Many of us had been under the impression that the goal of the Common Core standards was to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the nation’s schools.
As someone who spent years advocating for national standards–but has been agnostic about the new Common Core standards–it was always my hope that improving education would be, should be the goal. At least that was my hope when I worked in the US Department of Education in 1991-93 and expended a few million dollars so that teachers’ groups could write voluntary national standards in the arts, history, civics, science, foreign language, physical education, and economics (the math teachers had already written their own standards).
Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute has a completely different understanding of the Common Core. As he explains it, “reformers” expect that the Common Core standards will reveal to suburban parents just how awful their public schools are. This will set off the “reformers'” long-hoped for stampede for privatization among the smug and satisfied denizens of the nation’s suburbs.
Imagine the possibilities as everyone discovers their local school is failing and runs to the exits, demanding charters and vouchers.
Farewell, public education. Hello, free market.
Even Rick Hess has his doubts about this scenario.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, straight from the (somewhat reality-based, skeptical) horse’s mouth: the Common Core is little more than a vehicle for destabilizing and privatizing the public schools (and making money along the way).
The initial beachhead for the privatizers has been the urban public school systems, but there has never been any question that they want to sink their fangs into every school in the country, if they can. David “Nobody gives a sh&$ what you think” Coleman helped create a perfect Trojan Horse for further depredations against the public schools, but unfortunately many teachers still need to be educated about the dangers it poses.
What does research show? What does it not show? There are schools in Ohio that are already evaluating teachers by test scores, thanks to their participation in Race to the Top. Teachers who, in the past, have had good test scores, now have lower test scores. Much of the reason is because they are being forced to all teach the same way. Teachers are not allowed to use their own knowledge base or experience and do what is right for kids. They are assessing kids weekly, spending much needed instructional time collecting data that gives them information they already know. It is the teacher’s fault the scores have gone down, in spite of the fact that they are allotted less teaching time. The students who are suffering the most are the middle kids, the ones who will be the workforce of the future. There is one school district in a small city in northwest Ohio that actually forces it’s teachers to have blocks of time called “No New Instruction”. This is a time when special needs students are pulled from the class for extra support. The classroom teachers are not allowed to teach anything new during this 15 minute-1 hour time block(depending on the building). They can review, or give additional help to students during this time only. So why have the test scores of the middle students gone down? For a district that likes to think of itself on the cutting edge of data collection, is it really that hard to figure out why test scores have gone down?
What they need is a control group. Let a group of teachers teach the way they know works, with more instructional time and less assessing. Let them use the expertise they have accumulated over the years, and give their students the help they need and deserve, without outside interference.This includes administrative interference at the district level, as well as state and federal interference. Allow these teachers to order the materials they know will work, even if they aren’t from Pearson. And see what happens.
What is actually happening in our schools, the way teachers are being forced to teach to the Pearson tests, is dumbing down our future workforce. It is not the schools, but the asinine mandates, that are causing the lower scores.
Nancy… Ohio needs to look at the Michigan model. Our achievement results are not so good… but our teachers have some great evaluations! Thanks to the absence of objective achievement data in evalutions, 97% are considered effective, or highly effective.
http://www.freep.com/article/20121129/NEWS06/311290189/Grading-teachers-proves-difficult-Staffs-at-some-of-state-s-worst-schools-get-gushing-reviews
The free market is always good. Look at Fed Ex and UPS vs. the US Postal service. People should not be afraid of the free market in education. It can only help raise the bar for everyone, which is a good thing. People will still go to the public schools mostly because they are free. But healthy competition is good for all.
The Post Office? You mean that venerable institution that can get a letter from Nowhere, North Dakota to Somewhere, South Carolina for 45 cents (and could probably do it cheaper than that if Congress didn’t keep handicapping them by, say, forcing them to fully fund their pensions for the next hundred years)?
And by FedEx and UPS, I assume you mean those companies that charge upwards of $10 to move a package just within the downtown Chicago metro area? In fact, having a messenger deliver a package within an hour is about half the cost of having UPS or FedEx do it overnight.
And how exactly are charter schools – private schools funded with public dollars – examples of the “always good” free market?
Yes, “The free market is always good,” and Adam and Eve gamboled with dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden.
Yep, always good!
Enron
WorldCom
Tyco
Paramalat
Arthur Anderson
Bear Sterns
endless charter school scandals
etc
etc
Thank god for the always good, never wrong, no regulation required, invisible hand of the free market!
Out here in rural Missouri, UPS & FedEx use the USPS to deliver the smaller packages.
ok…..to get a box to my daughter in Hawaii was $65.00 by post office and over $200 by either Fedex or ups…..yes…..competition is awesome!
What else could you possibly expect from anyone from the American Enterprise Institute? Doesn’t the word Enterprise say it all? They are total far right wing ideologues who believe in privatizing and corporatizing everything. Basically Fascists by definition. People need to wake up to what is really going on here. The exact plan that started in Austria in 1919 to make a fascist state until today is in operation here. Read “Hapsburgs to Hitler” which is that story. It was published in 1948, is by Gulick and published by both the Oxford and Berkeley Press.
Well, that would explain the idea of 7+ hours of testing for elementary students. If you can’t destroy public education any other way, traumatizing little kids with that much testing might do the trick for sending a lot of youngsters home in tears or comas.
There are reasons that parents in the suburbs don’t think their local schools are terrible: it’s because they aren’t, at least not by the standards of “international competition” and high-stakes tests. This has been shown repeatedly over the last decade. De-aggregating international test scores shows that our suburban schools in middle-class and higher social strata schools perform at or above those in European and Asian countries, for the most part. (Of course, I don’t buy the assumption that this testing baloney is what makes for good education, but that’s another story).
That is, on the very criteria upon which the education deform crowd bases their repeated cries of falling skies, the skies are quite intact. Our kids aren’t stupid, they aren’t ignorant, and there wasn’t a golden era, lost somewhere in the past, when the average American kid knew as much (let alone more) than the average American kid of today. The nation was never at risk: not during the Sputnik panic, not under Reagan, not now, at least not in the ways proclaimed by the deformers and their predecessors. Oh, yes, we certainly ARE under attack, but it’s from a bunch of greed-bag corporations and wealthy foundations representing narrow political, social, religious, and, of course, economic agendas of plutocrats like the Walton, Coors, de Voss, and other sickeningly rich families, and billionaires like Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, the Koch Brothers, ad nauseam.
I would happily argue that we need much better schools, but not as measured by the idiocy that passes for “standards” these days. Rather, we need to go back to a fundamental debate on a national level about what the purpose of public education is in a democracy, what schools can realistically be expected to accomplish, and how to do that equitably for everyone. But that is a conversation that will expose once again the obscene economic disparities that make this country the most unfair of any developed nation in history. We’ve lost our way, folks, and we’re worshipping at the temple of stupidity, bowing to the twin false idols of meaningless data and phony accountability. Shame on us. Our children, grandchildren, and generations thereafter will despise us for our blindness and wanton disregard for kids.
MPG: This was so well written, I had to read it three times before I could even think about responding. I cherish every word that so eloquently accentuates the most designed and deliberate scam on the American public and its children of this [still] quite young 21st century. Your brief essay is concise and succinct and should be required reading for the uneducated/unaware still among us. Moreover, it would effectively serve to dispute any and all proclamations by reformers of their snake-oil product.
A brochure, perhaps?
I hope you don’t mind, it I linked part of your commentary to a CT blog and referenced this blog and your name. We need your words of wisdom here. Thank you.
we need to go back to a fundamental debate on a national level about what the purpose of public education is in a democracy, what schools can realistically be expected to accomplish, and how to do that equitably for everyone.
That’s happened state-by-state with school funding litigation. Only Massachusetts stepped up with state standards that promote “the purpose of public education in a democracy” with the policies needed for implementation.
The nation was never at risk
Why do you choose to ignore Justice Souter’s (and O’Connor’s) concerns with the nations “dangerous state” of civics education?
You are Brilliant! Can you please email your statement to me so I can forward it to teachers and parents in Tennessee? My email address is madaowens@gmail.com. Again, you are brilliant! !
Oh the drama… Tears and comas.
Have you de-aggregated the international component to compare to the de-aggregated domestic component in your quest to tell suburban parents that all is fine, and they can comfortably return back to their slumber?
The real interesting assessment would be to look at matriculation data from these so-called high performing suburban high schools. How many of these students went on to admission at their first choice university? How many had to take — and pay for — remedial classes? How many were able to earn a degree in four years?
The data is available… but public schools largely ignore the data (like so much of the other less-than-flattering data).
Our system of colleges and universities is effective, albeit hugely expensive. Unlike our K12 systems, it is the envy of the world.
Reform efforts are designed to look more like our system of colleges and universities. And rest assured, people would be willing to fund education if it were clear that it was effective, and the money was being spent wisely. Lack of funding is not the result of hard economic times, or a disinterest in education. It is because people see the enormous failings of traditional public schools.
If our children despise us for anything, it will be at we were the generation that allowed the rest of the world to pass us by while we diddled and coddled.
Why do you want to be number one?
Will you despise your children if they are not all valedictorians?
Will you throw away your children if they are not winners?
Why are we so obsessed with winning?
Out damned spot! OUT!
Disaggregate test scores by income on PISA can be found here: http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html
Schools with less than 10% poverty score #1 in the world. As the percentage of students in poverty increases, scores decline. The problem is economics, not education.
As long as “reformers” keep ignoring poverty and expect teachers alone to eradicate it, we will continue to see the achievement gap widen, such as in Chicago, which has had 20 years of top-down school “reform”.
This is an interesting concept, but it is unclear from the narrative or the data exactly what is being prepared. For example, is our “<10%" poverty figure being compared with a "<10%" poverty figure for the other countries?
It looked to me like it was comparing our "<10%" figure to the overall country average for those those countries that claim to have similar poverty rates. For example comparing our schools with 10% – 24% poverty to the entire country of Japan, which has a 14% poverty rate?
Interesting idea, but hardly a fair comparison and it certainly does not "level the playing field." So me the 10-24% US figures compared to the 10-24% figures for Japan, and then we can have a deeper discussion.
Finally… there is no doubt that poverty is a factor, and overall demographics are a much better predictor of achievement results than are the schools, money spent, and so on. But that doesn't mean that our so-call "high performing" suburban districts are getting the job done.
OECD does not publish disaggregate test score data for each country by income. No other developed nation has as high a child poverty rate as the US, which is just below 25% today, so comparisons between countries of aggregate scores without breakdowns by poverty level are much more misleading than comparisons that include it.
The OECD does break down scores by the living conditions of the students, looking at number of bathrooms in the house or if they have a dishwasher or calculator. Theses should be highly corrolated with income.
The nearest thing to disaggregated scores by income for the PISA I have found looks at the home positions of students, asking for example if they have a dishwasher at home, a quite place to study, or how many bathrooms the home has. It can be found here: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/idepisa/
To state that poverty is the root cause of the downfall of education today is overly simplistic. Single parent homes, screen-addicted children, overly busy parents, etc., etc. all play a major role, as well.
Karen Hunt-Maddry, proud mom of Clint, Magnolia, TX; Jeff, Cary; and Kristina, Cary.
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well, and if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.” George Orwell “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.” Billy Currington
I absolutely agree with you Karen. I am just trying to be helpful and point people to scores that are disaggregated by something close to income.
The only place I know of where every student goes “on to admission at their first choice university” is Lake Wobegon, since all the children there are above average.
OK… and a more appropriate goal would be what, to graduate with high self esteem, as measured by smile width at graduation?
If you have issues with your local schools, then I would suggest addressing the teachers, schools, your district and Board of Ed directly, including through the PTA. The “reform” movement is a push to privatize public education and once your schools are handed over to private management firms, many of which are for-profits, they are not run democratically so you are likely to have virtually no say there.
Oh, if it were only so easy! Just address the school board…
Ha! I served on the board.
The public schools, while well-intentioned, really pit parents against parents. As parents, we might have different perspectives on what is right / appropriate. When we disagree, we need to “fight”… fight with the teachers, fight with the building administrator, fight with board, fight at the ballot box.
And it inherently leads to a winner, and a loser.
I would much rather choose an institution that fits with my interpretation of “appropriate”, then be stuck in one that believes in someone else’s… just because of my zip code.
I respectfully disagree with your notion that “you are likely to have virtually no say there.” On the contrary, losing “customers” is a strong disincentive a management company to being bureaucratically stubborn.
The publics, on the other hand, have a monopoly. You don’t like what they are doing, or their approach, or their teaching methods, or their curriculum… too bad. You are free to leave any time you like… just leave the education dollars allocated to your child behind. And don’t let the door hit you in the…..
I am in the “reform movement”. The only “profit” in reform for me is to earn a better education for my children, and the children of my community.
Well Diane… that was a completely unexpected twist of my words! Whoosh!
First of all, I am not expecting my children to be valedictorians. And this is public education… we don’t believe in that sort of recognition for high achievers anyway. It’s just not fair; everyone is a winner. We give out participation trophies now.
What I want for my children is to have them be prepared to get into the college or university of their choice to pursue whatever field of study they find interesting. It’s not a matter of being “first”… it’s a matter of competing – or potentially competing – to get into highly selective universities.
And it’s not just competing with other domestic districts. Our post-secondary system is so strong that it is in high demand from students around the world… those that Michael Paul Goldenberg seems to think we are smoking.
Our “high performing” suburban high school in Michigan – frequently described as one of the top 5% in the state – is adequate at best, and many juniors / senior (and their parents) are shocked when they earn all A’s, but don’t score so hot on college admission tests, are denied entry into the universities they hoped to attend, or get in and have a miserable (and expensive) failed first year because they were not really prepared.
By the time they realize it… it’s too late to do much about it.
We live in challenging times, and our children need to be prepared for that. The skills needed today… blah, blah, blah… you’ve heard it all before.
And no, I am not going to discard my kids if they are not first. But I’m not going to let their remaining option be to flip burgers at McDonald’s because the good manufacturing jobs are no longer feasible in the USA, and the highly skilled jobs are out of their reach because the local school system was diddling with Everyday Math and calling a 3 paragraph paper in high school a “comprehensive essay”.
I guess the point I was hoping to make is that this blanket defense that our K12 system is adequate (even great?) is perhaps wishful thinking, rooted in the 60’s and 70’s when it might’ve been true, and is doing our society a great disservice.
The point Hess makes is that identified in Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism when he states that:
“reformers” expect that the Common Core standards will reveal to suburban parents just how awful their public schools are. This will set off the “reformers’” long-hoped for stampede for privatization among the smug and satisfied denizens of the nation’s suburbs.
Klein noted that this will accomplish the trinity these “Reformers” are seeking: “All these incarnations share a commitment of the policy trinity – the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending.” She continues: “Far from freeing the market from the state, these political and corporate elites have simply merged, trading favors to secure the right to appropriate precious resources previously held in the public domain.” As such, education is that precious resource these corporations seek to exploit, little different from coal, oil or water, but one which until now has remained relatively free from this level of exploitation.
She also noted that “The ultimate goal for the corporations at the center of the complex is to bring the model of for-profit government, which advances so rapidly in extraordinary circumstances, into the ordinary and day-to-day functioning of the state – in effect to privatize the government.”
It is this privatization that both Hess and Diane Ravitch are speaking up against, but it is but the final move in a far more complex and dangerous corporate take-over of not just the public schools, but of our democracy itself!
I totally agree.
If any others have not yet read Ms Klein’s work, do so!
Actually, Hess is not opposed to privatization. I think he is concerned that Common Core will turn out to be another pipe dream that fails to woo suburban parents away from their local public schools. He supports for-profit schools, among other forms of privatization.
Thank you so much for passing along this link. Fascinating, indeed, and very, very disturbing.
I have a lot of respect for Diane Ravitch, but I also see so many educational leaders and union leaders scared of “educational reformers.” I’m not sure who they identify as an educational reformer, but it’s my hope that more teachers will be sitting at the table to reform education rather than resisting change and what I have seen in some instances as a holistic approach.
Excellent response. Consider those of us who do not support the federal government dangling million dollar carrots in the faces of state leaders to gain their cooperation in quickly pushing through the largest federal intrusion into public education in our nation’s history while at the same time circumventing the Constitution by dictating educational policy to the states to be duly warned about the preposterousness of comparing the effectiveness of the US Postal Service to public K-12 schools.