Glenda Ritz, the new State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana, thrashed reform idol Tony Bennett last November. She received more votes than anyone else on the ballot except the Attorney General (she ran ahead of the governor).
Tony Bennett, who famously supports free-market solutions to education problems, is an advocate for charters and vouchers, for evaluating teachers by test scores, and for for-profit online corporations and charters. Tony Bennett is one of the nation’s loudest supporters of the Common Core.
Ritz is a Democrat; Bennett is a Republican.
Ritz was supported by a curious coalition: by parents and educators who disliked Bennett’s privatizing policies and his punitive treatment of teachers. She was also supported by Tea Party enthusiasts who dislike national standards and saw the Common Core as an effort by the federal government to impose national standards and tests.
Some Republican legislators in Indiana want to withdraw the state’s support for Common Core. Now they will have a state superintendent who agrees with them.
The politics of the Common Core are interesting indeed. And they will become even more interesting in the next few years as states are required to come up with the money for implementation, new technology, new materials, and professional development.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Yesterday, our college sponsored a gathering of educators so we could all hear about what we would be expected to do to implement the new Core Standards and get students ready to “succeed” on the new measures of achievement. My post meeting note to faculty in our college is as follows:
Yesterday we had a group of visitors come in to tell us what we will be doing in the future. They didn’t come to ask us what we thought. They told us what we will have to do. Interestingly, and disturbingly, these were the same players who come to us each time decisions are made, without our consultation, regarding the next best thing in education. The last two times this type of visitation of the real experts occurred we received, without the slightest bit of resistance, the orders that would lead us to hand out the then new standards that the State had adopted and then the marching orders that would lock us into following, again with few hard questions asked, for at least 10 years the bad advice that was No Child Left Behind. We required our students to buy copies of these standards and we adjusted courses to teach future teachers to teach what they were being told to teach no matter how badly what they were being asked to do would affect the lives of millions of human beings and the society of which they were members.
Things are better now, of course, and the new standards and the new assessment tools are certainly better than the old ones and so much different that teachers need to not only be retaught but untaught what we taught them last time around. And we seem to be willing to do this because the people who are leading us to the new educational order are better at what they do even though they are the very same people! Yes, the people who came to the College yesterday are the very people who taught us what we needed to do last time around. Now, of course, what they are asking us to do is being sold on the fact that the new regime is research-based as though that should help us distinguish between the old and the new regimes because what? The last iteration of good education that turned out to be terrible for all but those who were able to cash in on the travesty wasn’t research-based? Well, if I remember correctly, NCLB was touted as being, first and foremost, a research-based initiative and I remember friends of mine who were doing the wrong kind of research (only empirical research counted) having the rug pulled out from under them and their in-service contracts voided by school districts threatened with the withdrawal of government funds if they didn’t fire these people who were advocating programs that didn’t have a proper base in the proper kind of research.
So, now, with the new best thing we are being asked—well, not asked at all—we are being told that we have to line our work up to match with what the research says is best. And, by the very same people, West-Ed, the State Department of Education, and the school district, that we should, without resistance or even the kind of hesitation that would signify a thoughtful pause, adapt our programs to meet the expectations of the very same people who brought us the last research-based disaster.
I was at the Who concert a while back and almost choked on my own tongue when I tried to join in the sing aloud of “We Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
I am not saying we ignore the new mandates, and they are mandates, but I do think that no matter how good the new standards might be, we pay attention to the implementation process, particularly how the “experts” go about keeping their hands off of the implementation process while manipulating everything else to make sure they get what they want. And, as we educate teachers, we should really think about the irony of training teachers to teach for critical thinking. We should think about whether it is our obligation to teachers, students, and democracy to help them develop the skills for resistance and real revolution, particularly when asked to do things that they should, as truly thoughtful people, find revolting.
We do not have to tell students who are or will be teachers to be disobedient, but, if we help them to be reflective practitioners, dedicated to diversity and democratic principles, people who truly love learning (as opposed to being trained), the proper amounts of disobedience will result and, at the same time, all but the very deaf and the very stupid will hear the call of teachers properly educated demanding a proper amount of say in what is and what comes next.
Ritz has not called for pulling out of the Common Core. In an interview with us, she voiced her explicit opposition to the pullout bill (at least in its current form). In every conversation I had with her during the campaign, she didn’t sound crazy about the standards — particularly the math portions — but she never called for Common Core pullout.
But don’t take my word for it… We sat down the other day and she laid out her position: http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2013/02/07/where-glenda-ritz-stands-on-the-common-core/
Happy to field any questions!
Kyle Stokes, StateImpact Indiana
I was recently in Arizona at an event sponsored by the conservative group Americans For Prosperity. I witnessed strong opposition to standardized tests and the Common Core, as I describe here: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/02/opposition_to_common_core_coul.html
The Tea Party oppose Common Ore, but mainstream Republicans like Jeb Bush, Tony Bennett. Condoleeza Rice are pushing it hard, as is Arne Duncan, Obama, Joel Klein.
While Superintendent Glenda Ritz may currently be perceived as sending conflicting signals about her position on Common Core standards, she has been extremely clear and consistent that she wants to pull Indiana out of the Common Core PARCC Assessment. For a slightly different take on her position read the following article written just a day or two before Mr. Kyle Stokes’: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/05/bipartisan-leaders-rethink-indianas-common-core-participation
The fact remains that Glenda Ritz made it clear in her campaign that she had reservations about Common Core, the federally-funded PARCC test that accompanies it, and the lack of teacher and public input in the proccess. It was those positions which helped her pick up votes she otherwise would not have gotten. Let’s hope she governs, the way she ran for office – with the courage and fortitude to stand up to those who would like to marginalize, manipulate, and bully her!
That’s brilliant, Heather!
Anthony,
I enjoyed your article and watched the AFP video today. Conservatives in Arizona need to wake up, as they have here in Indiana. We had over 500 people from the grassroots descend on our Statehouse January 16th, to voice opposition to the Common Core. Indiana parochial and private schools that accept vouchers are tied to the Common Core PARCC test, and parents don’t want it!
“Choice” between various school all wearing the same Common Core straight-jacket is no choice, whether you are paying cash or using a voucher. Please help explain this fact to people, when discussing the issue of vouchers. (Unless, of course, Indiana is unique in this respect.)
The common core is just Central Planning plain and simple. How’d that work out for the U.S.S.R.? The common core is not by the people, for the people. The way it came to be is repugnant and an insult to democracy.
While I am not wild about the means by which states have been “encouraged” to adopt the new standards, I do wonder if this concern for “central planning” was present when the nation’s schools were so kindly persuaded to adopt the tenets of NCLB. If I remember correctly, there was much that was said at the time of their implementation that made the act seem down right patriotic. So quit the crappy rhetoric and take a breath and do not accept the rejection or acceptance of any mandate on the basis of the nature of the mandate itself and the consequences of the mandate for individuals and the society in which they live. While I had a terribly negative reaction to a Smarter Balanced presentation I heard the other day, my reaction had nothing to do with worries about a USSR type approach to educational reform but rather to the fact that Smarter Balanced really did sound to me like a costlier and slightly adjusted for new technologies version of the standardized test. So, while I think there is very good reason to argue against certain aspects of the new Core, we need to do everything necessary to insure that our protests cannot be seen to be support for anything that looks like opposition. Some of that opposition is based upon pure wackiness, upon disdain for anything that comes from the Obama administration (certainly there are things that come from here that deserve criticism), and love of anything that is “right” in the wrong way, that is not in line with narrow definitions of what it means to be free, to be a citizen of a democracy, what it means to allow students access to ALL ideas, what it means to grow to full potential as an INDEPENDENT thinker capable of effective decision making based upon engagement in an informed and rational decision making process. The new standards do not preclude such, even suggest such but will not have such an effect unless the odious standardizers, the sponsors of conformity (of whatever type) are pushed out of the way.
https://vimeo.com/58461595 — Great video by Professor Christopher Tienken on Common Core. Really, a breath of fresh air.
excellent video. This needs to go viral YESTERDAY!
I support the standards themselves in principle although the implementation has been really poor, both democratically and financially. Here is an example: Our school district just bought my school a cart full of laptops that is to for used for testing. That means that it is for politicians to use; not for kids!!!!! So upset that Bennett made his way down here. to FL. I guess I will try to make my way out! Not just for me as a teacher, but for my own kids.
I think splitting out and rejecting the PARCC assessmentsis a great idea. States could still “adopt” the Common Core as a model, but it won’t come at us with its teeth on our throats. That way, the people will have a chance to evaluate the Common Core, instead of the other way around.
The Common Core will turn out Mechanical Turks, not creative thinkers.
Failure by design…
Planned obsolescence, then Pearson and Co. can invent another multi-billion dollar solution which the lemmings will chase off the cliff again…
Some of the complaints about undemocratic actions by government by people who see themselves as Tea Party types are actually grounded in reality. Other complaints are simply nutty. I think we can find common ground and be better able to discuss our differences calmly in the future. Right now what the Obama Administration is doing to education is simply inexcusable.