We Learn Less…

Last week a subsitute teacher called Glenn Becks Show to express her concerns about a poem that a group of  80 fifth-graders recited during their promotion ceremony.  The cute little ditty went something like this:

WE LEARNED MORE WITH COMMON CORE

Text genre, features & theme to explore
We learned more with common core.

Fractions, decimals, journal prompts galore We learned more with common core.

RUNNER & CUBES are strategies for
Learning more with common core.

Vocab words like (clouds, organs, force), & omnivore
We learned more with common core

Economy, government, Revolutionary war
We learned more with common core.

So many new concepts to explore
We learned more with common core.

Several Common Core opponents collaborated to share their views of Common Core in rhymn and verse. (The formatting didn’t turn out quite right, but I really wanted to share it.):

About rich literature we must guess

We learn less with the common Core mess.

Fractions, decimals; for these we press

We learn less with the Common Core mess

Endless testing causes stress

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Data mining we must address

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Global warming we must bless

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Fewer concepts – so much commonness

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

So much misinformation in the press.

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

So little time spent in recess

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Front loading curriculum causes undue distress

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Mathematical equations get partial credit for a guess

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Teacher training minimal at best

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

15% of Curriculum time is not addressed

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Parents discouraged, parents oppressed

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Little clear answers to our requests

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Privatization in excess

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

Political process ignored/transgressed

We learn less with the Common Core mess.

As students we will regress

Because we definitely learn less with the Common Core mess.