Common Core and the End of History | Alan Singer - 0 views
www.huffingtonpost.com/...e-history-exams_b_6050456.html
Common Core history teaching standards NY education
shared by Javier E on 22 Dec 14
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On Monday October 20, 2014, the Regents, as part of their effort to promote new national Common Core standards and mystically prepare students for non-existing 21st century technological careers, voted unanimously that students did not have to pass both United States and Global History exams in order to graduate from high school and maintained that they were actually raising academic standards.
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The Global History exam will also be modified so that students will only be tested on events after 1750, essentially eliminating topics like the early development of civilizations, ancient empires, the rise of universal religions, the Columbian Exchange, and trans-Atlantic Slave Trade from the test.
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Students will be able to substitute a tech sequence and local test for one of the history exams, however the Regents did not present, design, or even describe what the tech alternative will look like. Although it will be implemented immediately, the Regents left all the details completely up to local initiative.
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Under the proposal, students can substitute career-focused courses in subjects such as carpentry, advertising or hospitality management rather than one of two history Regents exams that are now required
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In June 2010 the Regents eliminated 5th and 8th grade social studies, history, and geography assessments so teachers and schools could concentrate on preparing students for high-stakes Common Core standardized reading and math assessments.
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Mace reports his middle school students have no idea which were the original thirteen colonies, where they were located, or who were the founders and settlers. The students in his honors class report that all they studied in elementary school was English and math. Morning was math; afternoon was ELA. He added, "Teachers were worried that this would happen, and it has."
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Debate over the importance of teaching history and social studies is definitely not new. During World War I, many Americans worried that new immigrants did not understand and value the history and government of the United States so new high school classes and tests that developed into the current classes and tests were put in place.
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Mace describes his students as the "common core kids, inundated with common core, but they do not know the history of the United States." The cardinal rule of public education in the 21st Century seems to be that which gets tested is important and that which does not is dropped.
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"By making state social studies exams optional, we have come to a point where our nation's own history has been marginalized in the classroom and, with it, the means to understand ourselves and the world around us. America's heritage is being eliminated as a requirement for graduation.
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I am biased. I am a historian, a former social studies teacher, and I help to prepare the next generation of social studies teachers.
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But these decisions by the Regents are politically motivated, lower graduation standards, and are outright dangerous.
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The city is under a lot of pressure to support the revised and lower academic standards because in the next few weeks it is required to present plans to the state for turning around as many as 250 schools that are labeled as "failing."
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Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the State Board of Regents, described the change as an effort to "back-fill opportunities for students with different interests, with different opportunities, with different choice."
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The need to educate immigrants and to understand global issues like ISIS and Ebola remain pressing, but I guess not for New York State high school students. Right now, it looks like social studies advocates have lost the battle and we are finally witnessing the end of history.