A teacher left this thoughtful comment:
“I recently participated in professional development on the Smarter Balance test (SBAC), the newest of the assessments to measure student proficiency in competencies aligned with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). One of my responsibilities as a language arts teacher of high school juniors is to prepare students for this high-stakes assessment. I also provide my students with SAT and ACT test-taking strategies.
“I left the workshop convinced that the classroom teacher has not had a meaningful voice in the assessment process. Let me explain: For SBAC’s multiple choice section, students must identify all possible correct answers or receive no credit. For the SATs, ACTS, and some AP multiple-choice sections, students choose the best answer. Furthermore, SBAC results seem to be tied to federal funding, high school rankings, and teacher performance. How does SBAC and related test preparation benefit my students?
“I asked the facilitator how much the state had to pay to administer this test. (Students also require computer access because the test is administered online; for schools where technology resources are limited, scheduling can be a nightmare). The facilitator did not know how much the test cost; she did advise that for schools which adopted the Common Core, federal funding was an incentive. It is my understanding that a school which opts out of adoption of the CCSS and test administration risks losing those coveted federal funds. In the corporate sector, such incentives would be considered extortion. Since when is extortion a permitted practice?
“Let me offer a portrait of the classroom from a practitioner’s standpoint. Most secondary Language Arts instructors focus on teaching critical read of texts—fiction and nonfiction—encouraging students to corroborate every statement with textual evidence. Often at the high school level, we have to push them beyond the reader-response model common in middle school where students often discuss about what the text means to them. The more advanced critical reader asks what is the author’s purpose and how does the author convey that message. We also emphasize analytic and argumentative writing. However, I have students, who at the high school level cannot write a complete sentence. When I explain to them every sentence needs a subject and a verb, too many stare blankly at me.
“I reference young people’s lack of grammatical and syntactical awareness because this deficiency is addressed in the CCSS. The foundations of our language—the parts of speech—are taught from the early grades. Nine years from now, my students should be well acquainted with the building blocks of our language. But today, especially at the secondary level, CCSS represents more of a catch-up paradigm. Education is a process that involves human beings. Even manufacturers don’t begin production in the middle of a process; why are people asking teachers to do so and then evaluating us on our success based on student performance data? Why not launch the CCSS systematically—allow the foundation to be built K-2; 3-5, and so on?
“I chose Teaching because I love language and literature; I am committed to nurturing a similar excitement in my students. I view Education as big business; many of the acronyms one encounters in the field today come straight from the corporate sector. A manufacturing model is antithetical to the process that is education. For example, when a manufacturer receives defective materials from a supplier, it returns those materials. Its final product must meet specifications. I have no control over who enters my classroom; i.e., my “materials.” Teaching cultivates; education produces. I believe the two processes conflict; and yet, it seems to me that a manufacturing/business model predominates in my profession.
“Here is the reality, at least in my classroom: sometimes, my students lack parental support or engagement; have emotional and cognitive disabilities; or are simply uninterested in academics at this juncture in their young lives. Some come from homes where providing the necessities such as food and shelter are a challenge. Finally, some young people do not connect to academics in high school; some prefer a vocational track; others blossom in college. There is no template or prototype for the student. There is no fixed path for a young person—teachers do their best to model, guide, support, and nurture intellectual and personal growth amidst a wide range of cognitive abilities, emotional maturity, and outside-school circumstances.
“When will those who have never taught acknowledge the human component in education and its inherent complexity and variability? The majority of teachers with whom I have associated are dedicated professionals who view their position in the classroom as a vocation versus a job. Of course there are some bad teachers! Our profession is not unique in that reality. There are ineffective practitioners in all professions. Welcome to humanity and the real world.
“In conclusion, can student performance on SBAC measure my success in the classroom? Will the latest curriculum design improve my instruction and relationship with my students? Can a high-school student amass eight years of prior instruction that was not in place until recently, so that he or she can master the CCSS objectives specified for grades 9-12? Are the massive amounts of money—garnered from taxpayer dollars—lining the pockets of those affiliated with the business of education, or are they merely an expensive camouflage that will, in a few years, disintegrate, leaving both teachers and students amidst the rubble of yet another pedagogy?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Shock & Awe, Dude, Schlock & Aw Shucks …
Well-explained! I suggest everyone read William Glasser’s work in The Quality School and The Quality School Teacher as well as Choice Theory. This gets at human development and theory about how humans grow and learn. I love how he says that teaching is harder than neurosurgery. Those patients do not resist (they are anaesthetized….) The acquiring of knowledge and skills is something the learner has to do. A great teacher can not teach someone who acts like a chair….ie just sits there and hears but does not actively participate in any way. I used this analogy to show my young students what was their responsibility as learners. Even the world’s best teacher cannot teach a chair to get a higher grade. I tried to convince my students early on about their responsibility to be active learners and that I promised I would be the best teacher I could be. It did help but it is no guarantee. And in a learning environment described here it is very difficult. Yes, the CCSS developers need teachers to help them with the implementation. Also I know of no research that says that teaching to these standards will have the expected results. That said, I am in greatly in favor of excellent learning environments for all children and help to fix the real problems our children have.
The whole philosophy of the Common Core in an anathema to Glasser’s theories. Glasser argues that only when one is invested in the learning can actual learning take place. Kids have to see a reason for it. Well, my student do NOT see reasons for all of this Common Core stuff, particularly the testing aspect. One of my brightest kids said last year, “If the writing prompts were to write about something that I actually care about, then I would write better.” And this is a kid who is PASSIONATE about all things history and geography, is an excellent debater, and can analyze circles around most adults. If HE sees no purpose in these writing tests, than most kids don’t. And that’s the whole problem with this test and punish enterprise.
Ever since I saw the assessments, I began creating “multiple answer” assessments. http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/multiple-answer-math-tests/ and http://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/assessments-with-multiple-answers/
These are for math, but they’re easy enough to do with history and probably English.
That’s a good way to prepare students for the assessments.
“I reference young people’s lack of grammatical and syntactical awareness because this deficiency is addressed in the CCSS. The foundations of our language—the parts of speech—are taught from the early grades. Nine years from now, my students should be well acquainted with the building blocks of our language. ”
You are assuming that your current students *haven’t* been taught grammar and syntactical awareness. In fact, in almost every case, they have. The deficiencies you see are almost certainly cognitive, not pedagogical.
I deal with this in math all the time. Kids below the 80th percentile, or so, forget almost everything they’ve been taught. Which is why we should teach less much more often.
Actually, Diane, I didn’t find the teacher’s thoughts very thoughtful. It’s an old complaint— blaming the teachers who taught our students before they came to us and either deliberately or otherwise forgot to teach them the essentials–it’s a kind of bad cliche. Deb
That was my first reaction, too. I’m glad to know someone who has “street creds” thought the same thing first. 🙂 Because of all the other criticisms that have been leveled against CCSS, I question if we really even want to introduce it slowly over a period of years.
Deb,
I fail to see the blame being placed on previous teachers. Instead, I saw a reasoned argument that a variety of factors are responsible for student deficiency. While this too may be cliché, it is an absolute truism.
Agreed. And her argument that the CC is great–it’s just going to be a few years before she sees the results as kids come up that are indoctrinated with the CC–is specious at best. She hasn’t even considered how developmentally inappropriate these “standards” are for younger learners, even through middle school.
The answer is that the rich don’t want to education anyone else but their children. That was the plan when the original Progressive movement was corrupted by the likes of Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller through their foundions fuding the “reformers” of their day. The Gateses and Kochs are only doing the same thing.
Nothing will change until teachers stand up and say no. When the teacher stop caving in and driinking the Kool Aid; when the techers stop kowtowing to their administrators and demand their local school boards support them and not their superintendents; when politicans of both parties stop using the state and federal departments of education as bludgeons for their own political purposes; then we’ll have a rational school system.
Until then, however, we’ll continue to see the same crapification of public schools that we’ve been watching for decades now.
Can you say more about Ford and Carnegie and Rockefeller influences on public Ed? I too have considered the comparison of then to now in terms of family wealth. I haven’t been able to find much to read about their influence on education, specifically. And definitely not in a negative context. Any recommendations on reading?
Definitely pedagogical rubble. In 2007, when NCLB was an obvious failure to those with political careers to protect, edupreneurs like David Coleman were positioning themselves for the Next Great Educational Product, CCSS. It was to sparkle and shine and clandestinely and coercively come together like a Busby Berkeley performance. But so what if it does not? Coleman’s career has advanced, as have the careers of numerous others of the CCSS inner circle. Education companies are making money off of the venture, and in all likelihood there are hushed meetings being held somewhere in 2014 to figure out how to twist CCSS into the Next Great Educational Product. Plenty of room on federally coerced program life support for CCSS (NCLB is still there). And the astute edupreneurs will figure out how to promote the Next Great Idea as a CCSS escape from pan to fire.
How about the first step should have been to test the validity of the Common Core before making it policy? Educational researchers should have analyzed its content and/or skills long before giving the CCSS the power to decide the success or failure of students and teachers! It should have taken several years to roll out such a broad based plan.Talk about putting the cart before the horse!!!
“How about the first step should have been to test the validity of the Common Core before making it policy?”
The usage of “educational standards” such as CCSS have already been tested for validity and have been proven to be so chock full of epistemological and ontological errors that renders ANY RESULTS COMPLETELY INVALID. Noel Wilson did so in 1997 (foreseeing the great debacle of CCSS and the accompanying tests and the harm done to innocent children) in his never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
By Duane E. Swacker
Duane. Describe the current socio-economic structure that is being protected by CCSS please. Just curious as to how you would describe it.
Joanna,
First of all I wouldn’t say that the CCSS “protects” the current SES but that it serves to perpetuate the SES of gross inequalities of both opportunities and outcomes of individuals, mainly by where, by luck of birth one falls into this world. The studies showing the fallacy of the Horatio Alger story are myriad (A 2013 Brookings Institution study found income inequality was becoming more permanent, sharply reducing social mobility, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States.
The current SES is one of the most lopsided distributions of wealth and income from top to bottom in the history of the US.
CCSS promotes/perpetuates this inequality by the nature of its origin, structure and effects it has on various students, schools, districts, etc. . . whereby those at the top greatly tend to stay at the top and those at the bottom having almost no chance of breaking out of their life situation (if that is what they would choose to do, not all want to change their life situation).
Glad to see you responding. I hadn’t seen too many comments from you lately and was wondering if all is well. Take care.
Duane–
thanks for responding.
All is well. I’ve been busy phone banking and canvassing for public ed. Less time for blogs. I’ve actually become an activist, which is a new world for me and I like it.
I still read this blog every day.
As I read through this reader’s observations, particularly this portion:
“A manufacturing model is antithetical to the process that is education. For example, when a manufacturer receives defective materials from a supplier, it returns those materials. Its final product must meet specifications. I have no control over who enters my classroom; i.e., my “materials.” Teaching cultivates; education produces. I believe the two processes conflict; and yet, it seems to me that a manufacturing/business model predominates in my profession.”
I could not help but be reminded of Jamie Vollmer’s epiphany as described in “The Blueberry Story: The teacher gives the businessman a lesson”. This teacher understands what Jamie Vollmer came to learn and understand.
http://www.jamievollmer.com/blueberries.html
And in an excerpt from Vollmer’s epiphany that shares the same sentiment as this reader:
““Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”
In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.
“I send them back.”
She jumped to her feet. “That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”
How is it that no one outside of education “gets it”, especially the businesses and wealthy financiers driving the current corporate “reform” movement and the complicit politicians groveling for the financial bones the federal government and those same corporations are throwing them.
It is indeed a corporatocracy, described by the Urban Dictionary as the rule by an oligarchy of corporate elites through the manipulation of a formal democracy. After the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizen’s United case, the movement of the US towards a corporatocracy is complete.
“It is indeed a corporatocracy. . . ”
Or the original name for “the rule by an oligarchy of corporate elites through the manipulation of a formal democracy”–FASCISM!
Did she MEAN to say ” I view Education as big business” ? debmeiser, I did not read it as “blaming the teachers who taught our children before” at all. The point is that the whole CCSS enchilada has been implemented at once in most places, so the kids in 9-12 were not taught to those standards, but are somehow supposed to “catch up” in high school.
“. . . the kids in 9-12 were not taught to those standards. . . ”
They should consider themselves very, very fortunate.
The fact is those “standards” are not even standards as they lack the many features in design and construction that the ISO (The International Organization of Standards) demands in “certifying” the standards that it certifies. And they never will have those features as they are epistemologically and ontologically bankrupt. See above post on Wilson’s work and then read it to understand.
I looped up with a group of special ed students, from 3rd to 5th. I am a teacher in FL (this is our first year of CC high-stakes testing, and our test is one modeled after Utah because our legislators and governor , who are the conservative, privatization, anti-union corporatocracy. They learned how to write a complete sentences and I required complete sentences, as well as many other language building blocks (and still do, of course). My then 3rd graders (who are now 6th graders and hopefully 7th graders next year) were at K-1 level with many skills and concepts (and to be honest, many were language-enriched and language-impaired, so naturally language present a challenge); I did see growth when I taught them again in 5th. Some were almost on grade level in reading, but their language skills and writing still on 3rd grade or lower level (writing lags reading). My point is that these are 6th graders now, whom you will teach in 9-12 eventually. Out of my 12 core students, 8 have gone to other middle schools than the K-8 that I teach at, AND 4 have moved out of state to New York, California, and Georgia–states that are well-entrenched in CC. As my husband remarked this morning as I lamented the unit plan I had to write for reading involving copious amounts of nonfiction (50% of my teaching for reading must documented and checklisted and interventions shown), Florida wants workers who graduated from public schools to be able to follow manuals and be good little workers. They definitely don’t want critical thinkers. Just read Pearson’s 5th grade social studies text (they don’t even have our standards correct). There is no critical thinking in assessments for this text, only stupid stuff like role-playing and being a good citizen, with very little or no content in the activities. Of course, they don’t want us really teaching and talking about literature (which is the best way to teach language building blocks)–it’s subversive and eye-opening and subjective and paramount to a free society. That’s why I’m not supposed to teach that Columbus didn’t even land in continental N. America (it’s not on the EOC–don’t teach it). Gradual or not, common core has much to offer. It’s the tests that need to go because they control the masses. The students of today who are wired for tomorrow will be the ones leading us 20 years from now. Vote! Speak out! Persevere!
For the umpteenth time: 1) the standards, 2) the tests, 3) the teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and 4) the data mined from computer based testing are parts of the same animal. They are inextricably linked. This is not reform buffet style. Teachers who are still wishing for one without the other are remarkably ignorant.
Siamese quadruplets conjoined at the wallet.
Siamese quadruplets conjoined at the wallet!
“Teachers who are still wishing for one without the other are remarkably ignorant AND GAGAers.”
“I view Education as big business; many of the acronyms one encounters in the field today come straight from the corporate sector. ”
What people in education might not know is, this is true in a lot of professions and jobs now. It is EVERYWHERE. It is the only language we use. Management consumed everything else. Government, law, health care, education – it doesn’t matter.
We decided at some point to jam everything in the world into the same narrow frame. We have so glorified and elevated this one model that we insist on superimposing the same template over everything. We run everything “like a business”, so much so that people who are NOT in “a business” are constantly apologizing or explaining why they can’t really function properly or well within this frame. Some things aren’t businesses, or they’re more than businesses, or they’re different in many ways than ” a business”. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the private sector. It just means everything ISN’T the private sector.
We can have more than one sector. That’s permitted. We can have a private sector and a public sector and a charitable or philanthropic or religious sector.
You’ve hit a rich vein here, Chiara. Why can’t we have different spheres? Why must there be cultural monoculture? I vaguely recall Hannah Arendt describing this phenomenon in The Human Condition –she saw modern society morphing into a totalizing force of nature that selected one way of doing things and forced everyone to conform to it. So perhaps there are deep structural reasons behind this phenomenon. I’m guessing she would say it’s linked to how we view what a human being is. Cicero, Solon, Pisistratus, Sappho –they did not view themselves as part of an economy. They saw themselves, first and foremost, as free human beings whose speech mattered a lot. Do we?
Excellent points Chiara. Yes.
Education is not a business. Or it shouldn’t be.
I have been saying the same thing about gradually implementing the CCSS. I teach 3rd grade and I know that it will be at least 3 years before I see students in my grade, who have been taught under the CCSS. Plus, in my state, 3rd grade is when students are exposed to so much more testing and assessments; all computer based except for one, which becomes a question of task versus comprehension. Do employees in the business world have to adjust to a mountain of change all at once and expected to master it all to the point that in 9 months they are proficient and highly successful? I would think no, but can’t say for sure; I don’t work in that world. But logic tells me that if a business survives a “turnaround” then it is not closed down because it is failing according to standards and expectations.
I teach in one of those turnaround schools. This is our first of 3 years as a SIG school (school improvement grant). Just like the high holo teacher who wrote about Smarter Balanced, students in my school are from extreme poverty and high risks. They are immigrants and refugees. They are illiterate in their primary languages. They are highly moble and don’t understand the importance of attendance everyday. We have 6 buses this year; we average 5-6 every year because about 80% of our students live in massive slum apartments that are at least 4-5 miles away. Yes, we get what we get when it comes to students. We can’t turn them away. Even when our classes are overcrowded and we don’t have enough desks, books, or computers in the lab.
Since the school year has started, teachers in my school have had to attend professional development weekly. These are done during the day, so our students will have an incompetent sub at least once a week. For me, this upcoming week I have 1 all day training and 1 half day. I also have a medical procedure happening that I will take me out half a day. I can’t tell you how guilty I feel taking half day of medical leave. So consequentially, all of these great strategies we are learning, which have been available for years before we were a SIG school, are being implemented haphazardly. It’s overwhelming! No one can figure out what to prioritize. My only saving grace this year is that I actually have a very size-manageable class. I have 22 students. One of the very, very few in my school, and I feel guilty as I see the 6 grade classes down the hall from me constantly moving desks around to support small groups, partner collaboration, and the like. They don’t have enough cubbies so there are backpacks in the hall along the wall. That’s a safety issue we’ve been told, but where do they put their belongings? The 6th grade teachers keep apologizing that we won’t make our school goal of growth, by the end of the year, because they can’t teach enough without dealing with constant problems in behavior. Improve your classroom management skills? Right!
The art of teaching is not understood or valued anymore. We’ve become factories trying produce highly successful students that will enter the business world. No regard for individuality and having diversity in the working world. Not every student is business material. That’s a good thing because we need mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, trash collectors, waitresses, doctors, teachers, museum curators… I’d be touched to see any of my students graduate high school and pursue whatever makes them happy and contributes to the well-being of society.
I’m grateful for my small class this year. Just like the last 6 or 7 years of close to 30 students per class, I’ll have another one next year, and for a few years. I have found joy in teaching this year despite expectations of the grant. My class is manageable. I can meet one-on-one with each student everyday. I love it! We should all be so lucky.
“. . . before I see students in my grade, who have been taught under the CCSS.”
If I were religious I would be praying day and night for those students.
Chiara, I agree with your observations about the creep of the language and this accountability imperative into other aspects of our life.
The National Endowment for the Arts has constructed the concept of an “arts industry,” a sector of the economy comprised of “service providers” and so on. I have not yet heard any one refer to the “humanities industry.”
The “industry” of “education service providers” was formally established in 1990 as the Association of Education Practitioners and Providers (AEPP), then self-identified as “an education industry trade group devoted to promoting education reform through entrepreneurship.”
That fledgling operation is now a powerhouse lobby and trade group called the “Education Industry Association.” No surprise that the Milton and Rosa Friedman Foundation was an early supporter of these groups. Just type in “Education Industry Association.” to see the tiers of sponsors and supporters now, and some of the tiers of perks they muster, some of these members-only meetings with congressional leaders.
This is about corruption, and how courts deregulated campaign finance. I thought about you when I read it because you wrote the post about economic theory overlayed on K-12 education.
It’s everywhere, not just education:
“The quid pro quo standard, which leaves motives out of the discussion, appears to lend the abstract rigor of economics to corruption law. It does not.
Legislators and judges are not economists, and while it can be useful for economic analysis to ignore what drives people and focus on how they act, analyzing a problem is not the same as solving it. Policymakers do need to worry about motives, especially the ones that are dangerous to society if left unchecked.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-corruption-in-americaby-zephyr-teachout/2014/09/18/10c22734-32b9-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html
Chaira: corruption. Maybe.
But I think it’s less sinister and more that public education comes to reflect the problems and make up of majority society. So our schools were reflecting the racism that has plagued our country for decades. I think many people find that the only common language they can use to not suppress a group or elevate a group is corporate speak and business models. The problem is that people who have access to corporate speak and business models are the haves. Not the have nots. So where at one time race and religion established norms for educating children, we are at a loss for a framework or vernacular now in an age where we won’t accept that our race and religion norms did in fact leave children behind and so the business and corporate models seem like the only port in the storm.
I have chosen to try for an understanding of why our norms and vernacular have shifted in a way that lacks venom. It has not stolen my energy to fight for public school by maintaining some level of empathy. Empathy is not endorsement. (But assigning all issues to corruption or greed was not getting me anywhere intellectually, so I switched mindsets, albeit it takes emotional discipline).
The south is full of this conundrum between needing to save our public schools and yet finding them plagued with old boy white-as-supreme networks.
There are no easy answers. Neither are there clear paths of blame, save the “sins of the fathers,” and blame like that is backward-looking. The problem is identifying the true problems of our society that public school issues are reflecting, and address those.
Corruption has likely protected public school norms in the past just as much as it might seem to be hurting them now.
The common core is supposed to be a “gotcha” moment for the privatizers. Arne Duncan said something like, “Wait until those white suburban moms find out how stupid their kids are.” Common Core was designed to break the suburban public schools. Big cities are already gone, and rural schools will be an afterthought. Many of you don’t seem to understand that none of this was about improving education. All of this is done to “prove” public schools are bad and convince parents in the suburbs to go private or support “choice”, conversion to charter schools, etc. Many of you are debating this like it is legitimate reform, and it isn’t. Once “all” public schools fail these tests then they can convince parents in the suburbs that their schools too are failures.
“Many of you are debating this like it is legitimate reform, and it isn’t.”
Give that boy a Kewpie Doll!
See my comment above about Wilson and the complete invalidity of educational standards and standardized testing.
I agree.
CCSS conversations frustrate me for that very reason.
But I do get caught in them on occasion. It’s the norm so it gets discussed.
Like McDonalds food was intentionally loaded with sugars and fats. But people still do talk about what they like to eat at McDonalds and what they don’t. Right?
mike: what you said.
For a pointed example, note the following two paragraphs from this blog, 5/30/2014, “Business Group in NY Pledges $500,000 Campaign for Common Core”—
[start quote]
Allegedly, business wants “higher standards” because the CCSS will close the skills gap and produce more qualified workers. Is there any evidence for this belief? No. On the first round of Common Core testing, 70% of students in New York failed. The failure rate for minorities, English learners, and students with disabilities was even higher. Among students with disabilities, for example, 95% failed the Common Core tests.
Where is the evidence that Common Core will make all students college-ready? There is none.
[end quote]
Those tests were designed, pre-tested and administered in such a way that they met the buyers’ requirements—the failure rate was known [to within a narrow margin of error] far in advance of anyone passing or failing. From my POV, the only surprise about the results: that people were surprised.
CCSS themselves and their conjoined twin, high-stakes standardized tests? This is a very straightforward explanation of them by Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, most valuable because he is a charter member of the “education reform” establishment—
[start quote]
And that brings us back to the Common Core. If the standards are better than those that many states had in place, swell. If more common reading and math standards make things easier for material developers and kids who move across states, that’s fine. But I don’t think that stuff amounts to all that much.
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]
Accessed via the following link, which also offers invaluable context and supporting information: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Introduced gradually, introduced quickly, enhanced interrogation done in haste or hazing ritual done with thoughtful [if painful] precision—the point was to deliver the message you referred to re public education. Naomi Klein uses the term “shock doctrine” though I prefer “sucker punch.” Same diff…
Thank you for your comments.
😎
“The Master Plan”
First step is to break their will
Next step is to tame
Final step’s to work the mill
With robots, all the same
“Why wasn’t Common Core phased in gradually?”
Isn’t that like asking “Why couldn’t the Mack truck have run me over going 10 mph instead of 70?” ?
Funny.
But I think my McDonalds analogy is better.
Because we aren’t dead yet. And if we’d been run Over by a truck we probably would be.
“The record is not over yet!”
(Wyclef Jean)
Gradually? Started before America 2000/ Goals 2000. Clinton Governor.. Name changed over the years but not the Progressive agenda. Destruction of public schools. Charter/ Choice privatization profit driven CHANGE is the end game. NOTHING to do with Education. All about top down control of creating a global citizenry for envisioned /to be created futture. History will not be allowed to be a stumbling block.
Common Core does less to address grammar than any other past set of standards. It BARELY touches on grammar, and it expects you to be able to teach too much, too quickly, too young. My mom has taught elementary school for 30 years, and she has to supplement her CC textbooks with past English texts. She said the pace of these CC texts is unrealistic, and that most of these topics CANNOT be covered in a mere one week. Unfortunately, my mom is one of the few teachers who realizes this. All of the newer teachers have been phased in on the CC crap, and they have no idea why their students aren’t “getting” subjects and predicates after one day. Most of the new CC texts attempt to incorporate one grammar concept per story, and you cover one story per week. I have watched as my second grader has already covered 8 different grammatical topics in 8 weeks, but she has mastered NONE of them.
Why did they have to water-board us with Kool-Aid? I much prefer to sip it through a straw on the veranda.
Please stop water-boarding me with Kool-Aid. I much prefer to sip it through a straw on the veranda.
. . . in Jonestown!
Or is it, “Colemantown”????
Because they wanted to eat the elephant in one bite!!
I’ll be honest…I didn’t read this, but I have taken the stance that since Common Core will highlight the failures of our educational system in advancing children that should not be advanced that this will now shine a light on the child who is two grades ahead of where they should be and now will fail in an effort to catch up or worse; drop out of school.
Common Core should have been rolled out in the lower grades and followed those student through graduation. This would have set every child and CC up for success.
Additionally, while I support Common Core, I found a problem with CC. It is said that we used to cover materials that were a mile wide and an inch deep and now we cover an inch wide but a mile deep. The problem, gifted children get bored very easy and now they will be asked to stay on a narrow subject even longer. This calls to order the need to address how we deal with both TAG students and above average bright children. Busy work disguised as differentiated teaching will surely lead to dimming the light in the nations brightest minds and as such limit the countries future in a global world.