Comment Re:Common Core Makes This Worse (Score 1) 228
Common core has nothing to do with what you've written. Common Core is simply a standard of what a student in a certain grade should be able to do or understand (eg, a graduating third grader should be able to identify basic shapes by categories and divide shapes into equal fractions). It doesn't say how teachers should teach the subject, and it doesn't say 'no play'. How students are taught varies between states, districts, schools, and individual teachers. If a district adopts a specific math curriculum from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and their third grade materials present the basic geometry one way and the district demands no deviation, then it gets taught HMH's way. If the state and district are more lax, and the school administration is fine as long as the kids get the material, and the teachers want to present the geometry their own way, Common Core doesn't stand in their way.
And if a district wants their elementary schools to have three recesses or two or none, that's up to the district and whatever state or federal guidelines apply. Not Common Core.