In an earlier post, I complained about the arbitrary ratios embedded in the Common CoreStandards for fiction and “informational text.” I asked who would police whether Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones was teaching too much or too little fiction.
Please read this exchange.
A reader commented as follows:
“You ask at the end of your post – “Whose wisdom decided on 50-50 and 70-30? Who will police the classrooms? Where is the evidence that these ratios are better than some other ratio or none at all?”
“If you read the ELA CC Standards in the introduction it clearly states the source which is:
Source: National Assessment Governing Board. (2008). Reading framework for the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
“Here is the link to the Reading Framework from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress
“When you read this – you will notice the variety and depth of the educators that worked on this assessment and document.
“So Yes, Virginia – there is a place where the numbers come from:)”
I replied to this comment as follows:
“I was on the board of NAEP for seven years. Those proportions were created as a guideline for publishers constructing assessments, not for teachers.
“There is no valid reason in the wold to tell teachers that they must tailor what they teach to match a completely arbitrary ratio inserted into NAEP, with zero scientific validation, years ago.
“If kids are reading “informational text” in science, history, math, civics, and other subjects, their English teachers should be free to teach whatever they love, whether it is fiction or non-fiction.
“The ratios are nonsense. Utter and complete nonsense.
“I repeat: what administrator will have the stopwatch to police this travesty in all the classrooms?
What brave soul will call it what it is: nonsense.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As I sit here on Christmas Break, I’m thinking about all the material I was supposed to read regarding CCS. This included memos from the DOE, websites created by NYC and the DOE and whatever else someone decided to put together and throw at me. I’m stressed, I’m tired and I’m very confused. I have been teaching for 35 years and I have seen politicians, educational fads and “new and improved teaching techniques” come and go. I love what I do. I’m successful. I’m blessed to have worked with incredible colleagues and administrators through the years. I cannot say enough positive things about my school community including parents, volunteers and most of all my students. But I am weary of all that is happening with the CCS. Every week it seems a new standard is added and a new way of doing things is supposed to take place. Once I feel “I’ve got this” a whole new approach is thrown at me. It’s too, too much.
Lynda, you have hit on a recurring theme: turbulence. The problem with fads is that they reject past learning and experience; there is the notion that most of what was done before is irrelevant. We become reduced to technicians, not professionals who have honed our craft over years and years of training and practicing.
This leads to disillusionment and fatigue. Because if we weren’t doing things right before, why would now be different? After all of these magic bullets, why would the Common Core be the saving grace?
I don’t doubt there are some good ideas in the Common Core, that will inevitably get watered down by charlatan consultants and publishing companies who need to put together teaching guides, tests, and professional development. I also think the CC is somewhat misguided as well — but there’s no room for debate.
In the meantime, those of us in the classroom beyond a few years are left scratching our heads: we’ve been here before. We’ve been told to drop everything, and adapt to the new way, or else.
Professional educators develop a knowledge base, and their teaching is nuanced, not just captive to the latest philosophy. But these reforms lead to fear. Administrators repeat ratios like mantras (this is the result, however unintended), more books are purchased to adapt to the new philosophy, and teachers are told that they must change.
Administrators in New York end up using checklists to complete their observations, because their experience (assuming they have at least 10 years of experience, of course) isn’t trusted either.
How long will the Common Core be around? What are some trends that were introduced, and have been dumped? It could be fun to come up with a list.
The nonfiction/fiction ratio will be not an issue- until it becomes one. We teachers have a herculean task to perform. I estimate it would take me a good school year and a half to teach my curriculum well. All teachers know our job is impossible, but we continue to play this game with administrators because they label our frustrations as whining and we also assume something is wrong with us: everyone else seems to get it all done.
It is when we annoy our administrators or somehow get on their bad sides that this ratio as well as all the other mandates become important. A principal looking to fire someone doesn’t have to scratch too deeply to find a flaw in his or her teaching. Were all test scores submitted on time? Did the teacher take too long teaching a unit (despite the fact her kids needed the extra time)? Is the teacher teaching the CCSS with fidelity (a new and overused buzzword)? I have seen this happen several times in my own small school, which is why I prefer to stay anonymous.
Amen, Lehrer! All of this CCSS-dependent data-accumulation will be used by kow-towing and insecure administrative factotums to target teachers, some outstanding and some just competent, who have a tendency to think independently.
I read the members on the council of the Reading Framework for 2009. I would agree that the members are reputable; however, I wonder how many of them actually taught children to read or better put- how many assisted children LEARN to read.
The NAEP also describes the Nature Of Reading as “Reading is an active and complex process that involves multiple different behaviors.” They say the nature of reading and then leave out the fact that reading is a natural process that is in humans’ nature to want to learn. Teachers need to use their judgement when working with students’ natural abilities and interests so they may scaffold their learning. This kind of judgement is taken away when frameworks, standards, or decrees are so stringent and prescribed and when standardized testing takes up so much of the time available for learning.
The NAEP uses several sources to define reading all that have been grounded in scientific research.
“Among the sources are NCLB, several important research reports on reading,
and the definitions of reading that guide the development of international reading
tests. Each source has contributed important ideas to the definition of reading
used for the NAEP Reading Assessment. NCLB posits that reading has five
essential components: phonemic awareness, knowl edge of phonics, reading
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.”
They have described reading with the skills necessary to read and of course they would because this is about assessment and not about learning. We and your respondent above should not confuse the purpose of the NAEP. There purpose is about assessing students’ skills. A student’s drive to learn or drive to read to learn or read for enjoyment cannot be assessed, therefore omitted from the definition. However, there is a huge emotional component to reading. The reader first needs a purpose to read and then he/she builds a connection to the text through the author’s message, characters, plot, or any number of things- none of which can be measured but just as important as the skills needed to learn to read. Teachers need the license to allow students to explore reading material- to fall in love with reading. Children don’t fall in love with reading company prepared worksheets that skill and drill them to death nor do they find a love for reading when required to read passages and answer questions. Children fall in love with reading when they are allowed and encouraged to read real books both fiction and nonfiction depending on their interest and choice. Their skills will sharpen and their vocabulary will grow. The teacher needs to be there to foster this and redirect, direct, guide, and teach as needed.
The ratios that are prescribed for the amount of fiction and nonfiction read are ridiculous and unnecessary. I would also ask as an administrator, how am I supposed to police this regulation and why does the government and powers that be believe that this would be an effective use of my time? This debate takes attention away from the fact that high stakes testing hurts kids and takes away time for learning. All this money and in my opinion, none of it being used to benefit children.
Teachers being “free to teach whatever they love” doesn’t sound very student-centered to me. As a teacher, I should be looking for what engages and prepares my students. My question is where NAEP got that number. I have a problem with the tail wagging dog. Any good teacher plans lessons towards a worthy objective. Assessments then measure the achievement of that objective. What was NAEP objective? Is it in line with what kids need? I can see value in teaching non-fiction but I won’t do it just to prep students for a test. We are still left with where the ratio came from. You sat on the board, Diane. Do you know research behind it or is it truly arbitrary as you assert?
I was on the NAEP board from 1998-2004. The reading framework was completely rewritten at that time. There was considerable discussion about the proportion of test items devoted to literary versus informational text. There was no discussion of a research base for the ratio. The test makers needed guidance about how many test questions should be literary text, and how many should be reading and interpreting information. The numbers chosen reflected a general sense that in college d the workplace, students need to be able to read and understand informational text, so the latter had more questions than the former for older students. No one–and I repeat–NO ONE–thought that the ratio for the assessment should drive classroom instruction in English classes.
There was general agreement–and I believe it is written and codified in documents of the NAEP governing board–that the national assessment is never to impose pedagogical decisions about how to teach, or even what content to teach. It is an assessment agency, not a federal pedagogical agency.
Ms. Ravitch,
I have followed your work for awhile, finding myself at times fluctuating between my own full-fledged support for the CC and critically questioning the state of education in America. I have great appreciation for your contributions to the conversations.
On this particular point, though, I have to agree to disagree. You say yourself in this comment the test makers needed guidance; teachers, too, need some general sense of what a ratio might look like. Without having some point of comparison, who is to say that 100% fiction in 11th grade doesn’t prepare students for college and the workplace? You also say these ratios were not research-based, but were based on the general agreements of the committee about what would best serve students in their futures. You were working with an educated group of people to make that recommendation, and even if the ratios were arbitrary, the idea that we should expose students to more informational texts was not. By simply having these guidelines in the standards, the CC calls attention to the idea of incorporating more informational texts, an idea that should be brought to light to raise these kinds of conversations about the types of texts used in our classrooms.
Whatever their original intention, whether arbitrary or not, researched-based or just a hypothesis, those numbers are only used in the CC to invite classroom teachers to think more about their texts. The underlying truth is students need more informational texts in all contents, throughout the school day. I find some amazing conversations happening with groups of teachers who are not committing to the numbers but are committing to the idea. This is where we should focus–on the conversations resulting from the guidelines, rather than focusing on reading the ratios as mandates.
I disagree. Teachers across America do not need “guidance” about the ratio of fiction to non=fiction in their classes. Which bureaucrat in DC gets to make that decision? Will it be someone who has never taught?
And in the specific instance of Common Core, David Coleman assures us that he means the entire curriculum not just English classes. We know that fiction is not taught in math classes; or science classes; or civics classes; or in history classes (although there may indeed be value in using fiction to show the inside of an era in history, the connection between issues and people’s lives and perceptions). Given the near complete absence of fiction across the curriculum in everything other than English, that leaves the English teacher free to teach whatever they think best. And that’s the way it should be.
Let me add that I love non-fiction. I write it everyday. I am writing it right now!
And who wrote the assessment after it was unscientifically decided how much of what was to be included? Who administered the tests? To whom? Same flawed test for for flawed answers and we still don’t know what students know and can do in the real world.
FY 2012 ,$129.6 million for NAEP, $8.7 million for NAEP Board. Are they really worth that? Who really runs the show? Is it the board or the staff.
For the March 1,2012 meeting, there were 13 board members(out of 25) , 7 staff and 20 people from corporations. Who invites the corporation representatives? Are they there for any purpose besides lobbying for the money?
Diane,
I love this quote, “I was on the board of NAEP for seven years. Those proportions were created as a guideline for publishers constructing assessments, not for teachers.”
Perhaps this reveals something about those who created this Common Core fiasco…they need help reading informational text.
The so called education reformers who claim they have the magical answer to a fictional problem tend to use informational texts, charts, and other resources in isolation. Then they cling to talking points, not facts. They create distorted data to support these talking points, others see a possible financial windfall, and then we’re set off to race to a fictional top of some educational nirvana, which will result in yet another financial reward.
In the meantime, our students suffer the abuse of 540 minutes of high stakes testing every Spring, countless hours of bubble filling test prep,and untold hours of benchmark testing to fulfill another mandate to developing a growth score used to evaluate teachers.
Many students all across the nation were given ‘vacation packets’ filled with even more test practice questions and they will return to their classrooms next week to face the daunting tasks of getting ready for the tests.
Just think, all of this because the policy wonks ignore informational texts that point to historically high graduation rates, lower drop out rates, improvements in our international standings, and improvements in closing the achievement gaps across all groups of students.
If I was Arnie Duncan I’d be teliing President Obama this http://rlratto.wordpress.com/
RR
Here is a sad result of this arbitrary decision mandate the percentages of fiction vs. non-fiction.
I was recently told that I could purchase some books for my grade with some left over available funds. Good news, right?
Unfortunately, I was also told that due to Common Core, I must limit my selections to informational texts-
See what mandates do. When did fiction stop providing our students with information?
The lack of plan for any “stopwatch” in implementation is another clear sign that the control of what teachers teach is intended to be more direct– online computerized instruction, with an aide circulating around the cubicles/ computer stations.
The 50/50 70/30 numbers are content programming parameters, not teaching guidelines.
Quite a dystopian vision.
I see this as yet another example of “purpose creep” The purpose of assessments and standards is to give us a window into actual learning…but with high stakes testing folks start to believe that the standards are the actual learning. The real reason we teach reading is to support the development of avid, well-read, skilled readers. That is the real goal. Anything else pales in purpose, particularly the goal of competing in the “Reading Olympics” for data bragging and ideology justification.
Hear, hear!
🙂
During the Vietnam War “purpose creep” was called “mission creep.” In similar fashion, it was more about the shifting public rationales of politicians and [what Eisenhower called] the military-industrial complex than it was about realistic goals and assessments of whether or not anything useful was being accomplished on the ground.
Who will police it? The local administrators, that’s who. In my Massachusetts district we have already been told to have “evidence” on the walls that we are teaching non-fiction. We are also told to do NO read-alouds that are not in the Pearson Reading program. This breaks my heart because I used to read a story to my class every day, often to help expose them to a social justice issue or social skill that was needed. Now the district does their daily “walk through” to police us. They ask the students “what are you doing and why are you doing it” to determine if we made the objective clear. If some unsuspecting nine-year-old says something like “reading about space” rather than “determining fact from opinion” we are called on the carpet. In reality, nobody reads to use one skill in isolation. We read for pleasure and for information. Or at least we SHOULD read for those reasons. We are making it so ridiculously complicated that we disengage our students.
I understand the need to make students aware of why they are learning what they are. I understand the need to read non-fiction. But once again, we have gone off the deep end. I resent the lack of trust in my teaching.
Yes, RAC. The local administrators WILL police it. We have given them a powerful tool to do so. In New York State, it is called the APPR. This evaluation system, based on administrative observations (totally subjective) and high stakes test scores, gives administrators TOTAL power over the careers of teachers. In the “persistently low
achieving” schools of the urban areas in New York, teachers last year were required to be evaluated on the system that will be used for ALL NY State teachers this year. Just wait, everyone! You will be told what to do and how to do it AND you will be monitored. If you think you will get away with doing anything that does not conform to the CCLS or any other nonsense coming at you, think again. You WILL be told that your noncompliance will affect your APPR rating. If you need that teaching job, you WILL conform.
The landscape has changed. Resistance is futile. A sad and sorry situation.
“Resistance is futile.”
and knowing that, we still resist.
APPR will kill public education in NY. When discussing Charlotte Danielsons rubric and teacher observations and walkthrus, an administrator recently told me that if he doesn’t physically see it, it’s not there.
Much like the tree falling in the woods.
We are required to have posters of Cornell notes and the Frayer model for vocabulary, among others, on our walls. This is first grade.
The walkthrough people only care about what is on the wall rather than what is going on between the teacher and students. (They don’t know enough to be able to tell and so use physical things to check off…much easier). And heaven forbid that one of my 6 year olds cannot explain what the objective is and why we are doing it. I have already gotten written up in matters regarding these issues.
Also, I am required to teach 45 minutes a day on the same reading strategy of the week. My schedule (dictated by the principal) does not include phonics…so while my children learn about “drawing conclusions” and “cause and effect”, they are not able to read the story on their own in order to USE the strategies…
This is the craziest I have seen it and I just want to quit. Please don’t blame me for my children’s progress when I am forced to teach in a way that I believe is inappropriate and NOT best practice.
What ever happened to developmentally appropriate practices? It is a shame what we are doing to our students, especially to our youngest ones. Diane once referred to it as institutionalized child abuse and I agree. There is no joy in learning any more. There is no time to stop and wonder, no time to share ideas. And God forbid a child needs some extra time to learn a concept. My argument is: “By the time this child is 10 he or she will know how to tell time, identify the main idea in a paragraph, etc.” I try so hard to turn the drudgery of what I must teach into engaging lessons, but it is a challenge. Every day in my classroom makes me feel like I have sold my soul.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
It’s not that I live in Lake Wobegon, but in my district in Idaho the CCSS are causing my school staff of 50-plus teachers to look at ways informational text can enhance their content. As far as the ratio, yes, it seems that decision was arbitrary, but now we are required to follow it. At my high school we have come together as a staff clearly aware that the onus is not on English teachers like myself but on other content areas, most of which require students to read and comprehend informational text anyway. So even now the P.E. teacher is incorporating readings on fitness and diet. In addition, I have made my colleagues and department aware of the research of Sandra Stotsky who shows us that teaching fiction alone can create good critical readers as well. There’s no reason to throw out fiction curriculum; besides much of the entire high school curricula includes “nonfiction” biography or autobiographical works. And what English teacher teaches only the literary work without informational text concerning authorship or criticism? Look in any high school literature anthology and you will find prereadings and postreadings on just such information. “Informational text” does not mean an entire book, though I have taught Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” in connection with senior language research.
In my district some union teachers and the district administration met earlier this year as an Evaluation Committee to revamp our evaluation instrument and protocol utilizing Charlotte Danielson’s model but curtailed to what suited our mutual purposes. We are satisfied that what we developed benefits our professional growth and interests. It is an egregious violation that some administrators in other school districts are lambasting their teachers for “not seeing” what’s going on in the classroom (or worse, making English teachers get rid of their fiction)! We’ve kept walkthroughs in some of my district’s schools, but also in my school the evaluator is in my class for an entire week for my formal observation/evaluation. Further, as part of our district’s admin retreat on the subject of evaluation over the summer, they watched and discussed Jamie Vollmer’s “The Burden”, which I can tell my principal has internalized since he is actually a different guy this year–positive and creating a climate in my school where I go to work every day feeling great about my job and the people I work with.
It’s imperative that teachers and administrators work together to create a system where children’s learning can flourish, no matter what the “fad” or the trend. Administrators need to support their teachers and not defeat them as it seems so many are doing by thinking the CCSS is the end all.
Thank you for this positive post. Perhaps Dr. Ravitch will pick it out and feature it in the blog.
Even this excuse for the Common Core quota is untrue as a cursory examination of the NAEP framework reveals. in the 8th grade NAEP ELA exam, the proportion of questions devoted to informational text is only 55 percent, rather than 70 percent, as the Common Core quota would require. See our blog on this:http://shar.es/hBGQM
Science and Social Studies in Louisiana anyway are the stepchildren of the core subjects. Many of us teaching these subjects have tried for a couple years to suggest that the informational text is well presented in our classes. We were ignored, and still are. All the emphasis for at least the 11 years I have been teaching is on math and ELA. This cross curricular idea is totally messed up and we have no opportunities to try something across all 4 since our administration wants everyone exactly at the topic our curriculum says we should be, even if the kids need more time.
Science and Social Studies have the informational text covered but no one wants to hear it. it seems the only “reading” is taught only in the ELA classroom
Science and social studies are barely, if ever, taught at the elementary level because of the demands of the language arts and math curricula. They are also not tested, although Connecticut’s Mastery Test does test science, beginning in the fifth grade, I believe. It’s a shame because these two subjects have the ability to toroughly engage children and help them develop critical thinking skills as well as make them well-rounded individuals.
I completely agree on who will watch the game and keep it fair. Nothing like that exists today it is all spin and no one seems to question and confront when lying. We recently caught the staff of the California State Board of Education lying to them twice at the last meeting with full documentation to prove it. They did not know what to do. Enough of politically correct, this is not some simple parlor game, this is real and for very big outcomes that do not agree. On one side you have the corporatists and privatizers who see it as another profit center and ability to control the public for their personal gain and power. On the other side are those who believe in the “Real Public Education System for all.” Public education is supposed to be so that all without regard to their income, race or any other difference have an equitable opportunity to improve their and society at large lives. Many states have this in their State Constitutions. Due to a U.S. Supreme Court Case this is not a federal issue only state by state as far as equitable education is concerned. The problem is that the law is fantasy in reality. In 1994 in California revenue/student varied from $3,268-16,588/student in spite of a California Supreme Court Case called Serrano v. Priest which called for equitable funding to promote equitable education. As you can see this is a fantasy. Today, while LAUSD says they are soooooooo poooooooor and California is at the bottom of the scale the facts are that LAUSD in 2010-11 received $11,233/student which is $2,145/student more than the state average for a Unified School District and is $80/student above the national average according to the DOE. To make it sillier, the superintendent, Deasy, and board president, Garcia, regularily state and recently testified at a California Assembly Select Committee Hearing that LAUSD only had $4,800/student and the Committee had before them the 10 year spreadsheet on the revenue/student for the last 10 years which showed that in 2010-11 LAUSD received $11,233/student. You have to fight for everything you want to better our childrens future. Do not trust any of them is my motto. You earn respect you do not just receive it, you must prove you are worth it. How many you know, especially at the upper echelons, deserve it especially in the medium to large school districts which is where the political power and real money is?
Engaging the nonsense – a brief investigation of the Common Core
A teacher asked me where the Common Core came from, another suggested that I “teach” the Common Core in my Master’s degree level courses.
So my curiosity got the best of me and I spent some time understanding something about Common Core from my perspective as a scholar and educator.
My first discovery is that the Common Core is a political document. That may seem fairly obvious, but what I mean is that there is an identifiable political ideology and history that has contributed greatly to the current document. I’ve attached a link to document that led me to this conclusion.
http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards – English Language Arts Appendix A
This document contains references to supporting representative research for the Common Core. As I read the document something caught my eye, it was the following quote from Adams (2009)
“There may one day be modes and methods of information delivery that are as efficient and powerful as text, but for now there is no contest. To grow, our students must read lots, and more specifically they must read lots of ‘complex’ texts—texts that offer them new language, new knowledge, and new modes of thought”
This bothered me. I don’t agree with the statement and so I decided to read Adams (2009) I did a Google search and found this:
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/adams.htm – The Challenge of Advanced Texts:The Interdependence of Reading and Learning.
From the text I figured out that Adams is a heavy weight in reading and literacy circles (pun intended) there’s just a style of writing and authoritative stance that gives you clues, I then looked her up in Wikipedia to confirm my suspicions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Jager_Adams
If you read the article you find that not only is she a heavy weight, she is politically connected as in, inside the room when policy decisions are made.
I Googled a little more and came to this document.
http://www.niu.edu/cedu_richgels/PDFs/Adams1991.pdf
It’s a critique on her work in the 1990s that refers to her government directed research on phonics instruction. The critique and her response are very informative. It took me a couple of hours to find these documents and read parts of them and I think I found some answers to some questions and was provoked to some other thoughts that I will share with you now.
Common Core includes in it’s history, No Child Left Behind and other national educational policy reports dating back to A Nation At Risk (1983). It’s important to remember that most research is government funded and so it is unfair to critique educational research for it’s funding source. However, it is absolutely fair to question who gets to decide what the research is about and how that research is presented and used.
I happened to pursue a line of inquiry that involved Adams (2009) but there were many other researchers cited (Beck and Mckeown, vocabulary development, are notable as well) in the Common Core. I disagreed with Adams and I wanted to explore the source of the disagreement, the critiques helped clarify my understanding of my disagreement. The critiques also provided valuable insights on the theoretical framework Adams uses in her research. I still disagree with her, but I am respectful of her efforts. Which brings me to my next point.
There are many researchers cited in the Common Core, with many research agendas, using many methodological approaches across many disciplines. There is no cohesive theoretical framework or agreement on what constitutes the best approaches from a scientific research perspective to teaching and learning being represented in the document. Critics of the representative research in the Common Core abound. Some of the representative research consists of laboratory trials with small numbers of students, some include longitudinal studies and some of the research includes significant limitations that should be considered carefully when considering the claims that are made in the research.
Given the ambition of a national educational policy it seems that the best policy makers could come up with are some “best practices” that have achieved some success. It is very helpful to publicize that kind information, however, we have to ask: Is it useful to claim that a patchwork quilt of research underlying a set of standards is a framework for a solution to the educational challenges this country faces?
When teachers are asked to implement standards that they feel “do not make sense” it is not that teachers are simply ignorant and require professional development, it is in my opinion, the initial reaction of a person engaged in a craft/practice that is highly dependent and responsive to local conditions.
The Common Core standards are derived, in part, from an abstraction (the patchwork quilt of research) and are being pushed on to practitioners. The research strands that I examined tended toward the notion that knowledge acquisition is the endgame of school-based learning. I would not be surprised if that were true of many of the other research strands as that sentiment is pervasive in education.
Knowledge acquisition learning is about remembering and being able to manipulate abstract knowledge. We determine that a student has acquired knowledge by testing or providing a task that can only be completed if the individual has the requisite skill or knowledge. The Common Core is intended to set the standard for this type of learning and so there must be tests. Let’s set aside for the moment that the standardized tests we already use are not calibrated to the Common Core. If we believe in an educational system that prioritizes knowledge acquisition in the service of a national security agenda (economic competitiveness, technology dominance, etc.) then testing is necessary.
We experience the consequences of this priority in classrooms every day. I don’t have to detail them here.
If we believe that education is about more than knowledge acquisition, and that national security can be achieved through other concepts such as healthy communities, sustainable resource uses, national unity, world peace, or the elimination of hunger and poverty. Then we need to take responsibility for our practices, assert our own understandings of those practices, expose those practices to peer-review and challenge “what does not make sense” collectively.
I am finding that engaging the “nonsense” has been a good learning experience.
Thoughts and comments are welcomed.
In my elementary school, we all teach science and social on a regular basis. I guess we’re just rebels! I even use magazines like SS Weekly and Weekly Reader! Please don’t tell the CCS police!
Full disclosure: slight digression from the topic to follow. Ms. Ravitch’s statement (following) is so false, it borders on inflammatory: “We know that fiction is not taught in . . . history classes (although there may indeed be value in using fiction to show the inside of an era in history, the connection between issues and people’s lives and perceptions). Given the near complete absence of fiction across the curriculum in everything other than English…”
Boy, Ms. Ravitch, that’s news to me. How I wish you could have dropped into one of my Economics or World History classes! Nearly EVERY ONE of the 18 social studies teachers in my former department (husband’s career moved us out-of-state) used great literary works to contextualize history. Not sure what schools do not. Note: mine was not a fancy prep school, but a public school with approx. 50% of the kids qualifying for free/reduced lunches.
And yes, SOME – not all – teachers absolutely need strict guidelines re fiction/nonfiction because they could never come up with them on their own. I can not even begin to count how many social studies/English teachers don’t read , ever. How is it that an AP US teacher has never heard of Stephen Ambrose or David McCullough . . . or an English teacher has no clue about Emerson, Thoreau, Twain? The BEST teachers have a strong academic background, and mine the heck out of it.
The WORST teachers have skated by. Far too many of them are tenured. Common Core will get rid of the teacher who screams daily “Sit DOWN, you ANIMALS!” because she has no classroom control. Reason for no class control: failure to even try to meet any standards at all.
Partial solution: start with social studies and English teachers prepping together. Move across disciplines. My best lessons included direct input from art, English and music teachers in my building. I had our Physics and Environmental Science teachers come into my Economics classes to discuss the distribution of scarce resources regarding particular case studies. We MUST work together – and then the kids will truly be able to apply what they are ‘discovering’ the classrooms.
I am not sure why you took such umbrage to my observation that fiction is not customarily taught in math, science, civics and social studies classes. Most history and social studies teachers teach from textbooks. They are non-fiction.
When I helped to write the California history-social studies framework, we recommended the interdisciplinary use of history and literature about each era and nation. So, no, I am not surprised that some teachers incorporate literature into the teaching of history. I hope they continue to do so.
And no, I do not agree with you that the teachers of the USA need a ratio to tell them what to teach. That is not professional.
I think the use of the word SOME in Suzanne’s post above suggests that Dr. Ravitch’s response should read “and no, I do not agree with you that ANY teacher in the USA need a ratio to tell them what to teach.
I teach fifth grade and have always used novels to supplement the SS curriculum. How can you not?
@teachingeconomist: Thank you, I chose my words quite carefully ;)There is NO question that SOME tenured teachers absolutely need strict guidelines. Why? Because, quite frankly, SOME are not qualified to teach. What’s more unprofessional than not bothering to bone up on content – including enrichment material? Let’s stop pretending that ALL teachers are professionals. Just walk through your own school. I was blessed with brilliant colleagues, and we engaged in deep discussion over content and strategy… and then there were those who glanced up at the clock, held no extra help, did no outside research on their own, never bothered to consider the kids before them, and counted the days ’til summer. Please.
Gee, sorry for the miscommunication: no umbrage directed at Dr. Ravitch’s post – or Dr. Ravitch herself (I did see her as keynote speaker at the 2011 NCSS conference in D.C., wonderful). However, her earlier post read (and this is the second time I’m posting it): “We know that fiction is not taught in . . . history classes (although there may indeed be value in using fiction to show the inside of an era in history, the connection between issues and people’s lives and perceptions). Given the near complete absence of fiction across the curriculum in everything other than English…” That’s simply incorrect. Sorry, I’m from NY – we call it like it is 🙂
I’ve been a long-time member of the LICSS (Long island Council for Social Studies), and last fall I presented on the merits of historical fiction to a standing-room only crowd. Later, a principal came up to me with tears in his eyes: “Thank you for showing us that we CAN meet the standards and still have fun in the classroom.”
Common Core has its uses: in the right administrative hands (!), it can really invigorate learning. So let’s work within and beyond our disciplines to give kids what they need:teachers who will shield them from the teaching fads of the day, and give them every possible tool we can to succeed in life. As an AP World and IB History teacher, I felt it was my duty to absorb the pain of those exams so that the kids came out on top – not for my stats, mind you, but so that the kids 1) would earn much needed college credit and save $$ and 2) would think for the rest of their lives – “man, I’m smart!” Connection to Common Core? Those standardized exams with low national pass rates certainly shook me up as a teacher. I had no choice but to work hard, account for the kids’ progress – and make SURE they’d excel.
There are several objections to CCSS that we seem to be deflecting with this bickering over Diane’s words.
First objection is the mandate percentages of fiction to informational text. We all use both in our classrooms. The question remains where did these percentages come from? What research was used to back up these mandated percentages, and where was it piloted to at least have some inkling into it’s possible success.
Many administrators don’t understand that 50-50 rule applies to the entire student’s experience throughout the day. They’re beginning to incorrectly look for these percentages in every subject. I think that’s the point Diane was making,
The other major concern, is the carrot on a stick approach to the Common Core. Federal funds, ( which may be dwindling as we go over the fiscal cliff) are tied into the great social experiment. Teachers will be evaluated with high stakes testing with assessments based on CCSS. This untested, social experiment that assumes differentiation among our students is non existent.
So let’s stop bickering about whether or not SS teachers use fiction, we all know that the good ones do.
I think Suzanne is concerned about what the bad SS teachers do.
I don’t blame the bad teachers, I blame bad administrators for not working with these bad teachers
I think there is a lot of blame to go around. You might add the education schools that have degrees to these bad teachers.
90% of what you learn is through on the job experience,regardless of career. Mentoring is imperative. Blaming ed school is an poor excuse.
It would be nice to reduce the on the job training to something more like 80 or 70 percent.
The ratios in Common Core are an insult to intelligence. I was horrified to
see the percentages and even more horrified to learn that it would not be
creative non fiction as part of the Common Core: not memoirs like
Fran McCourt’s, not Biography like Sandburg’s Lincoln, not sketches like
Gary Soto’s or essays like those of Richard Rodriguez or Elie Wiesel or
Helen Keller but so called “informational material.” This is my 32nd year
as a literature and composition teacher and reading about the Common Core,
my heart sunk. The cure is much worse than the cold.
In an addendum: I would like to get a clear statement as to what constitutes
“informational writing.” What I have heard seems to be contradictory. Are we
talking about Frank McCourt or are we talking about supplying workers for
business? Is Language Arts a teacher of compassion or are we going to
use an assembly line factory model? So far, I don’t like what I’ve heard.
In a second addendum: No one has defined the difference between informational writing and creative non fiction. In fact memoir, for example Wiesel’s NIght and
McCourt’s Teacher Man are both informational and true literature as well. In all of the meetings attended, I have heard nothing about the value of exposure to great literature–whether fiction or nonfiction– and the human rewards of being moved by books.
I’ve heard a lot , however, about how to access info on internet and unrealistic goals related to k-8 and in high school, rating books by difficulty level as if a 9th grader reading OF Mice and Men is intellectually on task, whereas a 10th grader reading Seinbeck would need more of a challenge. Teaching literatuare and composition should not be dictated by corporate interests.
Addendum number 3: David Coleman and Company have–at leas partially– answered my question with their ignorant ideas aboat writing related to Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” Common Core claims to respect fiction and creative non fiction and allows
work like Lincoln’s as informational writing–then strips the literature of what is actually informational i.e. the carnage of the battle, Lincoln’s references to ending slavery. It would be like teaching “Night” but never being allowed to place
Wiesel’s suffering with the murder of the six million, or reading an excerpt from
MCourt’s Teacher Man but not being allowed to write about West Side Story.
And never being allowed to personalize in writing because in Coleman’s words no one
gives a shit what (students) think. If the powers that be wanted to modify their
thinking and thus save Common Core, perhaps there is still time–but they show
no desire to do so. sMarek Breiger
I end up by replying to myself. The Common Core prompt we
received was well intentioned–relating to Drone’s used in
war as well as within the U.S. and whether Drone tech was
a positive or negative.
This was the freshman prompt and called for
the kind of synthesis more appropriate for my AP juniors. It will
be graded on a 4 pt scale and though 2 is a passing score, it will
not be viewed as such by most students or their parents. Besides
three news articles, included were two brief film clips, one
by Fareed Zakaria which was complex in that Zakaria supports
military use of Drones but with great reservations.
I have strong reservations about this type of testing. I would
hope that when we get to begin next September that these writing
tests will not be high stakes, will not be tied to teacher
evaluations, and will include material that unlike the Gettysburg
example–provides context. Saving and improving the
public school will be a task for the next generations but we old timers
have valuable insights that need to be listened to.
As Diane Ravitch has so eloquently argued, destroying the public school
and ridiculing present teachers is no answer. We must try to save schools in
poverty areas and charter schools will not do that. Real progress is slow and
incremental but present plans for Common Core seem to be almost as unrealistic
as no child left behind.
Thanks to Diane Ravitch…her posts have been a lifeline for myself and for many other teachers. Her blogs and books have exposed the big data people, and those whose real aim is to destroy public education. Coleman’s idea of close reading takes away the context that makes details stand for more than information…what of allegory,
what of metaphor, what of fictional and true life stories that have enobled the human race? What of universities who gain prestige by the number of good students they reject? What of instead of recruiting young idealist teachers for inner city schools in trouble–instead these teachers are in trouble for lower test scores? I don’t see how making the SAT essay optional is a great change. Instead why not not make the essay an open one and give students an hour or more to draft and perhaps recopy? And in all of the talk about STEM, and what happened after sputnik, I recall that JFK invited not only astronauts and scientists to White House but poets like Robert Frost and composers like Aaron Copeland and novelists like Saul Bellow.
This is another addendum to myself, with the hope that Diane Ravitch’s efforts will pay off. I have a belief that perhaps the tide will
and has turned and the Common Core will be sensibly modified or changed. Much thanks. Marek Breiger