President Obama’s “Common Core Curriculum” would be amusing if it weren’t preposterous.
Common Core Teachers Taught to Praise Wrong Answers Like ’3 x 4 was 11’
Apparently, under the new Common-Core standards, correct answers don’t really matter. At least that’s according to a “curriculum coordinator” in Chicago named Amanda August. “Even if [a student] said, ’3 x 4 was 11,’ if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer really in, umm, words and oral explanation, and they showed it in the picture but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focused on the how,” said the common core supporter and typical liberal, Amanda. Off course this reasoning explains quite a bit regarding our nation’s 16 trillion dollar debt, and Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that Obamacare was a “deficit reducer.” When you consider that our finest economic leaders in the Federal Reserve, and the White House, think spending more money will result in fewer deficits, teaching that 3 x 4 = 11 (if you explain it well) isn’t really much of a stretch.
I don’t mind encouraging children to try and then keep their head up if they fail, but praising excuses, even if well-formulated, is not the best way to teach our children. A wrong answer explained is still a wrong answer. Seriously, the message this sends is that it’s okay to be a failure, to be a loser, so long as you “feel” good and have “self-esteem,” et cetera, et cetera – ad nauseam.
Sifting Reality 
As if I needed one more reason to justify why we home school. Of course to generalize the overall quality of public education as being an Obama/liberal caused problem is not only inaccurate it does a disservice to any attempt at improving it.
PE has been in a process of degradation since around 1980. It is garbage through and through. And the 2 major teachers union’s can get bent. They have been stirring the pot with their special interest hands for way too long. Their union should only have the influence to change hours, benefits etc. They should have zero to do with what is taught or how a subject is taught.
If their ideas and policies were “the” way to improve outcomes then we would have seen something other than the abysmal result that we are now faced with. They had their shot, and failed.
Obamas Core Curriculum BS isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Just more feel good, PC, garbage.
Public education began going downhill when it was taken over the the National Education Association, and when it had people like Dewey deciding what education should consist of.
many people can misbalance a checkbook. They can do the math in the record space and still get it wrong. The bank will still charge for over drafts and wont likely be impressed with their effort.
Children do eventually figure out that they’re being pandered and placated to and it destroys self-esteem.
She framed the focus on process quite poorly, but the concept itself ought not be so knee-jerk objectionable. 3X4=11 is a terrible example because (a) almost literally everyone knows that 3X4=12 (and once you know it, you’re never apt to forget it), and (b) there really isn’t a very interesting explanation for why someone might think 3X4=11. But pose, e.g., the question: what war cost the most American lives? and, while there is only one right answer, a range of answers might yield wonderful didactic opportunities. Once you’ve got the right answer (and no one appears to be proposing that it be obscured), the more interesting teaching and learning possibilities do happen in the how and the why.