Jersey Jazzman describes the new era of creative disruption in Montclair, New Jersey, under its Broad-trained superintendent.
Montclair was, until now, one of the best districts in a high performing state.
Expect the crisis narrative to begin any day now as a prelude to charters and school closings. Unless, that is, the parents rebel. Suburban parents don’t like to be shoved around, and don’t like experiments on their children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I follow this pretty closely, and I’m confused about CC. I don’t think most parents understand it.
It’s being sold dishonestly, because there are two parts. Whatever one thinks of the “standards” the parents who understand CC seem to be concerned not with the standards but with the new testing regime attached to the standards.
One of the problems with King’s first public meeting that I watched was he and the parents were talking about two different things. Either he didn’t catch that, or he’s deliberately not addressing the concerns on CC testing.
CC supporters are conflating the standards and the testing into a comprehensive approach, but parents are zeroing in on testing, because we’ve had “reform” test regimes for a decade now, so we understand those.
Reformers have set up a straw man “opposed to higher standards” and with that we never get to the specifics. It’s the difference between abstract policy and what’s actually happening in schools. These two groups of people are discussing two different things.
Kind of like the double talk with reform that includes choice. Choice not really being about public school at all. Confusing the two issues made it easier to slip things by.
My principal likes CCSS. But not testing. So maybe a good understanding of where the crossover is and is not would help folks articulate concerns better.
It’s not just the tests. Parents are appalled by the curricular content as witnessed by the ridiculous homework assignments. They are also reacting to the new negative attitude their children have towards school.
The tests are just the icing on the cake.
The CCSS in ELA were written by amateurs. They are a backward mess. It’s as though someone handed David Coleman and Susan Pimentel a copy of the 1858 Gray’s Anatomy and sent them into the woods to write new “standards” for the medical profession.
YES!!! And they are developmentally inappropriate for the early childhood grades.
Chiara: your comments suggest a better way of explaining the CC, high-stakes standardized testing, and the like—
Point out the difference between the words and the deeds of the edufrauds. As long as they can pontificate on aspirational goals and their fervent desire to achieve them, they are able to avoid explaining why their actual programs and methods are literally taking us backwards.
Except, of course, when it comes to THEIR OWN CHILDREN. That is the most striking part of their studious hypocrisy: they want to mandate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN something very different indeed from what they ensure for their own.
Thank you for your comments.
🙂
This is what these parents opposing
Common Core are
up against… told in a parody
of John King talking to his advisors:
I totally agree with Chiara. It has been my understanding that the ELA CCSS were written by highly regarded people in the field of literacy. Lucy Calkins from Columbia Teachers College comes to mind. I think experts in the field might say that the standards aren’t perfect but provide a good road map. I also think that experts such as Lucy are extremely concerned about how the standards are being used by politicians, testing and for profit companies, philanthropists (what I call missionaries), and non-profit “save our children” groups (more missionaries). Perhaps someone can point us to a good articulation of the how testing and CC are different and/or the same.
“I also think that experts such as Lucy are extremely concerned about how the standards are being used by politicians, testing and for profit companies, philanthropists (what I call missionaries), and non-profit “save our children” groups (more missionaries).”
King was infuriating to listen to because he seemed obtuse. The speakers were stating the same concern over and over, essentially. They were asking him to explain the difference between the theoretical CC he was describing (and selling) and their actual experience with the test prep and testing. He essentially kept repeating the same droning mantra “that isn’t the Common Core”. Well, what is it then, if it isn’t the Common Core?
It just won’t work, this approach towards public school parents. If the actual experience is negative, all the (perhaps wonderful! who knows?) theory won’t matter at all.
I feel as if I’ve been burned by ed reform, as a public school parent. It was not at all like what was sold, over the last decade. I was told, for example, that this was designed to improve existing public schools, yet existing public schools are completely ignored.
They have to address this disconnect honestly and frankly. There’s a history here, and it’s not good.
Have you looked at the CC? I have. The criteria is often inappropriate for the given age group. There is also too much curriculum to be reasonably covered in the give n amount of time available. Students, teachers, and parents become frustrated. I am talking about primary grade school children being made to feel stupid when they don’t understand the material because it is developmentally beyond their abilities for that grade level.
You say experts, I say fraud.
I agree. I saw a second grade rubric response based on CC, that required a student to provide a written answer to a comprehension question with absolutely every detail from the story including the antecedent and outcome of the event. It wasn’t realistic.
These so-called standards were written by amateurs. That’s clear. They were written, for example, in what seems to be total ignorance of the sciences of language acquisition.
Colorado Teacher,
“. . . how testing and CC are different and/or the same. . . ”
Because the discourse of “standard” necessarily entails “measurement”. I point you (and everyone else) to Noel Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” Chapter 9, “Instrumentation”.
All you need to know about “testing and CC” is within that study, especially Ch. 9.
If you have read Ms Calkins book,
” pathways to common core ” you might be confused about her concern over politicians as her “pathway” is full of political ideology of a certain stripe and it’s delivery using carefully plucked out of context snippets of literature. Charlottes Web used to convey a social justice meme and deep directed discussion led directly by the fascilitator/teacher, forget enjoyment of literature. Deep drudgery purposefully led down a dark alley. Zero joy of reading. Just forced politics on children. She may not like the profits of the educrats but she likes getting her personal political views drilled into kids under a perverse view of literacy. Read her book to get a keen understanding of the illusions of common core.
As the word spreads:
http://www.nationofchange.org/education-reform-conversation-we-need-vs-one-we-have-1383144265
wow- thanks for sharing this!
The line has been drawn. Hoping that Montclair parents, teachers, and students win!
Did you catch this article in yesterday’s NYTimes?
“Arne Duncan @arneduncan 2h
Congrats to Ted Mitchell- nominated by President Obama for @usedgov Under Secretary. A fantastic addition to our team!”
Sigh.
The 90% of kids in existing public schools get screwed, again, by the Obama Administration.
Another charter school/private school advocate in government.
I don’t know if it’s possible for an administration to abandon existing public schools to a greater extent than Obama/Duncan have thus far, but I think we’re about to find out.
At this point I’d be grateful if they’d just leave my local public school alone. I’ve given up expecting “support” from federal or state actors. Now I’d be pleased if they’d just continue the singular focus on charters and vouchers and leave us out of this completely.
“. . . 90% of kids. . . get screwed, again, by the Obama Administration.”
Would you expect any different from a man (sic) who ordered the Mafia style “hit” by drone strike on a never having been adjudicated for any crime 16 year old AMERICAN BOY???
Here’s Mr. Duncan’s new public school leader. Read the interview. His goal is to turn existing public schools into charter schools. Like all reformers, he can find nothing positive to say about a single existing public school in the US. He’s taken this to a ludicrous extreme, where he doesn’t even bother to mention public schools. He’s now moved smoothly from privatization lobbying to the public payroll.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nicoleperlroth/2011/09/19/newschools-ceo-ted-mitchell-my-best-idea-for-k-12-education/
Those of us who have witnessed the failure to address the ever-widening achievement gap in Montclair’s schools would disagree with your assessment that the schools were doing great “until now.” Sure, Montclair sends a lot of kids to great colleges. But the bottom 20% or so are poorly served and have been for a generation – just close our eyes, plug our ears and say “la la la” leave it alone?
“But the bottom 20% or so are poorly served and have been for a generation. . . ”
Who are the bottom 20%? 20% of what? And so they’ve only be “poorly served. . . for a generation? Which generation might that be? The one of segregation, separate but equal?
“. . . just close our eyes, plug our ears and say “la la la” leave it alone?” Is that the only response to your supposed bottom 20%?
That’s the fatal flaw in CC. Middle class parents can’t be pushed around like poor urban families. We fight back because we do have a strong educational background and we value our children and their education. And don’t indicate our kids are stupid due to an invalid teat. We know better and we won’t take this nonsense any more.
This is just the start. Beware of MaMa Bears.
“Poor urban parents” are no different than” Middle class parents”. They also want the best for their children. That’s why they go to a charter or any other school looking for the best they can get under their circumstances. Parents love their children whether they are poor or not. Just wait till the “poor urban parents” decide enough is enough. Cities and govt. are in trouble.
Parents love their children. They won’t continue to submit them to this. The parents of Monclair and of every other community in the nation have an obligation to keep their kids home on test day and so NOT be complicit in this child abuse.
And, of course, it’s their right to do so. Time for some civil disobedience.
Boo!
Today’s Chicago Tribune is reporting on the dramatic decline in test scores in Illinois, thanks to what it’s calling “stricter standards.” There is something particularly ridiculous about this whole project at this point in history, and no Arne Duncan dumb talking points can deflect the stupidity of the Race To The Top eugenics movement. But as long as most of the corporate media continue to report these facts as if they were because of the failures of teachers and public schools, we continue to have our work cut out for us. And it’s work well worth doing.
Here is Chicago, as I’ve announced in a couple of other places, we are developing several study groups centering on “Reign of Error.” Sunday, Karen Lewis volunteered to do a “lesson plan” based on Chapter Eleven. That way, teachers who don’t have the time to read the whole book carefully (Chicago elementary teachers are suffering under massive class size increases and the “Longest School Day” foisted on the schools by Rahm Emanuel two years ago) can study it in pieces. It straightforward lesson planning, much as those of us who used to teach literature (before it was outlawed by David Coleman and Common Core) would outline one chapter or act (of a play) and then move the students gradually through that lesson. I never taught “Romeo and Juliet” the precise same way two years in a row, because the kids changed, and so did the era we were in. But my early lessons on “Shakespeare” always had to include signposting (the act scene and line indicators) and how metaphors work…
“Oh, she doth hang upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel on an Ethiop’s ear
Beauty to rich for use, for earth too dear…
Etc.
Unless someone was gong to get messed up with the “Ethiop” (which to this day I think is a very nice way of showing how a diamond can work, we could move on quickly. At that point, about three quarters of the students would “get” metaphor. By the semester’s end, in I was lucky, that number would go up to 95 percent. Anyone who believes that a lesson is learned first time by 100 percent of the kids is delusional — or a victim of too many hours reading “Atlas Shrugged” and re-reading the dirty parts while wishing she were John Galt…
Anyway,
We’ll have lessons on “Reign of Error” to help us overcome this MY GOD YOUR TEST SCORES HAVE GONE DOWN! DOWN DO YOU HEAR! OMG! WTF!
Happy Halloween.