private schooling parents, please pay attention to how Common Core will be invading your teaching materials as well.

Common Core tales from a mother of four children in the Midwest:

Regarding David Coleman being named president of the College Board, this could be good news in a way.  Here in Indiana we have organized groups of home schoolers, who have been asleep at the wheel since the mid 90's, when they rallied against OBE, Goals 2000. etc. I have been frustrated that I haven't been able to get the lobbyists who represent them to pay attention. They think they are "safe" because they home school. Those days are numbered and they are going to have to join the fight!

Why should home schooling parents or even parents private schooling their children be concerned?  

  

Some people I know who have taken the courageous step of home-schooling have understandably lost interest in fighting the federal take over of schools. They have the attitude that they can teach a good solid curriculum to their children, many of whom will outperform regularly schooled kids on the SAT, and get into a great college.  If the SAT is rewritten to align with the Common Core, they may think again before ignoring it.

For example, the Common Core inspired reform/"fuzzy" math my third grader brings home is difficult to do well on, unless it is specifically "taught.". It requires scripted written explanations and solving problems in unconventional ways. Getting the answer right using the standard algorithm doesn't cut it. The child's' answer is marked incorrect. It necessitates teaching to the test. It has exemplified to me that in certain subjects there will be items that will have to be taught, in order for a child to score well on a Common Core test.

Private schools that are accredited in Indiana all must take the federally funded PARCC assessment. Non-accredited schools are talking about how they will be impacted by the fact that most of the mainstream textbooks will be rewritten to be Common Core aligned. Now, if the SAT is altered most every college bound student will become entangled in the Common Core, regardless of how and where they are schooled.

Since taxpayers are paying for this privilege of unfunded/unvoted mandates and they are supplying their children to this system, the bureaucrats should be delighted to hear from the people paying for this service:

Another pathetic tidbit is that after 35 parents went to a School Commission meeting,with complaints such as "I have a degree in finance and I can't understand how to help my third grader with her math homework, the Principal called in a Pearson sales rep to sell us on the book.  When parents weren't satisfied, the Principal finally responded in frustration, "Look, I know parents don't like this kind of math because it isn't how any of us were taught, but we have to teach it this way because this is what is going to be on the PAARCC assessment."

Bingo. The principal isn't concerned the process of teaching math is all wrong.  He/she is concerned that the kids learn how to learn this process because that's the way the students will be assessed.  Now when your curriculum director and superintendent tells you he/she will still be able to set the curriculum, you know he/she is not telling you the truth.  It truly is "teach to the test."

The tactic of ignoring the public school educational reform debacle by home schooling and private schooling won't work either. If your home schooled, privately schooled child can't answer the question in the way it's designated by Pearson (a privately held company unaccountable to taxpayers), your child (even though he/she understands math) will most likely not do well on the PAARCC (or other consortia) assessment.

Do you believe David Coleman's promises on untested, unproven and unconstitutional standards...or tales from parents who are actually experiencing the standards and bureaucrats shrugging their shoulders because they see themselves as powerless?  Welcome to Arne Duncan's educational reform.

Have a story to share?  Contact stlgretchen@gmail.com