Stephen Sawchuck did a good job reporting the heated debate about the Common Core standards at the AFT convention. The Chicago Teachers Union wanted to dump them. The head of the New York City United Federation of Teachers mocked the critics of the standards. One union official said that the critics represented the Tea Party. That’s pretty insulting to the Chicago Teachers Union and one-third of the AFT delegates, as well as people like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, and me.
As far as I can tell, no one explained how states and districts will find the hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for hardware and software required for “the promise of Common Core.” Early estimates indicate that Pearson will have a contract of $1 billion to develop the PARCC tests. Who will pay Pearson? Who will be laid off? How large will class sizes go?
There were no Martians on the committee that wrote the Common Core standards, but there were also no classroom teachers, no early childhood teachers, no special education teachers. There were a number of testing experts.
Frankly the best and only hope for the future of these standards is that they are totally decoupled from testing. It is not likely to happen because doing so would deny the privatizers the data to prove that schools are failing and must be closed at once. That’s where the next big fight will occur.
Will they prepare all children for college and careers? Nobody knows. Will they help prepare our children for “global competition?” Not likely if the global competition works for $2 an hour for 18 hours a day under unsafe conditions.
The Common Core standards will never be national standards. They were developed in haste, paid for by one man (the guy is Seattle who thinks he knows everything), sold to the public via a slick PR campaign. They were never tried out. The tests connected to them are designed to fail most kids. Arne Duncan and Bill Gates thought they could pull a fast one and bypass democracy. Sorry, boys, you are wrong. Public education belongs to the public. Children belong to their parents. Neither public education nor children are for sale.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t get why any teacher would be in favor of forcing the Standards [sic] on every other teacher (not to mention students). Even if we get rid of the Standards (and the accompanying tests), any teacher who finds them valuable can still use them, can’t they? Why (unless one is receiving lots of Gates money) would anyone insist on national standardization?
Do you know anyone who finds them valuable?
I’m not a teacher, but I haven’t talked to any who do find them valuable. But there are occasionally people who post here at least claiming to find them valuable. They may very well be paid shills. But even if they’re genuine, my point stands – use them if you want to, but why subject everyone to them?
Not everyone supports standards based education. The academic learning is limited by the chosen standards skill set.
The math standards are good. The ELA standards have problems, although I appreciate the additional emphasis on writing and disciplinary literacy.
Where the standards are good (math), I see the benefit of multi-state standards making better materials and resources available.
In addition to underscoring how important the process is, the Common Core debate is also a reminder that the entire premise of standards doesn’t have total buy-in. At the policy level, I don’t think that is recognized.
Are the math standards good? Maybe, but certainly not impeccable. I think they could use some refinement at minimum. Especially in the clarity department. They could crowdsource it. They could be written much easier to understand.
Gates probably should have just started small with math. Or just tried to produce one excellent text for one course in math. I read the common core aligned textbooks, and personally I find the texts at thrift stores to be better organized and more legible. Common core math tends to assume a knowledge base out that was never previously covered in any depth or repetition. That is a problem.
Good point about starting with what can be done well.
I agree that the first round of Common Core math materials were not generally well organized. Some publishers acknowledged this by referring to the early materials as bridge editions, some did not. The demand for aligned materials sooner than later exceeded the capacity of authors or author teams to revise and redevelop their materials. Enough time has passed that better developed aligned editions are beginning to appear, at least for elementary and middle level mathematics.
Rather than Gates supporting materials development in mathematics, I’d prefer to see an investment in quality professional development in the teaching of mathematics at levels where teachers are not subject area specialists.
Dienne,
I think there are several reasons to require some uniform standards for education. Most importantly standards are the only way that families can influence the education thier child receives. Given that most students are assigned to schools by the district school board, building level autonomy would mean that families would have no impact on what thier students learn. If memory serves you send your children to private school. Didn’t you pick the private school based on thier educational philosophy and educational standards?
The second reason for standards is to help the down stream teachers. Within a school district like my local district, you might have students from three or more elementary schools all joining together at one junior high school, and students from three of the junior high schools joining together in a high school (in my local district, balancing SES is a higher priority in determining catchment areas in high school and Junior high than in elementary school where geographic proximity is given more weight). Teachers in the down stream classes need some uniformity in perpetration amount thier students. Uniformity of perpetration is also important at the university level, but we do accommodate a wide variety of student perpetration levels at institutions like mine.
“Good” depends on the students you’re serving.
Jason Zimba, the chief architect of the CCSS math standards, said, publicly, that they are not for selective colleges. They leave out some important areas of study for students who wish to go to the more prestigious colleges and universities.
Is this “good”?
One of the things I hear a lot of is that the CCSS will “level the playing field” in public education. What does this mean? That people in lower performing schools will be able to raise their achievement levels while those in the higher performing schools will see their’s lowered?
I agree with Dienne: why make them mandatory for all? Many schools, despite Duncan’s assurances to the contrary, have been doing way better than “just fine” without a federally mandated set of standards.
I can’t come up with any reason other than to make the creation of tests and curricula more convenient and widespread. Sacrificing excellence in public education for a middle ground which is more market friendly. Is this “good”?
Dienne,
It’s not about forcing standards on other teachers. Standards are absolutely essential. Standards provide a framework. Standards allow me to “begin with the end in mind.” Standards are the foundation for developing a common knowledge base and professional knowledge system for teachers. Lawyers have the Constitution and case law. Engineers have building codes. A Catholic priest has Scripture and Tradition (e.g. Canon Law, encyclicals). There must be a framework on which the profession is built.
Unfortunately, teaching is sorely lacking this framework. Name ONE document that ALL teachers in the United States use. I can’t think of one. And that speaks volumes. At the state level, there are state standards. I’m a special education teacher and IDEIA provides some unity for our specialty, but each state has some unique features to its special education laws. For example, some states have a special name for the Prior Written Notice document.
It’s possible to argue fairly convincingly that teaching is not truly a profession because people can teach without belonging to the “teaching profession.” The fact that so many parents/caregivers home-school (or think that they can home-school) says something, doesn’t it? The prevalence of home-schooling tells me that my profession has problems. It’s a problem that parents without formal training in teaching are doing my job. It’s a problem that programs like Teach for America can exist and actually have some credibility. It’s a problem that in some places, anyone with a bachelor’s degree can be a substitute teacher. The existence of home-schooling, TFA, and substitute teachers without a teaching background endanger the teaching profession because these phenomena support the notion that “anyone can teach.”
I say all of this because I just finished my first year teaching and I have every intention of being a career teacher. This past year, I taught students in a low-incidence program. When I wanted to draw on a professional knowledge system, there wasn’t one from which to draw. I had to create my own. Who/what helped me? Colleagues, graduate school, Pinterest, books, journal articles, and yes, state standards. I only wich there was a professional knowledge system in place from which I could learn and to which I could contribute.
The following articles explain (much more persuasively than I can) why teachers need a common knowledge base and professional knowledge system:
Morris, Hiebert propose alternative way to improve education by Cassandra Kramer
http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/mar/shared-instructional-products-031811.html.
Creating Shared Instructional Products: An Alternative Approach to Improving Teaching by Anne K. Morris and James Hiebert
Click to access Morris%20and%20Hiebert%202011.pdf
A knowledge base for the teaching profession: What would it look like and how can we get one? by James Hiebert, Ronald Gallimore, and James W. Stigler
Click to access HiebertEtAlAERA310502.pdf
The AFT’s publication, American Educator, had an excellent article about the need for a common knowledge base. One can find this article, “Learning to Teach Nothing in Particular” by David Cohen, at https://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter1011/Cohen.pdf.
Educator, standards are a good idea. Wouldn’t you prefer standards written by educarrs?
I’m not sure what direction you want as a special ed teacher. Are you asking for practice standards or instructional content standards? No one size fits all bible of instruction is going to appear. Learning to apply what you studied will take time. In your standards examples, you use specialized fields beyond the scope of K-12 education. No one cares whether an engineer can write a compound, complex sentence with correct punctuation or if they can write a formulaic, five paragraph essay. A lawyer’s ability to write an opinion had better go far beyond but his understanding of building or road loads will only be as deep as he needs to handle building code violations or lawsuits about structural defects, and such information would no doubt be provided by expert witnesses. The foundational documents you mention hardly define those professions; they are limited content documents.
Suggested guidelines are more along the lines of possibility, but as soon as you impose absolutes, you have to be very careful in how those dictates are imposed. District curricula should provide direction and there are plenty of professional organizations aligned with the various teacher specialties that outline practice and content standards. Not having had national standards does not mean we had no standards. If you want a cookbook become a cook. (Can’t you hear gourmet cooks and chefs shouting at me?)
The first few years of teaching are hard no matter how good a mentoring program is in place. I’m guessing that few beginning teachers would say they received all the support they needed. I know I didn’t. Half the time you don’t know what you need or what questions to ask. It is close to overwhelming. I am pretty sure, though, that a list of standards would be of little help in your day to day struggles.
As a retired special education teacher, I feel for you. I honestly believe that most educators have no idea how to handle students with disabilities and what to teach them. Policy decisions are being made by people outside the field.
Whatever direction we move in, input from professionals most closely involved is critical.
Diane,
Thank you for following up on my comment. My answer to your question is an emphatic “Yes!” Of course educators should be a part of the process for developing standards because educators are the people who use the standards.
In my previous comment, I did not address the Common Core State Standards specifically, but I should have. While I am a strong supporter of national standards, I DO NOT support the CCSS, for two reasons: (1) the process was undemocratic and left out key stakeholders, namely teachers and other educators, and (2) the CCSS are developmentally inappropriate, especially for young children.
The CCSS, particularly the CCSS for ELA, expect too much of kindergarteners and first graders. My educated guess is that the lack of input from teachers is partly to blame for the developmental inappropriateness of the CCSS. Who better than teachers to explain what children at particular ages are capable of learning?
Educator of Great Students, we agree. The ELA for K-2 are ridiculous in CCSS..
Chicago Teachers Union is the only big group who see the runaway train bearing down on them? Or can it be that the agreement and silence of others has been bought and paid for?
My limited knowledge of the Coalition of Essential Schools leads me to wish that NYSUT, AFT and UFT would use their recent statements re: proliferation of standardized testing, as far back as 2004. to take a stand against the insane growth of corporate money-making mandated testing in our public schools. As you have pointed out more than once, the Common Core and PARCC test makers have scant knowledge of teaching and learning research.
Sadly, it has become increasingly apparent that many of our politicians have no qualms about putting themselves up for sale.
BTW, is there a compelling reason for the AFT to issue a resolution on the Ukraine-Russia situation? It’s a little confusing given that the AFT would appear to have a much greater stake in domestic issues (e.g. child poverty) and other international policies/events (e.g. concerns over PISA). It’s possible these issues have already been discussed in great detail by AFT delegates, so I would appreciate it if others could shed any light on this.
I believe Randi visited Ukraine.
I wish she would have stayed there permanently.
I’ve been trying to “fact check” a PARCC quote for several days now to no avail. Both PARCC email and twitter accounts have not responded to my query. ThisPARCC Update quoted the following headline without citation: “Common Core Testing on Death Bed”.Does anyone know the source before I start believing they invented it to juxtapose views and advance their cause? A google search only links back to the PARCC website.
It’s interesting how they “shape their presentation of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing different interpretations of facts” a la 7th grade standard
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.9
I recently read an article along those lines, but can’t remember where I got the link. Maybe this series of article will help (I’m not a member, so I’m only going by the titles).
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/education_futures/2014/06/the_ultimate_demise_of_common_core_-_part_i_the_politics.html
Thanks, A. I’ll keep investigating.
Yes, the CTU was the informed and brave voice of opposition at this very managed AFT convention; the delegate structure guarantees a majority for Randi and the Exec. Comm. The “floor debates” take place with Randi already in control of a majority of votes. It’s a ‘show debate.’ Union process makes it very hard for opposition teachers to become delegates and challenge the Randi-Mulgrew crowd. This is why Mulgrew of UFT-NYC shoved an awful contract down his own local’s throat and felt free to ridicule the CTU/opposition; he’s drunk with the power of a crony’s position-for-life and a managed convention where he and Randi control the outcomes; he does not have to censor what he says(the “martians” remark). Democracy is at work when the membership can discipline the leadership; democracy is non-functional when the leadership can silence and control the membership.
AFT conv. was a Dem Party convention in teacher drag. Randi/Mulgrew arranged the AFT convention to produce Democratic Party-friendly outcomes without having to mention Hillary’s name. The rhetoric did the work for them. References to scary anti-labor GOP Governors–Cuomo not mentioned. Instead of indicting Obama for appointing an Educ Sec’y hostile to public education, Randi pushed ridiculous appeal to Obama to “improve” Duncan, deflecting any talk of Pres. failing labor and public education. Randi also emphasized “we are only 1 appt away from gaining a majority on the Supreme Court” so vote for Dems—but she ignored the fact that vote no. 5 was confirmed by a Dem-controlled Senate in 1991–Clarence Thomas, 53-47. Randi also failed to point out among her rogue’s gallery that Dem Gov. Cuomo of NY has been a powerful enemy of public education and strong advocate for private charters via Eva Moskowitz and his Wall St funders. Randi mentioned that in 2012 labor unions spent only $650mil on elections while corporations spent $9.5bil, so she needs a dues increase, obviously to promote Dem candidates. Voting Democratic was the only marching order she gave.
What we can say from Randi’s performance is that it confirms her day job as a Dem Party agent who will not commit career suicide by defending public schools, teachers, and students against the billionaire boys club and its agents. Dem Party is one of the billionaires’ agents destroying public education, aligned with the GOP on education policy. Randi sits at the Dem table of the status quo, first, foremost, always. Her 3 references to “badass” were means of co-opting militants using their name but not standing up for any of their principles, one rhetorical maneuver among many. Union folks have to follow example of CTU with Karen Lewis and of Mass-MEA with its new pres. Barbara Madeloni–take control of your teacher unions for the rank and file, stop voting for the cronies who now run the unions, elect leaders who will fight for their members and the kids.
So what should we expect from a newly announced organization supported by Randi calling itself Democrats for Public Education? DFER in wolf’s clothing? I am not very hopeful.
Vote Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Democrats for Public Education is an attempt to marginalize growing opposition from the left–silencing Network for Public Education and BATS and OOU, among others. It will also be a stalking horse for Hillary’s run for the White House, another way Randi confirms her seat at the table of the Dem Party.
“. . . stop voting for the cronies who now run the unions. . . ”
Didn’t you leave an “i’ out of that part: “ruin” not “run”?
Yes, “ruin” is absolutely right, good eyes and good editing!
Hopefully our dues are not spent on elections and that’s what COPE is for. She is constantly increasing dues, and we are getting nothing in return.
We are getting plenty in return. Unfortunately, none of it is good.
Yes, the dues help finance lobbying for Dem candidates at election time, which is Randi’s day job. The AFT org as a whole is an apparatus to employ many whose dependency on their AFT positions includes campaigning for Democrats at election time, getting out the vote, door-knocking and phone-banking, which a national org like AFT is ideally situated to do, and for which it earns its place at the Dem table. AFT has to deflect discontent with Obama so as to protect the Dem white house, which is why it concocted that ridiculous request for Obama to supervise Duncan’s improvement. Once we see that Randi’s real job is to foster Dem Party candidates and policies, not to lead a teachers’ union into fighting for public schools, her actions against teacher and student needs make sense, glued to CCSS b/c it’s from Obama’s RTTT, etc.
Ira,
What’s OOU? Opt out u. . . ?
I’m AI* so I need help figuring these out these.
*Acronym Impaired.
This excerpt from the Sawchuck blog post tells me that the union leadership really is bankrupt:
“Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City local: “‘I have heard the stories about how Eli Broad and [Bill] Gates and a flying saucer full of Martians designed these standards. … Now we have teachers unpacking the common core, and we are seeing the promise. What bothers me more than anything is the idea that the AFT would back down from a fight. Those standards are ours; the tests are ours; we are fighting because they took tests from us, and we’re going to take it back from them. It is our profession.'”
Those standards are ours? The tests are ours? Who is this guy? And how did he get to be president of a union? What he says here makes no sense to me, on any level. Forget “unpacking.” This ignoramus should be SENT packing.
His tortured logic is only part of the problem. Like AFT President Randi Weingarten, he appears to be out of touch with the reality of the “standards” and where they came from, and why.
What they call “the promise” has no basis in the standards as developed. It’s all wishful thinking (or disingenuous maneuvering for political advantage). The reality that should be staring them in the face is the chaos and awful results already spawned by the whole CCS enterprise. What they call “promise” is pie-in-the-sky that has no chance of ever being realized, for lots of different reasons. Without the CCS there would be no fake promise and less oppression of children and teachers. With no CCS we’d be talking about some other set of abuses engendered by the “reformers.”
Why these union leaders cling to a poorly executed bad idea that has already failed is a mystery. Or it would be a mystery if politics and money weren’t involved.
@NJ Teacher: there are an abundance of teachers on the #MTBOS (Math-Twitter- Blogosphere) who welcome both the CCSS and the Standards of Mathematical Practice as they resemble the NCTM process standards. I teach middle school math. IMO the standards are a blessing and a curse. Students who are not “at grade level” are worse off because many concepts have been pushed to the lower grades. Recently, I was a part of a middle school curriculum presentation to our school board. One member asked me what I thought of the common core. I spoke highly of the problem solving focus (which is what we should be doing anyway) but I am concerned whether the concepts are developmentally appropriate.
And there lies the problem—pushing concepts to the lower grades. Some of the early childhood standards, especially on the K and 1 level used to be taught to Grades 3 and 4. This is totally unfair because if these tests are built on prior knowledge, then many students are out of luck come test time. Also there are many strategies to teach any concept, yet the tests and worksheets usually call for a particular strategy. But the worst part is what is does to our Special Ed students and students who are below level. It doesn’t give any time for review. My former principal got rid of the Title 1 remediation program in both math and reading. AIS programs are not built on review but test prep.
Agree, these should not have been rolled out across the board. They should have started with the current kindergarten class and built from there. The standards increase in complexity as new skills are added to each grade level from the previous year. For that reason alone, the test are unfair.
“They should have started with the current kindergarten class. . . ”
More like “They should never have been started to begin with.”
Point taken! Just trying to articulate that across the board CC role out caused gaps in learning because the standards are set up for new skills to be added each year. You don’t hear anyone addressing the skills gaps that this roll out caused. Perhaps the parents will notice when the test scores are released.
I neglected to mention the gaps caused by the hasty implementation of the CC. Thanks for making that clear.
In addition to the “oppponents of CCSS think they were written by Martians” argument, there were many times I heard AFT leaders, indulging Randi, using the straw-man argument that critics of the CCSS want “no standards at all.” That they cant argue for it without constant mischaracterization of opponents shows just how wrong they are.
Agreed
In the “silver lining” category from the AFT Convention, at which I was a delegate from LA, the Common Core motion as passed does in fact recognize the numerous problems with CC implementation and advocates decoupling the CCSS from high-stakes testing. Yes, it still celebrates CCSS as the best standards ever, but the fact that the resolution was not just a puff-piece rah-rah statement does show a recognition of dissent from the ranks. As is Randi’s usual practice, she doesn’t want to break from her friends in high places on this issue, which the CTU resolution would have done.
Similarly, the anti-Duncan language, which called for tongue in cheek “training” and “due process” before resigning (alluding to the Vergara case): it’s less direct than the NEA statement, but neither the AFT nor the NEA wants to embarrass Obama these days. Should they be more militant? Many would say yes, but I doubt the majority of teachers are ready to do that either.
One interesting thing to watch for in coming months is the new rapprochement between the two presidents, Randi and Lily. Whatever one thinks of each of them (AFT members learned today that Lily can give a good speech, at least), perhaps enough time has passed since the last merger attempt in 1998 for a new effort. Without doubt, teachers are under even more attacks now than we were back then, and we would be a lot stronger speaking with one voice.
I am not hopeful about the overall political outlook, however. Many, many people are already in the Hillary camp, perhaps more out of sentiment than policy analysis. (Does she even have an education policy?) And certainly some of the governor races this fall are critical just for self-preservation of public education and the labor movement.
The old Chinese curse still holds: we are living in interesting times. See you on the barricades.
“. . . the AFT nor the NEA wants to embarrass Obama these days. . .”
They should, although he does a good job of embarrassing himself just by keeping the Dunkster around.
If the voice we are speaking with does not belong to us, it will not make us stronger.
Apparently though teacher unions have been for sale, and bought for cheap
I present in full the seventh from the last paragraph from the report linked to in the blog posting:
[start quote]
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City local: “I have heard the stories about how Eli Broad and [Bill] Gates and a flying saucer full of Martians designed these standards. … Now we have teachers unpacking the common core, and we are seeing the promise. What bothers me more than anything is the idea that the AFT would back down from a fight. Those standards are ours; the tests are ours; we are fighting because they took tests from us, and we’re going to take it back from them. It is our profession.”
[end quote]
Notice that Mr. Mulgrew asserts that CCSS and its tests belong to teachers and “we” are going to take back what was stolen.
From the last eight paragraphs, the three that feature comments by CTU delegates: (1), “[y]ou cannot have the common core without high-stakes testing”; (2), the CCSS “standards were not created with teaching and learning in mind” but rather they “were created with testing in mind”; and 3), that the CCSS are “a business plan, not an education plan” that cannot be separated from accountability measures (IMHO, first and foremost, VAM and the like based on the scores of high-stakes standardized tests).
Mr. Mulgrew’s statement is factually wrong, beginning with the idea that CCSS doesn’t belongs to its actual owners but to teachers. The three CTU speakers are factually correct.
As is my wont of late, I introduce Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, an “education reformer” through and through:
[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/
Again, Mr. Mulgrew is wrong; Dr. Hess is right.
It is self-destructive to take the CCSS rhetoric at face value and try to rescue it from itself. You will do nothing but drag the AFT, NEA and the teaching profession down with it.
It is long past time to disassociate teachers from CCSS. Otherwise, this is going to end very badly for public education.
😎
I just had another thought, probably totally unoriginal, but I’ll throw it out there. If the government imposes a set of national standards, doesn’t it become much harder for states and local school districts to affect change in them? It works great when talking about amending the Constitution. It should require a lot of effort to amend it, but I doubt we want or need the same level of control of educational standards. Of course, right now the standards that are being forced on us are completely beyond our control. We had no input and have no oversight over nor power to amend CCSS.
I’ve come to believe that the deepest problem with regard to the CCSS in ELA is that the proponents of them haven’t read their own standards closely. When they defend them, they do so at a 35,000-foot level. They talk about very broad notions–the six “instructional shifts,” for example–but not about whether standard x is acceptable or ideal or what consequences this particular standards has for pedagogy, curricula, or assessment. And that’s why we get so much talk about “unpacking the standards.” For defenders of the CCSS, “the standards” is code for what they think of as a set of PROFOUND GENERAL INSIGHTS. It’s not the actual document–the list of standards. And among those who vehemently defend them, that’s what they are defending–ideas like
The graduates of our schools need to be able to read scientific and technical texts and not just, primarily, narrative ones.
The graduates of our schools need to be able to read carefully and at grade level.
The graduates of our schools need to be able to think critically.
The graduates of our schools need to be able to put together and critique arguments based on evidence, and not simply to persuade.
Society has a right to know whether the graduates of our schools have actually learned anything and what it means when they receive a particular grade or degree (there needs tobe accountability).
And so on.
Now, those are all normative statements, and that’s why people get very worked up about them. And they are pretty uncontroversial. Most people would probably agree with them (though I believe that if one starts thinking carefully about what they mean, lots of issues arise).
So, why do proponents of the CCSS think that opponents are crazy? Well, they think that it’s crazy for people to disagree with those broad, general, normative statements.
And why to opponents of the CCSS think that the proponents are crazy? Well, they think that it’s crazy for people to take the particular approaches and to use the particular concepts and materials at particular grade levels with particular students that are expressly stated in or entailed or implied by particular standards and by particular policies based on those standards or the accompanying materials (the appendices, the Publisher’s Criteria, the tests based on the standards, etc).
So, to quote Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Proponents and opponents of the CCSS in ELA are talking about different things. They both think that they are talking about “the standards,” but they are referencing totally different intentional objects. The proponents are referencing the general ideas that they think the standards instantiate, and the opponents are referencing the specifics.
But very little actual discussion of the specifics occurs. When one does engage in that sort of “close reading” of the ELA standards themselves, much of what is there doesn’t hold up. It is backward, hackneyed, prescientific, extraordinarily vague, random, not part of a rational progression, inappropriate to particular students or texts, or acting on it has an unacceptably high direct cost or opportunity cost (one does one thing at the expense of doing another that might be preferable).
What I typically find, when I press folks who are defenders of the standards, is that they have very, very vague notions about what they mean, and they have not attended very closely to what they actually say and entail and imply.
And that’s a problem.
I would say that until these standards have been read very, very closely, and each one and all of the accompanying material is scrutinized carefully, there has been no debate.
There’s just been a lot of blowing hot air.
What one hears is a lot of unfounded rhetoric: we need higher standards. Well, what do you mean by “higher” and by “standard”? And in what sense is [insert any particular item from the standards here] an example of that?
Very, very often, the disconnect between what’s actually in the standards and the defenses of them is just breathtaking. I often think, for example, when I hear Bill Gates or Randi Weingarten talking about the standards, “Has either one actually read and thought about any of the actual items on the list of CCSS for ELA?” Clearly not.
And that’s a pity. For the specific items in the list make an enormous difference. Test items are written based on them. Curricula are designed to “cover” them.
I need more background on that teacher who mocked Chicago… Was is a John King political appointee?
Really, really, really this bullshit debate has to end and end now because it rarely takes on the nature of the standards themselves, rarely takes up the meaning inherent in the standards as written and whether or not what the standards call for are sensible goals for students. I would hope that those of sound mind and truly good heart will consider, perhaps as an aside to the standards debate the debate that should be taking place amongst those who are more concerned with the goodness of education for individuals and the society than the workload, the cost, or the burden essential changes may place on those who are educators. I do think that the standards that are the CCSS standards are not at all terrible, are at least a viable attempt to get at the kind of things that students need to be able to do in order to do a better job of being citizens in a democracy than those who currently run things, administrators and teachers amongst them, who balk at any kind of change that is really intellectually demanding, that would cause them to rethink what they think they know about what it is that students deserve from their education, the development of skills and attitudes that allow them to understand how to access information, make sense of information, understand what happens to information as it is translated by humans into knowledge and how knowledge is used in the decision making processes that govern our actions. For years students have complained about school as a place one has to go to be bored, where the best survival skill for school is tolerating the boredom. And for many, many years, we, educators have blamed students and their attitudes, students and their interests in things other than what school for causing students not to get from school what the schools are trying to give them.
It isn’t the students; it is the schools and any teacher who fits the bill at most schools does not really deliver what students really need, freedom to interact with the world and other people in it, with ideas and the thinking that leads to ideas–interaction from which meaning is extracted and in which the skills of making meaning and checking the veracity of means happens through a rich discourse in which all involved are learners.
Schools now deliver stuff to student and expect students to appreciate what they are being given, not because the stuff of itself is so good as to produce real interest in it, but because it is the stuff someone says they must have in order to succeed. Rarely do students have the chance to discuss what they wish to succeed at, to grow in their sense of what they wish to become. Few know the options available beyond those options that those who run things allow and for their own selfish reasons, not at all for the liberation of minds, the growth of independent intellects, students who understand that they have the capacity to shape their destinies (a basic understanding for good citizens of a democracy), change the way things are and help to shape the futures they will live.
I do know that teachers and those who defend teachers will say that they should not be criticized because what they do in their classrooms is not what they necessarily want to be doing, that to keep their jobs they have to give into a lot of the crap that comes down upon them from above. There is no doubt in my mind that good numbers of teachers would rather be doing things in ways other than what they are commanded to do. But, the fact that teachers are such an oppressed group should tell us something about who it is that is teaching citizens how to be citizens! If teachers cannot do what is necessary to have it their way, especially if they have sound reason to believe that their way is the good way, then all they can do is demonstrate to students how oppressed people learn to cope with their oppression. But in schools, rarely do teachers speak to their students of the oppressive forces that force upon them rotten curriculum innovations and crap materials that are produced by people who have little interest in things such as intellectual freedom, independent mindedness, critical thought for all of these abilities and notions about what is good an right would lead to the people possessing such and capable of such to realize what is really going on in the world around them.
The new standards are not poison and a teacher corp dedicated to freedom and democracy should do what is best with them, take them apart and make the case for keeping what is good and getting rid of what is not good. The link to testing, bad indeed, but standards that require that students graduate high school with the ability to read foundational documents of their society and understand them? That sounds like a very basic basic to me and, as I read the standards for secondary schools, I recognize in the writers of the standards a kind of smarts that have never been present in any other school goals document.
Our attention should be focused on meaningful goals and not whether Bill or whoever else with big money is involved in the process. If Bill or whoever else involved advocates for things that are terrible, then the critique should be of what and not who. Damn, if a good goal for education came from the mouth of Sarah Palin, it would be a good goal no matter the who, right?
Of course, I do not expect those of the mentality of a Palin, Bachman, Malken or Rhee are going to put forth great goals relevant to a viable and vibrant democracy. Why this is so, why it is that they and so many other Americans educated in American schools lack what it takes to be effective citizens cognizant of the real meaning of democracy and understanding of what needs to be understood to hold up a political system that was created to insure liberty for all, should be troubling to all who care about democracy and education for a democratic society.
I ask that we admit to the troubles that were before the CCSS came into being, the kind of education the people of this nation have been receiving for so many decades and what that education has produced in terms of a citizenry capable of dealing with the contingencies of democracy in the 21st century. Remember that this is a society that buys the products sold by advertising that succeeds in capturing the minds of those in the audience. Who is that audience and where did its members go to school? Fox News is the most popular and reality shows and star exposes earn their producers great amount of money because of the mass of the audience this stuff draw. Who constitutes these audiences? People educated in our schools. What about those wars in the Middle East and the WMD that won over the hearts and minds of whom? And then a financial crash that had something to do with home loans and pitches from banks that left good numbers in dire straits? How did that happen and to whom?
We, educators have to take some responsibility for what is happening in the world; we educate the people who populated it and if those people are susceptible to the things they seem susceptible to, then shouldn’t we rethink what we are doing and consider the kind of goals that got us into trouble in the first place, that got us into the wars and allowed for the corporatism that now rules our lives, all of our lives, on the global scale? Shouldn’t we think about what education did or didn’t do that led to 10 years of NCLB and Read First and research based instruction?
New conversation please, please, and please again. It isn’t the standards, really. It is us and I think we are showing ourselves for who we really are in the way the standards are being attacked.
I hardly know where to start on this one, lafared…so I’ll just say, “speak for yourself”.
Actually, I’ll start here: after almost 7 years of working with severely emotionally disturbed kids, most with serious needs in math and ELA, I had developed an extremely effective system of teaching that included remedial programs in both of those areas.
We took breaks. We talked both separately and in groups. We played games. The kids liked the classes and they learned.
That changed with the reformers. We were given general ed materials to work with and the time necessary to implement those new programs was too invasive to allow for the breaks and meetings we’d had. I was literally told by my AP that she would personally burn my books if she saw any of my program either being employed in the room or even in sight.
I’ll repeat: I had a great system, aligned to the NY State Standards, in place in my room…as did many of my colleagues. That system met my special education student’s needs. I had to scrap them for a completely inappropriate system that still, to this day, does not work.
CCSS represents more of the same, effecting ALL students of ALL abilities. The idea that we should just shut up, take our medicine, and get crackin’ is, to me, a little strange coming from an educator. You are an educator…right?