The answer to the question posed in the title of this blog is: I don’t know. I can’t imagine.
In fact, I don’t know how one develops imagination without reading fiction.
I have been told by several people who attended David Coleman’s lectures that he speaks disparagingly of fiction. That’s why the Common Core standards permit 50% fiction in the early grades but only 25% fiction in high school.
I don’t get it.
First, because teachers should make that decision.
Second, because I can’t imagine a well-developed mind that has not read novels, poems and short stories.
I love poetry. I compiled two anthologies–“The American Reader” and “The English Reader” (the latter with my son Michael)–in large part because I wanted to preserve and pass along the poems I love.
I love poems that rhyme and romantic poems. I love John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Barbara Frietchie” (“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,/But spare your country’s flag,” she said).
I love Whittier’s “Barefoot Boy” (“Blessings on thee, little man/Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!”)
I love Eugene Field’s “Little Boy Blue” (The little toy dog is covered with dust/But sturdy and stanch he stands”); it makes me cry.
I love Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken” (“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–/I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference.”)
I love Joyce Kilmer and Edna St. Vincent Millay and Countee Cullen, and James Weldon Johnson, and Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, and…so many more.
There are so many novels that I loved and still love. When I was in high school, we read George Eliot’s “Silas Marner” and thought it boring and pointless. I read it as an adult and found it deeply moving. I also loved “Middlemarch” and so many other novels.
Maybe David Coleman thinks that education is wasted on the young. But how sad it would be if future generations of young people never read the poems and stories and novels that teach them not only how to think but how to feel, how to dream, how to imagine worlds far beyond those they know.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on 2nd Thursday.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”–Ray Bradbury
I’ll hazard a guess: Coleman dislikes fiction (e.g. literature) because he dislikes human beings, as indicated by his infamous and highly revealing statement about education and children: “As you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a s- – t about what you feel or what you think.”
Here, kids, take all these tests (which the Common Core Standards are a stealth vehicle for), since we’re going to make sure you learn your lessons about the needless brutality of our system at a tender age. And there’s much intimidation and punishment for all concerned
There is clearly a very angry and resentful child struggling to emerge from the body of this adult, who has been been given far too much credence and power as a result of his personal pathologies coinciding with the interests of his employers.
I don’t customarily find it worthwhile to psychoanalize those in power, but Coleman’s blatant contempt for ordinary humanity (which he shares with his masters) needs to be highlighted.
I’d think he would love fiction, considering that’s the only mode available to support the educational changes he champions. Perhaps his disdain comes from the fact that quality fiction must be reality-based to resonate with readers.
I think his apparent disdain for fiction stems from standardized education’s maniacal focus on developing and testing “skills” with little, if any, regard to fostering intellectual curiosity, cultural awareness, empathy, or the simple joy of learning something new.
Judging from the Common Core’s ELA standards, if something doesn’t tie to what’s deemed a workplace skill (the sort of workplaces that necessitate four-year degrees, mind you), then it has little value. And since reading fiction is the work of only English teachers, professors, or novelists, it takes a back seat to reading non-fiction.
The sad irony is that states and districts are spending millions of dollars to adapt to “career-readiness standards” while spending increasingly less money on technical and vocational programs, even though careers in those areas are growing at a faster rate than in any other.
Flippantly, perhaps Mr. Coleman is trying to follow the footsteps of Dragnet’s Joe Friday. “All we want are the facts.”
Common Core is a step toward scripting education. It is probably easier to script the expectations placed on students without fiction. Fiction has the problem of being open to interpretation, not only by the inspired teachers, but by the students themselves. Since Common Core is a component of standardization and the bubble testing dreams of “reform.”
Fiction, open to interpretation, suggests that opinions may vary. Non-fiction, which is commonly mis-called “the facts” isn’t open to interpretation (Really? Did anyone in the ed reform movement take an experimental science class?)
Of course, the creativity and innovation so often mentioned as the goal of their proposals vitally require students to wonder, imagine, explore and question. Profoundly, fiction frequently challenges us to question the facts, the norms the party line.
Heavily scripted education may not the best for public (or even private) schools. Please remember, a class of children are not just reruns of of the last season.
[Joe Friday, for those too young to remember, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Friday ]
I found a document that includes an essay by Coleman entitled “What Should Kids Be Reading?”. See page 40 of this link. http://doc.renlearn.com/KMNet/R004101202GH426A.pdf
I’m guessing that there are many other sources where Coleman discusses his viewpoint. I’m also guessing his viewpoint is more nuanced than “disliking fiction”. Finally, Coleman, from what I understand, is far from alone in his general opinions on the matter.
I don’t have a strong viewpoint on the issue, but I think it’s a topic that has the risk of being oversimplified.
I was told by two journalists about a workshop at Columbia last fall where David’s colleague asked the question, “On what job do you need to read a novel?” David did not correct her. Maybe he will do this now. He might also explain what part of Rhee’s agenda he does and does not support. In his high-profile position, it’s important for him to be clear on controversial issues.
Diane
khirsh, isn’t it troubling that one person — or even a mere committee, should be able to dictate what most schools in the country teach? That strikes me as authoritarian.
To the extent that your comment reflects the reality of the situation, my instincts are to agree with you emphatically! In practice, I think the issue is a complicated one for which I still don’t have a settled opinion.
Typically, the way these things work is that an academic of some sort comes up with a fairly complex and nuanced set of ideas about how education might be improved, which, as they are passed down from the original source to the “professional developer” to superintendent to principal to coach to teacher or via textbooks, tests, etc, become bowdlerized into some kind of mindless formula, like “no more than 25% fiction in high school reading.”
Coleman has cut out the middleman in that process.
Why he’s gone out of the way to pick this fight is a mystery to me.
It seems that there is one Coleman that has the ability to decided for all of us, regardless of of who we are, what kind of communities we are part of and what do teachers think is important to teach – after all they are the professionals. It sounds like another step to an authoritarianism in education. Less people making more decisions for the many without consulting or asking the ones who will be affected more then anyone else . The Obama girls don’t attend public school , they don’t have to race to the top since they got there just for being born to the right people.
Furthermore as an outsider who did have the “pleasure” of geting most of my education in the US, I can tell that throughout school the class that will be considered as the equivalent to ‘English’ had 100% fiction in it. It was all literature, local and global, poetry, plays and theater. Reading fiction changed my life and pushed me think about the world, outside the conventions and away from conformity, writers like : Emile Zola,Nikolai Gogol, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Kurt Vonnegut, Shakespeare, Edward Albee, Yaroslav Hashek and many many more.
This is precisely why Coleman and his masters in the anti-intellectual movement hate fiction. It’s the heritage of McCarthyism when the first to be targeted were intellectuals, writers and thinkers, people that can question the authority and might even convince other people to think. Coleman or Obama don’t want people to think and to challenge them. Not to mention keeping the majority ignorant will serve the goal of preparing them for the new job market. As Dr Krugman pointed out the only growth in jobs we have experienced is on the top – Wall Street, and the bottom – Wall Mart. Both fields do not require thinking but obeying. As a matter of fact thinking might get you in trouble – you know just like in the NY DOE.
Gosh, does he laugh, cry, dream, visualize, etc.? Did he ever have anyone read aloud and bring to life the characters and actions in a fiction book? What a void he has in his life.
Coleman is only interested in training students for the corporate workforce. When he cuts literature to 25% of the curricula after 10th grade, this means the “drones” ( as they are preceived by Coleman types) will be training for the new serfdom society..the corporate projected workforce. There is no upward mobality for students in this charter school movement. This system of education destroys the American dream. The American dream lives in good literature that our children have studied for generations. The Colemans of the world destroy that dream, and this system of restructuring education destroys upward mobility for all children regardless of social status or income. It is based on a quota system of whatever the corporate COE “dream up”. Coleman and others like him must be exposed and stopped! Keep up the good work, Diane. You and others are getting the message out to the average American citizen. I just hope it is not too late. Citizens must read School-to-Work Act and all literature connected to it. If not, they will not fully understand what is happening to our society and especially to our public schools. Privatizing has nothing to do with “free-enterprise”. This privatizing movement of all the people’s assets including their most precious heritage, their children, has the stink of serfdom.
Non-fiction is easier to “Te$t,” while fiction is too divergent (hard to measure for profit).
Deb: I fear you’re right. In fiction, there is a beautiful ambiguity, which lends itself less well to multiple choice questions and prosaic answers.
Wouldn’t non-fiction as a priority also make it easier for the Gate$ Foundation to substitute not just “scripts” but “Technology” for truth-telling teachers who’ve read the Pedagogy of the Oppressed?
Diana,
Reading your comment makes me wonder why one person–David Coleman–has so much power to determine what teachers should and should not do in a given situation or over the course of a year. It is extraordinary to think that Coleman must clarify his views or change his mind so that teachers across America might be able to do something different.
When I visited Finland last year, one thing that impressed me was the degree of autonomy that teachers have, the extent to which teachers in each school remade curriculum to make it right for them and their students. There is a national curriculum but it is non-prescriptive and broad. The detail of Common Core is very troubling.
Diane
Diane,
I agree with you, with just one caveat. I see problems with decentralized curricula as well. Why? Because woe to you if you’re in a school that lacks an intellectual backbone and just sweeps up fad after fad. You yearn for some sort of common curriculum just so that you will be officially ALLOWED to teach literature. This is nothing to take for granted.
If you’re in a school that has a strong curriculum and welcomes teachers to influence and develop it, then school autonomy is wonderful.
So how to help ensure that more schools have this intellectual backbone, this tradition of curriculum?
I thought, at first, that the Common Core would help with this, by pointing in the direction of a strong curriculum and then leaving it to teachers to take it from there. I was overly optimistic. Big reforms don’t work that way–at least it’s rare.
Many would disagree with me, but I would much rather have a small core set of works that all students would read–just a few works–and autonomy from there. That would build common knowledge but allow for many approaches to that knowledge. But even then, those who shaped such a thing probably wouldn’t know when to step back. In stepping back, you recognize that you can’t control the results. You have to be willing to let things take directions other than what you intended.
In any case, a small core set of works is not what we have. We have a set of standards (focusing on skills) that are now encroaching on pedagogy and curriculum. I agree with others that this has gone too far.
Diana,
I understand your concerns about not having some federal curricular standards. . But I suspect that “informational texts” may well prove faddish in a few years, like the famous “text to self” strategies which were once pushed, and now rejected by ed reformers. Will “informational texts,” go the way of double entry journals? That’s quite possible.
It strikes me as profoundly undemocratic to allow one man, or even a committee to determine the nation-wide curricula. The idea that only a select elite with suspicious ties to Michelle Rhee is more desirable than a group of experienced teachers? I’m with going with the Finnish model of empowering educational professionals, because I have yet to see, in my 11 years of teaching, that the ed reformers tend to do a better job.
Inverness, I agree wholeheartedly that “informational text” could become faddish. It already has.
An individual can do a great deal of good. Sometimes one mind is better than a group mind. But that one person has to know when to stop, leave decisions to others, and relinquish control over the results.
The “results” mania in education is contributing to the problem–there’s little patience for the essential process of figuring things out, taking risks, determining the best proportions from situation to situation, and so on.
By the way, I enjoy your comments greatly.
One reason for this misguided push toward “informational text” is that people are noticing that students can’t read well enough to read their textbooks, so they think, Ah, let’s just teach them to read non-fiction! They think this will be easy because they labor under the misconception that reading is a set of discrete “skills” to be taught rather than a holistic activity to be practiced and enjoyed. Coleman clearly thinks this; he calls publishers of books that children might enjoy reading “providers of such tools for children” and then condemns pleasure reading because kids aren’t good enough at it.
EC
lornebucci@gmail.com
I am going to try to lay out the sound and unsound aspects of the push for “informational text.” Right now the unsound aspect predominates, and many are understandably concerned that it will get worse still.
The sound part is the idea that students should be able to identify, analyze, and respond to what a text (informational or otherwise) actually says. If they don’t know what it says, then they are responding not to the text, but to their preconception of the text. Coleman advocates strongly for the practice of setting aside distractions, reading the text (all of it, carefully) and determining what’s there–as a starting point, a bare minimum. In that respect I agree with him and know that many other educators do too.
Now, it’s harder to find sanity in the prescribed fiction/nonfiction ratio, but there is a tiny element. In many schools, students don’t do a whole lot of reading outside of English class, and in English class they read primarily novels. Minimal reading for history (or social studies) in the elementary and middle grades; minimal reading for science. Arguably, students should read across the subjects. English class would still focus on literature and literary nonfiction, but by grade 12, literary texts would count for about a third of the students’ total reading (I have not seen the 25% figure; the standards themselves say 30%). That sounds fine, if you have a full curriculum and take these figures loosely.
That’s the sound part. Now here’s where things get unsound. First, the very term “informational text” is a misnomer. Much of nonfiction is not purely informational; much of fiction contains a great deal of information. Also, poetry is its own entity.
Second, Coleman has at various times said that teachers should not engage in pre-reading activities or give students background information that could distract from their interpretation of the text. So he is implicitly favoring a sort of text that can be read strictly literally–or, worse, treating complex and allusive texts as though they can be read strictly literally. This is limiting–and, in the ears of many educators, deadening.
Yes, students should learn to read carefully and identify what’s there. But “what’s there” is often densely layered. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is filled with philosophical, historical, and theological references. There’s a passage where he quotes Paul Tillich’s sermon “You Are Accepted” and Martin Buber’s book I and Thou. To understand his meaning, one must also understand something of these works.
So teachers must use judgment in combining close reaing with examination of allusions, etymology, historical context, and more. In other words, teaching requres fine judgments; there is no final, perfect way to do it. Coleman goes too far in telling teachers how to teach, instead of acknowledging the richness and intricacy of teaching.
Now for the ratios. I have no problem with the idea that students should read across the subjects, within reason. (Should they be reading “about” mathematics on a daily basis? There are many interesting writings about the history of mathematics–but students’ primary duty is to learn the math.) But there is no reason to put this in terms of ratios. None. Zero. Give each subject its honor. Instead, we’re hearing a drumbeat for more and more “informational text” and many mixed messages about the required ratio. The standards themselves say that the ratio applies to the curriculum as a whole–but English teachers are hearing, over and over, that they’re supposed to include MUCH more informational text in their curriculum.
Coleman should consider all of this, keep the sound parts, and reject the unsound parts publicly and clearly.
Diane,
I didn’t mean to post a near-duplicate of my original comment. This one has a few minor changes, but by the time I posted it, you had already approved and responded to the first. Could you delete this one and keep the original one? I just don’t want to clutter things up here. Sorry about that, and thanks.
From a writer who Mr. Coleman has had 75% removed from high school:
“…A good writer is the watch-dog of society. His job is to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices, to stigmatize its faults. And this is the reason that in America neither society or government is very fond of writers.”
~ John Steinbeck
Diane,
I so enjoy reading your blog every day. Thank you for the sanity.
As for Mr. Coleman’s comments regarding K-5. I am sure he is aware that science and history were indeed hard to cover once 90-minute blocking for ELA and Math was mandated. Science also had to be taught as exploratory, hands-on. Textbooks were not allowed. Social Studies text left a lot to be desired. Some major historical events received about a paragraph of information. The teach-to-the-test mania left very little time for the Arts, PE and yes, history.
Teachers were told to incorporate history and science into our literacy programs. Which we did, but I found it necessary to rely on historical fiction to make up for the void in the texts. Then NYS got the bright idea to teach 4th-grade American History based solely on NYS’s history. I pitied to poor student who transferred to another state.
Honestly, I taught more 25 years ago than I did before I retired. There was not only room for all subjects, but my students got one period of “free time” every Friday afternoon. And, my students learned not only the material, but how to think for themselves. And school was fun! I was also able to review basic math concepts every September before embarking on the new curriculum. Now the new curriculum must begin on the first day of school leaving very little time for review or getting basic routines and classroom management in place. Gone are the days of launching the writing workshop. Students must now hand in a completed “memoir” by the end of September. Not a “narrative” which most teachers handed in, but a “memoir” which is a whole other style of writing and not suited for September. But that’s how the writing portfolio was created. It also made it hard to have conferences, edit and revise since September is a short month due to the Jewish holidays. The DoE motto is, “If it doesn’t make sense, it must be right”.
Mr. Coleman also knows that history texts are being “revised” based on a state’s particular political and social leanings. So much so that historical facts are either omitted or rewritten No wonder the Conservatives are now against using Common Core.
What I do like about Common Core is that subjects are taught a mile deep instead of a mile wide. I always objected to the majority of concepts that are taught each and every year and never really internalized.
But the real problem is that teachers are not allowed to be part of this discourse. Nor are we allowed to suggest the best ways to implement these programs. And that’s wrong!!
Dear Diane,
I responded on your other blog post about the vibrant role of fiction in the standards. I accept your warning that my comments are being taken otherwise, and will do my best to be very clear in public and private going forward. I do regret that I did not correct the person who made the remark about reading novels and work, but it is a little strange to claim that i dislike fiction based on something someone else said. But again, i should have objected and i accept that criticism from you and others that have written.
Of course, much more important than my personal likes and dislikes are what the standards themselves say. You have asked me to be clear, so please let me be very clear on 3 essential facts:
1) The 70/30 balance in grades 6-12 does not mean that students read mostly non-fiction in ELA classrooms. It applies to all student reading and explicitly includes the reading of content rich non-fiction in history, social studies, science and technical subjects. The majority of 6-12 ELA remains devoted to literature with some room for literary non-fiction.
2) The standards require the careful study of poems, novels, and drama in K-12. Such things as the study of Shakespeare is required, American literature and wonderful aspects of poetry. Let there please be no misunderstanding that literature in these standards does not remain a central part of student and teacher work.
3) Of course, the published standards are based on the work of the states who worked on them as well as teachers (not my own likes and dislikes). For example, the literature standards are much indebted to Massachusetts. The NEA and AFT both had working teams of teachers who reviewed and shaped the standards repeatedly in their development; there is an article in the AFT monthly about the specific impact of teacher comments on the standards.
These three facts are important and I appreciate your concern that they be clarified.
Thanks,
David
David,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. As you can see from the many other comments, there is a widespread perception among teachers that the Common Core standards show preference for informational text over literary works. Some have said that the new textbooks claiming to be aligned with CC reflect this judgment. I hope you will use your considerable influence and public platform to counter this misperception.
As for the reports from the Columbia Journalism workshop, they pertained to your presentation in particular, not just to the unfortunate remark of your colleague. Again, I hope you will exert your influence to change the widely held view that you now clearly disown.
I consider it of equal, perhaps greater, importance that you make public your rationale for serving as treasurer of Michelle Rhee’s Students First. I note that her board consists of you and two of your firm’s associates. Many teachers oppose her campaign to reduce their status, impose evaluation by test scores, and promote privatization of public education, as well as her funding of candidates who are hostile to teachers. One assumes that you did not lightly agree to join the small board of this very controversial organization. For many people, including me, this alliance raises more questions than what the Common Core standards say about literature.
Diane
Mr. Coleman’s response in number 1 is close to what I have been hearing from various officials in Iowa. As a member of the NEA, I appreciate that the NEA and AFT were involved in the formation of the standards; however, without the active involvement of the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association, the ELA standards lack credibility and reliability.
David Coleman points out that the requirement of 70% Non-fiction in grades 6-12 applies to reading “in history, social studies, science and technical subjects” and does not mean that students read mostly non-fiction in English class. In fact, “The majority of 6-12 ELA remains devoted to literature with some room for literary non-fiction.”
Note: This was stated in the ELA Common Core Standards document: eg. page 5 footnote 1 – “The percentages on the table reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.”
The ratios, whether applied language arts class only or to all subjects, might be a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Some of the benefits of fiction
It is not clear that including less fiction in school will help in developing the ability to understand complex informational text. In fact, the opposite might be true.
I have argued that extensive fiction reading provides the linguistic competence and subject matter knowledge that helps make academic texts more comprehensible (Krashen, S. 2012. Developing academic language: Some hypotheses. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 7 (2):8-15, 2012. Available at http://www.ijflt.com).
For evidence that fiction reading results in subject matter knowledge, see: Krashen, S. Those who read more (fiction) know more. http://tinyurl.com/6m9jgkq
For the lack of evidence that reading informational text results in better reading comprehension than reading fiction, see: http://tinyurl.com/865w5o6
Is there a problem?
Has it been demonstrated that there is a national problem in comprehension of informational texts caused by failure to insist on more non-fiction reading? As has been pointed out many times, middle class American students who attend well-funded schools score at the top of the world on international tests of reading comprehension. The real national problem is lack of access to books for students who live in poverty (Krashen, 2004. The Power of Reading).
Indeed what is the problem that relates to this solution? The only thing I can imagine is the demands of procedural reading found in job-training and work environments. However, are these complex demands? I do not think so. Strong literacy skills are required and obviously access to lots of reading material.
Whatever the common core standards may say, the application of those standards seems to be drifting toward a preference for procedural texts…widespread and rapidly.
Coleman sounds like a sensible man and his response even makes sense. Therefore it must have been a different David Coleman whose ‘Common Core’ presenters introduced teachers with the idea of less literature and more “informational text” – does my Ikea DIY manual is “informational text” as well?. Either Coleman doesn’t know what his representatives been telling teachers or he found a way to spin the truth for us. Not to mention the fact that he is part of Rhee’s cultural revolution gang does not support his credibility. But even if Coleman was the reincarnation of William Shakespeare himself we would still demand democracy. This term is becoming a dirty word and some of us might have forgotten its meaning but in essence it is the ability of people – real people not Pearson corporation kind of people – to decide for themselves what is good for their children and communities. This task can be given to professionals, educators, historians and writers – not business people – and eventually be decided by the people.
Aside from that, the method of testing is yet another despicable practice. Teaching literature, poetry, plays and theater, that express the most complex and beautiful ideas, only to be reduced to multiple choice standardize test. If you recall the ‘Pineapple’ debacle, you might remember the author of the short story admitted that he wouldn’t have known the answer regarding his own creation.
Back to Coleman, if one looks at his response, one can identify a corporate maneuver. He never takes responsibility for the program he runs and again refers us to a set of standards that can not be questioned or evaluate but are all given and have to be followed. He is merely Moses on the mountain who delivers it to us from above.
Yet the Coleman who wrote in this blog should attend the other Coleman’s Common Core presentation and he might get vary angry, especially when he would be told about potentially reducing percentage of literature far beyond the 70/30.
Coleman’s argument for the shift towards informational texts raises concerns. Informational texts should be viewed as only 1 source, and consideration for the development of that source should always be taken into account. Training students to answer questions utilizing only the informational text presented and ignoring what they know, or questioning the validity of the the text will create a society of non-thinkers.Reading rich literature creates thinkers. We need more thinkers not note takers.
The knowledge gained, of the great human experience, through reading should far outweigh the need to answer a questioned correctly to fulfill some ill designed rubric developed from the Common Core.
Think about it. If we as a society relied mainly on informational texts, we would still be calling Native Americans Indians.
I can’t help but see a link between common core’s shift towards informational texts, and the battle over textbooks last year influenced by Evangelicals in Texas. The dangers of Common Core standards could be unfathomable.
The Creative Class will become extinct, and we’ll look back and wonder how it happened. Unfortunately our informational texts most likely won’t help us figure that one out either.
The appointment/hiring of David Coleman as head of ETS is yet another nail in the coffin for the Common Core being anything but a corporate product foisted on the nation by people who know nothing about teaching, kids, or the various disciplines. This is about greed, profit, and the further destruction of one of our key democratic institutions: public education.
Anyone who foolishly believed that the Common Core was a legitimate attempt to increase equity and fairness should feel like s/he’s been slapped in the face by this self-aggrandizing and utterly predictable career move: who better suited to help ETS reap the benefits of an agenda it already had in place than one of the designers of the Common Core? One might almost think that the reward was offered before the work was done. . . oh, but that would be paranoid, wouldn’t it?
How do these people live with themselves? Well, obviously, quite well. Quite well indeed. The real question becomes, then: how do we let them rule our lives?
David Coleman makes false claims about the major influence on Common Core’s literature and reading standards (e.g., “the literature standards are much indebted to Massachusetts”). Only in a perverse way could that statement be true. He misparaphrased and misplaced almost every literature standard he may have taken from the 2001 MA ELA Curriculum Framework.
I regularly showed during the spring and summer of 2010 the mismatch between what was in the MA standards and what was in CC’s ELA standards. In a series of White Papers (# 56, 61, 63. and 65), released by the Pioneer Institute in 2010, I provide a variety of systematic comparisons of the two sets of standards showing how inferior CC’s ELA standards were to the MA 2001 standards in ELA for both K-5 and 6-12, and to even its proposed revision of these standards.
I was told that Coleman and Sue Pimental had visited the MA Department of Education several times to consult with the staff there on the ELA standards. Never once did they ask to speak to me privately or publicly (by 2009-2010 I was on the Common Core Validation Committee and no longer at the MA DoE). Nor did they ever speak to the people who created the MA ELA standards (like Mark McQuillan, by then Commissioner of Education in Connecticut; William Rice, by then at the National Endowment of the Humanities; or James McDermott, an award-winning English teacher in Worcester) or to the people who worked on the entire MA ELA curriculum framework under my supervision at the MA DoE in 2001 (Holly Handlin, a former English teacher; and Janet Furey, a former reading teacher—both still in MA).
Given how CC’s ELA standards turned out, it is a mystery what Coleman and Pimentel learned from their visits to the MA DoE in 2009-2010. It is not possible to claim with a straight face that Common Core’s K-5 or 6-12 reading and literature standards were modeled on the MA standards. Sandra Stotsky
Ms. Slotsky,
Thank you so much for this illuminating response — I’m getting a much clearer picture of how problematic the process of putting together the CC standards were.
Educators, please stop. Coleman is not the problem, standardized testing and the common core are. The former is discriminatory, the latter is teaching by script. Coleman, as the new president of the College Board, can’t last if we Put an End to Standardized Testing (PEST). And his involvement in the Common Core can be dismissed if we stop our states from adopting them and hiring PAARC to create standardized tests to measure students’ knowledge of them. What all this will end up doing is giving teachers a guide from which to read so that they expose students to the common core. Students will then be tested by PAARC tests and will not do well. Teachers will then receive unsatisfactory ratings because their students did not do well. All in the name of reform! We must form one alliance with some one organization and push to stop both the Common Core and PEST. If we do this, David Coleman will be a memory.
This post is based on a fundamental misreading of the Common Core Standards. They call for 70% of twelfth graders’ reading ACROSS ALL SUBJECTS to be informational text. NOT 70% of what is read in English class. They are very explicit about this:
“Fulfilling the Standards for 6–12 ELA requires much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary nonfiction—than has been traditional. Because the ELA classroom must focus on literature (stories, drama, and poetry) as well as literary nonfiction, a great deal of informational reading in grades 6–12 must take place in other classes if the NAEP assessment framework is to be matched instructionally.”
There is even a footnote in case this isn’t clear enough: “The percentages on the table reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.”
This is all from page 5 of the standards, which can be found here:
Click to access CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf
Note that the Common Core standards that are typically referred to as “the ELA standards” don’t actually describe themselves that way, but rather as standards in “English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects.” The fundamental reason for the emphasis on non-fiction is that most college disciplines require students to read a great deal of non-fiction writing, and at present this is not something for which most high schools adequately prepare most students.
GS,
You are fundamentally misreading the standards because they do not actually require what they claim to require. You are being mislead by a false claim within the standards themselves. Which standard requires a certain amount of fiction or non-fiction?
None of them.
At first I thought this was just incoherent. But now I think I understand what you are trying to say. I believe that you are drawing a distinction between the individual numbered standards, and the Common Core State Standards document in its entirety. The document as a whole uses the phrase “the Standards” (with a capital ‘S’) as a shorthand title for the document itself. When it is talking about the individually numbered standards, it uses a lower-case ‘s’. If I had been adhering to that convention in my earlier post, I would have referred to “page 5 of the Standards”, rather than “page 5 of the standards”. Using this distinction, we can say that there is more to “the Standards” than just “the standards”. For instance, “the standards” don’t start until page 10 of “the Standards”.
I think it would be most precise to say that the Standards call for 70% of twelfth graders’ reading across all subjects to be informational text, but that the standards do not specifically address this question. The standards do, however, mandate that by the end of high school students be able to “read and comprehend complex … informational texts independently and proficiently” (Reading Anchor Standard 10). Other standards clarify that this includes “seventeenth- eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents” (RI.11-12.8), and introductory college-level (“high end of the grade 11-CCR text complexity band”) “history/social studies texts” (RH.11-12.10) and “science/technical texts” (RST.11-12.10). The Standards assert that in order to achieve these and other such standards by the end of high school, students need to read a good deal of content-rich non-fiction throughout their K-12 studies, and that by the end of high school, non-fiction should constitute about 70% of their school reading, with much of that occurring in social studies and science classes.
[…] Coleman’s knowledge or honesty. Diane Ravitch asked the question in an article, “Why Does David Coleman Dislike Fiction?”: . I have been told by several people who attended David Coleman’s lectures that he speaks […]
EC wrote: “One reason for this misguided push toward ‘informational text’ is that people are noticing that students can’t read well enough to read their textbooks, so they think, Ah, let’s just teach them to read non-fiction!”
Yes.
I think the most straightforward reading of the standards is that they are exactly what they claim to be — standards for college readiness (they aren’t really interested in careers though). The standards emphasize the reading skills you’ll need to get through your freshman courses intact, and probably would be pretty good for that specific purpose. Heck, they might make a fine foundation for a new SAT.
The problem is that the goals of education must be far broader than making sure you’ll be able to get through your freshman level college reading and writing assignments.
It’s easier to test nonfiction than fiction. That’s where everyone makes their money – not on writing standards but in testing them.