Utah Dad, Oak Norton, made this information-packed presentation last week, entitled “Pulling Back the Curtain: What’s the Real Agenda Behind Common Core?”
Oak Norton’s educational research story began when he asked his daughter’s third grade teacher why she hadn’t been learning the multiplication tables and was told, “We don’t do that anymore.” That day, he bought multiplication flashcards for his daughter, realizing that it was time to take education back into his own hands. This led to his many years of research on education reform, condensed in this one-hour presentation. Mr. Norton shares the concentrated top of his research iceberg, discussing the historical roots of compulsory (forced government) education and answering why there is such a defined socialist agenda for national education. That defined agenda includes teaching sex ed to five-year-old school children; officially tracking children from birth through the workforce; and central planning by the government of all education, including preschools.
Thank you, Oak Norton.
COMMON CORE 
Nonsense from the first sentence: “We don’t do that anymore.” Math fluency is a huge part of Common Core standards. Just read the standards for third grade. Folks are so gullible. . .
Math facts are not done anymore. Math “fluency” has become math conformity and group think. If three out of five members of a group think 2+2=5 or 3 or 10, that’s what it is. What takes 3 steps using math facts, requires 108 via the Common Core method. And using the method is more important than finding the f”actual” solution. Truth is relative.
Steve, maybe you weren’t paying close attention to what I was talking about. The slide indicates this was an experience from 10 years ago in our school district. It wasn’t Common Core and I believe I clearly identified it as a program called Investigations math. It eventually led to Utah getting better math standards until Common Core was adopted a couple years later.
Yes, Common Core includes the times tables, but here in Utah, we’ve adopted the integrated path of Common Core, and in the training for teachers, I’ve had several teachers email me that the state office of education trainers actually told teachers in their training that they didn’t need to teach the times tables to students. There is a pernicious math fad called constructivism which is what Investigations math was based in, and much of Common Core’s adopters have turned that direction as well, placing undue emphasis on the process standards instead of the more numerous content standards.
Oak Norton, why is a ten-year-old experience being posted here as evidence against Common Core?
It’s not. Listen closer to what I say.
I’m sorry, Oak Norton, that your teacher training in Utah is inadequate. But this is not a Common Core issue. Common Core rests on math fluency, application, and conceptual understanding. We begin every class (7th grade this summer) with a math fluency exercise. Today, it was quick conversions of percents to decimals and back. The whole constructivism business is grossly overblown. Common Core has both content and process standards (and application standards). So much misinformation out there. . .
Good for you. Common Core in Utah has been implemented in a very constructivist heavy manner where the process standards get far greater emphasis than the content standards. Here’s a math professor at BYU who actually thinks CCSS are acceptable, but he’s totally opposed to the way the state office of education has implemented them. http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/dr-david-wright-vs-usoe-8-0-for-dr-wright/
Oak Norton, I listened to your presentation (the misleading framing by the authors of the website had initially put me off). I find that you present the usual distortions (confusion of curriculum and standards), paranoia (my intent is to separate parents from their children), and one-sided treatment of the standards (citing only Milgram and Stotsky, and not the dozens of other content specialists who supported the standards). You could only find an audience among people who already oppose Common Core. Actual educators who have done their homework and deal daily with the standards would walk out early. I’m sorry to be so direct, but I don’t want to be misunderstood. Your most recent response to me shows that you are willing to blame almost any perceived ill (in this case Utah teacher training) on Common Core. The last word is yours. Good luck.
Maybe you didn’t listen closely enough, or else maybe I said this after the main presentation in Q&A, but I made it very clear at some point that teachers are not to blame and the vast majority don’t share this goal. It’s the people generally at the national level who wield enormous power to point the titanic in the direction they want to nudge it who have this distorted anti-family agenda. Most teachers are trying to do a great job while jumping through inane hoops set by educrats intent on making their lives difficult and sometimes meaningless.
I don’t recall saying anything about curriculum in the presentation except to ask why sex ed is being pushed on kindergarteners, and then later answered that by the immoral agenda of these figures who mostly predate Common Core. I didn’t have time to cover anything about Common Core curriculum in the presentation.
If you think teachers love Common Core, you should listen to radio ad 2 at this link which is a 1 minute segment of Utah teachers who left me voice mail messages which I stitched a few together and ran on air around Utah. http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/action-list/radio-ads/
On Milgram and Stotsky, don’t act like they’re the lone wolves on the committees who opposed Common Core. There were several. These two are just the most authoritative and outspoken.
As for teacher training, maybe you didn’t read Dr. Wright’s post. He has 8 separate complaints and only a couple deal with training.
My girlfriend is a 5th Grade teacher and absolutely hates Common Core. It has done nothing to help her school, and in fact most of the teachers don’t even know how to teach it. Oh are they still teaching Laissez Fair in schools? Its crazy how you have to go to college( or educate yourself) to learn the truth about the world.
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