This letter from Karen Nemeth came in response to a post by Nancy Carlsson-Paige about the detrimental impact of the Common Core Standards on the early years.
As an early childhood educator for more than 25 years and author of 5 books, including Many Languages, One Classroom and Basics of Supporting Dual Language Learners, and numerous articles on the subject, I would like to clear up some inaccuracies that have been posted here and contribute some accurate information that is called for by your topic.
The Core Curriculum State Standards were written for K-12. http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts Several states have chosen to adopt them and some have added their own guidance for preschool. The federal government has in no way established requirements for what must be taught in preschool. Standards do not equate to a curriculum. As I often tell my audiences, standards are like ingredients, but each classroom still needs its own recipe for how to use those ingredients. A curriculum is more like a recipe. Ten people might buy the same ingredients and make ten very different cakes. If you burn your cake or put more salt than sugar into it, it will not be successful – but you can’t blame the grocery store that sold you those ingredients. Anyone who has concerns about how the core curriculum standards are affecting preschool programs is going to have to look state by state by state, and program by program, and classroom by classroom to see how they are described, recommended and then implemented. I appreciate that Sheila and Anne took that approach here.
Aligning with the standards gives states, programs and teachers something to work toward without dictating how they have to get there. New Jersey is one state that put their own developmentally appropriate spin on the standards and has provided developmentally appropriate guidance for both preschool and kindergarten http://www.state.nj.us/education/ece/guide/
For another approach to establishing learning goals for preschool, I suggest that readers visit this site to learn more about the Office of Head Start’s School Readiness initiatives and supports: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/sr/approach/cdelf
While I agree with Nancy that early childhood educators need to be concerned about the overacademization of kindergarten and preschool classrooms, this concern has plagued us for many years and is not a new trend that appeared with the standards or RTTT. 25 years ago my first daughter started kindergarten, and when I saw the door directly onto the playground during my classroom visit, I asked how much time the children spent outdoors. The teacher told us they NEVER would go outside because their academic reading curriculum took up too much time. My mom, who was the most DAP preschool teacher I’ve ever known, also encountered pressure from parents to give her students more ‘homework’ in the 1970s.
I agree with Nancy that testing and assessment are issues of major concern in our field right now. That is a separate, and important, topic to discuss. I do believe it is possible to address the preschool skills and knowledge that lead up to what is expected in K and 1st in a hands-on, creative, project-based, child centered way. We just need to make sure we do what needs to be done to prepare preschool teachers AND the administrators who supervise and support them.
I do take exception to the odd addition of complaints about the National Association for the Education of Young Children included here by Nancy. As a member of the largest professional association for preschool educators in the country for more than 25 years, and as the daughter and mother of a member, and as a NAEYC author, speaker and volunteer, I want to make it clear that nearly 90,000 educators pay a membership fee to support this organization every year. A small handful of people who are not happy with the organization do not represent anything close to “much of that membership.” NAEYC did not write, promote, or implement the Core Curriculum State Standards and there really does not seem to be any value in complaining about one’s personal grievances in this context or of promoting an unrelated facebook page of a small local chapter. The fact is that NAEYC literally ‘wrote the book’ on developmentally appropriate practice for early childhood education and more information about that leadership can be found here: http://www.naeyc.org/DAP
Karen Nemeth
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The federal government has in no way established requirements for what must be taught in preschool. Standards do not equate to a curriculum. As I often tell my audiences, standards are like ingredients, but each classroom still needs its own recipe for how to use those ingredients. A curriculum is more like a recipe.”
This is a fine example of the detachment and misunderstanding of those who are no longer in the classroom but rather members of organizations facing “audiences” and who have little comprehension of the radical changes that have taken place in the day-to-day realities of teaching today.
Because the federal government has established no requirements states are interpreting those requirements themselves (with great support from profit-making publishers and political agenda-driven authors of the CCSS), based largely upon the in-place curriculum established under NCLB and Reading First. I have recently read several articles lamenting the fact that in many places the CCSS are being treated exactly as a curriculum by states and checklists are proliferating everywhere. The interpretations of the CCSS into state and district curriculums have little to do with best practices and teacher professional knowledge. While NJ may have created a model plan the proof of the metaphorical recipe is in the pudding produced by the local districts and school administrators as head chefs with ultimate control, not the teacher “cooks”.
From required formats for lesson plans that must be turned in and approved weekly by administrators to a constant barrage of memos and emails from district personnel highlighting the latest mandates, required assessments, and ever-changing expectations that will be monitored, checked off on a list during frequent inquisitor visits, and answered to through VAM, scrambling to meet the requirements of grants, local and state laws that change yearly, and federal guidelines that rival drug testing protocols, the effect and power of teachers to control the impact of CCSS is greatly constrained and a work of great risk and peril. Why won’t academics and professional organizations admit this obvious truth?
Limited, personal anecdotal experiences of freedom and power notwithstanding, this apologia and defense of the CCSS amazes me.
“I do believe it is possible to address the preschool skills and knowledge that lead up to what is expected in K and 1st in a hands-on, creative, project-based, child centered way. We just need to make sure we do what needs to be done to prepare preschool teachers AND the administrators who supervise and support them.”
The author apparently has little knowledge or experience of Title I schools in many states where the curriculum is (and has been for the last 11 years of NCLB) delivered from on high and compliance is mandatory and enforced with great vigor and rigor, as the reformers like to say. It is fascinating to see how the author uses her own anecdotal experiences to undermine and dismiss the experiences of real PreK and K teachers who have posted their heartrending experiences and cri de coeur here on this very blog as a a warning and condemnation of CCSS.
She chooses instead to address her colleagues in academia and professional organizations. “We know better and we are more qualified to speak on these issues” is the message I received, intended or not. We all were told for years that NCLB had great potential to fix the problems of poverty and education. We were told that Reading First was not an end to good reading instruction and that “good” teachers would be able to subversively resist the worst of the many foolish requirements. We were told that we should see all the reforms as “opportunities” to speak out professionally and have an impact. None of that was true then and it is not true now.
The professional organizations, the schools of education, and the pillars of academe largely left those of us who choose to stay in classrooms without aid or cause while they continued their academic exercises in self-promotion, profiteering, and self-aggrandizement. Diane has proven to be a great exception and I have great respect and trust in her. I’m afraid that I don’t automatically grant that respect and trust to those who list their credentials (I have credentials too — NBCT, BA in English, MA in English, MA in Teaching and Learning, two time recipient of district Teacher of the Year Award, member of IRA, NCTE, NCTM, etc., etc.) and then defend the indefensible while telling me that my experiences and interpretations are faulty and unwarranted while defending the status quo or claiming that teachers will be able to turn the sow’s ear of CCCS into silk purses.
Also, full disclosure: you did not highlight your involvement with the NAEYC in your bio or defense.
In the early 2000s the NAEYC’s handbook on develmentally appropriate practices for early childhood programs was indeed our “bible” on best practices. We followed the guidelines for successful PK classrooms. I taught special education inclusion PK in a public school. I later worked with a 0-3 early intervention program for several years, then worked at the district level in an ontervention program (RTI). Imagine my surprise last year when my program funding ended and I was hired to teach PK in a classroom again. No more best practices, lots of assessment checklists, some worksheets, etc. The play centers were there, but the focus was on these checklists of skills that teachers were expected to target and students expected to accomplish. Teachers warned me to expect severe behavior problems bc students are getting stressed out. Since ours is a high poverty school, the screening at begin of year show majority at least 1-2 years behind their peers before they even start school. What are we doing to these children? Best practices have been forgotten and replaced by prepping for a test. Pity the children who are subjected to this nonsense by policies created in WAshington by people who know nothing about education. I decided to take a different position rather than participate in the nonsense. I am now in a position where I can support struggling students. As an administrator I do my best to use what I know are best practices for children and expect my teachers to do the same. I hope one day I will be in a position to help put PK back on track, but for now my elementary students need me.
I think you have to have been in the trenches recently to know what it’s like in ECE today.
The last time I was there, as a mentor/coach of preschool teachers in public schools, I was required to administer standardized pre-test and post-test measures on 3 and 4 year olds, because the federal government wanted that data. This meant that, after I reported screaming babies (typically 3 year olds) had been untestable, I was repeatedly sent back to test them again. It was just horrific –and believe me, I tried to make it a playful game for them, but not all kids were buying it.
That was in a federal grant program. Now try to imagine how many more classrooms for 3 – 5 year olds will be required to implement testing regimes, due to federal, state and district “accountability” requirements. Whether the test scores of young children are wanted to obrain baselines and measure progress, to be used for VAM in determining the employment status of teachers, to fill a national database on students, or some other reason, I don’t think the best interests of children have been considered.
Since when did data trump children? Is no one accountable to the kids who are clearly telling us how stressful testing is for them?