The law specifically prohibits the U.S. Department of Education from interfering or directing curriculum or instruction.* There must be a hole in that law big enough to drive a truck through, and drive the Obama administration did.
As we all know, the Obama administration used the $5 billion in Race to the Top funding, and its power (contested) to issue waivers, to push, prod, and bribe states into “voluntarily” abandoning their own standards and adopting the untried Common Core standards. Some states dropped weak standards, some dropped better standards that had proved their worth.
Secretary Duncan says these standards will make everyone “college and career ready.” The nation’s major corporations agree. So do the nation’s two big teachers’ unions.
But how do they know what the effect of the Common Core standards will be?
We know that they cause a dramatic decline in test scores. Their boosters say that is great, great news, couldn’t be better. Making the tests harder, they say, will make everyone smarter, and soon everyone will be college and career ready. But how do they know? Where is the evidence?
What if they are wrong?
*SEC. 9527. PROHIBITIONS ON FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND USE OF FEDERAL FUNDS.
(a) GENERAL PROHIBITION- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an officer or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct, or control a State, local educational agency, or school’s curriculum, program of instruction, or allocation of State or local resources, or mandate a State or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act.
(b) PROHIBITION ON ENDORSEMENT OF CURRICULUM- Notwithstanding any other prohibition of Federal law, no funds provided to the Department under this Act may be used by the Department to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in an elementary school or secondary school.
(c) PROHIBITION ON REQUIRING FEDERAL APPROVAL OR CERTIFICATION OF STANDARDS-
(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal law, no State shall be required to have academic content or student academic achievement standards approved or certified by the Federal Government, in order to receive assistance under this Act.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane,
Many of us have raised questions of legality about many Obama/Duncan education policies, starting with Race to the Top. Are there any lawsuits brewing that you know of, regarding RttT or the Common Core? Anyone of weight looking to bring such a suit? With all the idiotic, money-wasting “inquiries” that the GOP and Tea Party types have been pursuing to try to impeach or discredit Obama, here we have something of undeniable substance and significance that doesn’t seem to be getting any Congressional action that I know of.
Is this just evidence that the political games being played are a lot of empty chest-thumping? That the “fix” is in when it comes to education and that both parties are owned by Pearson, et al.? It’s really quite puzzling to me.
Very interesting question. If I had time, I’d look into it, but you should be able to find out just by using Google. I would imagine nobody’s brought a suit like that to date. I can’t remember the specifics off the top of my head, but apart from the text of the law posted above by Diane, there are constitution limitations (and well-developed law) on how much the Feds can coerce state action through conditional funding. With regard to the law above, the merits of a challenge likely would involve precise definitions of the words “required,” “academic content,” “student academic achievement standards,” “approved” and “certified.” (This is why people with graduate degrees in English Lit often make good lawyers.) And there always the thing question of standing. Who must the plaintiff be? Surely a state, but what other parties?
It’s interesting that you say English lit. grads often make good lawyers. I’ve always felt the best way to make kids read was via introducing things that would grab their interest, and that if you could somehow hook them, they’d be able to plod through anything. I suppose legal papers must be very dry indeed.
This thinking is precisely the opposite of Common Core, which would make kids read a great deal of non-fiction so as to prepare them for college, or to read train schedules with more pinpoint accuracy, or whatever the geniuses behind it envision.
You certainly couldn’t expect anyone to achieve literacy by having them read contracts or statutes or even legal briefs. And there’s a reason you have to pay lawyers. Nobody’s going to read or write that stuff for free. But people will actually pay money to read Keats and Dickens. And if you can do a great close reading of a Keats poem, and present it in an argumentative essay, then you can read and argue about a statute.
k-12 students, their parents.
So right on!
“. . . here we have something of undeniable substance and significance. . . ”
Talk about “something of undeniable substance (although they sure have the deniable part down through “states secret” nonsense) and significance. Surely the ordering of the cold blooded murder (through chickenshit means of a drone attack) of an American (sic) 16 year old qualifies as significant (not to mention the 16 year old’s seventeen year old cousin). No court proceedings, no warrant, no judicial review, just the Obomber’s decision and mandate. Obama should be on death row right now.
Duncan should have been impeached for RttT, for it was a direct violation of the will of Congress.
Of course Congress is mostly in the tank for the privatizers, so they didn’t both to exploit such an obvious opportunity.
I meant “bother.”
Has anybody read the CC standards for social studies? If this is progress, we’re in trouble. If you are going to set national standards, these directions are incredibly vague.
Remember the story about the blind men and the elephant? I’m with E.D. Hirsch Jr. on this one. Spell out exactly what you want students to learn, not just give directions.
The Next Generation Science Standards aren’t much better. Even Fordham University only gave them a C-.
Alabama Teacher, the ranking on the science standards came from the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute in DC, not Fordham University, a Catholic university in NYC.
Yeah, the social studies standards stink (try to say THAT five times). When I mentioned how awful they were on another site, I was told that I should be “following my state’s standards for content” and the CC for process. Pretty convoluted, if you ask me.
But never fear! I hear rumors that CC social studies standards will be out in a year or two. Yay (sarcasm for all of this last paragraph)!
Can someone please forward this to Dick, Randi & Mike????
Just send it care of the Gates and Broad Foundations: they’ll be sure to get it then.
Hahaha…
And then throw it in the trash. Bill only reads information/opinions if the position agrees with Bill.
This is all so $%#& frustrating! All that money wasted on testing, testing, testing that could have been used to feed and educate kids, fix up schools in need of repair, and dare I say keep teachers in the classroom (of course, in Rheeformy world, any kind of positive for teachers isn’t putting kids first is it?). Some day, I hope to see the reform movement in the ground, with a headstone that doesn’t say “Here Lies…,” but “Hear Lies…,” with all the innuendo that the change in spelling implies.
“Here lies are laid to rest”
good one!
There’s NO evidence to show Texans are smarter as a result of the state’s misadventures with Pearson’s high-stakes tests since 1979.
https://classes.lt.unt.edu/Spring_2010/CECS_5420_020/lao0041/Assign%203/index.html
I don’t think we even need to ask “What if?” anymore. We should be asking, “What Now?”
Holy shit. Does the law mean nothing to the DOE? Or the Obama Administration? We seem to be headed toward a plutocracy no matter what political choices we make! Amazing!
Yup!
Indeed, the law means nothing to the DOE. It is lawless. It has run amok.
NO and NO!!!
And we are already living in a fascist oligarchic plutocracy.
The carrot$ were dangled and the states bit . There is no proof that any of this works. The CCLS were written by non-educators and never tested or put under the microscope. NYS had good standards that were given up. Children were tested with invalid tests and are now told they and their teachers are failures. This is a crime. And we can’ t afford or find the lawyers to refute the loopholes so well set up by ” the big boys.” If there is. Parents and teachers are waiting to work with you.
The legal questions are interesting, but I’m wondering about ethical standards regarding children.
If the children weren’t given the material, it seems to me to be ethically dicey to test them on it at all. In what way were these individual children benefitted by their work on this test? Can state and federal leaders use children’s efforts purely for data collection; a baseline score, if that was the purpose? If that wasn’t the purpose, was this political, to further the reform narrative?
Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin ethics!!
Here is our answer, Jen
Say what???
Let me make sure I’m following this. Are you saying that:
1. NAEP’s second-level, the “proficient” level, is a very high level of achievement, equivalent to an A.
2. NY State (and Bloomberg) are treating level “3” as an indicator of “proficiency” and thus anything below a “3” as “not proficient,” i.e. “failing.” And this is bad because “proficient” is really equivalent to an A, and a B+ shouldn’t be treated as “failing.”
I think I got those two right, but maybe not.
In any event, my question is, are the NY scoring levels (1, 2, 3, and 4) *actually* aligned with the NAEP scoring levels (call them 1, 2, and 3)? If so, what’s the correlation? It sounds like you’re saying that a “3” on the NY state test would translate to *at least* a “2” on NAEP. Would a “4” on the NY state test translate to a “3” on NAEP? Or is the NAEP’s level “3” more narrow than that (you say only 3-8% of students get a “3” on the NAEP test)?
FLERP!
It really doesn’t matter what the cut scores are, what the names of the various categories are whether with letter grades which are supposed to be short hand for something whatever the hell that “something” is (and “something” is never adequately defined), nor how these various designations from different assessments coincide or correlate or not.
The primary problem (the PP as it were) is the fact that none of these assessments and their results have any logical validity nor reliability as shown by Noel Wilson in “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
There has been no refutation/rebuttal of Wilson’s work. The TRUTH of what he has elucidated (much to the dismay of the psychometricians, test pushers-and yes those tests are like drugs-and edudeformers) cannot be denied. And in continuing to use these nefarious instruments of educational malpractice we continue to cause harm to many innocents so that the banality of evil continues unabatedly.
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms shit in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Heads up! Mike Petrilli calls for charter schools get a free pass on Common Core testing:
“But I would also argue that there might be, say, 10 percent of the schools for whom the Common Core, or any state standards, may not be a good fit, and states should be open to allowing them to opt out of the regular accountability system.
Which schools belong in this 10 percent? First, some schools of choice (including charter schools and magnet schools)—particularly those on the far progressive end of the spectrum—fundamentally don’t believe in testing as a great measure of what kids need to know and be able to do. Their educational approach is not a good fit with standards-based reform.”
http://educationnext.org/why-the-%E2%80%98opt-out%E2%80%99-is-not-a-cop-out/
Why aren’t the traditional public schools in that 10%? He keeps changing his tune to fit the newest scandal. Sleazy guy.
Because 10% would encompass the 5% of charter schools + a few % points for growth and probably parochial schools.
So we’ve come to the end-game. Charters announce they want NO accountability what-so-ever but that public schools should be OK with this system.
How on earth does he make this argument without reaching the end conclusion that maybe Public Schools shouldn’t be included in this either.
I don’t understand how charters went from being centers of innovation to union-less non-accountable individual institutions beholden to a private organization.
I’d go so far as to agree that maybe charters should be allowed to spend money differently to try to get different outcomes than public schools (which is the main place where I see public schools stifled – rigid spending lines). Otherwise, you have administrations in public schools with the same goals as charters.
But when it comes time to evaluate, charters are ALREADY playing on a slanted play field – and now that they’re coming up short – now they should be allowed off the field? How would we know that “charters are working” and teaching children as they should?
What alternative should their be that solely applies to charters and CAN’T apply to public schools but that is still fair (if indeed any of these metrics are fair at all).
Does Petrelli have any principles? When results don’t confirm his uninformed opinions (charter schools, charter schools charter schools!!!!! choice,choice, choice!!!!) he twists himself into pretzels to justify his uninformed opinion.
Public schools don’t fit in standards based reform either. Where’s his loophole for them?
Almost all of the arguments that can be directed against the Common Core (and there are many of these, and they are quite strong) can be directed, as well, at the state standards that preceded the Common Core. There are people who actually believe that standards do not distort curricula, but of course that is not true. Anyone who has worked in curriculum development for an educational publishing house knows how much these standards drive what he or she does, often for the worse. A curriculum designer needs to be able to think in terms of desirable outcomes for a particular course of study in order to do his or her best work. Predetermined curricula and standards greatly inhibit curricular innovation, and one-size-fits-all curricula and standards greatly inhibit adaptation of curricula and pedagogy to particular students and their needs.
Correct, Mr. Shepherd.
Current state law in Michigan requires teachers to link standards to every lesson plan. The standards and the curriculum are not separate things but rather closely related.
The whole point of creating standards is to have them drive curricula and pedagogy, and its completely disingenuous for the deformers to argue otherwise.
I spent far too much time flipping through state standards, making sure my lesson plans were linked to them, and listing them on each and every lesson plan. Fortunately, I did not have to write them out. No administrator would have admitted that they had no idea what standard LAI.A.2b was.
“(and there are many of these, and they are quite strong) ”
No doubt and the one that supercedes all is Noel Wilson irrefutable study mentioned above in my reply to FLERP!.
Until we attack the standards and testing beastly regime at its heart and rip it out we will continue to wallow in the discourse of the edudeformers.
And no, there isn’t a rationally, logically correct way to use standards and standardized testing. It’s all based on falsehoods disguised in the form of psychometrics. Remember psychometrics = phrenology = eugenics = blood letting.
The comparison of the phony psychometrics used to justify these tests to phrenology and eugenics is apt. All are junk science.
Again you seem to be blending the issues of the curriculum, the federal governments role in it, the tests, and the accountability attached to them. Those are four different issues and it’s important to identify where exactly the problem is. I think the math Common Core is pretty good. And it’s not even that different from what came before with NCTM’s standards (though it’s more prescriptive) and many sets of state standards.
I agree with the statements about the government’s role in all of this. Don’t forget it started in the Bush administration with NCLB, but it has been ramped up by the current admin.
If they want to raise the bar on expectations (and then assessments), that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We have fallen behind the rest of the world. But to be successful it needs to be phased in. Suddenly telling a generation of students that they are not good enough will not help anything. And you do raise great questions about the compatibility with NAEP.
Add to that the fact that the accountability hawks have the goal of destroying public education by making schools look bad, and they can use the lower test scores to do that. But I hate to see the standards themselves take the heat for other issues.
I am not convinced that we have fallen behind the rest of the world.
Alan, you are right. We have not fallen behind the rest of the world. That is propaganda. Read my chapter on the international test scores. The evidence is clear.
Math CC is one thing, as a standard for social studies they are vague and open to interpretation. That’s my concern. That and the idea that ALL students must perform at “college ready” levels.
Does anybody read E.D. Hirsch and Core Knowledge?
The Core Knowledge Sequence is interesting (and controversial) because it is based upon the notion that instruction should be in particular “core” cultural knowledge rather than on skills in the abstract.
WEIRDLY, the Core Knowledge Foundation has endorsed the Common Core even though its founder, Dr. Hirsch, has spent decades trying to get people to understand that instruction should be directed toward world knowledge (knowledge of what and how) rather than toward abstract skills. See, for example, Dr. Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and The Knowledge Deficit, both of which deal with this very question.
Dr. Hirsch has made this the theme of many of his books and polemical essays, and now his foundation has endorsed a set of standards that, in ELA at least, perfectly embodies EVERYTHING THAT HE HAS ARGUED AGAINST FOR YEARS.
Petrilli is backtracking today
quote: “First, some schools of choice (including charter schools and magnet schools)—particularly those on the far progressive end of the spectrum—fundamentally don’t believe in testing as a great measure of what kids need to know and be able to do. Their educational approach is not a good fit with standards-based reform.”
Mr. Petrilli: Since they came out badly in NYC you want them to not be measured by the standard you hold for public schools? I posted this on the Fordham’s lackey site at Education Next and they will purge it within 45 minutes.
I pointed out this item on another blog post here. Measurements are good until they reveal weaknesses that they don’t want revealed. When the Detroit News (highly conservative newspaper) ran an article about the poor quality of the city’s charter high schools, policy makers were quick to say that those metrics aren’t the be-all end-all.
Hypocrisy defined.
Jean Sanders, the “no-excuses” charter schools did not do well on the NY Common Core tests, except for Eva Moskowitz. The others got lower scores than the much maligned public schools.
I graduate school, the only passing grades were A and B.
Is third grade now more “rigorous” than grad school?
I’m surprised that some of the nuts in Congress haven’t used this law to attempt an indictment or impeachment.
They can’t. They would lose all their campaign funding.
One criticism of the Common Core that does not apply to the state standards that the CCSS replaces is, of course, the genetic one. Clearly, Secretary Duncan has acted outside the law. That’s why defenders of the CCSS called them “state” standards to begin with, and that’s why they never miss and opportunity to say that these were NOT developed by the feds. What the secretary did, of course, is that he came up with an equivocation–an argument that would enable him to claim that he was acting within the letter of the law even though he was clearly violating its intent.
“What the secretary did, of course, is that he came up with an equivocation–an argument that would enable him to claim that he was acting within the letter of the law even though he was clearly violating its intent.”
Duncan is the master of equivocation.
Aside from the fact that Obama and his administration and friends pushed Common Core on us in such a way that could probably be challenged if we had the money and lawyers to do it, (Maybe someone could take up a Stop Common Core collection on Pay Pal!) my biggest concern is that the curriculum itself is not developmentally appropriate. Are there any readers of this blog that recall learning about prepositions and prepositional phrases in kindergarten and first grade? How many of you wrote an organized paragraph with a topic sentence, details and a closing sentence in first grade?
I did neither, yet I I was some how successful in college and do not seem to be experiencing difficulty with my teaching career. Whether I taught them as first or second graders, my students seem to do fine the next year (both on their report cards and test scores)…even ones who move to a different school (but keep in touch with me).
The early childhood grades have been on the receiving end of pushed down curriculum for years now. I worry that more and more of these young students are going to end up too stressed out and hating school early on. Then, there really will be a concern about college and career readiness.
Marc Tucker said the goals were more aspirational than developmental. We should aspire to have our kids (fill in the blank).
But aspirational goals aren’t real goals. I use my golf game as a hypothetical example. I am a 15 handicap. I aspire to be under a 5 handicap. Given my age, athletic ability and talent level, those aren’t developmental. I go to a USGA teaching pro. The USGA requires the pro to get to my aspirational goal. He sees that I cannot drive the ball over 250 yards routinely and that my age will shorten my driving distance in the future. With his instruction, I improve to a 10 handicap. He is still viewed as a failure and so am I.
Makes sense in Bizarro world I suppose.
ACLU and Common Cause: Where are you? If I had the money, I’d file lawsuits myself.
Imagine that you are setting out to write a grammar and composition textbook for ninth-grade students. Now consider two scenarios. In one, you can bring to bear on your task the full weight of all that you know about teaching kids how to write–the whole history of rhetoric and composition practice, the latest research, your own innovations, etc., without restriction. In another, the most important thing about your task is that your product prepare students to meet, on high-stakes tests, a set of writing standards prepared by people who HAVE NOT DONE ALL THAT HARD WORK to figure out how best to teach writing. Suppose that you think, as I do, that good writers have internalized via induction and interpellation thousands and thousands of schemata for very specific formal “plays” in the “game” of writing and you develop a program on that basis, potential users of the program will say, “Where is all this stuff in the standards?” And then they will adopt the program that “follows” the standards more closely–the one that is a curriculum that looks like an outline provided by those standards. A set of standards is not a curriculum, but in practice, standards distort curriculum development and are mistaken for curricular outlines.
Robert,
You get the “big word of the day” award as designated by a young (36ish), tattooed, muscular, Harely riding, mud truckin electrician, blackberry wine making, country boy neighbor (lives a couple of miles down the gravel road) of mine. He uses the term a bit facetiously and has a tendency to “catch” me using a “big word of the day”.
“interpellation”. Had to look that one up! From freedictionary.com:
In`ter`pel`la´tion n. .
1. The act of interpelling or interrupting; interruption.
2. The act of interposing or interceding; intercession.
Accepted by his interpellation and intercession.
– Jer. Taylor.
3. An act of interpellating, or of demanding of an officer an explanation of his action; imperative or peremptory questioning; a point raised in a debate.
4. A official summons or citation.
I was using the word, Duane, with Louis Althusser’s meaning, to refer to the process by which we acquire beliefs and presumptive knowledge, without our being aware of it, because those beliefs and that knowledge are assumed or implied by the culture in which we are raised. So, for example, if you see a poster that says “Uncle Sam Wants You,” that poster takes for granted that you want to be wanted by Uncle Sam and subtlety teaches people that wanting to be wanted by Uncle Sam is normal, is a default setting. It’s the fact that this learning is implicit that makes it interpellation in Althusser’s sense.
Interpellation. What a wonderful word! My spell check does not like it. I just spent fifteen minutes researching vocabulary to philosophers and philosophy. My own take: assumptions we make because of ubiquitous usage. Thank you, Robert, for the mental exercise.
Robert,
Thanks for the Althusser reference. Sounds very similar to Foucault’s subjectivization.
Any suggested readings of Althusser I should check out?
Thanks,
Duane
The government is like the rich private sector. Want our money play by our rules. Laws be dammed.
I agree that the math Common Core is better than the ELA and that it is not much different from the NCTM standards and some of the state standards supplanted by it. However, even in math, where outcomes can be more clearly delineated (the student can either add fractions with unlike denominators or she can’t), it’s better to have competing voluntary standards so that one can benefit from the innovation that occurs when different groups rethink and improve upon those standards. One sort of rethinking would cast doubt on whether the outcomes we’re striving for (e.g., ability to do beginning algebra with proficiency on graduation from high school) are desirable for all students.
The math standards are better written than the ELA standards, but they are not that great! I would have loved being able to get credit for being able to explaining how I got my answers in math. I struggled with math from fourth grade on up after my fourth grade teacher had us do fifth grade math because it was a 4th/5th combined class. Besides struggling with it, I also made lots of careless mistakes. A lot of times, my answers on math tests were wrong. But I could explain how I got them! In real life, I don’t think that my bank would care if I could explain how I came tot he conclusion that I could afford to make a purchase when in reality, the funds weren’t really in the account; I’d made an error in my subtraction. I think that it is a good thing that I know how to subtract! I also wish that I was better with going between fractions/percentages/decimals; this is missing in Common
Core. Finally, there are a lot of parents who will make sure that their young child knows coins and can count basic things like pennies, nickles and dimes, but not everyone. Since money is not even introduced in math until second grade now, I wonder how many kids won’t even know the difference between a penny/nickel/dime/quarter until they are in 2nd grade at ages 7 and 8.
Actually, the Common Core “State” Standards in Mathematics give a lot of space to understanding the equivalence of fractions, percentages, ratios, and proportions, and to decimal representations of these. My problem with the CCSS in mathematics is that I think that mathematics instruction should be approached entirely differently because for as long as we’ve had schools in this country, we’ve been approaching doing math instruction in a way that is not developmentally appropriate. Most adults in this country are effectively innumerate because they immediately forget what they were forced to learn in K-12, as one commonly does other traumatic experiences. There was a recent study that showed that 60% of adults Americans couldn’t calculate a 10% tip even though all they had to do was move the decimal place!!!! That sort of long-term outcome is due to the fact that we are approaching math instruction in the wrong way. What we MOSTLY teach kids, early on, about math is that a) it’s difficult, b) it’s boring, and c) it’s useless for any end that is meaningful to them. They fail and fail and fail early on and learn to HATE math or to think of it as a necessary evil like death and taxes. I believe that we should DELAY formal math instruction considerably until the parts of the prefrontal cortex that do abstract reasoning are more fully developed and that in preparation for that, we should have kids doing LOTS of PLAY with pattern recognition and puzzles and problem solving to develop the fluid intelligence networks in their brains that will be used, later on, for math, when the abstract reasoning apparatus necessary for UNDERSTANDING math is in place. In other words, we can help the neurological development to occur using those sorts of fluid intelligence activities. See Richard Nisbett’s Intelligence and How to Get It for more on early fluid intelligence training. As it is, we are asking kids to do stuff for which they do not have the tools. It’s as though we were asking them to turn a Phillips screw with a butter knife. I’m convinced that if math were the sanctum to which the child was initiated after having done years of preparatory fluid intelligence play, that that child would learn much, much more, then, in a year or two than she now does in 12 years of instruction and, importantly, she would care about what she was learning. See “The Mathematician’s Lament” by Paul Lockhart.
You certainly are not alone in your despair over fractions,percents, and decimals. As a special ed teacher, I have watched years of confused 5-6 graders end up as clueless high schoolers. Believe me, the confusion was not limited to special ed students. It is only through teaching these concepts myself that I now feel confident. The old way of teaching math relied on a student’s ability interpellate the relationship between concepts, hence the emphasis on rote memorization. (Does that work, Robert?)
Hey, 2o2t, you’re getting all “continental” on us now-French post modernist?
For the sake of argument, let’s assume the narrative is true: Nationally, our schools are failing. If true, then the Common Core is designed to be a set of rules and accountability to avoid a public education national disaster.
If one argues the Common Core will help public education avoid a disaster, then one must also argue that the Common Core will bring about mediocrity. Rules and accountability schemes, when used as fixes to avoid failure, instead of creativity and local input, have always replaced the potential for disaster with mediocrity.
John, when the international tests are corrected for the socioeconomic status of the students taking them, the U.S. scores at the top or very near the top. There is good recent research showing that this is so.
But you probably already knew that! : )
But yes, “Rules and accountability schemes, when used as fixes to avoid failure, instead of creativity and local input, have always replaced the potential for disaster with mediocrity.” That is exactly the case.
The Common Core are inanimate. They can neither prevent, nor bring about, nor help anything.
They are an arbitrary set of concept statements that someone decided every person in the US needs to know at the same time frame (13 years), at the same ages (5-18), and in the same grades (K-12) to succeed.
If we consider the dept & breadth and diversity of intelligence in just the US alone, the notion that we need the common core to succeed is absurd.
States adopted CC voluntarily and they can leave voluntarily–there’s no Hotel California provision. The K-12 portion of Race to the Top is long gone, and the money that was used to “coerce” the states into adopting CC amounts to about 0.7% of what we spend on public K-12 education annually.
You’ll have some pretty strange bedfellows if you oppose “Obamacore”: plenty of the pure market-reform crowd, not to mention those who think it’s a UN/communist/black ops plot to cripple America.
“States” adopted these? Let’s pry that word “states” open a bit and see what it refers to, shall we?
Legislators who aren’t experts in education were told that a) they would lose a LOT of funding if they didn’t adopt these and b) that the experts believed them to be necessary.
I just recently had a legislator in my state tell me that he feels like the legislature was “duped” into signing off on the standards, and wouldn’t vote on them today. He actually suggested a large group of teachers refuse to teach the standards.
“Obamacore”. That’s a good one, gotta run with it. Obamacorp, Arnecore, Duncacorn, Can o corn, Can a core, Core a can, Core a care, Care a crap. That’s it: I don’t “care a crap” for the Common Core Whores!!!
Those “strange bedfellows” are, indeed, a diverse crowd, but they share in common a distaste for tyrannical, top-down mandates.
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch for clarifying which school I was referring to. I meant the one that you stated…Thomas B. Fordham Institue which I incorrectly called University. I am learning something new everyday; I somehow was not aware of Fordham University in NYC.
Beyond mistake. Mistake is accidental.
What if they are designed to create greater panic and terror among the
population at large about the failures of public education (especially
urban: we won’t read about the suburban/upper middle class schools where
kids do okay or well on the tests after a few years of practice gaming
them), to increase the volume on cries to shut down the system, stop
throwing tax payer money at us bad teachers, if the poor and the failing
must be educated, let Bill and friends find a privately-funded and
cheaper way to do it.
Raising standards: good. Creating tests that students can not pass
because their developmental level is not there yet (a test that asks a 3
month old to walk a mile without support – that’s a pretty high standard
– can he do it?) – there may be another reason that test was ordered.
Pretty scary.
“Raising standards: good”
Sam,
What is an educational standard?
Duane
Enter the Matrix. The Rule of Law, Legislation, Constitution, in short, written Laws,
have their own inertia. The “Laws” cited above seem to indicate certain Prohibitions.
Our Constitution indicates certain prohibitions. In practice, what a reasonable mind
may conclude “What” the wording indicates,the wording has NO POWER. NO BEARING
on the final outcome. The final outcome is in the interpretation of the words, not the words. The interpretation is NOT a function of the electorate!
I’m sick of these politicians treating our children as data. They are children, human beings who are all unique and special. They don’t need to be tested so often. All we are doing is teaching this generation how to take tests.
Regarding the CCSS… I teach Algebra 1 to 8th graders who aren’t completely ready for Algebra. The new CCSS has pushed a lot of Algebra 2 topics down to Algebra 1. This will be my first year teaching this CCSS content so I’m not sure how it will work, but it blows my mind to think of teaching such high level math to students who still struggle with multiplication facts.
I have never understood why the NEA– fo which I have been a member for over 25 years– wanted a federal DOE. Obviously, this would lead to federal control, regardless of the letter of the law, Duh.Never understood it.
Penny,
Do you have a source for the NEA wanting a federal DOE? Can you please give it?
Thanks,
Duane
What If the Common Core Standards Are a Huge Mistake?
Common Core Standards and the aligned testing are a huge mistake. Common Core is academically unsound – ignores all the years of research in learning theory and educational philosophy plus is causing much anguish and pain to parents, students and teachers. If that wasn’t bad enough it violates Federal Statutes and punishes states that want to opt out. Add to all that absurdity the cost is astounding. Our country is 17 trillion in debt – $100 trillion net present value of future obligations. The Sequester reduced federal funding by $2.6 billion for ’13-’14.
Districts are excessing teachers because of a lack of funds. Testing alone will cost 41.7 billion.
Common Core State Standards Estimated Cost is $16 Billion for States
“With state and local taxpayers footing 90 percent of the bill for K-12 public education, the federal government’s push to get states to adopt national standards and tests amounts to one big unfunded mandate.” …
States’ Taxpayers Cannot Afford Common Core Standards
Henry Burke elaborates: “The total nationwide cost for 7 years of the Common Core Standards Initiative is $15.8 billion. )
The taxpayers in each of the 45 states (and D. C.) that have committed to the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI) will be left “holding the bag” because our federal government with a national debt of $16 trillion cannot come in and alleviate the cost to the states.
Because it will cost California $2.2 billion to implement the Common Core Standards but California only received $104 million ($0.1 billion) from the federal government for competitive Stimulus awards, the taxpayers of California will have to come up with $2.1 billion out of their state coffers.
With California on the brink of bankruptcy, where would their taxpayers come up with $2.1 billion? Where would other states find the extra funding to implement the Common Core Standards: Illinois — $733 million, Pennsylvania — $647 million, Michigan — $569 million…
As a block, the states will spend $16 billion and get only $5 billion in federal grants. Why would the states change to a system that costs several times what they will receive in return? That does not sound like a very good deal to me.
The cost for CCS does not suddenly end at Year 7. The ongoing cost for Year 8 and after will be $801 million per year. …”
We can not afford the cost of this insanity! Even if the Standards were an extremely insightful and would really be an asset to our educational system, we still can not afford them.
Our country is on the brink of disaster economically and war is threatening our security once again. U.S., French, and British warships are in the Strait of Hormuz. China is encircling U.S warships. Why are Russian warships docked in Cuban’s harbor, and why did 15 embassies have to temporarily close?
Unemployment rate is really 14.3% as of 7/31/13 according to Michael King. 18.3 million households between 45- 64 have no savings for retirement. AmerGas on Long Island is laying off 70-80 workers and AOL news devision is terminating 400.
As of July 10, there are more people on food stamps than are working full time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there are 97,180,000 full time workers in the private sectorial. With so many out of work and on food stamps where is the money going to come from?
What If the Common Core Standards Are a Huge Mistake?
It is bad enough that we waste teaching time but then we place our students in such turmoil – especially the “At Risk.” Some are homeless, hungry, living in poverty, live in violent neighborhoods… and we just add to their pain when we try and force them to read a text that is too difficult. Students make great strides when they are instructed on their ability level. The quickest way for a student to succeed is develop confidence by starting with easy material. Nothing succeeds like success. How well I remember students with a defeatist attitude -convinced they couldn’t read. My first challenge was to prove to them they could read. Often I have had “At Risk” students make two years growth in one school year because I used an approach grounded in research. Reading on a frustration level causes regression and can even cause a disability. Common Core deprives students of the easy way to learn. The old saying: You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. How chilling the opening paragraph of Common Core: all students must …
Add to the Common Core disaster the horrific standardized tests. Has it ever occurred to authorities that testing results are invalidated when a child becomes emotionally upset and panics- vomits, cries, and loses bladder control; if a child loses his/her place on the test; if the student is tired or hungry; if they are frightened for whatever reason. Test results gotten under fear, duress, and anguish invalidates test results. Some children have to receive therapy because of the anguish they endured because of the standardized test. Primary children shouldn’t be given a standardized test. What a nightmare for the teacher to expect even kindergarteners to take the test via the computer! What a waste of time just to train them to use the computer for test taking!
Think of all the children whose lives will be destroyed for scoring low; retention destroys one’s self-image. Low scores are devastating to student’s ego. For students to meet with success they need a happy environment, freedom to explore, confidence, feeling of success, a challenge that can be met … All these characteristics are missing in the CC.
Can’t we stop this madness?
Mary,
Do you have a source for “Testing alone will cost 41.7 billion.”? Please cite.
Thanks,
Duane
Well, VERY quickly, here’s one:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/11904-why-ronald-reagan-couldnt-abolish-the-department-of-education
But I remember the history — I was a senior in HS / freshman @ Brandeis on my way to becoming a teacher when it happened.
Probably TIME archives has more on it and is of course a more reliable source. Oh, yes, I remember it well, as the song says. NEA wanted that cabinet-level post and department.
From the article: “But the NEA, anxious to get its grubby hands on billions of federal dollars, had been agitating for the department for decades.” and “Lyndon Johnson had given the NEA the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which opened the coffers of the U.S. Treasury for education. But that was just the beginning of the NEA’s thrust for power over the U.S. Congress.”
And “The New American also publishes articles about economics (from a free-enterprise perspective of course!), culture, and history. It is published by American Opinion Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society.”
Although I share the New American’s mistrust/dislike of the Skull and Bones organization, I’m not quite sure that the John Birch society is the best place for accurate information.
It’s $1.7 billion.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2214362
“Rising Red tide: China encircles U.S. by sailing warships in American waters, arming neighbors” found in Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/7/china-encircles-us-arming-western-hemisphere-state/?page=all
Plus 10 more entries following plus 10 more plus pages of entries
As regards the following quote:
“With the Freedom of Information Act, Matt Chingos of Brookings Institute estimated cost of testing to 41.7 billion…”
I am trying to verify the quote; until I can, erased from my comment. The site I found it on has since been taken down.
I have e-mailed Matt Chingos of Brookings Institute and am waiting for a response.
Thanks for the source!
Here is the direct link (immediately opens into a PDF) to Chingos’s report: http://tinyurl.com/mzor2vc
Excerpt: “We estimate that states nationwide spend upwards of roughly $1.7 billion on assessments each year . . . ”
That’s about thirty dollars per K-12 public school student in the US.
Probably the author meant the 4 to be a dollar sign( and forgot to press shift) , as I believe the correct amount is 1.7 billion. Still a lot of money to spend on assessments that just seem to prove exactly the results that the Commissioner predicted. Did he have mental telepathy or were the tests made for failure???
“China is encircling U.S warships. Why are Russian warships docked in Cuban’s harbor, and why did 15 embassies have to temporarily close?”
Quite intriguing if true. Source please!