The latest issue of the AFT American Educator publication contains an article that presents “Myths of the Common Core” and responds to each one with “facts.”
Tim Farley, principal of the Ichabod Crane Elementary/Middle School in Valatie, New York, did not agree with the publication’s definition of the facts. Here is his rebuttal:
The magazine contains an “informational” article about the Common Core standards. Over the past few years, AFT has received millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested heavily in the development, evaluation, and dissemination of the Common Core. Below each of the “Myths of the Common Core”, AFT has enumerated some “FACTS.” What I have added to each “Myth/FACT” is what I consider to be the “TRUTH” (or information that was conveniently left out).
1. “The standards tell us what to teach.”
FACT: The Common Core State Standards define what students need to know. How to achieve that is up to teachers, principals, school districts, and states. Teachers will have as much control over how they teach as they ever have.
TRUTH: When teachers’ jobs are literally at stake, they will inevitably “teach to the test” or teach what is being demanded by their administrators. Many teachers in NYS are being directed to use the poorly designed scripted lessons/modules from engageNY.
2. “They amount to a national curriculum.”
FACT: The standards are shared goals, voluntarily adopted. They outline what knowledge and skills will help students succeed. Curricula vary from state to state and district to district.
TRUTH: The standards are not “shared goals”, just as they were not “voluntarily adopted”. The CCSS were written and developed by a group of non-educators and the architect was David Coleman. The only two content specialists (Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. James Milgrim) served on the Validation Committee and refused to sign off on the standards because they were not good enough. As for the curricula varying from state to state, I find it difficult for AFT to back up that claim. However, whatever curricula are available, they are aligned to the developmentally inappropriate designed CCSS.
3. “The standards intrude on student privacy.”
FACT: Long before the Common Core, some states already had data systems allowing educators and parents to measure student achievement and growth; those states remain responsible for students’ private information, whether or not they’ve adopted the Common Core.
TRUTH: No one is disputing that some states/school districts had data systems allowing parents and educators to measure student achievement and growth. What parents are concerned about is that NOW this sensitive data is being given to third party vendors and stored in a “cloud”. Third party vendors like inBloom (financed by Gates) take no responsibility for any student information that may be compromised.
4. “The English standards emphasize nonfiction and informational text so much that students will be reading how-to manuals instead of great literature.”
FACT: The standards require students to analyze literature and informational texts, with the goal of preparing them for college and work.
TRUTH: The concern from educators is HOW MUCH emphasis is being placed on informational text on the CC-aligned state tests. Student results on these state tests could result in the loss of the teacher’s JOB. Where do you think the emphasis will be?
5. “Key math concepts are missing or appear in the wrong grade.”
FACT: Moving from 50 state standards to one means some states will be shifting what students learn when. Educators and experts alike have verified that the Common Core progression is mathematically coherent and internationally benchmarked. And now, students who move across state lines can pick up where they left off.
TRUTH: Again, Dr. James Milgrim (the only math specialist that served on the Validation Committee) refused to sign off on the standards. The CC math standards were NOT internationally benchmarked, and if you go to the Common Core State Standards website, you can see that they corrected that claim to now read, “relevant to the real world”. The standards were never internationally benchmarked.
6. “Common Core is a federal takeover.”
FACT: The federal government had no role in developing the standards. They were created by state education chiefs and governors, and voluntarily adopted by states. States, not the federal government, are implementing them.
TRUTH: The CCSS were created by NGA and CCSSO (two lobbying groups financially supported by Gates) and mostly written by David Coleman. States that “adopted” CCSS were the same states that accepted Race to the Top (RTTT) funds in the false belief that the money being “given” would help stop the laying off of teachers. Adopting CCSS was a requisite for “winning” RTTT monies. This also allowed states to receive a waiver from the unfair and onerous NCLB requirements. What they call “voluntary”, I call “extortion”.
7. “Teachers weren’t included.”
FACT: Lots of teachers were involved in developing the standards over several years, including hundreds of teachers nationwide who served on state review teams. Many teachers are pleased to report seeing their feedback added verbatim to the final standards.
TRUTH: Again, I would like to see proof of that claim. Technically speaking, there were teachers “involved in the process”, but their role was perfunctory at best.
8. “The standards make inappropriate demands of preschoolers.”
FACT: They were written for grades K–12. Several states added their own guidance for preschool.
TRUTH: When you have developmentally inappropriate expectations for Kindergarten students, wouldn’t the logical thought be that the expectations for Pre-K students rise to a level that is also developmentally inappropriate? And, although not in its implementation phase yet, there are plans for a P-20 initiative developed by the Data Quality Campaign (financially supported by Gates).
9. “Common Core accelerates over-testing.”
FACT: The standards say nothing about testing. Some states are falling into the trap of too much assessment—by testing before implementing or rushing to impose high stakes. Others, however, are taking a more sensible approach. Before administering new tests, states must get implementation right.
TRUTH: It is RTTT that demands over-testing. If your state accepted RTTT money, you adopted CC AND agreed to the over-testing of students. If your state did not accept RTTT, then your state is still held to the NCLB mandates which require over-testing of the students.
10. “Rank-and-file teachers don’t support it—and their unions sold them out.”
FACT: At least four national polls, conducted by the AFT, the NEA, Education Week, and Scholastic, show that teachers overwhelmingly support the standards, though some haven’t had the time or tools to implement them correctly. Unions support the Common Core because their members do.
TRUTH: AFT polled 800 teachers. (I strongly recommend you read this: (http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2013/050313.cfm) to see all of the results that AFT left out. NEA’s poll surveyed 1200 teachers. Again, please read the full survey results to see what data was left out (http://neatoday.org/2013/09/12/nea-poll-majority-of-educators-support-the-common-core-state-standards/).
Part of the information from these two polls that AFT neglected to print was that teachers overwhelmingly support a moratorium on the student test results being tied to their effectiveness rating. The other piece that was left out was that most teachers felt that they did not receive enough “training” for the implementation of CC. The large sums of money from Gates to NEA, AFT, and NYSUT were earmarked for Teacher Professional Development. I have two questions. One, why are Teachers’ Unions receiving money to provide professional development? Isn’t that the job of the school districts? Also, since they have received so much money for this purpose, why don’t teachers feel that they haven’t had enough training?
Lastly, my question to AFT is, “Whom do you represent, Bill Gates or your teachers?” You cannot have it both ways.
Thanks,
Tim Farley
Kinderhook, NY
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is the clearest rebuttal to CCSS claims I have read yet. Excellent work. The emperor may not be quite naked, but he’s doing one heck of a strip tease.
Reblogged this on Roy F. McCampbell's Blog.
One of the best rebuttals I’ve seen. Well said. AFT and NEA both need to hear, repeatedly, that these PR pieces for the core just aren’t playing.
Thank goodness for Principal Farley. I was in the midst of my own rebuttal when I received his in my in-box. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Very good! I see George Will has a column in yesterday’s Washington Post, opposing the Common Core: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-doubts-over-common-core-wont-be-easily-dismissed/2014/01/15/68cecb88-7df3-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html
It’s a good critique; unfortunately he lays the blame for CCSS entirely on liberals who supposedly want the federal government to control everything, and doesn’t mention the profiteers who benefit from national markets coupled with every-greater demand (because the schools are “failing”!) for their wares. But his basic point, which is that states should be free to set their own standards and policies because at least a few of them will be innovative and create good ones, is well taken.
“ever-greater demand,” sorry
My favorite quote from that article, “If you like your local control of education, you can keep it.”
Excellent concise rebuttal to the edudeformer propaganda, Tim!
I nominate Tim for a “LionHeart” award!
Even though it seems strangely absurd that we would honor someone for telling the truth-as Orwell said ““In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
I didn’t think anyone/place/country could surpass the USSR for self deceit and total deception as policy but the USA is running a close second which means that it is heading toward the same place as the USSR-OBLIVION!
Duane Swacker: you, Robert D. Shepherd and Alan C. Jones have made me reflect a bit on some of the books I have read over the last two years.
I am leaving out some of my favorites such as REIGN OF ERROR and THE MISMEASURE OF MAN but I highlight the following for my purposes here: Stephen Farley, MAKING THE GRADES My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry; John Owens, CONFESSIONS OF A BAD TEACHER; Christopher A. Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, THE PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVANTAGE — WHY PUBLIC SCHOOLS OUTPERFORM PRIVATE SCHOOLS; Laurel M. Sturt, DAVONTE’S INFERNO — TEN YEARS IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL GULAG; and a first reading finished just this week, THE ESSENTIAL DEMING Leadership Principles from the FATHER OF QUALITY.
Now I realize that someone is going to lambaste me for violating Godwinsky’s Law—anyone who mentions the Soviet Union in a discussion has already lost the argument—but hey, I’m an insanely KrazyTA.
Or so I’ve been told.
So let me try to tease this out. There’s elaborate but superficial pageantry staged for the benefit of visiting delegations. Ok, combine that with staged and forced gaiety of the staff for the purpose of earning the good will of the easily impressed outsiders. Alright then, let’s add in a dazzling array of ditzy data a la Management by Objective/Management by Results—we’re hitting the data points! One-size-fits-all scripted routines for teaching and learning the tasks involved in the enterprise. Plus a heavy emphasis on putting those who know the least in the highest positions in the organization [*it helps a lot if they are much more comfortable with numbers and things than people]. Last but not least are unceasing calls to work frenetically, to put forth best efforts, even when the whole system is geared to undermining and blocking best results.
I stop here because I already have the edupreneur plan fleshed out in all its, er, glory: it’s called the
POTEMKIN VILLAGE BUSINESS MODEL FOR $TUDENT $UCCE$$.
I think I have a much better than 98% “satisfactory” [thank you, Bill Gates!] chance of certainty that I have uncovered the Broad Academy’s secret sauce of management [not a typo]. And I didn’t have to wait ten years [thank you again, Bill Gates!] to figure it out.
Or as that shining star of the EduCEO firmament says, “Men lie and women lie but numbers don’t.” [Dr. Steve Perry]
I think it all adds up.
Whatcha think?
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The Misadventures book is by Todd Farley. Every school administrator needs to read this book.
Vicki: I much appreciate the correction.
Thank you.
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Great job Tim.. You have it down ..I have been very concerned about AFT support. As a local Union President, I do not support CC. Too many serious concerns and non-educator creators. Wll share. Thanks DIane
Excellent job. After reading this how could parents and teachers still be on board with CCSS? I just don’t get it. We need this to go on the national media somehow.
I am disappointed that the discussion of issues surrounding Common Core are done so in sound bytes that completely ignore the circumstances and unintended consequences of this change. This is especially egregious when it is representatives of teachers leading the vacuous discussions. These are complex issues and I am glad that Tim F added much needed nuance to the discussion. It is our professional duty to force the conversation deep enough so that non-educators grasp our very real concerns.
Begin by developing your own assessment. That drives the curric ulum. Follow by using standards as guideline rather than deadlines. Your assessment drives toward your goals. And you take kids from where the are with their MAP to success.
Talking will not change anything. It will help but only action will stop the runaway freight. Any standards set by the gov become so general they no longer control the world of education. As a solution:
1. Develop your own assessment and implement it. And sell it We can pick apart common core all we want but unless we have an alternative, we are wasting our breath.http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
2. Take kids from where they are. Although I’ve even heard some talking heads say this, they have no idea how powerful that statement is. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-personal-map-to-success.html
With these two changes from the bottom up, we will have the amunition to make real change. Am keeping my powder dry but it is time to ignite the passion in every child
Is anyone with me? ACT NOW 2014.
Thank you, Tim. Your assessment is much more in keeping with what I have experienced in the classroom. Teachers ARE being “told” what to teach, and HOW to teach it by their principals. Teachers get a Loosey Goosey PD, oftentimes on only “part of a lesson,” delivered by highly paid outside sources. Then they are handed a thick packet to read through, and expected to deliver a scripted lesson often to students that “don’t get it.” There is NO time to go back to those poor children, or those that missed a lesson due to illness, because there is a NEW script for the next day and all the days to follow. Teachers are required to fill out spreadsheet upon spreadsheet of redundant results. Happiness and joy in the classroom have NO place within the framework of the common core. The people who thought and wrote this stuff up would crumble under its weight. The great LEADERS that push this upon teachers and students are pushing someone else’s agenda because it’s what THEY have to do to survive in their own jobs. Some of these Principals were once educators, themselves, but many have NO real experience in the classroom, and if they do have experience, they have thrown it out with the baby and the bathwater. It is a FEAR mentality that keeps this system of standard in place.
It is important to note that CCSS is NOT A CURRICULUM, and equally important to note that teachers are NOT curriculum writers. The tremendous amounts of money received by individual schools is usually spent on paying someone from the outside to come into our schools once a month. If you want to rebuild ROME, once a month is not enough.
Principal Farley is the real deal; may the truth win out.
It should be noted that parents with children Grades 3 to 8) in the Ichabod Crane school district were leaders in last year’s CCSS opt out movement. Approximately 135 students opted out of the Pearson train wreck. The sky’s the limit this year!
Re AFT#9, please click on the link provided. It will take you to Dr. Mercedes Schneider’s blog for a money quote concerning CC and its relationship to testing, VAM and other nonsense by a genuine “education reform” insider and heavyweight, Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Hess is far more qualified to speak about, and on, this issue:
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
The link to Dr. Hess’s original blog entry:
Link: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/12/common_core_and_the_food_pyramid.html
Re AFT#10, again click on the links below for analysis of the AFT poll by Dr. Mercedes Schneider and some observations about polling and sampling.
The two pieces are not overly long and in any case, a summary by me would not do them justice.
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/weingarten-wants-me-to-want-the-common-core-state-standards/
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/hart-weingarten-and-polling-about-common-core/
Please forgive the following, but couldn’t the person or persons writing the AFT#1-10 have done some homework first? At least with members of the AFT who are concerned and knowledgeable about CCSS?
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Comparing CC Support with Evidence Against
http://atthechalkface.com/2014/01/16/comparing-cc-support-with-evidence-against/
Interesting blog entry by Lois Weiner on the AFT’s policy of collaborating with the “deformers”. http://newpol.org/content/teachers-union-leaders-need-union-democracy
Yes, please read. Here’s the closing:
I have a hunch that if AFT and NEA officers organized informed debate and votes in their locals, they’d learn that many members don’t think there’s much to be gained by trying to collaborate with management these days. Maybe I’d be proven wrong. This is an empirical question. So let’s ask members, including music and gym teachers who’ve received unsatisfactory evaluations because students’ math or language arts scores on standardized tests haven’t risen enough to satisfy benchmarks. Let’s ask Chicago teachers who battled to stop Emanuel from closing schools for budget reasons only to see charter schools springing up to replace them. Let’s ask teachers what they want their unions to do about testing, student and teacher careers tied to exams about which teachers, students, parents, community have no say. I’ll live with whatever members decide, after we’ve had the vigorous debate we need,
How about real debate in publications that our dues make possible? We can have an exchange in the “American Educator” about labor-management collaboration. That would be a start to the kind of collaboration we need – members talking, making decisions with other members about what our unions should say about the future of our profession and public education.
“… whom do you represent, Bill Gates or your teachers…?”
Yes, Randi, whom do you represent?
That’s more like it.
I had read the AFT ‘facts’ report and agree with Brother Farley. The difference between “facts” and the truth is as important as the difference between the “data” and the education of human children. Why am I remembering Hard Times by Charles Dickens (which I taught a few times back before imaginative literature was banned in favor of Power Point catechisms).
The AFT version of reality is in retreat, but there is little evidence the rank and file will get much say when we push, as we will, against the AFT’s Common Core fantasies (or many of the other alliances funded by Billionaire Bill).
When my colleagues from Chicago tried to protest Randi’s laudatory invitation to Bill Gates to address the AFT convention in Seattle in 2010, Randi’s Baltimore cheerleading squad began loudly cheering Gates (some of the delegates even gave Gates a standing ovation!). They did it to drown out the protesters.
We were in the Pacific Northwest, a center of union history and union militancy during the anniversary of some of the most dramatic and poignant labor struggles in our history. But those were whited out to the teachers — by the leaders of our own union.
And the facts were easily available and could have been before the convention. Brothers and sisters from the local community college were available to share the area’s labor history, but instead Randi sucked up to Gates, drowned out the opposition with Bucharest-style audience response, and smiled benignly while Billionaire Bill spouted his nonsense. The AFT national leadership that week didn’t even pretend to balance the Billionaire Bill show with any recognition of the history of where we were. It was dishonest — or worse.
A block from the convention center was an Internet Cafe where anyone from AFT could have heard dozens of stories, from the Slaves of Silicon Valley, about how Billionaire Bill did his union busting, both directly against the indentured servants at Microsoft and indirectly against anyone who tried to build unions in the part of North America, once famous for the Wobblies Free Speech movement and the port strikes.
Randi’s bobbing and weaving on Common Core is just part of the act, but at least things aren’t as dismal as they were in July 2010, when we had to witness that betrayal of unionism. And one of the ironies of all this is that the Baltimore teachers, like our brothers and sisters in Newark, were bullied by the national union into accepting a merit pay based contract that screwed so many. The same Baltimore teachers who joined the cheerleading for Billionaire Bill.
So, what would it take to depose Randi Weingarten? Seriously. The schools my children attend are staffed by teachers belonging to an affiliate of the AFT. I belong to a different union (I’m not a public school teacher)–but Weingarten needs to be ousted.
Ideas? How many votes of no confidence would it take? Can other unions take action?
Equally important, how do we rally against candidates our unions are supporting when we clearly oppose these candidates? We may have numbers against certain candidates, but our unions do not support us nor our intended votes. how do we make our voices clear.
Mr Farley, would you come work in California please? =) Thanks for this excellent rebuttal.
I think this helps to make clear two things:
1. Randi Weingarten is trying to play two ends against the middle in her comments about Common Core and its appendices.
2. She is no real “leader” in any meaningful definition of that term.
And despite this giant overreach, that has some states actually lowering their standards, we will see the same exasperating results: certain socio economic groups will continue to struggle to make the grade; except, now, others will be denied the opportunity to realize their full potential as well.
Common Core does nothing to address the actual problems in the achievement gap, but it is very effective at separating citizens from a democratic process.
Tim, you’ve performed a wonderful public service.
However, we cannot let the AFT or Gates slide on the issue of teachers participation. The fact is that they were only written by five people; only three teachers, and only in the feedback group or in the validation group, were involved. The people in the latter two groups were kept on the margins in the process. They said that they had no sense that their contributions were listened to or acknowledged.
As Anthony Cody told us in “The Secret Sixty Prepare to Write Standards for 50 Million,” The official announcement came, “The Work Group’s deliberations will be confidential throughout the process.” Participants were required to sign confidentiality agreements as to all writing and discussion related to the creation and the validating of the standards. Only three of these people were teachers and this was at the validation stage of dealing with the Standards. (They were Sarah Baird, Kristin Buckstad Hamilton and Mary Ann Jordan. The first is a K-5 math coach, the subject specialties of the other two was not identified.)
For more on the details of the creation process read, “The Common Core and Gates’ Education Commercialization Complex.”