Yesterday I posted a statement endorsed by leading education organizations that endorsed the Common Core but called for more time to implement the new standards.
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This reader disagrees. The reader commented:
“The joint statement issued by the National School Boards Association, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principles, and the American Association of School Administrators makes clear that public education in the United States is in deeper trouble than many thought. The problem, though, is not one of pedagogy or teaching personnel. It’s a serious lack of leadership.
The “leadership” groups’ statement on the Common Core standards shows that these “leaders” just don’t get it. They know no more about the Common Core than they did about No Child Left Behind.
Indeed, they say that the Common Core “tests are necessary” for “use in teacher and principal evaluation,” but those tests must be coupled with “sufficient, accurate, and timely data in addition to test scores.” Huh? Say what? After more than a decade of tests and “data-driven” instruction and evaluation, we need even MORE of it? Are they serious? This is like saying the economy needs more tax cuts for corporations and the rich to “stimulate” job creation. Or like a doctor saying he needs to bleed more “bad blood” from the patient in order to cure him.
The “leaders” state that “the prudent course is to avoid over-reliance on the assessments” UNTIL the Common Core standards “are fully implemented…” Then they add this nutty conclusion:
“Failure to consider this reality will result in the…the same disappointing results of NCLB-era accountability.”
Sigh.
Did these people never grasp that the “proficiency” requirements of No Child Left Behind were impossible to achieve? That the projections for 2014 were that 99 percent of California schools would be labeled as “failing,” with “failure” rates of 95 percent in the Great Lakes states and elsewhere?
A former assistant secretary of education in the Bush administration said that NCLB was really a “Trojan horse…a way to expose the failure of public education…to blow it up a bit.” Is the Common Cre really so different?
Look at who supports the Common Core standards: Margaret Spellings, former Ed Secretary, who infamously called NCLB “99.9 percent pure;” Jeb Bush, who is pushing charter schools and vouchers across the country; Bill Gates, who funded the Common Core, and who wants more H1-B visas for his company despite the fact that American education churns out three times as many STEM graduates as there are jobs; and, the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who lobbied aggressively for unfunded corporate tax cuts that spawned huge deficits and debt, and for laissez-faire regulatory policies that aided and abetted massive fraud and corruption (especially on Wall Street) and that blew up the economy.
And now public school “leaders” are lending their support?
Public education in the United States is a foundational cornerstone of democratic governance. Both are in greater jeopardy than many of us thought.”
For sure we’re in trouble with so-called leadership of public educational organizations genuflecting to privateers. Teachers will have to lead this charge of non-support of the common core. Its got to go back to basics, collective action in the face of this stupidity and its got to be national. If we wait for our unions and so-called other leaders to lead, we’ll be out the door already.
You’ve got that right Paula. Many unions, mine included, seem to play lip service to their disagreement with Common Core.
I am a union rep, and a firm believer in the merits of unions in the work place, but the leadership (I know we vote them in) once installed seem to lose focus on who they actually represent, and instead seem to be representing both the administration and we teachers, with a little more interest in helping “the poor district is doing what they can for us” mentality.
In my district WCCUSD we have 30,000 students with teacher student ratios of 1:24 in K, 1:28 in 1st – 3rd, and 1:33 in 4th – 5th. and no aids in the classroom since I began teaching in 1989.
Big time “agree”.
Back to basics mean back to the street to protest and to make our own union listens to those who are truly in the trenches.
We have to remember that public educational organizations are in existence do to funding!
Follow the money!
I’m going to happily take the middle path here. I fully agree that NCLB and the testing mania that’s followed are completely misguided in the way they make false claims about universal proficiency rates and dates, claim to be important means of assessing students and viable means of assessing teachers and because of the amount of time and resources they are sucking from our already short and underfunded school year. I also agree that there’s been a lack of leadership. Putting politicians and capitalists in charge of our country’s education continues to have serious issues that range from widening the achievement gap to creating a sense of distrust in America’s k12 public schools. If our state and federal governments and our union leaderships were more focused on what’s good for students and schools, neither NCLB nor RTTT nor Pearson and the College Board would have such a sense of control.
My distance comes from recognizing the need to separate having a meaningful curriculum from these other pieces. I can’t speak as clearly about the math content, but if all of what’s being called the “reform movements'” pieces went away, I’d still want CCSS literacy (although I do believe the lexile bands that’ve been set are going to cause issues) and the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
I agree, David. There seems to be a confusion of issues here. Blaming the CC standards for issues with NCLB, testing, and teacher evaluation content is a non sequitur.
NO! CCSS is the flip side of the coin of NCLB type thinking. They are intimately tied together, not only ideologically, but also through the heavy hand of the philanthrovultures funding to ensure that that ideology reigns supreme.
democracy,
Your response linking my name to an ideology or organization rather than addressing the content of my argument is exactly what the ad hominem fallacy is all about (incidentally, I am not any of the Robin Johnstons you mention). It is fallacious reasoning because my personal beliefs, actions, ideologies, etc. are irrelevant to whether the CC standards are good or not—and so are Jeb Bush’s (hard as that may be for us all to accept). The beauty of logic is that it deals with the reasoning of the argument itself and is not tied to any bias, ideology, person, etc. In fact it helps us avoid those very human tendencies. Its study, I have always argued, is essential to a viable Democracy.
I apologize if it was not clear but my earnest question to all who put down the CC so adamantly was what is it about the CC curriculum content that is so bad? I can only speak for middle school English, but what I have seen of it on paper for that age group is not so bad, and it definitely addresses some of the problems of the curriculum that has developed over the last 30 years. That is not to say it could not be improved, but it seems pretty good in many ways.
I understand there are many other related issues—how it is being implemented, how it is being used to evaluate teachers, how adding more testing is overkill, etc, but I was not asking about those issues.
… I attempted to address your query regarding CC. The math standards are not aligned with what is known about cognitive development.
They are an instrument by which students, teachers, and schools will be designated as “failing”.
Sorry, I have not figured out how to reply to the comments that have no “reply” button, so my response to democracy came up before his/her comment. Can anyone advise me on how to reply to the comments with no “reply” button? Thanks.
Sorry, but we do not need the Common Core standards to have a “meaningful curriculum.”
And there is no “confusion of issues” either. Common Core tests are not needed for teacher and principal evaluations. And Common Core WILL result in a LOT of testing.
Moreover, the mere fact the the Common Core is funded by Bill Gates (who may be rich, but whose “smartness” is questionable), and is endorsed enthusiastically by Jeb Bush (who wants to gut and privatize public education), and the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (vile organization that it is), should give serious pause to anyone with an ounce of sense .
Looks like we’ll disagree about the need for a better curriculum. Weak literacy, compartmentalized learning and college-readiness struggles make me believe in the need for a better curriculum than most had prior. I also enjoy having a nationalized discussion of it.
The confusion is between the fight against the CCSS and what you call the Common Core Tests. I believe that the curriculum could exist without the testing.
I agree with your final comment and say that the whole reform agenda gives me great pause, but I don’t want to throw away what’s good just because it’s attached to misguided policies.
It is another fallacy to conclude that the curriculum is bad because of someone who endorses it–an ad hominem to be precise. Why not judge it on its own merits? What is it you dislike about the curriculum itself?
I teach grades 6 & 8 math. The opinion if most teachers with whom I have contact believe the CC math standards to not be developmentally appropriate. Will some students be able to learn at that level? Yes. Will most? Not likely. Many concepts have been lowered by one or two grade levels. The problem with the standards is that they will be the expectations for all learners. Is this what’s best for kids?
Students struggle with something at grade 6, so let’s move it to grade 4? It’s Common Core, but not common sense.
Not to mention that teachers had very little – if any – input int the Common Core development. And, the Common Core is based on a serious fallacy, one promoted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that this curriculum is necessary to enhance “economic competitiveness.” Absolutely untrue.
@ David: the “national discussion” should have preceded the Common Core development. And the tests are an indispensable , and an inextricable, piece of the Common Core. So too, the teacher and principal evaluations based on test scores. The research is clear….merit pay does not work.
@Robin: The fact that Jeb Bush – no friend of public schooling– endorses Common Core should concern anyone who cares for public education. That concern gets amplified when groups like the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce not only endorse Common Core but plan a public relations blitz for it.
Are you the Robin Johnston of Learning Tree, which claims that “Project Learning Tree (PLT) activities will help you address many of the Common Core State Standard?”
Or are you the Robin Johnston at Tallahassee Community College, who also claims to be a “management consultant,” “executive advisor” and a “Director at INVICTUS Solutions Group,” which asserts its “one goal” is “increasing the profitability of your company?”
Either way, I’d say your “logic” is tied to something other than education.
By the way, the need for “reform” is quite misplaced. The current mania can be traced to A Nation at Risk. The Sandia National Labs investigated the allegations contained in A Nation at Risk, and debunked them all.
The Sandia Report (Journal of Educational Research, May/June, 1993), published in the wake of A Nation at Risk, concluded that:
* “..on nearly every measure we found steady or slightly improving trends.”
* “youth today [the 1980s] are choosing natural science and engineering degrees at a higher rate than their peers of the 1960s.”
* “business leaders surveyed are generally satisfied with the skill levels of their employees, and the problems that do exist do not appear to point to the k-12 education system as a root cause.”
* “The student performance data clearly indicate that today’s youth are achieving levels of education at least as high as any previous generation.”
The critics, however, kept on with the distortions and lies. More states enacted “rigorous standards” and high-stakes testing. No Child Left Behind mandated even more testing, and punishments.
The critics, increasingly funded by conservative foundations and corporations anxious to divert attention from their own failures and complicity in causing the near-fatal breakdown of the economy, continue today with their call for “reform.” The Common Core is the latest iteration.
Two bits says RJ won’t be back on this string bean thread.
Thanks, democracy!
@ Robin Johnston:
You write this: “I can only speak for middle school English, but what I have seen of it on paper for that age group is not so bad, and it definitely addresses some of the problems of the curriculum that has developed over the last 30 years. That is not to say it could not be improved, but it seems pretty good in many ways.”
At best, that’s a back-handed endorsement. The Common Core English standards are “not so bad.” Uh-huh.
You say that the CC English standards address “some of the problems of the curriculum that has developed over the last thirty years.” To which curriculum do you refer? There is no national English curriculum. And surely state curricula have been revised and updated over “the last thirty years.” What, exactly, about your own English curriculum do you not like? And how, exactly, would Common Core address those deficiencies?
As I pointed out, Common Core is unnecessary. It’s based on two badly flawed – inaccurate – assumptions. The first is that American public education needs a healthy does of “reform,” and originates from A Nation at Risk’s claim that a “rising tide of mediocrity” threatened U.S. national security. As I noted, the Sandia Report demolished that falsehood.
The Sandia Report (Journal of Educational Research, May/June, 1993), published in the wake of A Nation at Risk, concluded that:
* “..on nearly every measure we found steady or slightly improving trends.”
* “youth today [the 1980s] are choosing natural science and engineering degrees at a higher rate than their peers of the 1960s.”
* “business leaders surveyed are generally satisfied with the skill levels of their employees, and the problems that do exist do not appear to point to the k-12 education system as a root cause.”
* “The student performance data clearly indicate that today’s youth are achieving levels of education at least as high as any previous generation.”
The second inaccuracy is that we need to “reform” public schools in order to restore American “economic competitiveness.” All of the “reformers” cite it (from Jeb Bush to Arne Duncan, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the College Board), but it is not true.
The World Economic Forum ranks nations each year on competitiveness. It uses “a highly comprehensive index” of the “many factors” that enable “national economies to achieve sustained economic growth and long-term prosperity.”
The U.S. is usually in the top five (if not 1 or 2). When it drops, the WEF doesn’t cite education, but stupid economic decisions and policies.
For example, when the U.S. dropped from 2nd to 4th in 2010-11, four factors were cited by the WEF for the decline: (1) weak corporate auditing and reporting standards, (2) suspect corporate ethics, (3) big deficits (brought on by Wall Street’s financial implosion) and (4) unsustainable levels of debt.
Last year (2011-12), major factors cited by the WEF are a “business community” and business leaders who are “critical toward public and private institutions,” a lack of trust in politicians and the political process with a lack of transparency in policy-making, and “a lack of macroeconomic stability” caused by decades of fiscal deficits, especially deficits and debt accrued over the last decade that “are likely to weigh heavily on the country’s future growth.” The WEF did NOT cite public schools as being problematic to innovation and competitiveness.
And this year (2012-13) the WEF dropped the U.S. to 7th place, citing problems like “increasing inequality and youth unemployment” and, environmentally, “the United States is among the countries that have ratified the fewest environmental treaties.“ The WEF noted that in the U.S.,”the business community continues to be critical toward public and private institutions” and “trust in politicians is not strong.” Political dysfunction has led to “a lack of macroeconomic stability” that “continues to be the country’s greatest area of weakness.”
So, if the two foundational reasons given by the “reformers” are untrue, then where is the need for their brand of “reform?” Especially when it comes coupled to intense, expensive testing?
Just curious. Are YOU the Robin Jonston who wrote this:
“The bottom line is that if you want to measure teachers in their interactions with students and their learning, there is no way to do it objectively; you must tell the teacher’s story based on observation and evidence, starting with data such as how many hours did the administrator spend in the teacher’s classroom? How many minutes did the administrator spend talking to the teacher about his or her practice?”
And this:
“Performance data has its place in education, but it should not be our central operating principal. People and their learning are not subjects that can be represented best by numbers and test scores. Our goal in education is not to train students to take tests, after all; it is to help students develop into good citizens who can deal productively, effectively, and creatively with the complexities of modern society.”
And are you the Robin Johnston who passed along this little tidbit from Emily Dickinson?
“How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn’t care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.”
If you are NOT that Robin Johnston, then perhaps you can learn something from her.
If you ARE that Robin Johnston, then you’ve already written a potent critique of the Common Core.
Yes, I am that Robin Johnston, democracy.
The first two quotes you cite from my blog are a critique of the basis and process of teacher evaluations as I have experienced them and where they seem to be moving on a national level. I was pointing out that objective data can only reveal so much when it comes to evaluating people, relationships, and education—it leaves out vital components of a good teacher evaluation. I was not relating to CC content (and by that I mean the content of what teachers are supposed to teach to their students as stated in the curriculum on paper). Data was being misused with respect to teacher evaluations before CC ever appeared on the scene. In my experience, it has been a separate issue.
The second quote (the poem) from my blog that you cite was part of post critiquing a relatively new and very widely used practice of how to close the gap described in the DuFours, et. al. book Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap. The practice involves the use of a certain kind of Professional Learning Community, which in my district (and others), was leading to encouraging professional conformity rather than collaboration, and was based on denying teacher autonomy (among other things)and definitely lowering standards. If anything, CC Language Arts curricula would help correct ( I hoped) what I saw happening with respect to PLCs in my district.
And this leads to what was wrong with the curricula as it has developed over the last 30 years. Teaching LA was based on state curricula standards, yes, but even though those may have varied a good bit state to state, there were many trends that were influencing the quality of what kids were learning and that quality was definitely deteriorating in my view (more on this on my blog). Flawed as the CC may be, I had to agree (based on my experience) with the part of the rationale that stated students’ reading comprehension, especially with respect to complex works, had seriously declined. In fact, students were no longer being required to read much of anything that wasn’t on their independent level (which meant many were not reading any complex works or reading only “snippets”) and in many cases only works they chose themselves. This meant that in many LA classes, the bulk of the reading was independent, no tests were given to assess the comprehension, and the students were graded on their projects on their independent books or how many books they read, rather than on analyzing or appreciating the literary complexity or the thematic questions raised by it.
None of this was measured by our end of grade tests/standardized tests in LA, by the way. The standardized tests we took were reading tests: read a passage and answer the question, most of which are in the passage. They did not come anywhere near measuring what students were learning in an LA class with a teacher like Ms. Ratliff (see Diane’s post on this). So data measured in reports such as the ones you cite may well not have picked up on this decline, but some apparently did (see Diane’s book on American Ed—especially wrt catholic schools), and I was basing my critique not on any research but my own experience. Anyone reading this blog and Diane’s books knows research can show anything you want it to. I trusted my experience, however. I was in fact asked by my own principal to inflate my grades and lower my standards —that is real data for me.
The CC addresses these deficiencies by, like the Catholic schools mentioned in Diane’s book, expecting all students to be exposed to great complex works and their ideas, take part in meaningful discussions and analysis. It raises the standards of the content of the literature we teach by recommending we teach students how to appreciate works such as the Emily Dickinson poem you cited (i.e. complex works), and by recommending specific works that meet the criteria of good complex literature so teachers can’t get by with letting students read whatever they want and coloring a poster on it. These standards may have been embedded in some state curricula, but if so, they were being ignored. I have talked to teachers in a few other states, participated in PLCs, and as a veteran observed many classrooms; and I have witnessed the changes in expectations over the years myself. I was hoping that the good that may come of the CC would be a return to more rigorous, and more equitable, standards. I hope we don’t throw out that baby with the bath water.
@ Robin:
As I noted, you’ve already written a critique of the Common Core, whether you knew it at the time you wrote it, or not. Re-read it.
I’m sure your experiences are valuable, and informative. But generalizing from out own limited set of experiences is fraught with problems. You write that “data measured in reports” like the ones I cited “may well not have picked up” on the “decline” in reading and literacy that you see. Perhaps.
But the “reports” I cited are more than just a little bit compelling. The Sandia Report was an in-depth study by researchers at Sandia National Labs. Its conclusions pulled the rug out from under the fallacious claims made in A Nation at Risk (“rising tide of mediocrity,” our “national security” was “threatened’). And the World Economic Foundation competitiveness rankings are based on a sophisticated set of measures; the WEF reports consistently show that American public education is NOT the cause of economic problems in the U.S.
But all the “reformers” keep parroting the same debunked nonsense.
There are other reasons to contest the Common Core.
Diane Ravitch wrote this: ““They were developed by an organization called Achieve and the National Governors Association, both of which were generously funded by the Gates Foundation. There was minimal public engagement in the development of the Common Core. Their creation was neither grassroots nor did it emanate from the states.”
Look at who servies on the board of Achieve:
http://www.achieve.org/our-board-directors
Just to pick out a couple of members of that board: Dave Heineman is one of those who wants to cut taxes for corporations and increase then on regular citizens, and repeal the Affordable Care Act. And he wants to increase testing. Bill Haslam appointed former TFAer Kevin Huffman as education commissioner in Tennessee; both are in the bag for charters and vouchers. And Louis Gerstner has never had a kind word to say about public education.
It just so happens that Achieve is funded by groups like Battelle (which argues for STEM when there is no STEM shortage), the Gates Foundation, Boeing, GE, JPMorgan Chase, Intel, IBM, the Helmsley Foundation, DuPont, Cisco, Microsoft….many of these companies pay little or no taxes. You can read about Microsoft, just to pick one, here:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
None of the top business executives or politicians I’ve cited want any real discussion about poverty or its pernicious effects. They do not want a national discussion about income inequality. Instead, they point the finger at public schools. Very, very sad. And cowardly.
Michael P. Goldenberg summed up the Common Core issue nicely:
” 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.”
And that’s precisely what Common Core is, or will become: “meaningless data and phony accountability.”
[By the way, I agree with you about the DuFours. They’ve cashed in on NCLB and plan to do so with Common Core. in my view they may not be quite the charlatans that Michelle Rhee and Wendy Kopp are, but they’re not that far behind.]
FRom the Washington Post: “Tea party groups mobilizing against Common Core education overhaul..”http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-groups-rallying-against-common-core-education-overhaul/2013/05/30/64faab62-c917-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html Hell must be freezing over because for once, I agree with the Tea Baggers (but probably for different reasons), Common Core is a huge mistake and I would like to see the current Duncan led Ed Department dismantled.
This writer makes an excellent point. One that I could never have articulated so thoroughly. Leaders are the decision makers in any organization. It’s educational leadership that has contributed the most to the current state of affairs. From the national level, to state, to local, it’s only those hanging on the coat tails of those in power who move into leadership positions. Only those willing to play the game, only those willing to admire the emperor’s new clothes.
Funny thing about con artists — they never tell you the name of the game.
The name of the game here is “Control”, not “Curriculum”.
Frankly, the Corporate Core™ ropers and shills couldn’t care less what the content is, so long as the marks are dumb enough to fork over control of their professional goods.
and control of their livelihoods!
There is a basic, underlying scam that is the foundation for Common Core. The idea that we only know how well someone can perform a skill or understand a concept when we compare his progress to someone else’s progress is downright insulting. Anyone who is able to ride a bicycle knows he can do it. There was no need to look at the kid down the street, and, indeed, whether the kid down the street can ride a bicycle is totally irrelevant to the question. And if the kid can’t ride the bicycle, he needs help, not more testing, and not blame. When children learn their multiplication tables, there is no need to compare their progress to anyone else. In fact, a comparison to someone else is meaningless. Student A was better at multiplication tables than 99 percent of his peers is not as meaningful. Meaningful: which multiplication facts Student A knows, and which are still left to learn.
Well said Laura, “The idea that we only know how well someone can perform a skill or understand a concept when we compare his progress to someone else’s progress is downright insulting” It is absolutely insulting.
Comparing tests results and paying teachers accordingly and then not addressing the job crisis is absurd. Few college graduates get into the career they studied for.
My daughter did, but it was through persistence, lots of hard word, and ability, none of which is currently tested in these rigorous multiple choice tests.
My daughter is working in San Francisco as an Architect having graduated from UC Berkeley with honors having a internship and that internship hiring her.
I remember her saying to me that some of her fellow students who also had internships would not work at them as if they were real work, and instead would call in staying they had other plans.
She instead when asked to do 2 days of internship did 3 instead because she had the extra time.
In her class at UC Berkeley 2012 class of 150 students she was one of 3 who had secured a job in their field upon graduation.
A few of the students I teach in 2nd grade already have this drive, most don’t. I must also, and those parents who have this quality do too as it is seen in their students, but until they can find a test to determine drive, talent and persistence all of these tests are utterly useless.
In Washington State, the current 2013 graduation requirements for the first time in the history of our state, will deny a HS diploma to any student that has not passed the state math standard. I understand that many are not familiar with the Adverse Childhood Experiences….ACE Study on how stress impacts brain development and the student’s ability to learn. However, the research is solid that children growing up in toxic stress home environments, their brain is hardwired differently due to the constant adjustment to their stressful surroundings. For these students the part of the brain that is most impacted is that part of the brain that is needed to be able to understand abstract concepts……as in college ready math requirements.
For example, I know of a student with a 3.8 GPA, she has earned 15 college credits while being in high school, she volunteers as a mentor for an elementary student, and she has already been accepted into a four year university. Her family are survivors of trauma and this beautiful young lady has struggled with math all of her schooling. On a fixed income, her mom as sacrificed to see that she get a math tutor, but her brain just can’t grasp the abstract. She is being denied a high school diploma because she hasn’t been able to pass state math exam.
Her anxiety has reach such a level that she is vomiting, has fallen into a deep depression, and has had one trip to the ER with a temperature of 104. The doctor’s diagnosed the condition as stress induced. Her high school did not communicate with the parent nor put the necessary options in place for her to have other avenues to passing the standard.
I am a school principal fighting against such punitive policy and total lack of consideration of the many gifts our students have that shouldn’t be defined by one test. I am going to offend some of my peers, but when you hear about Principal Association supporting high stakes testing and Common Core, those are the principals that need to spend more time in their buildings and less time being involved with state associations that rub elbows with legislators. My Tate principal’s association signed their approval for the current grad requirements that as of right now will deny HS diplomas of 2000 students across our state. I never received a survey nor was I asked for feedback as a principal in our state. They spoke for all principals in state without asking for input. When I challenged them for not advocating for our kids and showing no leadership, I did not get a response.
Don’t put all administrators into the same category as the punitive policy makers that are attacking our teachers, our schools, administrators, but mostly their attacks are hurting our kids. Denying a diploma at the end of the race and having state forced dropouts is immorally wrong. This is the path we are heading down if we can’t top the insane tidal wave that is going to put more kids on the street and the tax payer is not going to be able to sustain paying the bill. Irresponsible recklessness with tax payers money to fail those who never dropped out, stayed the course, and then have their diploma plucked away just before they touch the ribbon at the finish line.
Thank you for being a school leader who understands that education is an individual experience and for getting to know your students as individuals. I trust your capable judgment and wish this kind of leadership for all our children and teachers!
Published yesterday in Milwaukee:
“Opposition to Common Core Defies Political Lines”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/opposition-to-common-core-standards-defies-political-lines-b9923523z1-209759881.html
Due to Common Core, English and math are taking over other disciplines:
http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2013/05/30/how-science-social-studies-teachers-are-transitioning-to-the-common-core/
Not sure to what degree teachers outside of English and math know that they will be pushed to incorporate The Standards.
See the curriculum narrow….
I sure do! I teach history and geography and every subject area in our district has had to go to a bunch of CC training already. It’s been excruciatingly boring and useless.
Louisiana Purchase, I am not a high school history and geography teacher, but they have been favorite subjects of mine. Unfortunately, ever since the advent of NCLB, and in fact over the last three or so years with more and more testing added to our curriculum both district and federal, I never have time to teach these two subjects. It’s been Math and Languages Arts, then more Math and more Language Arts..in the 2nd grade. I used to mix Art and Geography all the time…my forte.
Elin, I wish that teachers still had the flexibility to mix subjects. I have kids coming into the 8th grade without any real knowledge of Columbus, because in elementary school they never get a chance for social studies. It’s so frustrating.
My last one, originally from August 2012:
“This [CCSS] was done with insufficient public dialogue or feedback from experienced educators, no research, no pilot or experimental programs — no evidence at all that a floor-length list created by unnamed people attempting to standardize what’s taught is a good idea.
“It’s a bad idea. Ignore the fact that specific Common Core State Standards will open up enough cans of worms to keep subject-matter specialists arguing among themselves forever.”
Here’s the rest:
“Eight Problems with Common Core Standards”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/21/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html
These so called leaders and their Chamberlain like capitulation to corporate reform are pathetic. It’s a sad day when those in the trenches have a better view of the battle and a better grasp of strategy and tactics than their out of touch leadership. While slowing down implementation may allow the actual causes of the inevitable CCSS failure to be more easily seen, giving in to the other toxic parts of reform are less desirable than forcing the reformers to stand in the corner they have painted themselves into with the failure of their other policies. Real education leaders should not volunteer to share ownership of corporate reform failures, going along to get along.
This is the way to do it! In New York – “We need to return to what has worked in previous years. Government should not be tinkering with the education experience of our children, while ignoring the voices of the professionals in the classroom.”
Petition to withdraw from Race to the Top:
http://www.fixnyschools.com/petition/
Sorry, I know this is off topic. The following was in this morning’s Arizona Republic. http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130529cent-per-dollar-sales-tax-expires-leaves-mixed-legacy.html?nclick_check=1
I’m thinking this was a bait and switch maneuver as the article says. Some of the legislators and the Governor make it sound as though all is well when we all know it isn’t. Arizona public schools are struggling with the funding they receive. This year will be one of the worst. The Title I schools again will not have the money to test learning disabled students or help students with emotional and/or behavior problems. They won’t have enough social workers or counselors to help the over-populated student body. They won’t be able to offer parenting classes or language classes for parents. I’m thinking this was all done in AZ to help along the demise of public schools. What do you all think?
Dottie,
Was unable to open the az republic article. What did it say?
Sorry, I think this link will work. Scroll down to the title 1-cent-dollar sales tax expires, leaves mixed legacy by Mary Jo Pitzl. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Let me know if doesn’t work again, and I will summarize. Thanks.
Diane, Here’s the gist:
“the sales tax, passed as Proposition 100, leaves a mixed legacy that will be debated as the state moves ahead without the $900 million a year the tax generated.
After bruising budget reductions in 2009 and early 2010, the temporary tax took effect and shielded education, health services and public safety from additional cuts. It pumped $2.7 billion into those programs over three years.
But it also allowed the state to accumulate a surplus of more than $700 million this budget year, as well as make a $450 million deposit to the “rainy-day fund” — money that could have been used to reverse the earlier education cuts. Instead, K-12 education spending dropped from 53.5 percent of the state general fund, in fiscal 2008, to 43.9 percent in fiscal 2013.
While the temporary tax money flowed in, lawmakers and Gov. Jan Brewer started to phase in a $538 million tax-cut package, with the biggest cuts yet to take effect.
As a result, some voters and education advocates say the tax turned out to be a bait and switch, subsidizing fiscal maneuvers that voters didn’t sanction….
Glenn Hamer, chairman and chief executive officer of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said tax cuts are helping the economy rebound by attracting more jobs to the state. The cuts include a reduction in the corporate income tax, enhanced tax credits for investment and capital-gains cuts for small business. Education, he contended, is not suffering from lower spending, saying it’s a false argument to equate higher spending with improved academic achievement.”
http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130529cent-per-dollar-sales-tax-expires-leaves-mixed-legacy.html
This is just more from the conservative and corporate playbook, is it not?
Unless and until we again realize thet there is a bell curve, of sorts, for every endeavor in our lives, there will be no common sense. The biggest mistake has been in believing that the bell curve is static. Another mistake is in thinking that the bell curve transfers from one topic to another. No one is great at everything, let alone all the time. This bizarre idea of human efficiency all the time is unhealthy physically, mentaly, spiritually, and intellectually. Pie in the sky. No recognition of humanity or compassion. It is ridiculous!
If we want ALL kids to learn, and we institute a normal distribution (bell curve), and set up a testing system based on that distribution, then, obviously, we don’t really want all kids to learn.
“Unless and until we again realize thet there is a bell curve, of sorts, for every endeavor in our lives, there will be no common sense.”
B.E. (bovine excrement). The concept of a bell curve as used currently in standardized testing results in much harm to far too many students. The bell curve does not have anything to do with common sense, quite the opposite.
With all due appreciation of Duane Swaker’s expert ability to detect crap, he does not respond to deb’s observation that descriptively all phenomena distribute along a bell curve. THAT is just a fact. What happens in classrooms and on tests is that a teacher compels whatever distribution of performance scores she has to comply with a bell curve, thus guaranteeing that some on the left hand tail will get E’s and some on the right had tail will get A’s regardless of whether the top scores meet any specific criterion of competence. That is the abuse, and one which the CCSS proponents claim their testing regimen will make apparent and by teaching to those “high” standards” will eventually correct.
I believe deb is right is saying one can never escape the normal curve, but I also agree that the average can be moved to the right, toward scores that actually coincide with actual competence. The whole population can be moved up, even though there will still be a normal curve for the scores. Ideally one would hope that there would be a bit of a “hump” above the average, so that a larger number of the scores will be to the left than a strict normal curve would show. There will still be a left hand tail of D’s and E’s, but with good students AND good teaching we should be able to get over 50% of students at or above C level.
Well, Mr. Swacker, I will stop reading or responding to anything you say, since you have lowered yourself to using insulting terms that have nothing to do with my response. You can just shut your face. You are not even trying to comprehend what I was attempting to say.
Of course, people can “move up” on the distribution along a bell curve. The shape of the curve can change, but there will always be those who are at either end, with a vast majority of people in the middle areas. Always. In any area, from race car driving to cooking to hair dressing to walking to building a tower to making coffee to weight level to math to science to reading to writing to typing to … anything one wants to discuss … and also to kindness.
Oh, come on, deb. Cut the Swaker a little tonal slack. Being insulted is a choice we all make. You sound like an old fashioned lady who is offended when the town crazy farts in church. I agree that Duane may be confusing the normal curve as a descriptor with the norming so many misguided people think the must impose on a set of scores. All of my students met solid levels of minimum competency, yet sets of tests always showed a distribution. Am I supposed to fail those in the left hand tail? Hell, no. Duane is actually on to something abusive in the application in education of normal curves to distributions that don’t warrant them. That is our problem, teachers’ problems, acting like Procrustes. It is false science, something that’s plagued teaching since before I was born. It isn’t personal. It’s just anger at injustice. More power to him. Just let him explain his attitudes clearly and fully.
Public education in the United States is a foundational cornerstone of the perpetually rejuvenated illusion of democratic governance. A government of capital, for capital, by capital has nothing to do with democratic governance. Citizens United, Patriot Act/Home Land Security, Game of Drones, removed the need for keeping the social hierachy
(status) of the State Function ( K-12) intact. Labor has been conquered, State K-12 is next. Until we have the wit to recognize the Left wing and the Right wing are of the same vulture (Capital) we will remain divided and conquered. Until we recognize the jobs and tax base (funding) follow purchases, our/your economy is in peril. Until we recognize the contradiction between professed values and deeds, we will remain a subserviant herd.
By the way, my Wife was a teacher and my Brother is a teacher.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16651-noam-chomsky-on-democracy-and-education-in-the-21st-century-and-beyond
Please read Noam Chomsky – often interviewed in Truth-Out.org. He also takes a stand against testing and “dumbing down” – one of the most dangerous and insidious threats in 21st. Cent. education in the US.
This comment is “SPOT ON” because even if the principle of common core were wonderful (not saying it is), it all depends on implementation, And if it becomes yet another top-down means of control (and I have every reason to suspect it will) teachers will be counting pages of literature to calculate percentages of fiction vs non-fiction to make sure the are in compliance! If teachers are given freedom to teach and common core were to enable this freedom, this would be a different story. This is just not the case with any program initiated by “corporate ed reformers”… Anyone without real education experience HAS NO BUSINESS creating education policy and if they do create policy THE PUBLIC OUGHT TO BE HIGHLY SKEPTICAL!
This is like saying Catholic priests have no business creating contraception or abortion policy because they aren’t married. That would seem to be patently false. Would you disagree artseagal? Granted that the CCSS policies may be “bad,” but if they are so it is not because their creators are non-teachers. The more I see them attacked here, the more I begin to wonder whether there might not be something to them. As pure standards, they might be quite acceptable. What is distressing is that part of the program seems to be individualized data tracking of a kid from Pre-School through grad school. One worries that such data, combined with government possession of our medical records, might lead to denial of treatment of people whom the state deems intellectually deficient, or in some cases, politically unreliable. I wouldn’t have imagined such a thing to be possible until the news broke that the IRS had specifically targeted Tea Party groups to delay the tax exempt status applications. Just because a liberal administration is in power at the moment, doesn’t mean that the inverse of contemporary politically correct standards might not be applied. Then we’ll be like the Shia fighting the Sunni in Syria. Assad has to win or he knows his tribe will be wiped out. The Rebels know they have to win, or they and their supporters will be exterminated. It’s bad enough already here in that one can hardly get admitted to a graduate English program at most universities without being in sympathy with the entire radical liberal agenda from abortion on demand to gay marriage forced on churches. That’s why I view Scott Walker’s push to expand vouchers in Wisconsin as a healthy effort, because it gets public unions staffed public school systems out of people’s lives. They once were useful instruments of the middle classes, but, of course, they were largely segregated. Where school systems do not have to deal with the lower 20% of the school population, they are still useful. But to guard against further liberal indoctrination in the public schools (they call it “critical thinking”), it’s best to increase choice as much as possible, in my view. All teachers who love freedom as much as they do their union jobs should get behind the dissolution of the public schools movement in the interests of reducing the presence of government in the lives of individuals.
https://www.inbloom.org/in-the-news This is the group generating a ton of controversy about the data collection that’s now going on. Again, not a part of the move for CCSS, but something that needs to be critiqued on its own.
I should have thought that educated educators would have learned a little from Dewey — among a host of others philosophers and practitioners — that process is every bit as important as product.
So there is sufficient reason to criticize the Corporate Core™ solely on the basis of the suspect process and the usual suspects among its producers that went into its production.
But more than that, the advertisers of this product are asking the lower tiers of distributers and the bottom tier of consumers to participate in a process that fails to meet the norms of professional practice and that none of them has any reason to trust.
Ad hominem criticisms are fallacious only when they invoke irrelevant features of the person being criticized. There is nothing unreasonable about suspecting the judgment of promoters who operate under conflicts of interest.