Paul Thomas explains here why the growing movement to drop the Common Core is strangely disappointing. Oklahoma has dropped Common Core for sure, and other states are making tentative moves in that direction. Whether they will drop CCSS or rebrand it is not clear.
As Paul explains, the dissident states are not dropping CCSS and replacing it with a fresh strategy to address the needs of children. No, they are dropping the national standards-testing-accountability approach and replacing it with a home-grown standards-testing-accountability approach. The differences will be marginal at best.
Whether created in DC or in the state, the testing approach operates on the flawed and frankly hopeless belief that more testing will lead to higher achievement. After more than a decade of NCLB, we have no reason to believe that testing and accountability will change the fundamental problems of American education, which are rooted in poverty. Whether the tests are national or state, the bottom range of the distribution will be heavily weighted with children who are poor, who have disabilities, who don’t read English, or have other issues that testing and accountability will not change.
As I have noted on other occasions, Tom Loveless of Brookings explained in 2012 that standards by themselves don’t matter all that much. Loveless wrote then: “On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.” The biggest variation in test scores is within states, not between them. States with high standards have achievement gaps; states with high standards may have low academic performance. Tests measure gaps, they don’t close them.
Exchanging national standards for state standards won’t change the underlying conditions, which we used to call “root causes.” So long as we ignore the root causes of low performance (however it is measured), we will not improve education. We need a new paradigm for educational improvement, not just a switch from doing the wrong thing at the national level to doing the wrong thing at the state level.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
VERY well said.
Of course this is right, because the fight over CCSSI masks much deeper issues that go well beyond anything that is or can be addressed by education, public, private, or otherwise.
Bowles & Gintis had this sussed in 1976: SCHOOLING IN CAPITALIST AMERICA: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life.
This is exactly why my talking points must be heard. When they drop one idea they come up with a warmed up version of yet another. Help my talking points be heard as my new book should be out in a couple of months.
In fact, most of the states claiming to drop common core are simply replacing the label. As public and political awareness rises, the common-core brand becomes less and less palatable. Easy fix. Make some inconsequential changes and re-brand. Florida did this and our duplicitous governor now claims that in Florida “common-core is out”.
As pointed out, now matter how bad these standards are, the real culprit is to be found in the “teach-the-test-to-fix-the-failing-schools” ideology promoted by the educational-industrial complex.
Right – the testing has to go or nothing will change. I know a lot of people say “there has to be accountability” but who are the schools accountable to? Federal assesments? As long as this is in place we are locked in. I went to school pre-90’s when there was no accountability – so how did schools function? How did anyone graduate or get into college? How did generations of people become educated? When people were moving to a new area how did they know which schools were the “good schools” they wanted to live near? Was there anything wrong with kids that graduated and then went to Community College for a while before transferring somewhere else? How did all of this operate? Why do we think we need accountability to the Federal DOE?
Some states, like mine, did this in the first place. Alabama simply added the allowable 15% of our own standards and renamed the whole package the Alabama College and Career Ready Standards.
Yep. And they love to proclaim these are “our” state standards, as if a) educators and the community were truly consulted and b) these aren’t the CCSS. I fear for what Montgomery has in store for us next session.
You are not alone with your concerns. It doesn’t help either that the current state legislature controls our governor.
The Fake Repeal of Oklahoma Common Core Standards-ESEA Flexibility Waiver is in Place.
Governor Mary Fallin signs bill repealing the Common Core, but is it true?
The fake under-pinnings of this fake maneuver by the Governor of Oklahoma proves the unorthodox ways the education establishment will continue to use deceptive tactics to pull the wool over the parents and constituents of Oklahoma. The headlines will rave about the HB 3399 as a major victory for Oklahoma against the terrible evils for federal takeover of education to do away with Common Core Standards. NOT TRUE!
All along the Governor and the Secretary of Education moved in stealth form to amend their ESEA Flexibility Waiver dated April 4, 2014, to change the words of “Common Core” to College and Career Ready with the name of “College Career Citizenship Standards” called C3 on the front of their waiver. ( page 18 of the waiver- scroll down 12 pages for the waiver)
Click to access ESEA%20Extension%20Request%202014%20for%20Public%20Comment.pdf
Page 18 of the bill HB 3399 incorporates College and Career Ready standards in the law aligning to the ESEA Flexibility Waiver just updated on April 4, 2014. This move by the legislature makes Common Core Osmosis into College and Career Ready Standards law in their state.
Click to access HB3399%20ENR.PDF
The new message for ALL states: Dispose of the Common Core. Incorporate the Common Core into your ” academic” standards and approve them within your OWN state standards. Therefore, parents, legislators, and the public at large, will THINK the Common Core is gone.
Think again. Repeal the ESEA Flexibility Waiver if you really want to get rid of the Common Core, Governor Fallin.
Again and again I have said, we need a plan so they wont go back to the same ole doo doo. And the plan is in my upcoming book in a couple of months Brainstorming the Common Core: Salvaging the Fiasco of Reform
As long as students are admitted to schools using the traditional all and only geographic admission system there will be a demand that schools satisfy uniform standards. Parents will want some influence over the curriculum in the school and given that they can not vote with their feet, they will regulate. School boards will need to demonstrate that the arbitrary drawing of catchment lines really does not matter, so folks on the 500 block of Maple are happy going to school A while the folks on the 600 block of Maple are happy going to school B. If school A and school B had different teaching philosophies, say one is a Waldorf school and the other a progressive school, the folks on Maple might well be VERY unhappy with the catchment lines.
Holistic teaching isn’t progressive?
Holistic teaching is a stew, a little of this, a little of that. Traditional zoned schools are inevitably a stew, they function as the result of a political compromise that will not allow the specialization that we see routinely in choice schools.
I understand Paul’s position and agree that test-driven “reform” drives America away from quality public education. That said, Oklahoma did no small thing in rejecting Common Core because CC is the hub of unprecedented test-driven “reform” guaranteed to destroy any shred of democracy in public education in favor of complete and utter takeover by corporate monopolies like Pearson.
In its HB 3399, Oklahoma botched a Pearson takeover. and provided encouragement for leaders in other CC states to do the same. That is certainly cause for celebration.
While I appreciate the different opinions on this thread related to the piece by Paul Thomas, I must respectfully state that I agree with the comments by deutsch29.
The fact that the self-styled leaders of the “new civil rights movement of our time” feel compelled to rebrand, relaunch, and [superficially] reinvigorate the eduproducts of one of the largest denominations of the High Holy Church of Testolatry—Pearson—is a victory. And a most telling one.
In the real world victories are often partial and unsatisfying. But think of it this way: when Michelle Rhee and David Coleman are so unnerved by the mere thought having to get up on a public platform with Diane Ravitch that they first stall and then run screaming from the encounter—dignity and honor fluttering in tatters for all to see—it is a small but sure sign that the leaders of the so-called “education reform” movement are losing.
Or rather, and it’s more telling, that THEY feel they are losing.
The fight is far from over. But literally, not figuratively, the gargantuan advantages conferred by immense wealth and the very highest political connections and seemingly limitless media exposure do not a victory ensure because—
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.” [Sojourner Truth]
And thank you, deutsch29, for sharing in one of the best American traditions, by speaking truth to power.
😎
Where in HB 3399 does it prohibit Pearson to ” takeover?”
No Lie Left Untold. The “status quo” is so huge that it encompasses both the education deformers and a significant piece of the educational establishment. That’s what’s so enormously insidious. We’re trying to make the education system work when it is designed to keep us from dealing with the larger problem that has undermined meaningful change for decades. We’re chasing our own tails, being made to feel responsible for problems that are systemic and derive directly from corporate predatory capitalism itself. Education isn’t the problem, nor is it the solution. Not as long as the larger social and economic evils in which education is embedded are allowed to continue unabated.
The PARCC field testing was a huge success, according to the totally unbiased PARCC corp. 🙂
Here’s some bragging and politicking from a carefully selected group of ed reformers:
“A survey of Louisiana students validates our state’s strategy to use the online PARCC assessments,” said Louisiana State Superintendent John White. “With nearly 80 percent of the students surveyed indicating they use a computer or tablet nearly every day, it only makes sense that we test them the same way.”
“We are moving ahead on an assessment system of unprecedented quality and breadth,” said New Mexico Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera. “States are going to be sharing an assessment next year, allowing us to compare results and learn from each other. Making sure our students are learning these critical skills is at the core of all our efforts and with the field test complete we’ve moved forward in a way no single state has done before. ”
Louisiana cherry-picked the data even on the student survey. Half the test subjects filled out the survey, but Louisiana reported that the majority of the students love the test.
This is a political campaign.
http://www.parcconline.org/parcc-states-successfully-wrap-field-test
Are the testing consortiums evaluating their own performance? That’s cozy. Who would one appeal to if one wanted to give them a poor rating? The Gates Foundation? The US Chamber of Commerce?
The benefit to seeing parents awaken to common core – is the fact that they are awake. We need everyone to be aware of what is going on – so public schools, testing and accountability are more fully observed. And it won’t hurt to prove to big money investors – the apple cannot be stolen – someone will slap your hand if this is not good or kids.
If states simply replace with CCSS and the C.C.C.C.R.A.P. tests with their own versions of the same, NOTHING is gained.
The problem lies with the whole “standards”-and-summative-testing model. We’ve had NCLB and NCLB Fright Night II: the Nightmare Is Nationalized. The last thing we need is NCLB III. We’ve been there. We’ve seen that. It was awful.
It’s time to start over.
Let’s revisit the central metaphor of an educational system based on Judgment Day (Hold those kids, those teachers, those schools accountable!!!) Kids vary. These inane lists put together by state departments and by the CCSSO do not. And all these lists tend to be hackneyed and unimaginative in the extreme. And the tests simply narrow and distort curricula and pedagogy and put a break on real innovation in curricula and pedagogy.
Here’s an alternative to the insipid, invariant, monolithic “standards” and invalid summative standardized tests:
First, return autonomy to local educators, preferably at the building level. Allow them to choose their learning progressions, curricular materials, and pedagogical approaches.
Second, create time in teachers’ schedules for them to do Japanese-style lesson study, where they meet weekly, for quite a bit of time, to collaborate–to talk through the past week’s lessons, to plan the ones coming up, to share their materials and ideas, to discuss and debate these. In other words, put teachers in charge of their own continuous improvement.
Third, create an open-source, crowd-sourced wiki for COMPETING and VOLUNTARY learning progressions, frameworks, standards, guidelines, lesson templates, pedagogical approaches, curricula, and assessment materials of all kinds (diagnostic, formative, performative, and summative), in lots of subject areas and domains within subject areas, for lots of different kinds of students. Invite scholars, researchers, curriculum developers, and classroom practitioners to post their very best materials to this wiki on an ongoing basis. That’s how you get real innovation instead of the hackneyed crap that flows from central committees staffed by educrats.
Fourth, allow building-level teachers to choose from among those competing, innovative ideas, those that suit their students.
Fifth, if we must have state departments of education, put them in charge of figuring out how to offer as much variety in tracks as possible for our students. A complex, diverse, pluralistic society does not need to have its children identically milled. It needs for each child to be able to find his or her path among the many offerings that are available.
It’s time we stopped erecting monoliths. It’s time we stopped thinking in terms of centralized command and control.
ECOLOGIES ARE HEALTHIER THAN ARE MONOCULTURES.
cx: If states simply replace the CCSS and the C.C.C.C.R.A.P. tests with their own versions of the same, NOTHING is gained.
Agree
You can’t simply make the teachers in a building autonomous, you must make the students autonomous as well. If you do not allow families some control over education by allowing them to choose a school, the families of the district will control education by asserting their rights by regulation of what goes on in the classroom. Those regulations will reflect a compremese over what the families will all tolerate and innovative thinking will not be on the list.
And my upcoming book does just what you suggest. Give it a couple of months. Where the current problem lies is that no one I know is coming up with solutions. Brainstorming the Common Core, Salvaging the Fiasco of reform makes those changes . You wont recognize the single standard anymore, Just guidelines that are general and Proficiencies that are demonstrated. Help is on the way
It’s time to end the reign of tyrants. Enough of the centralized command and control, state or federal. We say that we are a free people. Let’s start acting like it.
Again…so correct!
The only way to free teachers is by freeing students.
Let each curriculum developer, acting without prior restraint or constraint, create the very best curricula that he or she can produce, and ten thousand flowers bloom, and let a free people choose from among those.
Why issue this bullet lists for curriculum developers to follow? Should we tell painters, do anything you like as long as you paint wooden bridges over streams and bowls of pears and oranges and apples?
My reaction whenever I look at one of our K-12 textbooks these days is disgust at the inspidness, the blandness, the backwardness, the mediocrity of the thing. These are paint-by-number teaching and learning materials that follow, to the letter, the inspid lists made up by committees. Groupthink products for the production of standardized minds.
Albert Einstein said that standardization was a great threat to American culture.
He should see our textbooks, our tests, and our lists of standards.
Appallingly base, hackneyed, backward drivel.
A simple Truth spoken with such eloquence ..Nothing else needs to be said. Bob has explained it perfectly…again..
The reason built lists are issued is because that is the only way families can influence education. Think about a system that assigns you to attend a single restaurant based on street address. Do you think that restaurant will serve interesting, creative, food? No, because that food will be offensive to some assigned to eat their. The folks assigned to eat will regulate the menu, eliminating almost all the creativity on the part of the chef, and construct a menus made up of traditional comfort foods.
It is possible to have a public education system AND to have variety in offerings–traditional schools, vo-tech programs, alternative schools–all under a public school umbrella. These offerings were common back in the day when we had site-based management in this country. Why? Because local social sanction operated. People demanded alternatives that would meet their children’s needs, and local people were free to innovate–to create lab schools and alternative schools and vo-tech schools, etc., within their public school systems. Furthermore, if you have site-based management, public school teachers have the autonomy to create innovative programs–differing, exciting tracks.
The schools you talk about are all choice schools, not the traditional all and only geographically zoned schools of the traditional public school system.
These are choices offered by public school systems, TE. When you say “traditional,” you forget that these offerings by public school systems once were common. They started disappearing about the time that we started having this shift from site-based management first to district management and then to state management and now to federal management. It’s not surprising that the more distant the center of command and control, the more monolithic and regimented the offerings. Locals are highly motivated to create systems that work. These are systems for THEIR KIDS.
Viewed through a long lens, locals have not been all that interested in creating systems that work for all the students.
But the issue you raise, TE, is a significant one. People should not pretend that it isn’t.
Robert,
Posters here will, in fact, ignore the issue, and as a result be mystified by parents who want to take an active role in choosing the kind of education their children receive.
But it need not be that way. We have a nation full of creative, imaginative educators, scholars, researchers, and curriculum designers. CREATE THE CONDITIONS THAT WILL ENABLE THEM TO THINK IMAGINATIVELY and ANEW!!!!
We live in an age of instantaneous communication, of universal access to ideas. This should be a time of a great creative flowering of educational ideas, not the time when we put some groupthink committee in charge of everything and everyone!!!!!
That’s insane. It’s a recipe for mediocrity and disaster.
I apologize for the many typos in the posts, above. I’ve just come of a marathon writing session. Tired here.
But what I am most tired of is seeing insipid, mediocre, unimaginative, often prescientific, bland, dull crap being hawked on the education carnival midway as though it were something new.
New, Higher Groupthink!!!!
cx: off, not of. Yikes. I am tired, here.
Higher Groupthink !! Depends on whose in the Group…The Dictators or the Real Thinkers.
And save all that money spent on tests and centralized committees of doublethinking, groupthinking educrats and spend it on making sure that kids have food in their bellies and warm clothes in the winter and eye exams and nurses in their schools and libraries that are open and safe, nurturing places to go to study and play when school is out.
It’s obscene to spent on that other crap when there are such needs.
Obscene.
It simply is not decent.
Truth spoken again…Is anyone listening Bob?
We are traveling with Young Humans and that Trip should include your list of needs for the next generation…but sadly….that is not happening today…….but I will never give up trying to get the word to the world.
Millions of autonomous agents, acting from personal integrity and pride in ownership of their own careers and lives and under conditions of local social sanction will do a much, much, much better job of educating our kids than will robotic legions of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
And Gates?
Yes, he is the richest non-sovereign person in history.
But in this, when it comes to education, he’s just another guy with really bad ideas.
Just another guy who thought giving money to the Top would fix it……..I think the guy really did think he would succeed in helping close the gap……His generosity backfired….climbing to the top without any brakes….a total train wreck coming down the other side..
Mr Gates should not have Given his money for this Deadly Race to the Top…without first checking with the Experts….
He has succeeded in Fattening the Wallets of the Plastic Politicians and Creating Chaos in our Schools..
He has succeeded in creating a Top-Down Management system where Expert Educators-(teachers) have Strings attached to them choking their every creative thought until they reach the point of Catatonia……exactly like Robots …nothing more…
Response: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/06/why-defeat-of-common-core-would.html
Fun to see battles on the far right over the meaning of the Oklahoma situation:
Here’s the queen of the conspiracy theorists, Charlotte Iserbyt: http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-fake-repeal-of-oklahoma-common-core.html
And here’s the very hurt reaction by Shane Vander Hart, a “popular conservative Christian blog[ger] from Iowa, target of Iserbyt’s “wolf in sheep’s clothing” epithet.
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/oklahoma-did-repeal-common-core-but-we-must-remain-vigilant/
This is, frankly, more enjoyable reading than left wing squabbling, on my view.
Fun to see battles on the far right over the meaning of the Oklahoma situation:
Here’s the queen of the conspiracy theorists, Charlotte Iserbyt: http://bit.ly/1kjzxnS
And here’s the very hurt reaction by Shane Vander Hart, a “popular conservative Christian blog[ger] from Iowa, target of Iserbyt’s “wolf in sheep’s clothing” epithet.
http://bit.ly/1mEtRGy
This is, frankly, more enjoyable reading than left wing squabbling, on my view.
I wonder how much Thomas actually knows about CC. Surely, not much based on him only mention testing as a concern. He did not mention the teaching, homework, requirements, cost and tainted development of the standard.
I suggest Thomas delve deeper than testing because if testing was improved, the other flaws will still remain.
@ajbruno14 : that would be great analysis and advice for Paul Thomas if it reflected what he is actually saying. Maybe you should try rereading (or reading for the first time) his piece and rethink your comments. Because Thomas knows quite well what’s what. His point is that dumping the CCSS for a set of standards like what we’ve had in various states for decades is a huge waste of time, money, and effort. He’s not approving either the CCSS OR what we’ve been going with. The entire system is problematic, as is the larger capitalist context in which our education system is embedded. We need major rethinking about the role of education in a democracy, what it can be expected to accomplish and what it cannot.
Apparently, that was all missed in your first view. Try again.