Hey Herndon STEM People__Did State of Virginia & Fairfax County Buy Into BIll Gates Foundaion's Common Core Education Standards Hidden Revolution 2008-2013++
How Bill Gates Pulled Off The Swift Common Core Revolution (Washington Post Politics Article (Sunday Washington Post Issue, June 8, 2014)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html
The result was astounding: Within just two years of the 2008 Seattle meeting, 45 states and the District of Columbia had fully adopted the Common Core State Standards.
The math standards require students to learn multiple ways to solve problems and explain how they got their answers, while the English standards emphasize nonfiction and expect students to use evidence to back up oral and written arguments. The standards are not a curriculum but skills that students should acquire at each grade. How they are taught and materials used are decisions left to states and school districts.
Discussion: I have high regards for Bill Gates as an entrepreneur and the work his foundationn does overseas. But this initiaive on "Common Core" that his foundation spent is questionable as to benefits to kids.
The claimed "skills learning" standards , "one shoe fits all" simply does not supported by inpartial academic research done in the last decade that kids have different learning styles and learning so called academic skills as these "Common Core"s standards suppose to do, may not be really value added for all kids, particularly the low income family kids, whose learning motivation issue is not really addressed by "Common Core" standards.
How is this "Common Core" different from the "miserable failed "No Child Left Behdin" from the 90's ?
Anyone care about what makes "quality education" , ie, Motivatin for STEM for teaching and learning in public schools ?