Recently I published a comment by Jamie Gass of the Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts explaining his opposition to the Common Core State Standards. I thought it was interesting as it showed the conservative argument against the Common Core.
The comment was originally part of an email exchange between Jamie Gass and Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute, a New York City-based conservative think tank. Sol is an old friend of mine, who has been writing about education and politics for many years. Sol contacted me to say that I should have printed the entire exchange, not just Jamie’s response to him.
So, I am rectifying the situation by first giving you a link to an article by Sol Stern about E.D. Hirsch and the Core Knowledge curriculum. It was just published online at the City Journal website, which belongs to the Manhattan Institute. Sol argues that the Hirsch curriculum will align well with the Common Core standards and should bring renewed attention to the Core Knowledge curriculum.
When Sol sent the article to several friends, including me, Jamie Gass responded. Jamie is very disappointed that Massachusetts was compelled to drop its highly regarded state standards and to replace them with the Common Core standards.
Sol asked me to republish the entire correspondence so that readers can understand the discussion.
So, here is the drill if you want to read on.
First, read Sol’s article. Then read the correspondence, starting from the bottom. The only thing I changed is that I removed the email addresses of those who received a copy, as there was no reason to publish them.
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Please start reading at the bottom
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Hi Sol:
As PI’s independent research has shown, the CCSSI standards are far lower than what the best states previously had; none of the major CCSSI proponents have improved student achievement anywhere in the last 25 years; and federal support for national standards, testing, and curriculum is, in fact, illegal and unconstitutional.
As John Adam said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Best,
Jamie
From: Sol Stern [mailto:sstern9447@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:48 PM
To: Jamie Gass
Cc:
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:48 PM
To: Jamie Gass
Cc:
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
We are obviously beyond any reasonable debate on this, since you insist — without a shred of evidence — that those who disagree with you are just shills who are in it for the money. That’s a pretty low standard of discourse for a movement supposedly concerned with improving education.
My final and last word: I think the “sad and disgraceful chapter in the history of education public education” is the federal government forcing school districts to use a discredited and unscientific method of evaluating teachers — and I don’t see Pioneer or any of the “reform” groups pushing back against this looming disaster.
given the mediocre records of its major advocates, I see nothing in CCSSI that will reverse this trend towards decline, or any evidence that CCSSI’s one-stop-shopping-for-lower-standards won’t, in fact, dramatically accelerate a race to the middle.
Best,
Sol
From: sstern9447@aol.com
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 6:16 PM
To: Jamie Gass;
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 6:16 PM
To: Jamie Gass;
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
Sorry Jamie, CCSSI didn’t ruin MA standards or programs. Your governor and legislature did and your job at Pioneer should have been to convince the state to reject Race to the Top, stick to the 1993 reforms and make them even stronger by implementing a Core Knowledge K-12 curriculum. And if Will is right about CCSSI violating all those laws it should be a snap for you to hire some good lawyers and go into federal court to throw out Common Core. Please, make my day.
—–Original Message—–
From: Jamie Gass <jgass@pioneerinstitute.org>
To: sstern9447 <sstern9447@aol.com>;
Sent: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 5:37 pm
Subject: RE: Hirsch and the Common Core
From: Jamie Gass <jgass@pioneerinstitute.org>
To: sstern9447 <sstern9447@aol.com>;
Sent: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 5:37 pm
Subject: RE: Hirsch and the Common Core
Thanks, Sol. I always like reading your pieces.
People can also read the attached (embargoed) Pioneer piece on MA and CCSSI, which appears in the current issue of City Journal.Our article explains how the CCSSIers helped ruin the most successful, proven academic standards/ed reform effort of the last half century. Interestingly, I can’t find one CCSSIer, or Gates-funded advocate, who has actually improved student achievement more than a tiny bit anywhere in the last 20 years. Ahem, think — Fordham, Ohio, and NAEP results J
I’d also encourage everyone to read George Will’s March column on how CCSSI violates three federal laws. Will’s column, of course, implicitly shows how the CCSSIers offer a terrific anti-civics lesson for America’s 50 million schoolchildren.
Best,
Jamie
Those pesky things called laws
By George F. Will, Saturday, March 10
Two policies of the Obama administration illustrate an axiom: As government expands, its lawfulness contracts. Consider the administration’s desire to continue funding UNESCO and to develop a national curriculum for primary and secondary education.
In 1994, Congress stipulated that no U.S. funds shall go to “any affiliated organization” of the United Nations that “grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.”
Last October, UNESCO (the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)voted to confer membership on Palestine. Although there are waiver provisions in most laws restricting executive discretion in foreign relations, the 107 national delegations that voted to extend membership to Palestine were told there is no such provision in the pertinent law.
The United States immediately cut off funding, which is 22 percent of UNESCO’s budget. But President Obama’s 2013 budget seeks $78,968,000 for UNESCO and says: “The Department of State intends to work with Congress to seek legislation that would provide authority to waive restrictions on paying the U.S. assessed contributions to UNESCO.”
The administration regards the 18-year-old statute as an evanescent inconvenience — that Congress will obediently tug its forelock and grant a waiver provision enabling the executive branch to slip the leash of law.
Meanwhile, the Education Department is pretending that three laws do not mean what they clearly say.
This is documented in the Pioneer Institute’s report “The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers” by Robert S. Eitel, Kent D. Talbert and Williamson M. Evers, all former senior officials in the Education Department.
The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) — No Child Left Behind is its ninth iteration — intruded the federal government into this traditionally state and local responsibility. It said that “nothing in this act” shall authorize any federal official to “mandate, direct, or control” a state’s, local educational agency’s or school’s curriculum.
The General Education Provisions Act of 1970, which supposedly controls federal education programs, stipulates that “no provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize” any federal agency or official “to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction” or selection of “instructional materials” by “any educational institution or school system.”
The 1979 law establishing the Education Department forbids it from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” or “program of instruction” of any school or school system. The ESEA as amended goes further: No funds provided to the Education Department “may be used . . . to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in” kindergarten through 12th grade.
However . . .
What authors Eitel, Talbert and Evers call the Education Department’s “incremental march down the road to a national curriculum” begins with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS). It is an initiative not of any state legislature but of a governors association, state school officials and private foundations.
This push advanced when the Race to the Top Fund (RTTT, part of the 2009 stimulus) said that peer reviewers of applications for money should favor those states that join a majority of states in developing and adopting common standards. The 11 states and the District of Columbia that won Race to the Top funding had adopted or indicated an intention to adopt the CCSS, which will require changes in curricula.
An Education Department synopsis of discussions with members of the public about priorities in competition for RTTT money says “the goal of common K-12 standards is to replace the existing patchwork of state standards.” Progressives celebrate diversity in everything but thought.
The Obama administration is granting conditional waivers to states chafing under No Child Left Behind’s unrealistic accountability requirements. The waivers are contingent on each state adopting certain standards “that are common to a significant number of states,” or the state may adopt standards endorsed by its institutions of higher education — if those standards are consistent with the Education Department’s guidelines.
We have been warned. Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, noted that “in its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas.”
Here again laws are cobwebs. As government becomes bigger, it becomes more lawless. As the regulatory state’s micromanagement of society metastasizes, inconvenient laws are construed — by those the laws are supposed to restrain — as porous and permissive, enabling the executive branch to render them nullities.
Jamie Gass
From: sstern9447@aol.com [mailto:sstern9447@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 12:03 PMSubject: Hirsch and the Common Core
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 12:03 PMSubject: Hirsch and the Common Core
My article on Don Hirsch and the Common Core in the new City Journal. Please do not link on line till it appears on the CJ website
Diane Ravitch's blog 
CCSS is another national social experiment which may become more devastating than NCLB. Ignoring differentiation is it’s biggest flaw. Our country thrives on our differences and CCSS wants us all to think and problem solve the same way.
And if I understand it correctly, they have no provisions or ideas about what to do with ELL and sped. For example: is an 8th grade sped student who decodes and comprehends on a 4th grade level supposed to achieve the 8th grade standards?
And they thought there was an achievement gap before?
At this point, I’m more concerned by the agenda than the standards. The Fordham Institute’s interactive state map rates my state, Georgia, an A- in Math and a B+ in ELA:
http://208.106.213.194/index.cfm/news_the-state-of-state-standards-and-the-common-core-in-2010
And then there’s Massachusetts.
Surely any state with moderately high scores could tweak its own standards rather than risk federal intrusion and the constitutional slippery slope as describe by George Will. But I know, the money’s quite a carrot.
Here is the question that has been nagging me: When the Common Core standards have been piled on top of RTTT PUBLIC schools, where do the CC standards and their proponents land when all public schools collapse under the weight leaving in their place the low/no standards-unaccountable-for-profit private charters/cyber schools that are popping up like mushrooms. Will these “schools” then be run out of town (having served their purpose) chased by angry parents filing lawsuits and demanding their government do something about it? I have no idea what state department of eds will look like if and when this happens, so to whom will parents and other taxpayers turn?
Oh! I think I get it….
This discussion reminded me of a debate on national standards at Michigan State University in the spring of 2009 between William Schmidt and Yong Zhao, both professors in the College of Education (Zhao is now at the University of Oregon I believe). They are both very knowledgeable and have opposing views on the subject. The friendly debate was fascinating.Both made excellent points and I left with a lot to think about but no clear idea of what position to take. It would be great if those two would repeat the exercise now, and in a more accessible forum.
I’m afraid I’m confused by what we mean when we say state standards are “good” or “excellent.” My state, California, allegedly has quite excellent standards. The school district emphasizes, continuously, how we “meet” them, though I’m not sure what that means either, other than that a lot of boxes are checked off. District officials also point to the high test score profile that our “teaching the standards” generates.
Yet in the elementary school my son attends, the students do little, in my observation, other than read seemingly-random, unrelated language arts passages; answer comprehension questions and fill out worksheets that are typically multiple choice /fill in the blank; and do multiple choice math problems. Writing is an occasional thing — at least until 4th grade, when they start five-paragraph essay drills, in anticipation of the state writing test. Meanwhile, social studies gets one hour per week. Science gets one hour per week. I have never seen any materials come home from either of these subjects (though we have a science fair to celebrate all the science the kids don’t do in school). The arts – art, music, and drama, with one taught each trimester – also get, yes, a solid hour per week.
Just what is so excellent about this? Suppose the common core standards are even more excellent that California’s existing ones. Wouldn’t I be a mark to believe that they’ll change everything — at the very least until we know what the nature and scope of the tests will look like?
Articles such as the one in City Journal can cause one to weep. Schools up to and during WWII when a lot of the destructive agenda was set aside temporarily, functioned just fine within the built in existence of common understanding of what content was necessary and taught didactically by classroom teacher, text books, etc. Then change agends went into high gear to deliberately destroy all that and were able to spread the the distorting what schools were all about. With advent of ESEA which began the flow of Federal money to accomplish the dumbing down through regional centers, etc.etc.
It was methodology which hastened the process with “inquiry” being the model in which students were to be facilitated to arrive at self discovered knowledge and their own conclusions including values independent of their parental values. Teachers assumed the role of facilitators as students were expected to reinvent the wheel one by one. Even the classroom physical arrangements were changed to reflect the underlying philosophy which was Humanism in action. Out with the idea of authority figure of teacher in front of a classroom with orderly seating arrangement. In with wandering teacher among grouped tables or circle seating (often on the floor) which is necessry for the physical reinforcement of goup dynamids in which everyone’s
ideas or lack of informed knowledge is equal to everyone elses. A lot of ignorance sharing was the order of the day. Along with all that came the self esteem movement where every student was led to believe he/she was a mental giant in and of himself. Sensitivity training became psychological exercises in classrooms led by teachers who only wanted to teach… not be resident psychologists.
It was very successful, so when I hear people say that schools have failed, I say NOT SO. The change agents have succeeded beyone their wildest expectations of those who wanted to deconstruct the schools. Not only the schools, but the governance of education with PPBS which was used to accomplish it and distort the public’s ability to intervene. But now that the destroyed system is obvious to all, along come many of the same destroyers, who are claiming to be trying to resurrect what was lost, but there is a
different foundation on which to they are doing it…Federal Mandated Foundation with global corporate interests calling the shots as unelected planners and progarmmers.
It is a grievous thing to have seen it all transpire in one lifetime, and the general public never catching on. Those obsevers such as this writer must tread the fine line between giving the impression that we want to preserve the progressive status quo scenario we fought for half a century, and which a lot of teachers who know nothing else want to continue, while we oppose the “refreezing of the system” (RAND term) which has nothing to do with returning to what the nation once enjoyed with her schools. Many teachers see their status changing and cling to the union for support while pointing fingers at the big bad corporate interests they believe (rightly so) are taking over their classrooms and endangering their unions and situations with another false idea of charter schools, vouchers, etc. With few exceptions the teachers who did see the big picture were marginalized and decided to go along to get along against their own best judgement or left the profession.
Everybody has an agenda to serve their currrent status or achieve their global ambitions,while saying they are doing what they do in the interests of the students. Nobody ever suggests peeling back what ruined schools during the half century of deconstruction to return to what made the education system of the nation the envy of the world.
And yes, there was something called “science” in those pre ESEA schools. Where do people think all the scientists came from who created the aerospace industry, and means to prevail in WWII and after?
Isn’t anyone in government at any level brave enough to start “peeling” the onion to begin to “right” the “capsized” ship?