Several readers asked me to comment on the New York Times editorial endorsing the Common Core.
I held off because there didn’t seem to be anything to say other than that the Times’ editorial board is repeating what they were told by promoters of the Common Core. The Common Core has serious problems, and there is no evidence that the Times gave any thought to those problems.
It really does matter that no one knows how these standards will work in practice.
No one knows if they will narrow or widen the achievement gaps. Given Sean Reardon’s article in the same newspaper a week later, it is clear that the kids at the bottom suffer–not because of low standards–but because of a large and growing opportunity gap. Higher standards will not suffice to close that gap.
Early childhood educators are very concerned about the developmentally inappropriate nature of the early grades, but the Times doesn’t take those concerns into account.
There is no mechanism for fixing the standards, adjusting the inevitable errors that crop up in any new standards. It is simply assumed by the Times and others that they emerged perfect from the head of Zeus, with no need for changes.
There will be big problems for kids who now are far behind. No one has explained why harder standards and tests will make them smarter. If a child can’t clear a 4′ bar, how does it help if you raise the bar to 6′?
In short, I thought the editorial was as shallow as the full-page ads that corporations are paying for to push the Common Core.
For some reason, lots of important and powerful people want the nation to suspend all critical thought and simply go along with received opinion. If you stop and ask questions, you annoy them.
Go ahead. Ask questions. Ask why. Ask about unintended consequences.
Don’t be a lemming.
Think for yourself. Demand evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The final sentence of that editorial clearly shows how editorial boards echo without understanding..
But if the country retreats from the Common Core reforms, it will be surrendering the field to competitors that have already left it behind in math and science education, which are essential to participation in the 21st-century work force.
It is not only poorly constructed, it is vacuous.
What good is any of this and how can you evaluate a teacher especially in high school when the teacher receives a student who is at the 3rd or 5th grade level? The high school teacher did nothing wrong the mess was made in elementary school. Congresswoman Karen Bass this Saturday is having a Town Hall at Audubon Middle School in L.A. from 10:00-11:30 on the plight of African-American students. African-American males are in the most trouble of any sector of students. We will be there or this important event. If you live in the L.A. area and want to go call or email Bass’s office to be included in the important event.
The first thing that has to be done is testing to see where the student is at grade level, then an individual plan for remediation to bring them up to grade level, then implementation of the remediation plan. Then you can think about testing for that grade level. Why don’t you hear about this from those Common Corers? I know many teachers falsely accused and illegally terminated because they have brought up these issues to administrators. They are told to socially promote and pass them or else.
The end result is a later trip to either county jail or into the prison system through their entrance to the “Criminal Justice System.” What a shame. If they are not at grade level who cares about Common Core. The national studies show that if you are not at grade level at the third grade you are on the way into the criminal justice system. Like they do not know.
George..thanks for the info (seems like I am always thanking you for something) and I am glad Karen Bass is involved in this issue. She represents her district well. I will attend the Saturday meeting.
Diane…what a bunch of fatuous garbage from the Times. Indeed, Common Core is NO Athena springing from Zeus’ head. It is the product of merchandisers who create tests for profit instead of testing for curriculum effectiveness.
“the mess was made in Elementary school”… are you serious??
“The first thing that has to be done is testing. . . ” NO!!!
The first thing that has to be done is assessing which may include a number of different “tests” but not limited to them. The teacher would have to have the time and resources to sit down one on one with each student (and parents) to assess where the student is at, what interventions/strategies will be needed to help the individual student to learn better and more. Good luck getting the resources to do that in this day and age of “education on the cheap” through “data driven decision making”.
amen brother!
It’s not just that that they want us to “go along with received opinion.” They argue that somehow testing and the Common Core will close the “achievement gap.” That’s what they call it…an achievement gap. This means it’s teachers’ and students’ fault. It’s not systemic economic inequality or lack of access to preschool, etc.
Bill Gates must own a pile of stock in the newspaper.
The NYT has long been a teacher-trashing rag for the most part.
On an unrelated note, Diane, James W. Guthrie, former Nevada superintendent of instruction, believes the most “outstanding” teachers of the state should make as much as $200,000 a year.
Fat chance any administrator would ever allow a lowly teacher to make that much money.
http://blogs.rgj.com/reportcard/2013/04/29/ousted-state-superintendent-proposes-the-200000-a-year-classroom-teacher/
I don’t have the guts to read it now. I don’t want to get depressed. I just had a wonderful time and don’t want to ruin it. I was at the Student Privacy Town Hall & feeling so good about leonie being right about NYS share NYS data with inBloom. Not just NYC. This didn’t change the importance.
Just praising Leonie. So I don’t want to bum out on anything pro-common core because we’re in a bind. If we don’t have CCSS the economy could crash. Can you imagine that?
One interesting part of tonight’s conversation was they used the term Common Education Data Standards.CEDS.
I hadn’t heard them used in descriptions before. I read about them & knew they were there but they were downplayed.
So what’s the NY Times story about? Hedge funds? NO. Stimulus Money? NO. CCSSO & NGA ownership of the CCSS? NO
Concerns about anti-trust? That’s the story I’m looking for.
It won’t be Gates who’s the bad guy. I would imagine it’s the copyright holders.
But I’m not attorney.
Look at where our lives are. Everything about our lives is online.
This is not right. We have stop them before they get more kids’ data, Diane.
On the other hand — the collection of data is happening without inBloom or CCSS. There is always the possibility that one strong lock is more protective than inferior protection.
That’s the information policy in me.
However an anti-trust is probably criminal? That would be an odd turn of events. Someone would have given the NGA & CCSSO some bad information if that were the case.
The video of the questions being asked is below. Sheila, I need you to restate part of the above in simpler terms. I am confused. Strong lock? Inferior protection? Am I dumb?
I just watched the entire event. In bloom didn’t even show up. People have to rally and fight this. It is outrageous.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/32144061
Duane: Thank you!!
(Sorry, my post to Duane ended up in the wrong place.)
Sheila, re: the “Common Education Data Standards,” have you seen the “National Education Data Model” created by the Feds? Totally creepy. This is the link to the main page: http://nces.ed.gov/forum/datamodel/ The student information page is here (under “Data Sets”–>”Core Entities: Student): http://nces.ed.gov/forum/datamodel/eiebrowser/techview.aspx?instance=studentElementarySecondary
Totally loved “emerged perfect from the head of Zeus”!!! One more year and I’m retiring. Pretty much had enough. Tired of being blamed for not doing the impossible. I’m glad I only have a smidgeon of overlap with Common Core.
I don’t see how the Common Core could increase or decrease the achievement gap. The CC is a set of curricular goals. It is how they (or any curricula) are implemented that would determine such things.
I think that, with the focus on school and teacher accountability rather than a focus on supporting teachers in their quest to implement the CC, the result will be abysmal. And it would be regardless of what the curricular goals were.
Corey, wouldn’t it be a good idea to try them out before declaring them national standards? Do you take medicines that have never been field tested?
Actually, nobody has declared them national standards. Most states have adopted them, but they aren’t technically national standards. I don’t see it as very different from when states wrote their standards. They weren’t tested or tried out. A committee decided what should be taught in the schools. That, by itself, isn’t such a controversial decision and the implications aren’t catastrophic.
One nice thing about the state standards is that, at least in Wisconsin, they were always considered a work in progress. There was a plan to revise them periodically. We were in the midst of a revision when the Common Core first came out and Wisconsin decided to adopt them. As a guide for what should be taught they seem pretty good! (I’m speaking only on the mathematics side.)
There’s not really anything that needs to be tested, per se, in that case. Especially if we can revise them if things aren’t working.
I think the problem comes in when we start attaching high stakes to the associated tests. High stakes, not for the students the assessments are designed to assess, but for the teachers and schools the assessments are NOT designed to assess. To me, that’s the part that really needs testing. Sort of like the medication example. The standards are more guides for how to live a healthy life. Those guidelines are good goals, and the change when more information comes in. The tests are more like the medication. There are consequences if the tests don’t assess what they are intended to. There are consequences if the tests are too difficult. I think that’s where the problem comes in.
Great comment!! Perfect comparison!!
Speaking of field testing..they put field test questions on the TESTS that will count an enormous part of the grade..1/3..or 1/4…depends….They need to pay students to take those field test questions. They do not need to be on one of those Final Exams that determines whether a child passes or fails…..
Corey, these standards were not written “by a committee” (…of educators). The ELA standards were written by Achieve, Inc.–mostly by two people, David Coleman and Susan Pimentel, neither of whom has ever been a classroom teacher. The math standards were written by a committee of math types, most of whom were at the college level. I only saw ONE or TWO elementary classroom teachers on the list.
And, importantly, one of the stipulations for the states adopting them was that THEY CANNOT BE CHANGED after they are adopted.
I know nothing of the ELA standards. But the people I know on the math committee are absolutely top-notch mathematics and statistics educators. They may not currently teach in the elementary or secondary classrooms, but they are acutely aware of the development of mathematical reasoning. I agree that there should have been more representation by teachers in the classroom. But don’t get the impression that those who wrote the standards are clueless ivory tower professors. They know that of which they speak.
As far as making changes, states can do what they want. The don’t have to adopt the CC, though I know there is pressure for them to do so. That means they can make changes.
My point, though, is that the standards themselves are not the problem. It is the implementation of them and the testing attached to them that are the problem.
Interesting that you can’t comment on the article! Good thing because my blood pressure was rising as I was reading it.
Why is there no mention of the “affective behaviors” that are going to be evaluated?
I helped my child with 3rd grade common core homework this evening. A lengthy, fraction-based question similar to the 5th grade “Stuffed with Pizza” sample provided online:
( http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/D0A70F2D-1133-418C-B68F-95E6D714F357/0/NYCDOEG5MathStuffedwithPizza_Final.pdf)
It took both of us, one-to-one help and assistance for my child, but we plodded through line by line. And at the end of a whole worksheet on this fraction and that fraction, she said for the last response, “How do I write a fraction again?”
What is the purpose, I wondered? It seemed excessively hard, beyond 3rd grade. Then I realized it was possibly a little advance test prep way beyond her capability.
But the most disturbing thing I realized in looking at the rubrics on the NYC document above is that this is purportedly measuring “perseverance!” Perseverance is actually in the standards: “make sense of problems and persevere in solving them” The evidence of this is a child literally showing that lengthy, detailed, “show your work” response.
Now imagine if you have a child who does it in their head? Imagine if you have a child who doesn’t write neatly, scrawls all over the place but gets the answer? Where would Einstein fall on this standard?
If these tests will measure cognitive ability and affective ability, are parents ever informed about this? Isn’t this sort of a developmental thing – i.e. kids develop this trait in wildly different ways and at different rates. What purpose does it serve to evaluate these traits in our children? Is it to categorize them in some way? Truly scary thought!
Your comments about behavioral standards are spot on. In NY, lessons are now being designed to measure “learning targets”. take a CCSS standard, break it into individual components (such as perseverance), then turn it into an “I can” statement: “I can persevere in solving problems.” The learning targets have little to do with learning content or at least the kinds of content we think of as being valued in school. In trying to understand learning targets, I discovered this Montana site that embeds the learning targets for each standard. frightening.:
http://www.mcps.k12.mt.us/portal/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=W%2FeJg24dM8Q%3D&tabid=861&mid=15737
“If these tests will measure cognitive ability and affective ability. . . ”
The tests measure nothing. The teaching and learning process isn’t amenable to being measured. It’s logically impossible even though many attempt to do it everyday. So much time and effort expended and wasted in the process of getting “data” that is false. How effin insane is that?
The worst thing is that whatever data IS gathered will be erroneously (but very purposefully) used to perpetuate some more bad policies.
It always comes back to the fact that if we don’t give them the data, this doesn’t work. The opt-out movement is our best hope for that!
If you want to comment…read my letter (for Sunday Dialogue) in the NYT on Good teaching vs what TFA gives us. It will appear online Tuesday late mornuing and in print Wednesday. Send in your responses.
If you want to know where were were, where we are, and where we are going, read the work of Douglas D. Noble. He was a visionary genius who tried to warn the people and paid the ultimate price. To date he was absolutely flawless in his work and the message,
he nailed the truth and tried to tell all the people.
In 1991 he published The Regime of Technology in Education and the story of where
we are now and where we are going and he was already then screaming off the pages.
“Above all, high-tech corporate interest in education reform expects a school system that will utilize sophisticated performance measures and standards to sort students and to provide a reliable supply of such adaptable, flexible, loyal, mindful, expendable, “trainable” workers for the 21st century. This, at bottom, underlies the corporate drive to retool education and retool human capital. “We in the personal computer industry,” notes Apple CEO John Sculley, also chair of the National Center on Education and the Economy, “are really in the behavior-changing indudstry. We have the challenge to create the tools that fundamentally are going to change the way people learn, the way they think, the way they communicate, the way they work!” such is the scope and hubris of the regime of technology in education, a legacy of military fantasy conjoined with the unbridled self-interest of corporate power.”
“The impulse to introduce technologies into education reflects not so much the use of technology in the service of education as the ongoing ursurpation of education in the service of technological enterprise.”-Douglas D. Noble
So if you had any doubt that this larger then life betrayal of community is not already
fixed by bi-partisan government, corporate, and military interests, you should have no doubts now. That is exactly how powerful this black hole we all are being pulled into, most especially the children, is. And why and how you find yourselves ignored with no concern by any of the above for the rights and dreams of society. We and most importantly the children are the tools to be retooled in pursuit of a brave new world!!!!
Thanks for the reference, Ronee! Noble was quite correct back then. Just as Callahan was in the early 60s with his “Education and the Cult of Efficiency”.
Yup. If you had any doubt that the push for the Common Corporate “State” Standards was really about creating national markets for “educational”/technology products and using children as a captive audience, you can hear it EXPLICITLY from the horse’s mouth by the guy who paid for most of it as he talks about creating national markets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtTK_6VKpf4
The corporate owned media are afflicted with a serious conflict of interest when it comes to reporting the truth about the corporate takeover of education. They are positively salivating over the prospects of a new market in edu-content delivery and sharing in the spoils as the educational system is cannibalized. I don’t see much hope for being able to trust any of them on this score.
As Diane has said in past comments “There is always Hope!”
I agree with her because like yourself there are individuals, even in
media, who have a concious and integrity. We can’t say all for anything and we have to rely on the courage of the few. This blog is an indicator that people are still willing to speak with courage and information. Media has some professionals working daring as well.
I would use the term Keep Hope Alive but I have less faith in government at the moment…even with those I agree with.
Thank you, Diane, for yet another cogent and incisive critique of the latest dubious “innovation” being pushed by the same small elite that wants to privatize and control public education, while sending their own children to exclusive “private academies.”
For some reason, lots of important and powerful people want the nation to suspend all critical thought and simply go along with received opinion.”
Indeed. In a more subtle way, it’s very similar to the climate of fear and hysteria that was whipped up just before George Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.
“If you stop and ask questions, you annoy them.” Or worse. You become accused of ignorance or indifference to the “THREAT”, the “CRISIS” that will supposedly destroy our way of life forever if we don’t do THIS THING! (War In Iraq then, Common Core Implementation now!)
Bizarre and Orwellian that Condoleeza Rice would be in such a prominent public role in both of these Big Lies.
You’d think that people—particularly the media—would have little to no trust in Bush’s former aide after her disgraceful and mendacious “Mushroom Cloud” lies of early fall, 2002.
Then as now, she and the people backing her are selling us a fraudulent bill of goods. Why does anyone take Rice seriously given her egregious and shameful history?
“Go ahead. Ask questions. Ask why. Ask about unintended consequences.”
Yes! Now more than ever!
“Don’t be a lemming.”
We won’t. And we’ll do our best to spread the word to other parents, students, taxpayers and citizens.
Think for yourself. Demand evidence.
We will. And we’ll call out those in the media and elective office who enable the liars and the shills.
“For some reason…” Well, no, PSP…for ONE reason.
And ONE reason only. Unlimited, unrestrained WEALTH. More money than one person would know what to do with. So, that WEALTH=CONTROL. Of everyone and everything.
Not that I wanted to–there were other things to do and/or watch–but “60 Minutes” was rerun on CNBC–it was called “The Millionaires,” or some such. There was a segment on Eli Broad and, although I had seen it before, I felt compelled to watch it, to learn something again. And, what I learned was is that Broad always thinks he is right. He was called a “control freak” by more than one person. Well, perhaps not news, but the point was made–
“Broad always thinks he is right, even about something he has no expertise in.” Not said, but I say,” Bingo–education.”
You know those cute greeting cards or tee-shirts that say, “What if the hokey pokey really IS what it’s all about?”
Well, what it’s really ALL about is WEALTH and CONTROL, no matter whether or not these wealthy, controlling villainthropists even KNOW or CARE (most certainly not care!) about anything having to do with those of us on the ground.
So–PSP–know thine enemy. And fight them.
Someone, what’s that great Gandhi quote, again?
Oh, and I might add, PSP, the loss of all critical thought would make all our children…perfect WalMart employees! Just think of it–then the Waltons wouldn’t HAVE to give (“voluntarily”, I might add, stated the WSJ article) $1.6 million for workers in Bangladesh
(& this was BEFORE the tragic factory collapse, which killed at least 300 {they’re still pulling people out of the rubble}. With compliant Americans working for them,right here, at minimum wages (no critical thinking skills! Who would protest?!)The wages would probably go BELOW minimum.), why bother with foreigners and complaints from other governments? OUR government sure doesn’t–er–wouldn’t–care! How convenient–for them! Ka-ching!
No Patient Left Behind: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Building on the astonishing success of No Child Left Behind, I would like to suggest that we apply the same model to medicine.
First, let’s pass legislation requiring that all patients be completely well by the year 2023.
To determine whether patients are well, we’ll convene a panel on non-doctors headed by a non-doctor who has never practiced medicine but who once went to a yoga class. That panel will put together some some wellness standards.
Those standards will tell you want you doctors and nurses can and cannot do when you see patients, and they will ensure that every patient receives precisely the same treatment, whatever his or her illness, disorder, or trauma.
Once a year, we will shut down your clinic for a month while we bring in for testing every patient who has been to your clinic during the preceding year.
All patients will, of course, receive exactly the same tests. Yes, double amputees will take the pushups and situps test. We’ll make special accommodations, of course. The directions will be read to the double amputees.
Our new standards are rigorous. Every patient will have to demonstrate that he or she can run a 6-minute mile and read the bottom line of the eye chart without artificial aids like contacts or eyeglasses. The phrenology portion of the new tests will be conducted using scanners that will tell us whether patients have any bumps on their heads that might indicate criminal tendencies or propensities for nonobservance of the seven cardinal virtues. The scanners that connect the phrenological examinations will supply information for a new national database for data-based medical service delivery.
No, there is nothing on the new exams related to nutrition, cardiovascular health, cancer, or diabetes, but who are you to question us about this? Our new exams are VERY rigorous. We have been assured of that by our panel of non-doctors, one of whom read a book, once, about jogging and has a sister who worked in a hospital gift shop.
After each testing season, every doctor will receive a report explaining whether his or her patients made the grade. If a doctor or clinic fails to make adequate yearly progress toward complete wellness of all patients as measured by our examples, then we’ll fire those doctors and replace them with pharmacy technicians, EMTs, and dental hygienists.
Mayors and governors will take over any failed clinics and outsource their medical services to new online medical diagnosis companies owned by various cousins and brothers of politicians and plutocrats who also, like our standards panel, never studied and never practiced medicine.
In many of these new schools, all medical treatment will be done online. If a particular patient needs surgery, he or she will be able to go online and get step-by-step instructions on how to self administer that surgery.
We’ve lived with disease, disorders, and trauma long enough. It’s time we solved the medical problem once and for all. Enough is enough. Disease, disorders, and trauma fall most heavily on the poorest of our citizens. It’s time we ended the soft bigotry of low expectations in the medical field. We expect nothing less than to eliminate all disease, all disorders, and all blunt trauma by 2013. It’s time we had some accountability from these doctors and their “professional” associations.
We’re just not going to put up with their excuses anymore.
OMG! Can I repost?? (And would you want your name credited?)
Yes, you may repost
I would dearly love to post this as well – and happy to give you credit!
Still many errors in my spoof, written too hastily, I am afraid. My apologies for that.
It is 1984 Redux….read the short story by E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops…and it has come to pass. The inmates are running the asylum in education it would seem…and of course, there is no impartial free media to upend this assault.
I would like to bring to your attention again the article by Sean Reardon on school performance gaps which Diane mentions in her original post.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130429
This is the most persuasive explanation I’ve read of why some kids (rich kids) do better in school by a whole lot and poor kids, and now increasingly, middle class kids. If he’s right about the true causes of those differences, then I say lets all get together to support early cognitive stimulation, along with the other supports he proposes. But if someone says, we need massive new programs and appropriations, you’ve already lost me. I think it can be done with present education spending and will not require tax increases. The sequester has to stand.
I’d like to see people here FOR something for once, rather than fighting against, against, against all the time.
As Reardon says, lets get on with it.
I have mixed feelings about Paul Tough, but the first chapter of his latest book explains why “early cognitive stimulation” is no magic bullet. “Achievement” has a lot more to do with being raised in a secure and nurturing environment vs. a deprived/neglectful, abusive, trauma-filled environment than it does with cognitive stimulation. Plunking a bunch of poor kids in front of “Baby Einstein” isn’t going to cut it.
Dienne, I have some misgivings, as well. He appeared in the Chicago area with someone who is a former TFA who is now running some ed. company–very reformer-ish. In fact, you’ve reminded me to backtrack & look up this appearance (there is video, I believe). Thank you!
The educational background of the wealthy has also changed. A study found that 17% of the richest 400 people in the United States in 1982 had never attended college. By 2011 that proportion had dropped to 5%.
The paper is here:http://www.aeaweb.org/aea/2013conference/program/retrieve.php?pdfid=160
“If he’s right about the true causes of those differences, then I say lets all get together to support early cognitive stimulation, along with the other supports he proposes. But if someone says, we need massive new programs and appropriations, you’ve already lost me. I think it can be done with present education spending and will not require tax increases.”
So….. if I’m reading you right, assuming the author is correct, you think we SHOULD go ahead and provide quality pre-school experiences for all kids who need it, BUT since only a fraction of those who need it are getting it now, it WOULD require substantial new appropriations, so you DON’T think we should go ahead and do it.
You’d do well in Congress.
To your point, Harlan, have you read “Intelligence and How to Get It” by Richard Nisbett? Very interesting material there about early exposure to fluid intelligence activities. Gains of a full standard deviation on intelligence tests. However, all the gains erased after a few years when the kids return to their regular lives. One of the biggest problems we face is the Matthew Effect. Kids from middle-class and upper-class homes are exposed to a lot more language, a lot more vocabulary, and a lot more complex grammatical structures early on, at a time that is critical for the innate language acquisition device. So, they come from linguistically impoverished environments and the first thing we do, in school, is give them intentionally syntactically and semantically impoverished language and, again, no compensating oral language environment. There is a HUGE disconnect between what is known about the science of language acquisition and what is typically taught to future reading teachers in their reading programs in colleges.
Harlan, thanks for the link to that piece in the Times. It’s superb, and it points a frightening trend. I think that a lot of the problem is related to the differences in children’s ambient linguistic environments at home. We now know that most of an adult’s linguistic competency, including vocabulary and mastery of syntax, does NOT result from explicit instruction. Instead, we humans are born with marvelous cognitive machinery for learning vocabulary and grammar from the ambient spoken environment. The machine in the head for putting together a working model of a language is on a timer. There’s a window of opportunity during the early years when people have to be exposed to rich, complex language if that internal model of the language is to be robust. Lots and lots of studies have shown that there are VAST differences between rich and poor kids in a) the number of distinct words they hear, b) the amount of time they spend in conversation with adults, c) the sophistication and variety of the grammar (the syntax and morphology) used in the language they encounter, and d) the interactivity of their early spoken linguistic experiences.
So, the rich kids come into school with robust internalized grammars and lexicons, and the poor kids do not. The rich kids come to school with the cognitive model, developed from rich spoken language interactions over many years, that is prerequisite to learning how to read and write and think. The poor kids do not.
So, that’s what we know from scientific study of early language acquisition, but if you turn to what we do in school, you find very little attempt to provide compensating rich spoken linguistic environments. (There’s some of that, of course, in reading circles, but it’s like feeding aspirin to a cancer victim. Much, much more is needed.) And, to make matters worse, we take kids who are suffering from not having been able to build robust, internalized grammars and lexicons and INTENTIONALLY expose them to language that is impoverished syntactically and semantically from a mistaken belief that we have to give them language at their level. The emphasis on readabilities and leveled readers is thus almost entirely off base–it flies in the face of what we know, scientifically, about language acquisition.
So, what would the compensating environment look like? Well, it would contain a lot of read-alouds and a lot of discussion using vocabulary and grammar that kids don’t already know so that the amazing machine in their heads for intuiting linguistic structures will have the material on which it is designed to work. And kids would memorize pieces with complex syntactic structures (embedded clauses, appositives, compound elements, absolute constructions, etc) and sophisticated vocabulary.
All this is counterintuitive to many professional educators and to a lot of people in the reading community. But if those folks would talk more to the cognitive psychologists and the linguists, they would learn just how essential such compensating SPOKEN linguistic environments are for kids who haven’t had those at home.
Until we think seriously about how to build such compensating environments, the gap will grow. And seriously, education people really need to read some cog psi and linguistics.
Thank you for your interesting addition concerning how early exposure to complex language gives the brain’s intrinsic modeling capacity challenging problems on which to work. Perhaps the “gaps” arise then from students not being exposed to teachers who speak standard and academic English. That may be why TFA teachers seems like a plausible idea. If they were very good students, presumably they speak standard and even high standard educated English.
I may have misread the paper, but I think the claim is that the gaps are created before exposure to any teacher, TFA or not. Was I wrong about the claim?
You are exactly correct. I was responding to Shepherd’s observation that just as kids get to school the language challenges get dumbed down, and continue so through school.
The editorials popping up in various publications (dismissing teacher and parent concerns as isolated self-interest and whining of the unaware) tend to come as a result of meetings and consultations with pro-core/pro-testing folks. It would be interesting to have them look more into the R&D dollars that have ran from this country to places overseas-not because the ability or willingness to work is elsewhere, but because corporations look to profit from weak protections for environment and labor.
Not only editorials but in the last week on NPR (national propaganda radio) I’ve heard 2-4 stories about public education and the current supposed reforms all repeating the same rephormy crap. All of a suddent there seems to be a huge push to get all of the deformers deforms to go through. Who’s going to be and who is making all the jack on this????
Like! Again Diane Ravitch gets it right. Now can we create a Common Core for Congress? Let’s not let them go on recess until legislation is passed that actually solves some of our country’s most pressing problems.
As many people are realizing that standardized testing is harmful, many don’t see the interrelation between it and Corporate Corp National Standards.
On June 8th, in Albany NY parents, teachers, and students will hopefully know they should be advocating for the Network For Public Education’s tenets.
Public education is not standardized testing, CCNS, RTI, NCLB, RTTT etc
Hopefully NYSUT can help shape this message in the next 39 days.
The Gray Lady NYT has been wrong before and will be wrong again.
I quite think standardized testing, while harmful, is a necessary evil (e.g. for the purpose of college application). If the teachers have the right idea of teaching the students how to learn as opposed to teaching the students how to take the test, then the test itself cannot do much harm.
But the high-stakes testing, which I understand as tying teachers’ and principals’ pay and job security with the test scores, is definitely the wrong way to go.
On a side note, who exactly write those tests? Which education researchers do they consult? What sort of studies did they conduct before, during, and after they write the tests? All these are very much not transparent. Cynically I imagine that the big publishers (Pearson?) simply cheaply sub-contract the test writing to writers who may or may not qualify for the job.
“But the high-stakes testing, which I understand as tying teachers’ and principals’ pay and job security with the test scores,”
“High stakes” testing also refers to student “accountability”. Tests students must pass in order to pass a class or graduate.
“I imagine that the big publishers (Pearson?) simply cheaply sub-contract the test writing”
Correct. It has been established (on this and other blogs etc.) that most of these tests (on which so much rides) are not of excellent quality, do not test what they claim to test; however they are excellent profit makers for the testing company.
Thanks for the info on “high-stakes”!
About test-writing, is there no way to regulate or at least monitor the process? I was terrified to find out (only recently) that the same publisher also sells test-prep materials.
True…so they say…
“YOU HAD BETTER COVER ALL OF THAT MATERIAL OR YOU WILL BE FIRED!
YOUR TESTS SCORES ARE NOT HIGH ENOUGH.
JANE DOE HAS 4 GIFTED STUDENTS AND THEY ALL MADE 95.
YOU HAVE 35 AND NONE MADE HIGHER THAN 85.
I REQUIRE YOU TO PLAN WITH JANE AND WRITE MINUTE BY MINUTE LESSON PLANS JUST LIKE HER.”
I came, I saw, I conquered…..NO..NOT QUITE..
I tested, I tested, I tested….
“I tested, I tested, I tested….” and then I soiled myself!!!
“No one has explained why harder standards and tests will make them smarter. If a child can’t clear a 4′ bar, how does it help if you raise the bar to 6′?”
There is no logical explanation for harder standards. But there is a plan for “those” kids, for sure. TN State Collaborative on Reforming Education CEO & president Jamie Woodson told teachers we’re not going to spend money on those kids.
It’s the cheap seats for our neediest children.
More like no seats for the neediest children. Dickensesque??
jcgrim, oh yes, there is a good reason for harder standards. Think abaout who is pushing them the hardest and read this: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2012/08/
My biggest problem is that I won’t see the test results until the next school year starts. They are always late – we didn’t receive them last year until late October. So, it’s all for naught. I can’t help my child, I can’t even begin to fathom whether he’s getting the proper instruction or whether Common Core is good/better than whatever they’ve been doing up until now because the results won’t come in until well after the program starts. I feel like, as a parent, I have no choice in the matter – by the time I’m able to state whether this is a good fit for my child’s learning, he will already be engrossed in it. Again, the ultimate victims here are the children – all hail early anxiety and pharmaceutical companies making billions off of Adderall for kids. Maybe it will soon be OTC.
I think that the Times editorial was a reaction to the far right campaign against Common Core. The Times was not as up front about it as Mother Jones Magazine, but between the lines, the Times editorial board seemed to be saying “If a looney like Glenn Beck & his ignorant followers oppose these standards, then they must be a good thing.”
As Diane said, the Times board seemed to be repeating what CCS proponents told them but, at the same time, it was a pretty sloppy, uninformed editorial by Times standards. The board seemed unaware of the excellent Opinionator piece, or of the concerns about student privacy. Typically, the Times would oppose the data system and support actions like the suit filed by EPIC.
My guess is that most of the Times editorial board are more interested in, and knowledgable about, politics and foreign affairs than education. So they listened to the sort of people they identify with: well educated “liberals” who speak their kind of language, i.e., proponents of the Common Core.
It is clear from the editorial that the Times editors don’t understand that the Common Core standards bring with them even worse testing than NCLB, as well as a massive program for intrusive data collection. Those — particularly the data collection — might bring the Times editors up short; but right now, even if the data collection has made it onto their radar, it is easy for the editors to dismiss it as one more of Glen Beck’s paranoid fantasies.
At first glance, it seemed like the Glen Beck-Michelle Malkin attacks on Common Core would be helpful, but I’m not so sure now. The CCS proponents were already able to dismiss the concerns of Diane and her supporters (who are the kind of people the Times editors normally identify with); the fact that Beck-Malkin, et. al, have joined the opposition makes it that much easier for proponents to portray anyone who disagrees with them as unreasonable.
The NY Times editorial board has only one person (to my knowledge) who writes on education. He supports No Child Left Behind. He supports Race to the Top. He supports charters. He supports high-stakes testing. No surprise that he supports Common Core.
Diane,
Thanks for the info. Alas, it doesn’t surprise me. Though I think the Times editorial board’s pieces are usually better informed & reasoned.
Still, I do think there was a snob element to that editorial. At least in explaining the timing. The Mother Jones piece was really more a “There goes Glenn Beck again” article, and I think there were other stories like that too. I wish I thought your efforts were getting the press of Malkin-Beck, but I suspect that guy you mention used them to sell his piece to the Editorial Bd.
Sally,
People should listen to Stephen Krashen, Susan Ohanian, and Paul,Thomas, not Beck and Malkin.