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Oklahoma's Common Core Four

National Review has a wonderful history of the effort to pull Oklahoma out of the Common Core curriculum and the four women who spearheaded it. [Jenni] White has spent the past four years telling Parent Teacher Organizations and anyone else who would listen that Oklahoma should not implement Common Core,...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 21, 2014 12:34 AM

In praise of rote memorization and drilling, phonics and math facts

Ace has a lengthy piece taking down "cargo cult" educational practices like "Whole Word" and "number bonds" and praising rote memorization: "Common Core Is Pretty Dumb." So sure-- the accomplished 6-year-old readers are indeed mostly using whole word, at least for common words. Spoiler alert: That's because they already went...

Posted by Michael Bates on January 22, 2014 8:03 PM