Comment from a reader:
I’ve been rereading FAHRENHEIT 451 and in 1951 Ray Bradbury saw today coming. He has his protagonist’s boss say, “Give the people contests they win by remembering….names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data….and facts….. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking….And they’ll be happy because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. …..” He goes on to point out that thinking critically leads to unhappiness because critical thinking leads to conflicting theory and thought. No Utopian society is possible unless everyone is happy and thinking alike.
Gads. Doesn’t that sound like common core? Make all the round pegs fit in the square holes. There is only one correct answer to a MC question. Grade the essay by the number and length of words and the number of mechanical errors. Doesn’t matter if kids are required by law to have accommodations. Doesn’t matter if they just moved to this country and never had a day of education anywhere. Doesn’t matter if a kid sees something new in a book and defends it with evidence from the text.
Teachers should be capos: we tune the student’s mind like a metal bar across a guitar fret changes the key of a song. Capo teachers know their students, recognize that what works for one will not work for another. Capo teachers know that one child’s sculpture can represent the deepest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, while another student may write a poem, or even write an essay which also expresses their deep level understanding. But both CCSS and standardized testing are trying to make teachers into KAPOs, a Nazi concentration camp prisoner who was given privileges if they would supervise work gangs.
I will not be a Kapo. I will endeavor on a daily basis to convince my students that they are far more than a data point on a chart, that they and their parents should have a voice in how education continues in this wonderful country of ours.
My hat is off to all the Badass Teachers who stand up for their students. Yes, I need my job as much as the next person, maybe more, as I am my sole support. But I will not be forced into becoming a child abuser through the guise of “rigor” (mortis). The deformers, like Gates and Walton, Rhee and ALEC and Broad have manipulated facts and used scare-tactic rhetoric to mold the public mind for their own financial well being.
I am reminded in the scene in SCHINDLER’s LIST where the older gentleman is registering for the ghetto. The Nazi officer tags him as nonessential. As Stern leads him away to safety, the older man says, “Nonessential? I don’t think he knows what the word means. I am a teacher of history and philosophy”.
I already lost most of my family to the Holocaust. I will not go down this time without a fight.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reader: Yes, it does sound like CC. Maybe Randi W. will read this post, reader, and think it does too. All this is intertwined: CC, HST: APPR. You can’t have moratorium this, delay that. It’s all bad. There have been other turkeys in history, we can move on from CC , just like we did for prohibition and National Industrial Recover Act.
History has not ended. We will fix what is wrong if we persist.
Absolutely.
And history isn’t a tested subject (not that I want it to be), so it gets the short shrift everywhere. Is that on purpose so that people don’t know to recognize historical patterns? Sometimes I wonder.
Right on LP!
At the elementary level there is little going on in the teaching of history. It isn’t tested – yet.
American history is tested in 8th grade in Texas. Teachers are held accountable, but the students aren’t. Passing is not a requirement and the kids know it. Go figure.
I’ve thought about the lack of social studies, too, although I certainly don’t want it tested either. If we don’t utilize democracy in our classrooms much less teach about it, there will come a time when America’s citizens do not know the first thing about it, except for maybe that America used to practice democracy.
Exactly! I argue the importance of history and geography and civics and other social studies all the time for precisely this reason. But since, at least federally, it’s all “math and reading, reading and math,” the rest gets ignored. Teaching students to be good, knowledgeable citizens is essential to public education.
For me this kind of thing started with the Supreme Court decision which stated as a basic premise, Public schools “promote government agenda”. For me could anything be more totalitarian than that?
Now let’s read 1984, and Brave New World and realize we are already in a police state under constant surveillance by the NSA and others. The Common Core is required to dumb down the children and weed out the BATS.
When 1984 rolled around, I remember thinking “That’s not how it is” but now I’m thinking “It’s here.”
The elites are a little behind schedule. That is why they had to shove in the Common Core so unceremoniously. But they have been able to cut down on the amount of Shakespeare being read and exchanged it for informational texts such as Federal Reserve Reports (which actually should be considered fiction.)
Too many dystopian novels have elements of education “reform” in them.
Watch “The Hunger Games.” Doesn’t Donald Sutherand make an awesome Arne Duncan?
As we tell our students before state testing,
“May the odds be ever in your favor.”
Tim McFarland: the compulsion to “label, sort and rank” that animates standardized testing has been alive and well for many many years on tv.
Just consider how many “game shows” and “reality shows” and the like [e.g., the Judge Fill-in-the-Blank shows] that mimic the same drive to create “winners” and “losers”—and then consider how this caters to, and reinforces, and validates, that same essential feature of the “education reform” agenda with its VAManiacal belief in the power of irrelevant and misleading test scores to pass final and irrevocable numeric judgments on all of us.
Am I exaggerating? Consider the following observation from Frederick Douglass: “I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.”
If everything you see and hear makes the labeling and sorting and ranking seem “natural and “a given” then you don’t even realize that you have surrendered your good sense and judgment to others.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” [George Orwell, from ANIMAL FARM]
Rheeally?
Just my dos centavitos worth.
😎
You are not exaggerating. The purpose of the data collection system which had to be agreed to in order to apply for the RTTT, is to rank and sort and then……..eliminate. There are lots of eugenicists in very high places. Bill Gates doesn’t have to persuade on this count.
As long as we are looking at prophetic writings, why not “Harrison Bergeron”? Frighteningly accurate satire. Everyone is finally equal, thanks to CCSS.
Yes reader you are correct. The “genius” of this system is that it can only exist with the compliance of teachers administering “high stakes” tests. The testing-industrial complex could not do it without us. Thus we become morally compromised as we participate in the corruption of public education. The best we can do is try to limit the damage in our own schools and classrooms while we advocate for change as private citizens.
I believe there were some teachers in Garfield High School that refused to administer a standardized test en masse.
Yes. They refused to give the MAP Test. Now, it will no longer be given at the high school level. They still want to get rid of it at the middle and elementary school levels. I found a related article on Washington Post and could pull it up from Google, but can’t get it to come up when I type in an address.
Yes there were. Although I believe that the test they refused to administer was a district assessment, not a state mandated test. I can’t imagine any of them could have kept their jobs otherwise. Nonetheless, their actions were courageous, as was my daughter’s, who went to school last spring during our state’s high-stakes testing and refused to answer any questions.
Let’s not forget, the ultimate goal of reformers is for educational offerings so standardized and mechanized that teachers are a very small part of the equation. Online education certainly reduces the number of professional teachers required to reach students. Asimov wrote an eerily precient story abou it in 1951–The Fun They Had. http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html
Should we start memorizing and hiding books now. Pearson will come out with a selected book list that we can only teach. It’s up to BAT to find that place deep in the woods where we can all meet and share our books.
Kindle makes it so easy for books to disappear….or words, paragraphs or names to be …changed without readers awareness…..especially new young readers. Memorize. Memorize.
Just came from one of those “deep places in the woods” where I spent the last five days without any electrical devices (other than battery powered flashlights).
Saw a log over the river right at the bank dance alive with a fire that didn’t burn it.
Listened to the coydogs singing their delights at night.
Watched and listened as the crows harassed the raptor.
At nightfall, felt the life sustaining warmth of the fire while watching the feverishly fanciful flames.
Enjoyed more stars than I’ve seen in a long time!
Savored a hot spice cider spiked with some rum.
Find those “deep spots”. They are there!
Dark times are upon us friends.
My ELA colleagues in CT recently issued a SBAC pretest to our 6th graders to determine their ability to pluck ‘facts’ from 3 readings and use them to support an opinion.
The articles: All 3 about the technological wonders of robots.
The prompt: Which makes the best teacher- a human, or a robot?
The rub: There being NO information given about the wonders of the teacher-student dynamic, students COULD NOT receive a passing score by describing how human teachers ‘care’, ‘love’, ‘encourage’, or ‘challenge’.
The results: The vast majority failed the pretest because they could not support their choice of human teachers, because there were no ‘facts’ in the readings to use for this.
Dark times indeed.
One of the scariest things I’ve read in a long time. As teachers, how do we survive this kind of propaganda?
We have been living in the matrix for quite some time. The question is, do you want the red pill or will you stick with the blue? The “news” IS propaganda. What are you willing to do to allow your mind to function as designed?
Turn your TV off.
Do not drink fluoridated water. (It has the effect of Prozac)
Do not eat genetically modified foods (including Aspartame in Diet drinks)
Read Shakespeare
Listen to and play Bach, Mozart and Beethoven
Avoid alcohol and drugs
Be alert
Revive classical culture
Wake up
Pressure congress to reinstate the Glass Steagall Act in order to take control of your money, your future and the future of your country
Check how you are feeling after doing these things.
Spread the word.
Interesting article in yesterday’s NYT about ebooks reading the reader. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/technology/as-new-services-track-habits-the-e-books-are-reading-you.html?_r=0
There was an outpouring of rage on Twitter against this post because of its use of an analogy to the Holocaust. Several people said I should not have allowed it on the blog or words to that effect. I find this argument to be a form of political correctness that is used to censor opinion. If anyone wants to use an analogy to make a point, that is their choice. If it works, it works, if it is excessive, so be it. I wrote a book about censorship by the left and right called “The Language Police.” I will not let “the language police” censor me or my readers. If they are offended, they should read something else.
Diane, I am glad that you and Ben Carson are taking a public stand against political correctness which is ruining this country.
It wouldn’t be censorship if you had merely decided that the analogy was so over-the-top and hysterical that it didn’t merit anyone’s attention. That’s just common sense, and you presumably exercise it every day when you decide not to feature emails saying that public school teachers belong in Communist prison camps, or emails saying that Randi Weingarten is an alien invader from Saturn, or whatever other craziness is out there.
WT, It is my blog and I will say and print what I think is interesting. Some people don’t like what I say and print. They are free to post comments or not to read the blog at all.
True enough — you are free to think any sort of wild rantings are “interesting,” although it would be nice if you added some qualifying statement about how ludicrously offensive it is to make a Holocaust comparison here.
Dr. Ravitch,
Would that GLAAD would have left A&E alone to police their own shows rather than bully them into a faux suspension of the Duck Dynasty patriarch then. Though it is not within your blog’s usual topics, the situation is analogous to this one, no? Shall I assume you believe that GLAAD should have left A&E alone because “it is [their channel] and [they] will [broadcast] what [they] think is interesting. Some people don’t like what [they broadcast]. They are free…not to [watch] at all.
WT,
If you don’t like what is expressed in this blog, then comment as much as you want here about views that may be in the minority but are also welcome.
Diane has succinctly stated that disagreement is healthy.
There are plenty of dissenters who are like minded like yourself, such as Joe Nathan, TE, Harlan Underhill, and the ever bone-in-your-throat Bernie1815.
Or, WT, why not form your own blog, read other blogs, or simply avoid this one?
I have yet to see Diane blocking anyone from criticizing Randi Weingarten. I am one of her (Randi’s) biggest disapproving critics, and I have articulated my opprobrium plenty of times on this blog.
Ultimately, as part of one’s freedom of speech and expression, the blog host reserves the right to conduct her blog as she sees fit. You would have those same rights if you had your own forum.
I don’t like Rush Limbaugh, so I dont’ listen to his drivel nor do I read up on him, unless there’s an article exposing some horrible scandal he was instrumental in. He’s such a big, mean, nasty, drooling slob.
Get a life, WT.
Or a blog . . . . .
Diane, I AGREE with you. You are right on. The language police have censored me. We are in good company. In fact, the language police have censored many great scholars. I can name them and the censors and those they censored are well ALIVE!
What happens when all children, even those not in public schools, are forced into Common Core? Already the SAT will be Common Core. Companies threaten to not hire without Common Core education.
Starting with the Nazi’s through today, in Germany, there is no choice but state-run, national education. With this model, there are no alternatives but what comes from the national government. Sound familiar?
It still happening in Germany today:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/feb/24/schools.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24804804
I watched a show years ago about this country losing a war to the communists and there was no fighting. The story was how a young pretty teacher turned a third grade to the communist side in one hour. Fascinating to watch. I can’t remember the show.
I saw the same film in college and it freaked me out. I just looked it up. It’s called “The Children’s Story,” and I think of it often when I see what is happening in education today. Children are remarkable malleable, and it wouldn’t be too hard to turn a society to totalitarianism, starting with its children. It’s terrifying.