http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/01/common_core_follies_california_report_cards_to_include_grades_for_grit_gratitude_sensitivity_to_others_.htmlJanuary 28, 2015
Common Core Follies: California report cards to include grades for 'grit', 'gratitude', 'sensitivity to others'
By Thomas Lifson
The entire state of California pubic education system is to begin grading students on matters a teacher cannot possibly know or evaluate objectively. In a sign of descent into full indoctrination camp mode, the Common Cores standards adopted by the state are calling on teachers to grade students on their “grit, gratitude, and sensitivity to others.” Loretta Kalb reports in the Sacramento Bee:
Across the state, report cards are undergoing a sea change in how students are measured for academic performance. Where teachers once graded students on traditional math or English skills, they now judge attributes such as grit, gratitude or being sensitive to others.
Districts are changing their report cards to reflect the new Common Core State Standards, which are intended to move students away from rote learning and memorization. Rather, critical thinking and analysis geared toward deeper understanding of academic subjects are the goals.
In English language arts, third-grade teachers evaluate students in at least a half-dozen areas including complexity of text, story structure, types of writing and presentation of knowledge. In math, teachers grade for algebraic thinking, problem solving and geometric measurement, among other categories.
For those traditional academic subjects, teachers grade students on a 1-to-4 scale. But when it comes to attributes such as grit or being sensitive to others, they give students one of four marks: A for almost always, O for often, S for sometimes and R for rarely.
Obviously, there are no objective standards possible, so teachers will subjectively evaluate students on these qualities. And human nature being what it is, the degree to which a child conforms to the teacher’s own vision of human nature and the correct viewpoint. Education schools and teachers unions are both strongholds of left wing thinking, so it is fully predictable that children from conservative households will be regarded as uncooperative, insensitive, and ungrateful.
The American public education system is hopeless, consuming more resources per student than almost every other nation on the planet, and producing results excelled by a score or more nations. It is in the grip of progressive ideologues, who have made unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers a superstar. And now it is explicitly beginning to grade attitudes instead of knowledge. It is ineffective, wasteful, and poltiicized. Time to privatize education, save money, and improve results.
