As readers of this blog know, I am agnostic about the Common Core standards, because they have never been tried anywhere.
We don’t know whether they will improve academic learning, whether they will increase the achievement gap, whether they will make any difference.
Recently the renowned scholar faced off with New York Commissioner of Education John King.
Commissioner King comes out of the charter sector and has very limited experience as a teacher or an administrator.
He believes passionately in the Common Core. So do Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and Tom Friedman.
Yong Zhao patiently explained to Commissioner King that there is no evidence for the efficacy of the Common Core.
And none for its lack of efficacy.
There is no evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, one thing we do know about the Common Core Standards: they will be likely be a bonanza for the testing companies. And they will also likely facilitate the closing of more public schools and opening of charter schools.
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While I am agnostic about the common core, from what I’ve seen it is an improvement over the status quo if only to show that things like the “Texas Miracle” are bogus because Texas’ “high standards” are ridiculously low…
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After only a decade of teaching, I’m just not ready to drink the Kool-Aid on the Common Core Standards. Of course teachers’ jobs often depend on how willing they are to do so.
To borrow from an early Ravitch article title… I guess this is the latest program/panacea/placebo/snake oil…
As a novice researcher, am I to understand that the Common Core truly has never even been pilot tested? My dissertation committee would eat me alive if I tried that…
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Not only has the Common Core not been pilot tested, we’re STILL waiting to see what the “Smarter” Balance tests will look like. No hurry, folks: it’s just my career on the line.
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina and commented:
Quick, someone notify the Delaware PTA!
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Look at this awful awful political ad:
UGH!
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This is a pretty expensive move to make with no evidence. CCSS = Buy published curriculum, buy PD, buy tests, buy computers, buy computer infrastructure
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I’m pleased to see you showcasing Yong Zhao. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing him speak and appreciate his intelligence, keen wit and sense of humor in the face of so much absurdity. Recently I attended at Title 1 conference which opened with cheers for schools that had raised test scores and soon followed with YZ calling our testing frenzy into question. And if I recall correctly, YZ said something along the lines of, “I support the Common Core…as long as it’s not common or core.” I couldn’t help but think, Who invited this guy?! He’s not following the party line. But I’m glad they did.
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“I am agnostic about the Common Core standards, because they have never been tried anywhere.”
I’m sympathetic to your concerns, but this sounds weirdly corporate-ed-reformy. Does a reform measure need extensive pilot implementation, “data” collection, and a battery of peer-reviewed studies for us to judge it qualitatively? Diane, as someone who has devoted years to curriculum design and review, I feel that you’re abdicating your responsibilities in remaining agnostic about CC standards.
If a state or district implemented CC fully, then used its battery of standardized tests and measures to document some sort of growth, wouldn’t we still find the results problematic for the same reasons we find all data-driven results specious?
Resisting the implementation of CC because it hasn’t yet been implemented seems like circular reasoning. Worse, it gives all the more grist to reformers who want to implement it and thus assemble evidence.
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I don’t agree.
Before the FDA approves a drug, it gets field tested somewhere.
They don’t recommend it until they know how it works.
I can’t approve CCSS until I know how it works.
I like evidence.
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The CCSS are another set of standards. Sit a group of educators around a table, ask them what education standards we should have, and they will come up with something that looks like this, but every table will come up with something different. I wrote of an aspect of this in my blog The Flour Mill In My Head. Different tables, different grains.
The problems arise with what comes next. The CCSS does not mandate implementation. It says very little about the hows, and that is where the rubber of the standards meet the road – what our teachers do in their classrooms. And what they do in their classrooms will be directed by the kinds of assessments their kids have to undertake and what the sanctions will be for the teachers and the schools.
I fear that we are about to see an onslaught of high stakes standardized tests that will rigidify certain practices, narrow the possibilities that do reside in the CCSS for a quality education, and marginalize anything that is not tested. The CCSS could be good. They could also be subverted (perverted) by whatever follows.
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I just got around to reading this posting. As I expect to be teaching in the near future (pending issues with the job market), the Common Core will undoubtedly be a big issue for me in the classroom, one way or another. Naturally, the standards that will affect my career and the way students learn in the future haven’t even been fully tested. If this works, great. It would be nice to see evidence though instead of just being told to teach to these standards. I commend Mr. Zhao for his questions to Commissioner King about the Common Core Standards.
What really concerns me though, is that there may be some evidence, as mentioned in the comments section of the posted article. One person indicates that a city in China does the opposite of the Common Core Standards for reading and has the highest university passing rate in the country, and that China wants to have the rest of the nation to follow this city’s lead. Meanwhile, we are pushing the exact opposite with the Common Core Standards. Is this sufficient evidence to back off of Common Core, if true? If so, should this idea of emphasizing free and pleasure reading be used instead? Lastly, can the policy makers even be convinced if they are wrong, or have they obtained too much money from education donors like the Gates Foundation to even be able to make a fair judgement for students?
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