Bill Boyle has come to the conclusion that the Common Core standards are “one more step in the decimation of the common good.”
He got into a Twitter debate with an advocate for the standards, then realized that this–like so many other controversial issues–has no neutral ground, no set of facts that will dispassionately settle the questions.
There is a narrative surrounding the Common Core that has been used to sell it: that it was “created by the states”; that the federal government had nothing to do with creating or promoting the CCSS (which would be illegal); that it will benefit all children; that it will close the achievement gap; that it will raise our national test scores and make us “globally competitive.”
Some of these assertions can actually be tested, in the sense that the evidence for the assertions does not exist. We will know in 12 years which–if any–of these assertions are true. Unfortunately, in matters of ideology, true believers have a tendency to stick with failed ideas no matter what the facts are (see, USSR).
In the meanwhile, the most vociferous supporters of Common Core seem to be in the corporate world. I keep wondering how many people at Exxonmobil, State Farm Insurance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other cheerleaders have read the standards and how many of their executives could pass the CC tests.
The only path I see out of the present dilemma is to impose a three-five year moratorium on the Common Core tests. Invite experienced teachers from every grade level in every state to revise the standards to make them sound, age-appropriate, and to correct errors of judgment.
That still leaves in solved the staggering cost of implementing the standards: professional development, new resources. And the biggest cost is the budget-killer: the purchase of tablets, laptops, and other technology to administer the tests. Best to put that massive cost off for another’s hte-five years until teachers nd students have had time to make the necessary adjustments.
And then it will be time to assess whether schools should invest in testing or in the arts; testing or social workers and guidance counselors; testing or smaller classes; testing or libraries and librarians; testing or pre-kindergarten.
No, there is no neutrality. There are real costs and real choices to be made.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
For me, the central issue with the imposition of the standards goes beyond the “who is responsible”. I already know how that happened. I am wondering why no one in the media is taking Core/Reform promoter/apologists to task over defining their lofty, general goals that have so far required specific and destructive sacrifices (for everyone but them, of course). What “jobs of the future”? Does “competitive” mean what it currently means (cheap, expendable labor/low operating costs)? Is the goal for our country to be a leader in character and equity or in empire and world dominance? Is forcing a human endeavor like education into service of a market model that has already driven inequity a goal shared by the majority-or an agenda of the wealthy minority?
I also wonder . . . . “how many people at ExxonMobil, State Farm Insurance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other cheerleaders” want their kids to go to schools with the Common Core and all the associated data-gathering and of course the testing, more testing, misuse of testing, evaluating teachers based on that misuse of testing, ad infinitum. My guess is they only consider this “corporate reform” stuff necessary for “the public schools’ that other people send their kids to . . . it doesn’t effect them or theirs. When the private schools start signing up in droves for these changes to the way they teach, then maybe we could take it more seriously for all kids. Until then, no thanks.
One need look no further than the Obama children or the Gates children to view the hypocrisy of the corporate CCSS proponents. They attend private schools that are the antithesis of public schools under CCSS: Individualized learning, small classes, emphasis on the teacher-student dynamic, rich in the arts, service learning, outdoor education, independent studies, and authentic learning. CCSS and the children of the corporate elite, never the two shall meet.
And read Mercedes:
The American Enterprise Institute, Common Core, and “Good Cop”
December 28, 2013
The supporters of CCSS I hear include a high school Algebra teacher here in NYC who lauds the call for students to think analytically about complex “real world” problems. Figure out how to solve them without reaching for the tried and tested algorithm and start figuring some things out on their own. She’s slowly moving them away from “Just give me the answer!” syndrome. It takes time.
She’s not fearful of the tests and doesn’t listen to corporate America, because she knows that she’s challenging her students to move beyond just memorization of stuff as I did in math many, many years ago in high school.
All cautions about who made the standards and who supports them may be true. Would like to see concrete evidence of same–hope it’s in Reign of Error which I just downloaded as an ebook.
The fact is that some of us have been toiling in the vineyards of higher intellectual standards since the 80s and are glad that we have standards calling for higher order thinking in math and LA.
Yes, the exams seem onerous right now. Call a moratorium on them. Provide lots of professional development so we don’t make mistakes made right after Sputnik with all of the educational reforms from higher education (New Math, BSCS Bio, Inquiry Social Studies (Fenton) and the like.
Give teachers time, opportunities, resources and all the support available to learn how to challenge students to engage in figuring out how to analyze complex “real world” problems that involve numbers.
She’s teaching her students to think, not regurgitate, and that’s very hard.
John Barell
http://www.morecuriousminds.com
And many teachers have been doing that for years. CCS leaves the impression we haven’t a clue and we are all bumbling idiots. Gates is now going to save us. They have nothing without the testing. Top down doesn’t work and they don’t have us; they never will. The goal is to destroy the profession and take over as many schools as possible. Churn baby churn…test scores are all that matter.
Linda: I know you won’t be surprised if there is a response or two that lambastes you for stating the glaringly obvious.
This reminds me of the “merit pay” argument which the owner of this blog has aptly described in the thread of a recent [12-17-13] posting on this website:
“Mike, the advocates of merit pay think you are hiding your really good stuff, until they offer you a carrot. That carrot will make the kids work harder. I know it makes no sense, but that’s their logic. Or illogic.”
CCSS. Merit pay. The Sacred EduMetrics of the High Holy Church of Testolatry.
You don’t let the edufrauds [thank you!] get away with their smug cheap shots at genuine learning and teaching.
Keep on posting. I’ll keep on reading.
😎
“They have nothing without the testing.”
When I took the IOWA tests of basic skills back in the 60s, my third grade teacher didn’t worry that her reputation or career would be threatened if I scored poorly.
They have nothing without [a threatening and punitive approach to] testing.
John, I just don’t believe you. The CC math standards just don’t supply anything that helps teachers to teach kids how to “think critically” or “solve real world problems”. It’s empty hype.
I really think you’re making this teacher up. The algebra teachers I know who do “support the common core” are the ambitious young TFA kids the administration has designated to “lead” in the “implementation”. They hand around gibberish sample lessons, and try to take a strong booster tone, but they’re completely flummoxed.
The emperor is stark naked, and Gates’ hired pundits are holding up four fingers and calling it five.
Absolutely on the money. Talk is cheap when it comes to “teaching students how to think”. This throw-away line is swallowed by a lot of people who apparently can’t.
Most importantly, are your books aligned to the Common Core Standards? Everything seems to have the “Aligned to the Common Core Standards!” stamp on the front cover these days. Even American Doll and the Girl Scouts are aligned to the Common Core.
Add then there’s Opt Out Olivia with free choice books, a violin and paint brush.
She is free from legally sanctioned child abuse and happy.
“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.” – Maria Montessori
Linda,
I like Opt Out Olivia! I hope she got her books from her well educated, patron centered, collection developing, curriculum savvy, collaborative educator, and tireless teacher & learner school librarian.
Every school should have at least one;^)
Can you provide one specific example in which “she” teaches her students “how to think”?
I didn’t think so.
The biggest mystery is how did this algebra teacher learn how to think if she was educated before Common Core, perhaps back in (gasp!) the 20th century before there were 21st century learning skills to rigorously compete in a global market?
The math teacher described above is the professional norm, not the exception. CCSS promoters would have people believe that teaching higher order thinking is something new that teachers have not been doing, when in fact most of us have been doing so.
Perhaps it is much harder to do this in socio-economically distressed schools, but that is because one has to take care of the Maslow’s hierarchy stuff before doing the Bloom’s taxonomy stuff.
Exactly Alan, thank you!
Asking students to “think” is something teachers have being doing since Socrates. If this is all CCSS is doing then what’s the big deal.
Problem I have with new math standards and thinking is the convoluted and obtuse application of operations. Kids would be much better off taking an old-school industrial arts class. I learned a lot more math in my metal working, woodworking, and drafting classes than I ever did in algebra or geometry. And those classes didn’t teach me how to think but required me to think twice and cut once.
Bravo! Who knew teachers would be so knowledgeable about teaching? Ha!
And look what ancient Athens’ version of corporate reformers did to Socrates…
Shop class indeed! How better to learn than by applying from the word go.
Sadly, at least where I teach, shop, home ec., industrial arts all went out the window as NCLB and the test test test mindset took over. Instead there are “21st. century skills” with Legos, Power Points, and graphing with Excel. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
In our zeal to get every kid over the same bar we have taken away the means by which many of those kids can actually learn and experience success in school.
There is a wonderful recent book called Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford. It is about the issue of so-called “knowledge work” lacking in autonomy and intellectual depth, in contrast to manual trades, which offer plenty of both. Followers of the assault on education will recognize many of the same things we discuss here.
I highly recommend it.
Just imagine if the trillions being spent on CCSS was spent developing high quality, 21st century “shop” classes. From basic drafting to CAD, from basic woodworking and metal forming to engineering and manufacturing. It is a shame what’s been lost since the inception of NCLB.
Tisk tisk NY Teacher!
All those skilled craftsmen would demand jobs! And living wages! And Benefits! And Retirement plans!
How, ever, would Gates and the 1%ers amass huge profits off of these intelligent, skilled, and productive people?
They don’t want our kids smart, just trainable.
LOL. No wonder Jon likes Common Core. He is one of the Agenda 21 liberal progressive socialist nut jobs who can’t wait for the central government controlled indoctrination of our children through the New World Order! Thanks for the link that exposed what you are.
Excellent satire, sir. Well done.
I was a victim of New Math.
Sorry to hear that. I learned “Old” math and then tried to teach the “New” math through self-study and wasn’t much of a success.
Some folks seem to assume–meaning those who design curricula that raise standards significantly [which is a good thing]–that this is all we need to do and everybody will be able to educate kids toward these lofty goals. Not so, unfortunately.
But the goals are most worthy. Let’s not throw them out. Let’s learn how to educate toward them as some are doing now–e.g. the Algebra teacher I’ve mentioned before.
John,
A couple of quick questions and some comments if you don’t mind.
How long did you teach in public schools and what levels/subjects? Have you worked as a teacher with CCSS in a public school?
There is no disconnect between educational standards and standardized testing as they birthed at the same time (although not with that terminology) as the different sides of a single coin. What joins them together so tightly is the idiology (yes, that’s purposely misspelled) that the teaching and learning process can be “measured” as a standard is all about measurement of some sort. And that idiology is based on logical the logical fallacy that a quality can be quantified, when quantity is a subset of quality. The subset cannot define the whole category, it’s impossible.
Noel Wilson has explained it all (before NCLB, RaTT, and CCSS) in his never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Duane, we do internalize the identity of our grades. How much better to be an A student. Being an A student frees you to explore, because you have confidence in your abilities. And if an A student gets a bad grade, even an F, they will move heaven and earth to compensate for the failure and improve. I was an A student.
My two older daughters could have been A students, but settled for the B. Their philosophy was that they might get the A if they worked their asses off, but they still might only get the B. They were guaranteed the B with a lot less effort and the occasional C was an acceptable side effect.
My youngest daughter was a C student who over achieved so she could get the B.
My son has a lot of talents, but book smarts is not one of them. I guess he would be considered an F student. He was capable of more.
In the library, we would offer extra help to the students. IF I were going to do a research study, it would be on this scenario which I have seen repeatedly in other libraries. The individuals who come for extra help are mainly the B students and sometimes even the A students. At times you might see those C students. Rarely do those D and F students show up. Why? Is it something innate in the identity of those grades? Do those A and B students put in more effort or care more than those who get the Cs? And is it that the D and F students either don’t care or don’t have the ability or have they just given up?
Do those labels matter? If so, how much? I think if we could find the answers, we might have a better handle on the educational process. Why do some kids fail? Is it really a lack of ability or something more?
Did graduating from college, Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude make me a better teacher? Did anyone who hired me care? All they wanted to see was my certification.
Being a B student didn’t keep my older kids from being successful. Elizabeth graduating from college with a 2.8 GPA is more than enough to get her a job as a TFA. Will my son’s lack of a college education hold him back?
So, long term, what are the repercussions of the label? Is the grade a predictor of success or failure? Right now I know a brilliant young man with a college degree who can’t seem to find a job, even one at minimum wage. He is white, privileged, gifted, but a little odd. My son, with his GED, will find work more easily than this A student.
It’s confusing.
For me it’s not confusing but “disconnected” in the sense that what we’ve been told about the supposed benefits of a “good” education (and by that I mean “good” in a classic sense of learning for learning and not just getting “credentialed” as much of what passes for education is, unfortunately, the latter) for future life, economic and job prospects.
Grades were never important to me as a child. Not sure why, except maybe that schooling came easy for me and I didn’t have to worry about them, not to mention my parents weren’t all “gung ho grades” type even though all the kids were expected to go to college. Grades (credentialing) for many students these days is the focus, not learning. And those grades, indeed, serve as self definers in the minds of many students. Foucault calls it subjectivization, Hacking refers to it as the “looping effect” and I call it internalization whereby the student accepts the label (illogically placed onto the student-an example of just one of the errors that Noel Wilson identifies that completely invalidates standards, testing and grades as logical concepts) and “becomes” that label. Anyone who has taught for long, oh maybe a day, will have heard the “I am a ___ student” meme. Quite sad in fact.
I always wondered about the D or F students. Is it because they couldn’t do the work or was it because they didn’t try? Perhaps if they didn’t try and then failed, they had an excuse not to feel stupid. But if they tried and failed, then they would have to internalize that F.
Ellen,
There you go using that four letter “F” word again,-ha ha-the one that is far more insidious and harmful than what most consider the dirtiest, slimiest, yuckiest, disgusting “F” word in the English Language-“fuck”.
Yet it is so ingrained in our social habitus to accept that if someone attempts something in the school setting that they can be appropriately labeled to have “F@!led”. It’s absolutely atrocious that we subject innocent children to this form of abuse. If any “F” word should be banned from being uttered in schools it should be “F@!L” and not “fuck”.
And it is a one of the main FAILURES of the schools to allow this abusive practice to continue.
The crime is when they refuse to be helped.
On occasion, I was able to help a middle school student complete an assignment so they could pass their ELA class and graduate. (8th grade graduation used to be a big deal – some of the kids had no hope of graduating from high school. The last superintendent did away with them.)
One summer, I worked with over forty HS Seniors and helped them with their term papers. They all passed and were able to attend summer school graduation. I probably helped them a little too much, but I have no regrets. (One was going to SU on a basketball scholarship. I recommended he get a smart girlfriend.)
Others I couldn’t reach. It wasn’t a lack of ability, it was a lack of effort. You can sit one on one with a student and still not be able to get them to do any work. They wouldn’t even copy someone else’s homework. That’s true failure – when they’ve just given up.
“That’s true failure – when they’ve just given up.”
The question becomes why have they “just given up”? What is it about schooling that so turned them off? Could have been years of being told by the authorities that they were “failures”. I’d bet a dime to a dollar that that would be a major cause. Why do we continue to grade and label students? What is the purpose of sorting and separating students into illogical and invalid categories, of which only one has a word, fail, associated with it?
I contend that it is the FAILURE of the school system and it’s separating, sorting and grading of students that is the main cause/problem here. Foucault’s concept of subjectivization is a powerful one. How many people, but especially children, resist the labels that are logically wrongly attached to them by the school authorities? 1/1000. And again it works it’s maliciousness on those labelled “A” student as much as “F” student as you noted in your comment above.
My feeling is “Fuck the “F@!L” word”.
(And no apologies given for that usage!)
“That’s true falure…when they’ve just given up.” Such a powerful fact and an even more realistic evaluation of one of the most critical issues in education. Thank you for your point!
I believe one of the most fundamental failures in this topic, is that Educational institutions somehow think they can address this failure, the problem of students giving up. Our youth aren’t giving up because of the battles over tests, testing, standards, etc. Instead before our children even enter the educational arena, their cultural and/or social construct plays the biggest role in their mind state and mental awareness, which interacts then with the educational paradigms educators deal with at the intentional level.
Culture! Fir all of its myriad contexts and cinstructs, is playing the biggest role in our childrens life and shaping their thought patterns and hence, interfering with their engagement at the educational level. Then with all the Pseudo-political in house battles and changes, reforms and re-reforms by educational institutions, our youth are running into an insurmountable brick wall. Hence, a lack of interest by students.
Until our educational systems are able, and importantly willing to engage local communities from which students hail, teachers will not be able to instruct them with any measurable success, which is why we can unfortunately describe todays educational culture as a Drop Out Nation. Many of our youth wake up to the smell of marijuana in the homes. They go to sleep after a night of drunkard fights in their home. Their friends are over dosing, in gangs and sometimes they themselves are using drugs. Television portrays acts of violence as an entertainment norm. Video games are marketed to them and parents purchase them, many if which are violent driven and/or are lacking intellectual stimulation. And many of us sit back behind our desks or college degrees and wrangle over “standards, tests, assessments and grades.” There’s a much larger issue also at play aside from these topics being fought out in theeducational arena.
The drug culture is pervasive, and a big problem in the suburban and rural schools, not just the city. Some kids can function normally, others cannot. And in the black community (also Native American) pot is a cultural norm, enjoyed by parents with their children. Plus the use of over the counter items (not even meant to be drugs) as well as prescription medicine has become an annoying reality. (My youngest daughter is in out patient treatment for prescription drug addiction). It’s a factor in the equation which has been ignored for too long.
Schools are institutions—they are designed to credential which means an instructional regime set up to compare, differentiate, hierarchize, homogenize, and then exclude. The title of David Labaree’s book best sums up the the goals and content of our schools: How to succeed without really learning. Students trapped in these institutional settings have three choices: they can “do” school (play the system); they can conform (smile a lot, pay attention, don’t talk), or they can rebel (special education and/or expulsion. As yet no reform movement has tried out the suggestion of Lillian Katz: “why don’t we try making out schools interesting.” At the turn of the century progressive educators (e.g. Dewey) attempted to focus on the child’s developmental goals instead of institutional goals, but these educators were falsely accused of promoting a soft pedagogy as opposed to the rigors of sitting for six/seven hours a day listening, taking notes, taking tests, listening, taking notes, taking tests. Howard Gardner says it best when he commented that the only thing schools prepares you for is the next level of schooling — that’s it. When I first started teaching I asked the same questions of students who were not doing well: are they not trying or is the work too hard. The more I taught, the more I came to believe that these are the wrong questions. Rather I should be asking: what do I have to do to make this student successful in my classroom. Institutional schooling makes this an almost impossible goal to take on —- now made even more difficult my the piling on of institutional forms of surveillance and accountability. Along with my question, the question posed by Sir Kenneth Robinson is where we should begin all talks of schooling in America: how is it that we can take a child with infinite curiosity and systematically crush that curiosity by the end of elementary school? While I am adamantly opposed to the current accountability movement and largely in agreement with so many of comments on this blog, I think Dewey would say that current reform battles have largely missed the point of what makes a good school.
Alan – there is much truth in what you said.
I had a lesson in the library I usually did with fourth graders where we brainstormed different ways to organize the library. I told them that no answer was too outrageous. It was hard for them to come up with ideas besides ABC order. Once I did the same lesson with kindergarteners and the responses were phenomenal. They hadn’t learned that the teacher was looking for the right answer and were free to use their imaginations. Yes – color, shape, size, how the book makes you feel, . . . What a difference.
It doesn’t take long to teach a student how to conform. Oh, if only they could retain the freshness of a five year old.
You have identified why Dewey never gathered much of a following in our school systems: inducing conformity is easy; creating interesting schools—that is hard work. I would rather talk about instructional regimes that would focus on a child’s natural desire to learn than the current debate over policies that see the child as a data point to be manipulated and regularized.
What is untested in Common Core and nearly all aspects of it. However, in California and Massachusetts you have proven examples of how truly “state led” standards and tests can improve public education. California has seen a decade long increase in scores and strong improvement in college readiness, across all demographic groups, in spite of having very high immigration rates and state budget challenges.
In spite of this track record of success, California is throwing it all out in favor of lower standards, taxpayer bills in the billions and probably a decade to implement Common Core. In these states and others, an entire generation of kids will be repeating many topics next year under Common Core–almost as if we have failed an entire generation of kids. For what? Politics? California did not get RTTP money. We have yet to see any valid reason for the switch in California. Not one reason offered, let alone a valid one. It defies all logic. Please help us raise awareness before it is too late.
When parents truly get wind of what’s really happened, some may become so frustrated that they will pull their kids (and their votes and money) out of public schools.
Sorry, meant “What is untested IS Common Core…”
And that’s a feature, not a bug…the demolition of public schools and unionized teachers.
I think that one of the unintended consequences of the standardization movement will be an increase in the creation of homeschooling collectives. As more and more content becomes available on the web parents who despair of the narrow test-centric schooling offered in public schools and unable to afford private schools will band together and support each other. That’s the conclusion of this post: http://waynegersen.com/2013/12/28/no-common-ground-on-common-core/
Unfortunately, agree with you. Millions of parents may pull their kids (and dollars) out of public schools in disgust. Until Obama administration tries to ban homeschooling as they did in Nazi Germany (still in place today, by the way).
The reaction to these particular standards is particularly interesting and the fears of some who would go so far as to find need to mention “Nazis” in a discussion of school policy in the United States reflects outrage that does verge on the hysterical. Why this is so deserves examination and I am going to do a good amount of thinking to try and get at the cause of the outrage. The issue of national standards is a most interesting one, particularly in the context of a nation that is supposed to be a democracy. In a democracy, the people are responsible for making the decisions that determine policy and action in and by the state. In regard to individual states within the nation, the people of those states, if they care to fulfill their duties and obligations, participate in the decision making process that determines national policies, policies that affect all of the people, no matter in which state they may reside. As an individual, I do have a real stake in how the people of Kentucky are educated, or the people of Alabama, or Texas, California or New York. I have a personal concern for how the people in all states are educated because their education affects the way I live as a citizen of the United States of America.
I do not think the issue of who determines how a child is to be educated is a simple one. Many would say that it is the parents’ decision to make and I do not disagree with parents having the right to make decisions regarding their children. I also know that some parents do not really know much about education and what kind of education is best for their children. This is why teachers who serve the public must be certified, certified because they have studied to become teachers, studied to understand the purpose of education and the best methods for educating students for that purpose.
This is not to say that all teachers are properly educated as teachers, know what they need to know to do the job well. But, if there are teachers who are not properly qualified, that is something professional teachers should be monitoring so as to insure that public educators are worthy of the public’s trust. Even with trust properly earned, some parents and others in the public will not be satisfied with the educational process or the people involved in it and this is a problem of democracy that will be debated until the end of its time, the role of the individual amidst a majority that has a certain right to rule.
The question of what constitutes a proper education and who decides this is only partially the parent’s to answer in any situation in which educational decisions affect more than one parent’s child. I know many an instance when a parent or a group of parents has influenced or tried to influence education in ways that I understand to be harmful to both individuals and society, the selection of textbooks by the Texas Textbook Commission, for example and the influence of Fundamentalist Christians on the selection process, for example, a process that has ramifications for education across the nation.
However education is delivered, education has an effect on all citizens no matter where they live in this country and I do think that the people who are affected by education should have some say in what is taught and how it is taught and for what purpose. Thus, I do think that a federal role in education is critical and this role has been played well in several instances, in determining who can receive and education, for example, and whose needs educational systems must accommodate if they are to uphold the rights of individuals as per the Constitution.
As for a common core, because all citizens have a say in what it is that is the common good and how the common good is to be served, I do think that there are certain conditions that must be met by schools serving a democratic people, amongst them encouragement for and exercise of individual thought, a valuing of reason, the ability to access and make good use of information, and a sense of the individuals obligations to self and to a government that, by decree, is a government by the people.
“By the people” has to serve as the fundamental concern of an educational system for a democratic society for, if education is of any value at all to the society, worth the expenditure of public moneys, than it must work to insure that the people are prepared to participate, prepared to participate effectively and with an understanding that individual decisions, in many an instance, affect many other than self.
How we come to terms with education for the democratic citizen, a being who is at once independent and an essential member of a state run by the people is the question we will always be struggling to answer. It is incumbent upon the people to understand that the real bottom line for determining what a good education might be is this, that individuals are so well prepared as to be able to participate effectively in debates such as this. That they be so prepared should not be questioned. How they should be prepared to participate effectively is what we should be considering.
Thanks for your post. You are right about kids repeating the previous year of study. Three of my kids are basically doing an easier version of last year’s work, except my 1st grader who is being taught confusing math problems that the kids can’t do on their own. Sorry for the long post, but here are the CC problems that I have seen in our schools:
The kids do not use ANY textbooks, instead they are given internet-driven worksheets by the teacher.
The curriculum seems thrown together, jumping all over the place sometimes, but staying on the same topic for weeks/months at other times.
My kids do not take tests or quizzes, only CC mid-assessments, which do not really cover the material they are learning.
Teachers are pulled out every week for training, while kids are left with subs.
Inventive spelling is everywhere! Why aren’t kids held responsible for correct spelling? I corrected 4th grade papers and found that only 3 or 4 kids (out of 34) could write grammatically correct sentences consistently.
Kids are given very little homework, if any, and they take NO notes in class! I honestly believe teachers don’t even give lectures anymore. They are only facilitators trying to “get” kids to discover information on their own.
In our Vista district Algebra 1 has been taken away from ALL 8th graders, no matter what their level. The math director feels “hard math” too early will damage kids! This is not more rigorous, it is the dumbing down of everyone.
I believe California teachers love CC because the state won’t test (with scores) until 2015, there are less academic standards to cover, they don’t have to grade very many papers, homework, or tests, and they don’t have to prepare lectures.
I’ve tried to fight this by speaking to parents, teachers, the board, the superintendent, and the newspaper. I’m telling you, very few people seem to care or share my views. I am convinced that only when 2015 scores are released will parents wake up to this nightmare. So, I am reading books on homeschooling and I’m considering after-schooling for the remainder of this school year and homeschooling next year.
Agree with much of what you have said, please visit our site and get in touch with us: uncommoncalifornia.org
I have made this comment before, but no domain of knowledge is neutral. Some group has to identify, categorize, organize, and interpret a discipline, a subject, a standard (although the term standard is a foreign concept in academia). What is different from the authoring of standards and what occurs in professional communities is in the latter there is purposeful process of evaluating what theories, ideas, facts, practices are accepted within the community. Using various methodologies particular to each discipline, academics will debate at length in journals, papers, conferences, what knowledge is of most worth — and of course, as Thomas Kuhn has pointed out, as a disciplinary domain proceeds, there will be paradigm shifts where entire foundations of a discipline will be discarded a newer ones adopted and the process continues. The disturbing nature of the accountability regime has been the belief and enactment of the concept of standards or a common bodies of knowledge that everyone should know and that legislatures and their chosen panels of “experts” have a god’s eye view of what that knowledge should be. Although we have always had this type of imposition from textbook companies, when I started teaching in the 60’s we were given wide latitude in the selection, organization, and interpretation of knowledge — which reflected what our academic communities had taught us was important and worth teaching. The standards movement has delegitimized the knowledge they are proposing by removing from its development any process of evaluating the worth of that knowledge. Because they are not academics, they do not understand that merely stating and testing are not sources of legitimization — they are sources of power, but not verifications of claims of the worth of knowledge. As some of these blogs have pointed out, we now find ourselves in a post-modern critique of knowledge — who is in power gets to privilege some body of knowledge and award credentials based on the acquisition of that privileged knowledge — irrespective of whether that knowledge is supported by any disciplinary verifications of knowledge worth.
Alan C. Jones: well stated.
Please excuse the repetition, but the mandates to lower standards, dumb down teaching and severely constrict learning are not what the leading charterites/privatizers and their edubully allies provide THEIR OWN CHILDREN. That’s only for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
Just consider a small number of the “50 Reasons” to attend Harpeth Hall [think: one or both of Michelle Rhee’s girls]. The following are taken directly from their website:
9. Athlete, scientist, artist: at Harpeth Hall you can be all three.
11. Our state-of-the-art library houses 29,000 books, 1,000 ebooks, 20 electronic databases, 12 Kindles, six small group study rooms, two classrooms for library and technology instruction, and eight really comfortable chairs around a cozy fireplace.
14. Our faculty average more than 18 years of teaching experience and 80 percent hold advanced degrees.
21. Girls dance, sing, paint, act, and play music in comfortable theaters, studios, and auditoriums.
27. International exchanges in China, France, Germany, New Zealand, and South Africa give students transformative cross-cultural opportunities.
29. 8:1 ratio: Our teachers know our students.
34. Encouraging young minds: A middle school where seventh graders build robots one minute and investigate current applications of constitutional amendments the next
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=151749
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Very interesting blog Diane. I am trying to find neutrality over this issue and have not been able to find harmony. My state (MI) has had a few good debates over the implementation of CCSS, and for independant education consultants like myself, we’re stuck in the middle. We are essentially required to comply; otherwise we’re sidelined! What a dichotomy!!! Thanks for your perspective.
“…educational consultants….”
Just what and how do you consult on, and what education experience/credentials gives you any authority to do so?
As a consultant, who does not work for a school board, independent consultants like myself work with teachers to implement alternative educational methods that school boards generally do not allow as alternative curriculum. Some consultants advise schools on critical policy, such as anti-bully programs, etc. I consult with teachers on understanding the hip hop generation by providing perspective on urban youth culture and how that culture affects their readiness for school, so that teachers can better engage their students. Many of the teachers I work with have little understanding of todays youth as much as they didn’t understand them in the 80s and 90s. Social and cultural context seems to be the biggest divide between teachers and students. As far “authority” to do such; on whose “authority” would I I require? My community is losing a very serious battle of life and death and are going to prison and graves instead of college. We have many consultants doing great work aiding teachers with alternative curriculums and other engaging programs that our community is in demand of and upon whose “demand and need” more than “authority” to help our youth students succeed where the schools aren’t able to succeed.
I am a teacher and the teachers I work with, all seasoned professionals, understand children and teens quite well. Maybe you are dealing with the temporary newbies, the revolving door of TFA temps who have no intentions of staying in the profession. Your plight will be ongoing since the goal is teacher churn. When you cut down on the labor force you can funnel tax dollars elsewhere, otherwise known as eduschemes.
Perhaps so, where you live at, but here in Michigan, the fabled crack capital of the 80’s, many of our teachers are from suburban small towns who have little patience for the nuances of urban city life and would rather kick a student out of class when they hear a student walk in “rapping.” Our youth here carry guns, sell drugs, belong to gangs and are filled with anger and emotion from the last funeral of a peer killed in the streets. Many of our teachers are either overly frustrated with these youth or are simply ill equipped to deal with them while trying to run a classroom. Hence, the need and response from our communities here in Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, and Benton Harbor is to send into our schools para education consultants who provide essential academic mentoring to students and consulting to teachers who otherwise would be sending these youth to in school detention, which has proven to be a contributing factor leading our kids along the School to Prison Pipeline. As for the CCSS, they have complicated this cause in most respects, and in others, they are showing that we need reform, reassessment or something other than what we currently have. Our prison rates are soaring. Our murder rates are still unbelievably high. In Michigan we live under siege of 1/3 black youth going to prison. Standarized testing here is but a joke as they preclude essential cultural and social contexts that todays black youth live within. Our students live in a world where their teachers do not, in spite of this world being the same America you live in. In a nutshell, whatever point your making does not nullify the issues we’re dealing with here in our communities.
“I consult with teachers on understanding the hip hop generation by providing perspective on urban youth culture and how that culture affects their readiness for school, so that teachers can better engage their students.”
Our job is to use their innate curiosity to pull them into the culture of science or the culture of mathematics or the culture of literature.
Sounds to me that you are a typical consultant draining the system of much needed money.
Bingo!
“draining the system”…..comments like that show why we are in this plight. You “assume” the system pays us, which they do not. I personally have offered myservices for 7 years without a single dime being payed to me. I operate out of the need from our community, not the school system. The system serves itself, fighting to protect itself, while our communities are serving itself and protecting itself from drop out, incarceration, and prison sentences. Personally, we could care less about CCSS. We’ll leave that up to you and other “educators” to fight over. We want access to our youth, access during their time in school, where they would rather walk out of and go to a spot to hustle. But when we are there, in their classrooms, they are all smiles, excited to know that someone from their “streets” is there with them, with knowledge, understanding and the experiences their teachers do not have. If you want to see how the students I work with fare in class, go to YouTube and search: LOGAN TAYLOR delivers SLAM assignment at JHS.
Hold off on this, NY teacher:
“Sounds to me that you are a typical consultant draining the system of much needed money.”
Hakim sounds somewhat atypical, in that he raises the question of his community’s own children. ANYBODY who does that is qualified to be an ally, and maybe a powerful one. Chicago has raised a model of unity with communities to support just these goals.
My God, Hakim, how many of you do you reckon there are? “Independent” consultant is certainly a misnomer, since you answer to an unseen master, who controls you in the passive voice.
“We are essentially required to comply; otherwise we’re sidelined!”
We’re a free people. Shake yourself loose, and sink or swim like a human being. Come on over! Imagine yourself answering to the people you serve, and the children in your care, and do that till you’re sidelined, like the rest of us.
I always admire your comments. You are marvelous!
Common Core is a grand national social experiment driven by a corporate agenda. This same corporate agenda has already succeeded in dividing our nation into the haves and have nots. As the income gap widens..this agenda now begins to work on our future.
The implications are frightening. First label our schools failures, then stifle creativity as we prepare our students to think a certain way.
Do many of our schools need improving? Sure, but why destroy the successful ones?
“Common Core is a grand national social experiment”
You’re being generous rratto, where’s the control group?
I disagree as to “the most vociferous supporters of Common Core.”
They seem to be from 2 fronts. 1) Those of the liberal progressive socialist agenda that see benefit in more central government control of the minds of the youth, and 2) the administrators that see the dictated standards as “not their fault” when it fails and a way for the test assessments to possibly get rid of the really lousy teachers that the unions keep in the system.
The dead wood at the bottom, that exists in all professions, earned their due process rights from the dead wood at the top. Teachers don’t give teachers due process rights. CCS will weed out the top performers who don’t need to be micromanaged. It’s already happening. The goal is to destroy public Ed, not improve it.
Name me any socialist who supports Common Core. Thanks.
Perhaps he believes the drivel which says Arnie Duncan and Barack Obama are socialists. Mark Naison wrote a great piece on this. http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2009/04/republicans-are-doing-more-to-publicize.html
I think ed reform has an accountability problem, but it’s not at the bottom, it’s at the top.
Have they ever, ever backed off an idea or reversed position?
To me, these policy choices feel like a freight train. They all climb aboard and the thing just doesn’t stop. They so value “new!” that there’s no consideration given to consequences, trade offs, the possibility of DOING HARM.
These experiments are reckless. Public education is not, actually, a business. It’s not a “start up”. They could do real, broad, national harm and I don’t see any sense of that.
You are right, Chiara. It is important to recognize that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top are now the status quo. It has some very powerful beneficiaries, and they will fight very hard to maintain the status quo. At the same time, they confuse the public by labeling those who want something better as “defenders of the status quo.” But when policy is supported by the U.S. Department of Education, almost every state department of education, the major corporations, and the major foundations, it is the status quo. Those who defend it are elites. They try not to listen, but at some point they will have to recognize that they are on the losing side of history.
99 > 1
We will defeat CC!
And income inequality!
And child poverty!
And campaign finance!
And PACS/lobbyists!
And corporate tax evasion!
And voter suppression!
And the NSA!
And all the other injustices the corporate elite would use to shackle us our children and their future.
BUT ONLY IF WE OPEN OURS EYES, OPEN OUR EARS, OPEN OUR MOUTHS, AND OPEN OUR ARMS TO ONE ANOTHER!
Keep fighting the good fight in 2014 Dianne- you are an inspiration to us all!
I concur with JonBoy!!!
How did we ever know how to think BCC?
According to patent data (filings, approvals; in-force) the US ranks number one or two in the world.
Here’s a start in the right direction http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/is-stumbling-and-bumbling-good-thing.html
“Common anything” in public education is poisoned by the current atmosphere of potential corporate takeover blessed by Obama and Duncan.
Instead of teaching children useful and joyful things about our world some want to teach them HOW to think. Using pyramids and taxonomies created by those who want to teach them HOW to think. HOW to think like WHAT? like WHO? Human beings are born knowing how to think, they need content to think ABOUT. Lots of it. The vilification of memorization has proven in our culture to be a disaster. American citizens know very little. Social and emotional learning and OBE have replaced truth and beauty transmission creating the students consultants are trying to help by using more SEL and OBE, perpetuating the downward spiral which seems to be the OUTCOME desired. Otherwise why would this all be doubled down on with nationalization of it by way of CCSS? Much of the arguments are just braiding and unbraiding different strands of the same hidden premise by 2 different sides of the same coin. Dialects built on propaganda empty slogans fake premises and vague assumptions.
The FACT that so much is hidden from parents is the gleaming red flag in all of this. If it was at all palatable and desirous then it would all be out in the open for review by all instead of cloaked in BS and promoted by phonys.
Noun
1.
logical fallacy – a fallacy in logical argumentation
fallacy, false belief – a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning
hysteron proteron – the logical fallacy of using as a true premise a proposition that is yet to be proved
ignoratio elenchi – the logical fallacy of supposing that an argument proving an irrelevant point has proved the point at issue
petitio, petitio principii – the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion in the premises; begging the question
post hoc, post hoc ergo propter hoc – the logical fallacy of believing that temporal succession implies a causal relation
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc
I would agree to not only a moratorium on the testing, but a movement to do away with standardized tests of the kind we know completely. We could do this by finding a means for insuring that all teachers were truly highly qualified to develop activities that would allow students to demonstrate their abilities and knowledge as well as their attitudes toward the material learned and the learning process itself. As for the standards themselves, I think it rather easy to determine legitimacy by reading the individual standards and determining whether or not the competencies are truly meaningful and useful in regard to an individual being able to participate effectively in the decision making processes in which one must engage to determine how to go about living well and how to participate as a citizen in the decisions making processes that determine the conditions of the society in which one lives. Forget for a moment who created the CCSS, play the “believing game,” and thrash any standard or element of a standard that does not hold up to the test of “good for individual, good for the common welfare” and begin the conversation on how to go about insuring that all that is good, meaningful, empowering is left to provide something of a common vision of good education for the good society.
Ellen, Both you and “layered” are calling for a common sense, practical, easily doable, assessment of what’s in any set of “standards,” that is, do they challenge students to do more than take in and regurgitate information. Do they, in effect challenge students to analyze complex issues in science, social studies/history, math, literature, art, mechanics and the like, be able to pose powerful questions that will lead them to figure out what’s going on, to challenge unstated assumptions, look for confirmatory evidence (or the contrary). Do these “standards,” whether created by CCSS, the state, the district or teachers themselves hold students to the highest expectations to become educated persons who can think on their own and solve problems collaboratively?
The word “Common” is unfortunate, because some are seeing it as a lowest agreed upon denominator. Seems as if it’s a set of expectations for all, not merely the gifted and talented who’ve been treated to these high intellectual expectations most of their academic lives.
What’s nice about the NYS standards is that they were flexible. A teacher could use them to support various activities. Plus they made sense. The CCSS are confusing.
And you are right. Common has a nasty connotation. If a person were called common, it was a derogatory term. Perhaps Coordinated would have been a better choice.
Yet, it’s not as if the brightest and the best minds in the country came up with the CCSS – the feeling was any common person could create standards, no expertise necessary.
Why not take a look at standards developed at the state levels which have been in place for several years and are already highly regarded? Chuck the CCSS and redo with a proven quantity – or a compilation.
The new science standards being developed have been recognized as average, at best. Many states have already instituted exemplary standards in science – start with those.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure these things out. We need people with a bit of intelligence making these decisions.
Maybe they should take the CCSS assessments to see if they qualify for their jobs. They can start with Grade 4.