Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, explains here why she supports the Common Core Standards and why she believes there should be a moratorium on the high stakes attached to the testing until teachers have had enough time to master them and students have had the opportunity to learn them.
Randi writes:
It’s no secret that the AFT is a big supporter of the Common Core State Standards. We believe these standards have the ability to transform the DNA of teaching and learning to ensure that ALL children, regardless of where they live, have the critical thinking, problems solving and teamwork skills and experience they need to succeed in their careers, at college and in life.
AFT members were deeply involved in the development of these standards and through Share My Lesson and the AFT Innovation Fund the AFT is working to ensure that teachers, parents and even districts have the tools and resources they need to implement these standards.
I am constantly on the road visiting schools and meeting with AFT members. I continually meet teachers who support these standards and who believe these standards hold great potential for their students and our public schools. But nearly every teacher I meet says that she is not getting the proper tools and resources to make the instructional shifts necessary—and as we have seen there’s been a rush to implement high-stakes tests before getting the implementation right.
The AFT wanted to match what we were hearing on the ground with real scientific data. The AFT takes our obligation to serve our members very seriously. That’s why we worked with Hart Research, the polling firm we’ve used for more than two decades, on a poll of AFT teachers to gauge their support of the Common Core and their concerns about the implementation.
Honestly, I was surprised to see some bloggers and others question the results of a scientific study using standard polling research measures used by nearly every reputable polling firm the U.S. I was also troubled to see anti-union organizations being cited and used as a way to discredit the AFT and the poll.
The AFT publicly released this poll, a detailed polling memo and a powerpoint presentation on the findings. We also held a media availability during the Education Writers Association conference last week with our pollster to discuss the poll and its findings. The AFT and our pollster would have been happy to answer any questions about our poll had we been asked.
I asked Guy Molyneux of Hart Research Associates to address Mercedes Schneider’s post and you can read his memo outlining the strong methodology of the poll and its representative sample of AFT members. (Guy Molyneaux’s memo will be posted in a few minutes).
There may be disagreements on the importance of the Common Core but as a community of educators we should respect the scientific process and the dignity of one another.
Much of the discussion around the AFT poll has focused on the 75 percent of AFT teachers who support the standards. But the poll also brought to light many concerns teachers have about the implementation of the Common Core.
• 74 percent of teachers are worried that the new assessments will begin—and students, teachers and schools will be held accountable for the results—before everyone involved understands the new standards and before instruction has been fully implemented with the standards.
• Just 27 percent said their school district has provided them with all or most of the resources and tools they need to successfully teach the standards.
• 53 percent said they have received either no training or inadequate training to help prepare them to teach to the standards.
• 76 percent said their school district has not provided enough planning time for understanding the standards and putting them into practice.
• 58 percent said their district has not done enough to have a fully developed curricula aligned to standard available to teachers.
• 54 percent said their district has not done enough to have assessments aligned to the standards.
• Just 33 percent, are very or fairly satisfied with the amount of teacher input in developing their district’s plans for the Common Core standards.
• And half, or 51 percent, said there have not been enough opportunities for teachers to practice with students to ensure they are learning key concepts and principles.
Again, we may have disagreements on the importance of the Common Core. But these standards were adopted by 45 states and D.C., teachers are being expected to teach to these standards and teachers and children are being assessed based on these standards. It is clear that teachers are not getting the tools and resources they need and that they do not believe their voice is being heard. These are serious concerns and instead of fighting over polling data, I hope that we can work together to ensure that every teacher is prepared to teach to these standards. That’s what our teachers and students need and deserve.
Randi Weingarten
President, AFT
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When do we get to vote her out?
Yesterday would have been good!
As a non-teacher—I’m a parent, only, with no teachers anywhere, at any time, in my extended family—I continued to be perplexed by, and frustrated with, Randi Weingarten.
Randy, I’m like many parents at every single public school in our nation—ready and willing to stand with you, or behind you, and help you fight on behalf of our children, our teachers and our schools. But it’s difficult to do that when I’m not sure what YOU’RE standing for, and how well you’re defending what we both consider vital.
I sincerely mean no disrespect to Ms. Weingarten. She’s done some good things. But I don’t think I’m alone when I say that her leadership has been both confusing and uninspiring.
I’m afraid that her statement regarding the Common Core Standards says more about Randi Weingarten than anything else.
Or this is what Gates and Coleman advised her to do and say. The union heads do not represent teachers anymore.
It’s a myth that CC is going to level the playing field and ensure that everyone will get the same quality education.
First, the Common Core is simply standards and not a curriculum. Those school districts with more than adequate resources and few high needs students will continue to have a rich curriculum. Those schools that are underfunded and have a higher percentage of high needs students will continue to “teach to the test” in an effort not to have their school closed. They can raise the bar as high as they want, but without adequate funding and resources to meet the needs of the students, it’s just all smoke and mirrors.
In addition, we are not allowing our children to develop naturally and provide age appropriate lessons, themes, and activities. Why are we always racing? A race implies one winner and many losers.
Learning should be a journey at a pace that supports the child’s learning styles, interests, and development.
they were adopted by 45 states because they had to promisee CC standards if they wanted to keep RacettTop money.
That’s the bottom line..The same with evaluations. It is mandated. Teachers in RI do not care for CC standards nor the RI Model Eval by Gist. 80% said no in a poll and 85% don’t want the contract renewed by the commissioner sicne she brings havoc and is too polarizing…our students have held rallys and protests…The state’s educational commissioner is in a battle of words right now with the nECAP test she is using for seniors as part of their graduation now..So I take what MS Weingarten says with much skepticism and lots of doubt
Weingarten is useless. Get rid of her. We need a war chief.
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/
Thanks for posting this Diane. It caused me to return to Mercedes’ post to again review her piece and compare to Randi’s refute. Rather than present a longer analysis, I offer my short version. Randi’s rhetoric mimics that of so many reformers. Mercedes’ analysis is genuine and accurate. It offers the background one needs to determine for oneself whether to “Believe” as our Louisiana State Superintendent likes to say.
Bottom line on CCSS is that it created a standard by which a high takes test would be necessitated to measure the results of standardization which necessitated a standard curriculum which will narrow the curriculum and prevent the development of critical think skills.
“AFT members were deeply involved in the development of these standards”
I would really like to see the evidence of teacher involvement in the development of the standards in the Common Core. Where is that information located? This is contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, including by Anthony Cody here: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2009/07/national_standards_process_ign.html
AFT members were deeply involved in the development of these standards…huh?
Where did she get that information and 45 states adopted them?
Yes, Randi, if not you wouldn’t get your NCLB waiver….federal blackmail…do what we say or else…the corporate national standards are state followed, not state led and they were not created by teachers who were “deeply involved”.
We are not buying it….just because the same mantra is repeated ad nauseum doesn’t make it accurate.
We were thrown under the bus and we are just supposed to play along to make those at the top look good.
Coleman’s insults and disrespect for teachers doesn’t inspire us.
I had to stop when she said transform the DNA of teaching.
DNA?
Are these her words or someone in her press office?
Sounds creepy & cliched.
Yeah, that “transform the DNA of teaching and learning” jumped at me the FIRST time I read that Randi said that, about 10 days ago, when she called for a moratorium on high-stakes testing here: http://gothamschools.org/2013/04/30/weingarten-calling-for-moratorium-on-common-core-stakes/
I get irked by her use of the word “transform,” too, since “transformative” is the hallmark of Teach for America propaganda about TFAers.
They’re merely recycling the same verbiage desperately hoping we all become brainwashed. They don’t respect us at all. I find her and the Coleman audio speech (posted on another thread) to be condescending. He is worried that teachers don’t buy into his version of assessment. Are they getting desperate?
Right, I’m taking a break from listening to the Coleman speech right now because I got so aggravated when he said that words like “transformed” should be on the SAT since they’re words students need to know for the demands of college and careers. WTF? In what colleges and careers? That word is endemic to corporate education “reform.”
Then I found a clue. Education Week is advertising a Webinar May 14th on “Producing the Next Generation of K12 Entrepreneurs.” Apparently, there are new college programs for preparing K12 entrepreneurs, including one for TFAers at the University of MIchigan (a state school, no less!). See first listing under Education Week Events at top of right panel here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/05/10/608168ncpublicschools_ap.html
Ugh. They are everywhere. The evidence of collusion amongst corporate “reformers” to promote privatization just keeps mounting and mounting.
My Kindergartners knew what “transformed” meant, because of the toys and the movies, and Coleman thinks this word should be on the SAT? What he knows about children could not even fill a thimble.
It sounds like David Coleman is very out of touch with not only children but pop culture as well. Transformers have been big in the lives of many kids since the 80s.
Including the word “transform” on the SAT would be like including the word “spider” –i.e., most 10th graders, college-ready or not, would have long ago learned the meaning of the root word in “Transformer”, just as they learned the meaning of the root word in “Spiderman.”
I sure hope Coleman has a team informing him on SAT matters that is a lot more worldly than he on children and pop culture, because that elite terrain of his can be rather delimiting.
Speaking of DNA, why was Davidn Coleman in the audience when she gave her speech? And why is he now calling John King a “brave man” for pushing NYS testing before kids were ready for it? where was Coleman’s Gates’ appointed PR person, because Coleman unplugged is a hot mess. Why did Randi give the speech in New York? Weingarten, King, Coleman, Tisch, Cuomo, Steiner, NYSUT? What is going on in New York? Who can connect the invisible ties among all these reformers?
Agree!!
I’m not an educator, but I am wary of the Common Core Standards. To date I have not really seen a strong defense of them, just some outlined vague principles, that sound good, in principle. The defense presented here is weak and trite. Who would disagree with this statement?
” ALL children, regardless of where they live, [should] have the critical thinking, problems solving and teamwork skills and experience they need to succeed in their careers, at college and in life.”
The rest goes on to defend poll numbers about how teachers feel about the common core and preparedness. At the very least I think this is an incorrectly titled essay.
What’s to say state’s individual standards to not provide those skills, and who’s to say Common Core does a better job? By their own poll it would seem to indicate no one feels prepared to teach or understand them, but they feel confident they are good? That seems troublesome to me just as an outsider trying to understand the advantage. To believe in something they don’t understand. . .
It makes sense from the stanpoint of AFT members if they were as much a part of the crafting of them as they say, it would be a matter of professional pride to defend them, but how much of that is logic and how much passion and an earnest desire to be right?
I think the ferocious “shoot now, aim later” – a paraphrased quote from our previous Superintdent Pastorek – intensity throughout education is having a very negative impact on teachers and students. This seems likes more of the same.
Who knows, CCSS might be good; but this defense is not.
” ALL children, regardless of where they live, [should] have the critical thinking, problems solving and teamwork skills and experience they need to succeed in their careers, at college and in life.”
And who are Randi and Coleman to say that wasn’t already happening or that we don’t already have that expectation? They actually believe this is revolutionary? Don’t they realize they come off as condenscending to teachers and parents?
Let them come into the classroom for a year and show the teachers exactly what to do.
Stop Talking the jibberish..
No one is interested.
Linda
Your comment is liked…
CCSS is a Frankenstein of curriculum, pasted together as the best effort of chiefly non-educators who just could agree on what teachers should teach. Teacher involvement in this process was token.
And let me add what Weingarten is not addressing in her post: the 75% “support” stat. 600 teachers from AFT “support” CCSS. Just 600. AFT boasts a membership of 1.5 million, over half of whom are teachers. AFT via HART chose to poll only 800.
I so agree
Do people pay money to join AFT?
“Honestly, I was surprised to see some bloggers and others question” …what I think they are surprised to see is people questioning their statements and people not believing everything they spout.
Funny how professionals are supposed to follow in line and not question this authority, but we are also expected to teach higher order thinking and critical reading skills. Aren’t we too stupid?
Does she actually believe the non-educator, billionaire, edubully privatizers have teacher support and respect?
Totally agree!!!!
Randi
Are you getting a kick back?
just wondering…hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Yep, I think she already got it. AFT was given $4,400,000 from Gates last year “to support the AFT Innovation Fund and work on teacher development and Common Core State Standards”
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=aft
She is getting paid-off. She has become her own brand…whatever gets her on the cable news talk shows is fine with her. Randi, you have obviously gone to the other side…we see it often with local union leaders who get so cozy with administration that they begin to take management’s side. We need to organize and take back our profession.
AGREE!
What about students who are being held responsible for knowing Common Core curriculum that was never taught to them? The older the student, the larger the gaps. Common Core should be rolled out from early grades, not thrust on middle schoolers with assumptions that they learned things they never did.
No one is teaching these days..No one..
Today do this..today do this ..today do this..today do this…’
Going too fast????? Got to cover..cover..cover…
No teaching is going one because the Dollar Clowns that decided what was best did so on the ski slope, beach, or golf convention.
oops mistake corrected
No teaching is going “on”
et tu Randi?
Randi Weingarten-
You use the terms: not having time to impliment standards. Did it ever occur to you that teachers, TRUE TEACHERS, refer to not being able to impliment CC Standards as teach ing! The content has to be taught, learned and mastered before taking tests. You obviously do not know that it takes hard work to teach the content In a timely manner. TEACHING! Not just about IMPLIMENTING CC Standards.
What is wrong with you and some other so-called experts in education?
Spouting such nonsense. How can we test kids over untaught materials, which is then used to evaluate the teachers who could not teach the children before participating mandated testing. All of common sense America gets this! But not you! Too bad the CorpEdReformers listen to you or use you to fill their greedy pockets.
Kids and teachers lose tremendously!
Test on content, not discrete “skills”? Blasphemy!
If so few teachers have been given the resources to understand the common core standards (27%), and 76% have not been given the planning time to understand the common core, doesn’t that mean that 75% support something that they really do not understand?
It will be interesting to see how mant people support the common core two years from now.
Bingo, Carol!
Didn’t I say that earler? Where’s my bingo Mercedes?
Bingo for you, too, Toots!
What a hoot….we support what we don’t understand and what we have no resources to understand. Ha!
Since when do we rely on polls to determine the validity of sound pedagogy? Especially when such polls are commissioned to support a controversial,position? where is the research?
Thank you Carol. In this second slick speech she gave more data to accurately make obvious this conundrum. It should have jumped out at her from the start.
Carol
Teachers understand the Common Core!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You must be kidding…
Teachers know how to teach the Common Core.
Teachers are not your stupid crew.
The problem…
The ccss was thrown at the teachers.All of the so called workshops were designed to teach the teachers how to read the core..BULL!!!!!!
The teachers were not given resources but are expected to search Google 24/7 to find resources…
The teachers are expected to turn over their work and their activities to the DOE’s to share with the lazy bunch making the big bucks..
The teachers are given ONE sample of a so-called Deep question and the Big Money Clowns expect ALL of the students to master!!
.
Biggest Bunch of BullS**********T ever..
“Biggest Bunch of BullS**********T ever.”
No, the “BBoBe” is that the CCCP, oh I mean CCSS, and the accompanying tests have any validity whatsoever. They don’t**. Any non-teacher, non-class room specific assessments that are used are the “BBoBe”.
**See: “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at:
Click to access v10n5.pdf
I have been teaching a long time. I interact with many teachers in my school and school district. Common Core is often the topic of discussion. I do not know one teacher who has embraced these standards.
The took the curriculum from the older days …
Sprinkled it with this and that and this and that forever and ever…and call it deep when it is a bunch of CR***p that is not designed to help these students do anything in Real Life..
These standards are made for Teacher Assembly Line Quality Control…
Teacher abuse is rampant from administrators and students
All students know that teachers are being judged by their scores.
All students are aware they they have the upper hand in determining the teacher’s fate.
All students know that they can retest and stay in school until they are 20…which they like..
Some of the students take advantage of all three of the above.
All administrators have to call students out of class to verify a discipline referral as they can not accept the word of the teacher in this day and time.
Teachers have zero power…Teachers are on the bottom of the totem pole.
Wait a second…Please replace Teachers with Testers…
Threats..Intimidation..ruination of reputation..nitpicking…etc etc ..biggest bunch of mess ever..Spinning tires…Getting nowhere fast and forever..
I just about had it with all the talk about CCSS and testing……when is the fight that we really should be getting riled up about going to happen?: special education services not being provided to children who need, documents forcing alternate assessments being forged, teachers not getting tenure because administration doesn’t like them and most of all teachers being intimidated and bullied out of their jobs because principals are abusing power trumping up charges and creating paper trails and the union is non existent. I can’t teach under these adverse conditions…… .Hello NYC teachers! Anybody out there!
Color me confused…
(again, I dwell in one of those right to work states..so this union business is a bit over my head)
How did this woman get this job?
What exactly is her job?
Help me out here.
People know that she is affiliated with the Broad Foundation, so why does anybody take her seriously? At what point does reality sink in?
http://www.broadeducation.org/news/117.html
Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige analyzed the early childhood Common Core standards much more carefully than Randi Weingarten seems to have. And they presciently call out those who would “conceal and distort public reaction” to those standards.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/29/a-tough-critique-of-common-core-on-early-childhood-education/
Excerpt: “It’s bad enough to set up committees to make policy on matters they know little or nothing about. But it’s worse to conceal and distort the public reaction to those policies. And that’s exactly what happened.”
Lies! Lies! Lies!
Someone is worried and trying to do damage control! But it’s quicksand, the more she fights it, the deeper she sinks.
It seems that a LOT of these people are spouting off at the mouth lately. As I’d said about Arne’s San Fran speech, it seems to be ye olde, “If you can’t dazzle ’em with your brilliance, baffle “em with your b.s.!” Since we’re not in imminent danger of being dazzled by any notable brilliance, here, they’re attempting the latter. Nothing but nonsensical doublespeak and, unfortunately for them, we’re all wise to it. Stop your speechifyin’! It’ll all be over soon, because yes, WE can! (And we WILL!)
1. “AFT members were deeply involved in the development of these standards”
…and so have a vested interest (& pride) in making them work.
This is a classic political strategy: involve your opponents and critics in the development of something (e.g. a curriculum) so in future they are less likely to stand in the way.
2. “The AFT wanted to match what we were hearing on the ground with real scientific data.”
“Honestly, I was surprised to see some bloggers and others question the results of a scientific study using standard polling research measures used by nearly every reputable polling firm the U.S.”
“There may be disagreements on the importance of the Common Core but as a community of educators we should respect the scientific process and the dignity of one another.”
Saying something is scientific does not make it so.
They thought this would be easy. All the big money was on their side. This was in the bag and we were supposed to play nice and go along. It is not working out so easily for them and now they are scrambling. Parents and teachers are talking. We are united.
As a proud member of the UFT (NY) for over 35 years, listening to anything Randi Weingarten suggests/supports is the last thing I would do. What’s in it for you this time Randi? Al Shanker must be turning in his grave!
quote: “high stakes attached to the testing until teachers have had enough time to master them and students have had the opportunity to learn them.”
This description reminds me that R&D in education had some funds behind it and the curriculum and tests were field tested and validated well before they were available for general use. This concept has been lost in the ‘marketing” of products like curriculum and tests . I experienced several cycles of the Massachusetts tests that were developed , required in the schools, stored on the shelves and then thrown out in the next cycle because there was a “new” test. This was a cost of field testing and validation that was born by the local school districts (remember Romney cut back on state funding and more was required to come from the locals?) I still will use the standardized tests that have been in existence for a long enough period of time that we have some validation. ETS taught us standard setting methods with the usual tests such as IOWA, Stanford reading tests/achievement etc. and I appreciate those efforts. When we would score 2,000 essays by pupils in middle school we would find that their scores correlated highly with the IOWA or the Stanford on language . It was very expensive to continue state wide or district wide essay readings. Yes, we did learn from the efforts and there was improvement through this kind of staff development but is this the way we should keep inventing new tests? It is not reasonable to think that a “curriculum” or a “test” is “valid ” until the teacher gets used to “mastering” it or the students are drilled and taught how to guess to pass for graduation. One of the home school curriculum technologies (not to be named here) does exactly that. The student can take the literature test until he “passes’ and he has never read one of the books that is tested. Of course, that can happen in a “classroom” with a “teacher” in the room but I still have faith in the validity of curriculum that has been “teacher-tested” in the processes we have in place in Massachusetts.. I can’t vouch for other states.
To all of you who have commented on this blog, here is the bottom line about Randi Weingarten:
She runs a large organization that is rarely petition or consensus based. She acts hegemoniously because she really does not identify with teachers, as she taught for less than 5 years, one of which was a non-teaching discipline.
She identifies with those she partners with (Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc) because, like them, she does what she wants and what is best for her own immediate position of income and salary. She maintains her power simply through the non-democratic structure of the AFT and through its monopolizing Unity Party, which has a grip on almost all the funding and PR and which legally bribes its delegates to vote her way.
The AFT and UFT are anything but democratically run organizations.
This was the woman who was, in part, instrumental in getting Michael Bloomberg mayoral control of the public schools in New York City. She will tell you that it was already a done deal prior to her involvement, but her lack of opposition and confrontation sold teachers up the river a long time ago. Not to mention, she gave away the contractual right for teachers to grieve principal reviews of their pedagogy and many other aspects of the job.
She is a traitor, although she has in the press has described herself as someone “born to be a major interruptor”.
Well, she’s right about that.
Ms. Weingarten has interrupted justice, education, cognitive development, the middle class, labor rights, and the civil rights of children, their families, and teachers.
She will go down in history with tolerated and even favorable eyes of the reformers she has cooperated with and as someone despicable and depraved by the teachers, students, and families she was supposed to have served.
Yet, I would venture to say that no one is really done with her yet.
Well said, Robert. Well said. As a member of the UFT I saw and expereinced first-hand what Randi did to families in NYC and how she supported a man who systematically has destroyed public education.
Actually, Robert, aside from being a substitute, she taught for six months while being groomed to take over the UFT.
The woman is a straight-out fraud, and as you rightly say, a betrayer of teachers and children.
Imagine a medical doctor is “told” she “must” administer this drug which has not been field tested. She is just “told” to administer this drug because it is a miraculous cure for all sorts of ailments. It doesn’t matter what the ailment is, or what caused it – this drug will fix everything. Oh, and by the way, the people manufacturing the drug will make loads of money.
The common core will fail – and here’s why. It DOES NOT have the buy in of the people who are supposed to be administering this new “drug”. It is not field tested. There is no “data” to support it. Teachers were not consulted. The people developing this new panacea have no educational credentials. The people shoving it down our throats have no moral credentials.
The teachers are NOT ON BOARD. Common Core will die a slow and steady death.
And the people you speak of have no respect for teachers or the profession.
One can only hope! It’s been a disaster to say the least!
Can you say Fenphen or thalidomide?
Excellent! I’m going to begin calling the CC “educational thalidomide.” With your permission, Duane, of course!
For Randi Weingarten, who has accepted millions from those whose policies demean and intimidate teachers, and who would destroy their unions, to implicitly chide Mercedes Schneider and other skeptics for not respecting the “dignity” of others, is the height of chutzpah.
Common core would be ok if:
1. They were general enough to allow local schools to develop their goals. (Learning is personal)
2. They allow schools to take children from where they are, reaching their goals when they were ready, not at robotic sameness.
3. That demonstrated, authentic assessment determined success.
Of course that would be against the corporate model. In competetion a couple things happen. First, the brain finds the best way to win on a standardized test. This is a whole different process than real learning. Second, I don’t want to be the first to tell you that when someone is first, mathematically someone is last. And those last get pushed into the streets without an education at all. Ranking and sorting kids happens in the classroom with mini standardized chapter tests. Because of the current failure system, this assures the same families remain in the subclass forever, which is the ultimate goal of education isn’t it?
Excellent points. Thank you.
A fascinating idea, but flawed in 3 ways:
1) they are general already
2) This is a reasonable point, but 30 years too late, as it rebuts the whole IDEA of grade-level standards, while not specifically critiquing these particular standards
3) Great idea, but as in #2, not specific to the CC: I’d love to see authentic assessment of whatever goals we have in education, but we have no precedent for this so far, outside of higher ed, and that obviously comes at a cost.
As a new Elementary principal I learned a lesson that I should have understood at the time. Structure will NOT drive practice, it never has and never will. Never mind the issue of developmentally inappropriate expectations that these standards apparently have, teachers will not change their practice to to fit these expectations, most certainly not for a test. If anything, they will revert, under immense pressure, to the practices they are most comfortable with. What they will change are a few activities that they cherry pick from other resources looking for a quick fix.
What poll, Randi? I’m very active in AFT and don’t remember participating in any Common Core poll.
I echo the concerns about developmentally inappropriate expectations. I fear for young students who struggle and now are asked to have an even deeper and more complex understanding of concepts. Those who are now just able to keep their heads above water will sink. I have a heart for struggling students. I find that repeated success goes a long way toward building their confidence as does many class discussions about the varying rate of individual cognitive development. Students are relieved to learn that, like their bodies, their brains grow and change, not by age or grade, but at their own rate and in their own time. Discussions about typical growth and development, different ways of thinking and personality types are a regular part of our daily discourse. Many are so grateful to learn that they aren’t “dumb” as they had come to believe, but just not ready yet for a particular concept or skill. They are reassured that next year it will probably be much easier and that they absolutely will “get it” when their brains are ready. There are many things I do like about Common Core Standards, but I believe they are well beyond the developmental level of most students by 12-18 months. This, I feel will be devastating to many, many typical to struggling elementary school students.
I think that Randi Weingarten is right across the board. I can see why some teachers feel that the new standards are liberating and not of the same cloth as previous standards. If anything, these standards endanger mediocracy and should push teachers to engage students in a very different way than they might have in the past, as capable beings who need to interact with highly intelligent others to grow beyond dependency. Indeed, there are some in our profession who see students as their dependents and, once dependent, it is hard to convince the dependent on the value to be found in independence which brings with it responsibility. The new standards are not the problem at all. The problem is with goals that exist because they are eminently achievable but not very meaningful or useful. When a set of standards are introduced with words that point to a desire to help students understand the meaning of answers then I am enthralled. When students are told how to get to answers without necessarily understanding the process by which those answers were derived, the discipline has power over the student. When the student understands the process by which answers (conclusions) are derived, the student is empowered by the discipline. The new standards (read the introduction to the math standards, please) seem to me to be calling for intellectual rigor of a type that empowers, this to replace an educational system that strives for conformity and, at best, low level understanding of wonderfully complex concepts. If we were to really apply our intellectual rigor to the problem of education for a democratic society, I think, in all honesty, we would have to say that the current system undercuts intellectual rigor and too often feeds students easily digested tidbits which are not good food for the growth of the mind. If the crusade against tests were to become a fight for intellectual nutritious educational practices, the is a chance that the system would work to promote the growth of minds capable of doing the work necessary to get this society moving, as it is supposed to, to the perfection of a union that stands for life, liberty, justice, fairness, opportunity, all good and necessary that exists to allow its citizens to find their way to happiness.
“The new standards (read the introduction to the math standards, please) seem to me to be calling for intellectual rigor of a type that empowers, this to replace an educational system that strives for conformity and, at best, low level understanding of wonderfully complex concepts.”
My daughter is sitting behind me, studying for her APUSH final. She is a highly intelligent, questioning, critical thinker. She has had a wonderful education in the public school system, as have the children of all of my friends and relatives. Children who have grown up to receive Fullbright scholarships, full scholarships in doctoral programs at prestigious universities, and celebrated acclaim for achievements in the arts, business, and academia. True success stories.
We’re talking about children from middle class families. Children who worked very hard throughout their years in the public education system.
To tell me that their education has been second rate is highly presumptuous and debatable at best.
While several have responded to my comments with comments that defend teachers, I ask that we really consider the realities of schooling as they affect the society in which we live. While some students, a good many (but not enough) do get a sound education, the many do not, and this is born out by the current realities of our public decision making process. I ask anyone who thinks that schools, in general are doing a good job, to look at the nature of the arguments that are put before the public and the nature of the public’s response to those arguments. I ask that people look at the kinds of entertainment our society craves and those who are our society’s elite. I ask that people take the time to scan the channels available to us on our cable and satellite systems and the ratings for the various shows that people watch. I ask that people think about why it is that we go to war and what we do at the end of wars in regard to our efforts to make sense of what has happened and what we have done. I do not deny that there are good teachers out there. But doesn’t a sensible person have to ask why it is that the practices of the best and brightest are not held up as the standard for all? Why is it that the conditions of work in so many schools are not the conditions that the best and brightest know to be best for all to receive the decent education they deserve. Why is it that Herbert Kohl still has much to write about in regard to inequities, in terms of the Savage Inequalities he continues to see in the educational system? These are questions I have for those that offer a blanket defense and try to tell me that things are better than I think them to be. The ramifications of the bad in the system are terribly for those who are affected by that bad and I ask that we do all we can to rid the system of that bad.
To the comment that the public school system is working well for his or her children; indeed there are some schools and maybe even districts that provide the good education, but there are many reasons to criticize the system as a whole because it fails so many, not because of the good teachers but because not all students have good teachers. So a sample of one, and that sample related to one’s own who may be getting what others deserve as well, is not the kind of argument that is really for the good of the whole. Indeed I am presumptuous and my presumptions are based on damned good information that is readily available, possibly even in the districts in which some of the good schools exist, and maybe even in those schools some would like to call successful. I watch the kind of decisions my fellow citizens make and the basis for those decisions; I know where most get their news and who they vote into office and the kind of questions they can and are willing to ask the powers that be, the very powers that keep the wages low and enforce the rules that present us the problems of standardized tests and classrooms with far too many students in them, of places such as Kozol has written about for years where the walls are falling down around kids who have terribly old material to “learn” from and teachers who, even if they were the very best, would have a difficult time thriving under the conditions that exist. Let’s not be blinded by our cases of one or what occurs directly around the corner from our upper middle class homes. This very blog exists because education in America is in trouble, yes because of the testers and privatizers, but those folk do no exist in a vacuum. They dwell where this educated public either appoints them to dwell or where that public fails to prevent such habitation. The schools that exist in most places serve the very corporate forces that are responsible for underfunding, the appointment of education officials (Duncan for one), for superintendents and principles from Broad, and so on and so forth. The best teachers I know are really pissed about the people they have to listen to and the conditions of schooling imposed upon them within the PUBLIC system.
The tragic part of this is that we are in agreement in so many areas. Yet we argue.
I’m a teacher and, yes, I’m REALLY pissed about the people I have to listen to and the conditions of schooling imposed upon us within the PUBLIC school system. But it wasn’t always this way. The conditions began to change when the business world stepped in, about 15 years ago…and it’s gotten steadily worse. And now it’s reached the federal level (of which CCSS is a product) and it’s going out of control.
Things changed when the needs expressed by the execs of some of the Fortune 500 companies trumped those of the broader public. This is not conjecture. It’s fact. I witnessed and questioned it.
You’re right: many of our schools are underfunded. Please forgive me if I’m stating the obvious and feel free to add onto the list, but this is partly because our money is being diverted to competing influences by interested parties. Partly because people and corporations don’t want to pay taxes. Partly because of corruption and kickbacks in local, state, and federal government.
My problem with your statements come from the idea that the entire system (or the majority of it) is broken. I disagree with that. And I’m not talking upper middle class, either. I think it’s the point that the reformists have latched on to and used, so successfully, in their program for “change”.
I believe that poverty and the erosion of the prosperity of the middle class are huge contributors to our problems in education. These are not problems that will be solved by the CCSS or anything like them. They are much, much bigger than that.
I think this is the argument we need to have amongst ourselves and with others so that the real issues get clarified and then treated as they need be treated. One can get defensive and in doing so end up defending what needs not be defended. To make the case against privatization one need not argue against his or her best interests by not nailing down the real goals of the endeavor that is education and then showing what in the “new” plans fails to help achieve those real goals. In arguing that the current system works, one has to give in to the idea that the sane and sound goals of education can be achieved with current levels of funding for schools that use standardized tests to determine curriculum and evaluate teachers. Under the system, the good teacher is not the teacher I know we need if we are going to move beyond the scam system that currently infects every aspect of our lives, the civic, political, educational, economic, and even the moral. Schools need to be places where there is a degree of honesty and honest disputation that serves as good reason for learning in the disciplines that allow one to honestly pursue truth. Right now, the truth that would come of honest pursuit and honest disputation would lead to terribly harsh criticism of the current system of politics and the education that politics sponsors. For example, to have good numbers of people believing that poverty is nonexistent or that it is caused by the poor or that there really is equal opportunity or that the system is equitable and fair—all things commonly broadcast in the schools, public or private, charter or not–is a sign that too many are not able to see things clearly either despite their education or, perhaps because of it, it producing such thinking because of who it is that controls the public school agenda. Should we take a careful look at who controls? Or do we want to perpetuate the illusion that it is the public who controls the public schools? Perhaps we like the illusion too much to allow ourselves to poke and prod at it when such really needs to be done if real solutions are to be found?
While several have responded to my comments with comments that defend teachers, I ask that we really consider the realities of schooling as they affect the society in which we live. While some students, a good many (but not enough) do get a sound education, the many do not, and this is born out by the current realities of our public decision making process. I ask anyone who thinks that schools, in general are doing a good job, to look at the nature of the arguments that are put before the public and the nature of the public’s response to those arguments. I ask that people look at the kinds of entertainment our society craves and those who are our society’s elite. I ask that people take the time to scan the channels available to us on our cable and satellite systems and the ratings for the various shows that people watch. I ask that people think about why it is that we go to war and what we do at the end of wars in regard to our efforts to make sense of what has happened and what we have done. I do not deny that there are good teachers out there. But doesn’t a sensible person have to ask why it is that the practices of the best and brightest are not held up as the standard for all? Why is it that the conditions of work in so many schools are not the conditions that the best and brightest know to be best for all to receive the decent education they deserve. Why is it that Herbert Kohl still has much to write about in regard to inequities, in terms of the Savage Inequalities he continues to see in the educational system? These are questions I have for those that offer a blanket defense and try to tell me that things are better than I think them to be. The ramifications of the bad in the system are terribly for those who are affected by that bad and I ask that we do all we can to rid the system of that bad.
Common Core puts all schools to task, regardless of past success rates. There is no voluntary compliance. We’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Should we raise the level of schools that are failing? Yes. Will the new Common Core Standards address this problem? Maybe.
Should we require everyone to adopt the same standards and methods? No. There will be less room for growth and debate in a system of this type. Our country has been about diversity to this point. It was once viewed as a strength. Obviously, some very powerful and influential people would disagree with my assessment, though.
You’re right. We, as a society, are mirroring some pretty ugly images. I don’t think you can pin that entirely on the education system, though. There are a lot more factors involved than the time spent in a classroom, trying to teach kids the importance of events that are meaningless to them.
I found this article interesting. It’s about the lack of time spent in educating our kids on civics. We’re putting sooo much time into testing and fretting about being shut down unless those scores are up to snuff that we’re missing out on a lot of very important areas of education:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/04/opinion/pondiscio-civic-education/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
I disagree. I wanted to like Common Core. I wanted to celebrate moves toward poor and rural school districts getting access to the kinds of educational materials and thinking that richer districts provided to their students and teachers. But this is the opposite. CCSS is brought to us by the same entities fighting to dismantle public education, for similar reasons. Please, AFT, stop pushing it as a “success will follow” if we just iron out some little problems. Please join the educators working to have a pedagogy-based, child-centered, pro-public-education serious conversation about where CCSS came from, what it’s all about, and how we need to work to expose and stop this cruel, destructive whirlwind of danger in all of its forms.
I’m puzzled about why this was posted here? Why does Randi W. need yet another forum to defend her defense of the Common Core? Not to mention that he defense is embarassignly weak…and amounts to a student demanding a good grade because they worked really hard on something. And anyone who uses the phrase “real scientific data” can’t really want to be taken seriously, right?
Yes, Dr. G, we need not be made aware of the thinking of those who may not think as we do. We should argue in the safe vacuum of ignorance!
I am a bit confused how 800 represents 75% of all members. I suppose that’s how Unity can claim an overwhelming majority in the UFT election when less than 25% of active members voted.
I know I have been critical of Weingarten and of Diane too with regard to Randi, but I decided I no longer have to be because every time Diane highlights something about Randi, the comments are overwhelming. Keep ’em coming Diane. The comments shed more light than the actual posts.
Ccss is a liberation from the basic skills obsession that came with nclb. It has great potential but is threatened by a lack of funding for its implementation. The opponents of ccss need to offer a better alternative than “get off teachers’ backs.” How will we pull ourselves up after nclb? Ideas?
Saying, “get off the teachers’ backs” is an oversimplification. The point is that educators have been vilified to the point where the public has been led to place their trust in the hands of people they’ve never met with precious little experience in the area of education. People who look at education as a business with enormous profit potential. People who have tremendous influence over what we read, hear, and see in the media. For me it’s more about getting the public back on the side of their local schools. Finding ways to get families involved in their children’s education. Giving them a reason to believe in the value of a solid education and how it can positively effect their kids’ future.
We could start by going smaller, again. Local is good and easier to manage. Give more autonomy to the teachers who are working in conjunction with their principals, who have been given back their autonomy, who network with their colleagues, etc. All of whom work with their respective community leaders who feel valued because they know who they’re dealing with and who they can talk to about their needs.
There’s no question that local school boards have been guilty of corruption. Those were not “the good old days. But it’s so much easier to trace and deal with that, on a local level, than it would be with a solidly entrenched, rigid, national agenda with all the levels of bureaucracy to sift through in order to address individual needs. Establish oversight committees and use our experience to help us steer clear of past mistakes.
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is not a solution. We can use the ideas of the CCSS and modify them according to the school’s needs. We can use other educational concepts and ideas, as well. Employ programs that are within school’s budget and time frameworks. Reestablish mentor programs from experienced peers rather than outside entities who keep telling us, “…and you don’t have to do anything. It’s all scripted out for you. Even the differentiation”.
It seems as though, since Carter, Bush Sr., and Clinton told us on national TV that the days of the “factory down the road” were gone in the US, we’ve tried to become a nation of college ready, highly skilled professionals. That’s all well and good for many people. But it flies in the face of many others who don’t have those interests. The assumption that college ready is the superior route is condescending. We need more trade schools and the subsequent jobs available for their graduates…which brings up what I feel is the more important question: How will we pull ourselves up, as a nation, after these past few decades of financial corruption and political abuse of power?
I’m finding this entire discussion incredibly ironic: unless I missed something, would someone out there teaching math or language arts name one specific standard within the common core that is LESS thoughtful, pragmatic, or liberating to the kind of work we want to do with our students than the standards we have now?
Here in California, as opposed to “I wish people liked teachers more” fantasyland, our standards are a confused, illogical, disorganized overreaching mess. The common core ELA standards are unified around a clear set of thinking skills, precisely aligned to college prep requirements, and would require tests more closely aligned with what good English teachers have been teaching for over a century.
the irony, to get back to my opening salvo, is that many of my colleagues here are reiterating the same intentional fallacy, confusing the wisdom of having consistent standards generally, and the quality of these in particular, with the presumed motives of all these boogeymen who just might, god forbid, want the same things for kids as we do.
As to the lack of “professional development”? this is a red herring: none of my colleagues who has complained of the standards has bothered to read them, much less do ANY research on their own about their theoretical or practical framework. What’s stopping you all?
This isn’t to mention the slippery slope fallacy that it’s another step on the road to privatization; the tu quoque fallacy of attaching the CCSS to whatever privileges RW enjoys as a union leader, or the straw man attacks on some notion that these standards, well over a decade in the making, are being rammed down our throats.
The irony, in toto, is that identifying fallacies like these, is central to the critical thinking that so many teachers claim to want, clearly have not mastered themselves, and don’t recognize as the very “core” of the common core.
Yes, you most definitely “missed something”. That much is clear.
I’m a parent of a young child in elementary school. I’ve taught a handful of courses in various colleges and community colleges over the years, but I am most definitely not an educator, as most people would define it.
And I fully concede that I know little about Common Core—it appeared one day at my child’s school like an abrupt slap in the face, with an authoritarian tone of “You Must Do This From Now On. We Know What Is Best!” (“Or else!”)
However, I DO know something about the very well funded and orchestrated plan to eventually phase our public schools out of existence, over the decades, and replace it with a noble and progressive sounding system based upon “choice” and “higher standards”.
They rarely mention the REAL motivation: the hundreds of billions raised by American taxpayers every year to support our schools. This is the “pollen” that the Privatization Wasps are hoping to come in and steal from the hives we’ve paid for and that the “teacher bees” have worked so hard over the decades to build.
It appears you agree that these people—funded primarily by a handful of billionaires—aren’t to be trusted. Their motivations, we concur, are highly suspect, at best. Correct?
Then WHY would you think that Common Core wouldn’t be yet another tactic/device to impose a centrally focused “Command & Control” center from DC and NYC?
We know they’re not stupid; something of this magnitude didn’t just “get past them” without being noticed by the literally hundreds of paid shills directly and indirectly paid by this ruling elite.
And we also know that the LAST THING they’d like to see is a truly independently thinking generation of American schoolchildren. What they want is a largely interchangeable army of compliant order takers and process processors. In reality, Corporate America has NEVER wanted “thinkers” or “innovators”, contrary to the slick, PR mythology in the business press. Those people “cause trouble”; they create problems; they are loose cannons who disrupt efficiency and the optimum processes we’ve developed for maximum revenues and profitability.
Get real. Do you truly believe that the very people who invested so heavily in Common Core, and their enablers and paid functionaries, would be so committed to a new pedagogical approach that leads us to “the promised land”, as you implied?
The most passionate and vocal supporters of the Common Core—Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, Joel Klein, Arne Duncan, Rupert Murdoch, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and other members of the “Privatization Mafia”—are the people I trust LEAST with public education. That alone discredits Common Core right from the outset.
No offense, but is it wishful thinking, or simple naiveté that leads you to put your trust in such scurrilous characters and con artists?
I don’t trust these people—Jeb Bush was recently described as “giddy” over the prediction that twice as many students, teachers and schools will now be declared “FAILURES” once Common Core is imposed everywhere. I don’t think that’s incidental.
Still waiting for the specific standard
drpenglish, thank you for saying all that you have said here, especially in taking a shot at the term, “critical thinking,” which is used by so many educators as if they were disembodied cult victims.
The only proper response to the amateurish, backward CCSS in ELA is derision.
The people who foisted these “standards” on our country need to be laughed off the stage.
Clearly, the authors of these “standards” knew nothing of the sciences of language acquisition and very, very, very little of best practices in the teaching of English.
It is as though someone handed David Coleman and Susan Pimentel copies of Galen and of the 1858 edition of Gray’s Anatomy and sent them to a cabin in the woods to write new “standards” for the medical profession.
These misbegotten “standards” will set the teaching of English back a hundred years. They are already narrowing and distorting and rendering incoherent our pedagogy and our curricula.
No one died and made David Coleman and Susan Pimentel king and queen. A handful of plutocrats took it upon themselves to give these two the authority to overrule every teacher, every curriculum coordinator, every curriculum developer in the country.
The CCSS in ELA are an embarrassment.
I have a litmus test for determining whether someone knows anything at all about teaching K-12 English: Does he or she support the implementation of of the Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic] in ELA.
It’s time to end the Coring of our country.
This post should have been called “Why I $upport the Common Core.”
Still waiting for specifics
Dr Penglish asked for specifics, can no one give them?