I just posted an article written by David Coleman and Susan Pimentel, explaining that the Common Core standards are not antagonistic to literature and fiction, and that they promote a higher quality of both fiction and nonfiction.
Within minutes, I received a post from Sandra Stotsky, expressing her vehement opposition to the Common Core standards. Stotsky was in charge of the development of the highly praised Massachusetts standards. The English standards in that state were especially strong on literature. Stotsky is still upset that Massachusetts replaced them with the Common Core.
Read them both. Then read the standards.
The problem is that, no matter what Coleman may say, publishers and districts believe the standards call for more informational text and less literature and fiction.
That is why the only way the sniping will end is if he makes a speech at a major conference or writes an opinion piece for the New York Times–or literally revises the standards–to remove those absurd and arbitrary percentage allocations and makes clear that the point is high-quality reading of both fiction and information. And explains why both are important for the development of educated people.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There’s another problem here. Stotsky is also a close ally of Mathematically Correct, NYC-HOLD, and the rest of the traditionalist math bloc that also generally supported Reading First, phonics-dominated literacy instruction, etc. Further, Stotsky, who has ZERO credentials to do so, served on the MATHEMATICS panel for Massachusetts, where she apparently made a knee-jerk negative comment about geometric constructions because she conflated them with “constructivism.” A close friend served on that panel with her and has nothing but contempt for her work on it.
That makes it intriguing to be on the same side of any educational issue as Stotsky. Indeed, there are a number of people from the above-mentioned groups who have been vocally critical about CCSS, particularly in mathematics. My reading is that they oppose not the idea of a common core, but rather a common core THEY didn’t get to write.
For me, there’s just too much about Stotsky I mistrust to directly ally myself with her in any fight. That said, a cursory look at her objections to the literacy standards strikes me at first blush as informed heavily by a belief in “the canon” a la E D Hirsch. If my sense is right, then we have simply the literary side of the objections her allies have to the math standards: they want THEIR ideas locked into them and, were they given that power, they’d be happy as clams.
My objections are to the very IDEA of Common Core “Standards” in this country. The nation could turn to me to write new math standards and my reaction would be to give up such folly and work on changing the classroom culture of mathematics teaching/learning through improved teacher recruitment, professional development, collegial support, working conditions, salaries, etc. (a la Finland), and stop getting so damned hung up on content, pacing, standardization, and books. I’d also strongly suggest that everyone teaching mathematics, planning to teach it, or involved in any way with its teaching read and be involved in serious professional conversations about Paul Lockhart’s A MATHEMATICIAN’S LAMENT. Of course, there’s much more that should be done, but little of it has to do with the things that Stotsky and her crowd lose sleep over regarding math. As a former English teacher, I suspect that she and I would not see eye-to-eye about a lot of the literacy standard issues, either, and that her political slant is what makes her impossible to consider as an ally.
Encore!
A big clue was Stotsky’s choice to post on the Heritage Foundation website. Generally, the GOP and Tea Partiers are against the Common Core because it’s federal. Of course, they like outsider influences on state policies when associated with ALEC…
Indeed, Cosmic, and that’s hardly a coincidence. Her political roots are entwined intimately with that crowd.
I heard from Stotsky also–asking why I assumed she’d support Common Core. I know, Diane, that you often praise the MCAS (Massachusetts tests, but I found them as constricting and foolish as most tests designed to rank and rate schools and children are. There was a lot of opposition to the historically strong town school boards who felt their role was usurped. Incidentally, on NAEP et all Mass. has always done very well on tests, and most measures of successful schooling..
The testimonials and rationale against the Common Core standards are piling up. It’s getting pretty deep out there. Diane, what will make the difference for you, what will be your tipping point?
I wait for evidence. What I worry about is that these rigorous standards will widen the gaps. That happened in Kentucky.
And isn’t that the intended purpose…then more schools to take over?
It’s not evidentiary, but my 14-year-old 9th grade son is in the “guinea pig” group for the roll-out of the Common Core for the next three years. He’s struggling in math even more than he already was. I pay for a tutor for him every day, but I still worry that he won’t pass math and graduate. He has a learning disability, but is not far behind enough to warrant resource.
I understand the need to wait for evidence. But by the time the evidence rolls around, it will be too late to get the train back on the track and rescue the many lives ruined, waiting for the gaps to narrow and watching in helpless horror as they widen.
CCSS as the answer to a failed education system is an untested hypothesis based on a faulty assumption.
Scientists test and wait for a result before drawing a conclusion and proposing a new path/drug/procedure.
Untested hypotheses put into practice are junk science. Poorly designed research based on faulty data is junk science – as in the use of VAM in evaluating teachers.
I understand research. I’ve done some. I taught for a long time, and I’ve seen what CCSS is doing in my old school.
I’m not waiting to call it a crock.
So one needed not wait for evidence. Any change is change is bad in and of itself or it will be implement badly. Education in the United States hit a peak in (insert date that you prefer here), and it has been going downhill ever since.
Yes, when rapid, poorly planned change is implemented by people who exhibit bad faith and self-dealing, then skepticism and resistance are reasonable.
In fact, under those conditions, resistance is demanded.
Won’t the common core standards be implemented by the local school districts and classroom teachers?
I worry about the pushed down curriculum in Kindergarten and Preschool, the elimination of play, the frequent testing and ranking of children at tender ages, and doing away with naptime for 3 and 4 year olds, because that takes away from instructional time –all of which I have already seen done in schools, with negative consequences. They might as well call this “college and career readiness” plan, virtually from the cradle, “No Child with a Childhood”.
Widening the gap could occur because the best students get a better education or because the worst students get a poorer education. I think those two outcomes are very different. Which will the common core create?
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
I finally made myself read Stotsky’s piece carefully. Here is the key paragraph, the one that tips her conservative agenda: “In fact, the history of the secondary English curriculum in 20th-century America suggests that the decline in readiness for college reading stems in large part from an increasingly incoherent, less challenging literature curriculum from the 1960s onward. This decline has been propelled by the fragmentation of the year-long English course into semester electives, the conversion of junior high schools into middle schools, and the assignment of easier, shorter, and contemporary texts—often in the name of multiculturalism.”
Ah, yes: “multiculturalism,” which, don’t you know, is what destroyed America in the last 60 years or so. That and middle schools. And anything else that differs from the way nice middle class suburban white folks c. 1960 were raised and educated.
This is the sort of thing Stotsky thinks about every aspect of education. I guarantee that if she were put in charge of the Common Core, you’d make her a VERY happy Stotsky. And she would, I am 100% certain, NOT put Hemingway’s GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA on the list of recommended literary texts. Because, quite tongue in cheek, Hemingway presented it as non-fiction. Try reading it some time. Some of us think it’s the best thing he published, and one of the greatest masterpieces of American literature in the 20th century. But it’s, ahem, “literary non-fiction.” Of course, what’s really wrong with it is that Sandy Stotksy isn’t a good enough reader to recognize something as brilliant unless E.D. Hirsch says so (or some equivalent “expert”). So even a white male like Hemingway will get short-changed by traditionalists.
It’s because we need a much more diverse SET of reading lists than were common in the ’50s and ’60s that multiculturalism arose. There’s no narrow canon, despite Stotsky and Hirsch. There’s so much worth reading, worth viewing, worth struggling with and discussing, that it scares the bejeezus out of them. Because what if there’s great literature being written on the Internet by writers they don’t know about, and they have to stand in front of a classroom and get asked about all these amazing genres popping up daily? And they have to admit to their students that they’ve not the foggiest notion of any of this work? Far better (for them, of course), to present a narrow, traditional list that they learned back in their youths; dismiss anything new as “trash,” put down every kid in class who might have found something on-line or through other sources, sneer at literature from people of color, from non-Brits and non-Americans. That’s why Stotsky doesn’t approve the Common Core: not because she wants a better, broader list of books, but a narrower one that SHE controls. And I say, the hell with that.
While you initially made some good points in your initial post, your own bias and assumptions make this post a rant. It was not only foolish, but ignorant and short sighted of Stotsky to criticize multicultural literature. However, multicultural literature has come a long way since the 60’s and 70’s. In fact some multicultural literature of the 60’s and 70’s had colonial tendencies and were not always well written. I do not know from her statement if that was her point or if she truly believes multicultural literature is not good literature. Today’s multicultural literature is bountiful, well written, and more authentic then in prior years. I say this without making aspersions on prior multicultural literature.
I hope you’re not claiming to be “agenda-free” yourself. Your post is a complete rant against anything traditional. The truth: PARENTS and LOCALS need to control the education of their own kids. Not YOU, or any other individual.
Drs. Stotsky and Milgram both got left off the Common Core Validation Report as if they had never existed on the Committee. Regardless of whether people like yourself disagree with their “take” on education and standards, their existence on the committee — and their subsequent dissent, and refusal to validate the standards — should have been part of the report. Instead, their names were expunged from the record. Not moral, not right, definitely an agenda.
As for what passes as great literature, this will always be determined by the reader. Obviously, kids are free to go to the library and select whatever book they want, whether it’s the “Goosebumps” series, “The Babysitter’s Club” series, “The Hunger Games,” Anais Nin, or ANYTHING ELSE. The schools have an obligation to teach what students are NOT likely to pick up on their own. What is wrong with acknowledging that certain works are masterpieces that increase our cultural literacy, frame of reference, schema, archetypes, and themes common to all mankind? It’s called a SHARED CULTURE. This is NOT to say that non-traditional great works aren’t out there, but be fair: a teacher can only do so many novels in one year. Can you not agree that there are works with which everyone needs to have some degree of familiarity? And please, drop this business about “people of color.” It’s getting old. There are magnificent and talented people of color in every field of study imaginable. Every white person who is worth anything already knows this.
Literature versus nonfiction is a false choice. Leave literature in the English Department and give more nonfiction to students in History classes. Common Core people apparently forgot that there are History classes in our schools.
Excellent point!
Literature and Nonfiction: Common-Core Advocates Strike Back…
Standards advocates step up to counter weeks of accusations that the common core will weaken the role of literature in the classroom….
I am a newly licensed language arts teacher (changing professions in middle age) and I have never considered myself a conservative, but after a year and a half in a graduate education program and having young kids in school, I sympathize with some of their views. When Stotsky says “In fact, the history of the secondary English curriculum in 20th-century America suggests that the decline in readiness for college reading stems in large part from an increasingly incoherent, less challenging literature curriculum from the 1960s onward, I agree wholeheartedly. They read the Hunger Games in the middle schools here in Eugene, OR. The Common Core Standards in language arts are so vague to me to be completely meaningless. They are exactly the same for 6-12th grade. We moved to Eugene to send our kids to what we thought were exceptional public schools. We couldn’t have been more wrong. They have kids composting, beekeeping, and harp endlessly about sustainability all the while removing anything resembling academics. It is all project-based learning and kindergarten teachers are tenured (and kindergarten is 2.5 hrs a day with huge classes).This is in an affluent neighborhood where many of the kids’ parents are professors at the U of Oregon. I am convinced this system can not be saved. There is no possibility of reform, and if there were reform, who would call the shots? With my constant research, I have determined that I want my kids to have a classical education. Anyone know where I should turn on the west coast? I was going to try and start a charter school, but the school board in my district will never approve one.
I know this is an old post, but in doing some research on Sandra Stotsky I returned here. The argument for both fiction and informational texts in ELA is bogus. Both Social Studies and Science have ample room for students to be digesting “informational texts”. There is no need for more informational texts in ELA unless you want more opportunity to indoctrinate students to a particular kind of “information”.