The Gesell Institute of Human Development issued a statement in 2010 that was completely ignored, but its warning bears hearing.
In March 2010, the Gesell Institute released this statement. It fell on deaf ears.
The core standards being proposed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are off the mark for our youngest learners. We at Gesell Institute call for a new set of standards for Kindergarten through Grade 3 that adhere to solid principles of child development based on what research says about how and what young children learn during the early years, birth to age eight. The proposed standards for Kindergarten through grade 3 are inappropriate and unrealistic. Policy must be set based on hard data and not on unrealistic goals surrounding test scores.
If the achievement gap is to be closed, child development must be respected and scientific research surrounding how children learn must be taken into account. Research clearly shows that early readers do not have an advantage over later readers at the end of third grade, and attempts at closing the achievement gap should not be measured in Kindergarten based on inappropriate standards.
The work of Gesell Institute has long been focused on research and best practice in child development and education – our legacy is based on the ground-breaking work of Dr. Arnold Gesell, a pioneer in the field of child development who observed and documented stages of development with normative data reflecting what children typically do at each age and stage. Currently, our national study collecting developmental information on over 1400 children across the country is in its final stages of data collection. This data, to be released in Fall 2010, is expected to further support what we know about how children develop and what they know at various ages, as well as the importance of focusing on appropriate methods for teaching young children.
We urge the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to respect the individual developmental differences of children and revise the K-3 standards based on research and the advice of experts in the field of early childhood. Having endorsed The Alliance for Childhood’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative, we support the call to withdraw the early childhood standards and create a consortium of experts “to develop comprehensive guidelines for effective early care and teaching that recognize the right of every child to a healthy start in life and a developmentally appropriate education.” (http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/)
Amazing. It’s clear our overlords don’t want their agenda derailed by facts so they talk only to each other.
http://billmoyers.com/segment/mark-leibovich-on-glitz-and-greed-in-washington/
I listened to this on a long drive home.. amazing but I was not surprised. I hope it makes a difference and people wake up at the voting booths .
Thank You Diane. I will use this research when I debate the efficacy of the common core with my my fellow superintendents in Suffolk County this October.
-David
Thanks for the voice of reason, David!
Funny this is exactly what all the k-3 elementary teachers I know have been saying since they were introduced to the CCSS. If only someone would listen to the teachers…they really do KNOW their STUDENTS best!
Listen to teachers, lol. What do we know!
SQUAT, obviously according to the edudeformers and the monied backers behind them.
YUP. The presumption of these people–their certainty that they know better than and can override every teacher, curriculum coordinator, and curriculum developer in the country–is astonishing. Breathtaking, really.
Yes, thank you for this important posting. The first two paragraphs from Gesell are quite strong and clear. Imagine, just blowing past them in and act of supreme ignorance and arrogance..the preferred cocktail of the moment.
Combine Gesell guidelines with what teachers and students are being forced to do and we have a stunning documentary in the making.
Reblogged this on Roy F. McCampbell's Blog and commented:
In light of the adoption by Illinois of the Common Core Standards and its application and usage now at Schiller Park School District 81, this is an insightful article
However, since when is corporate education reform about doing what is right for the children? It has everything to do with corporate exploitation of education for the express goal of higher corporate profits. Corporate education reform is all about that which is right for the short-term benefit of corporate America.
Yes, it’s about Pearson’s profit, exploitation, and power . . .. .
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130821/NEWS0102/308210094/Curriculum-targets-Common-Core
He who owns the test, rocks the cradle . . . . . .
If you want to beat the Common Core testing in public schools focus on the cost. Public schools are being defunded by reformers and parents of public school children know it. You all saw the poll where public school parents said their largest concern on public education was inadequate funding. That’s a real and present concern. It’s immediate.
For the last decade and through two administrations parents have been told that there is no money available for education. If there is no money available for the educational priorities parents have (local experienced teachers, appropriate facilities, a school day that consists of something that other than test prep) then there shouldn’t be any money to impose this huge national revamping of curriculum and testing.
Let reformers fund public schools FIRST, and then we can talk about Common Core. That’s what parents want.
I want the public schools I had 13 years ago, before “reform”, restored. If reformers then want to ADD Common Core once they restore what we had before they started “reform”, they’ll have to pay for it.
This is an excellent point. I just read in our local paper that it will cost our district $300,000 (11% of the annual budget) to update computers
for upcoming PARCC assessments. Can you imagine the logistical and economic nightmares created by PARCC when they decided to require two tests (#1 @ 70%; #2 @ EOY) in both math and ELA, all administered on computers.
Usually 90% of my students are disadvantaged economically. Many have personal issues. Most are several measures below grade level. So if my VAM test STARTS measuring at 8th grade level and I work hard taking a student from 3rd to 5th grade level, that progress IS NOT COUNTED and my rating is ineffective, “F”, or Loser – whatever label the Reformers come up with. How many can relate? Seems like a poor design of an evaluation system. Does that mean teachers should only focus on students who can provide the best “return on investment”? Sad.
In NY we need to show “growth” and/or “achievement” by comparing pre and post test scores; both local and state. The post test cannot be the same as the pre-test; most teachers write their own exams. Math and ELA teachers (3-8) are stuck with the Pearson version of what will become the semi-national PARCC assessments. The most unbelievable aspect of this involves the state indicator for “growth”.
A system of 20 point bands was created: 0 – 20, 21 – 40, 41 – 60, etc.
To show “growth” a student must advance at least one band on their post test, in comparison to their pre-test score. If one of my students scores a 38 on the pre-test and a 41 on the post test (+3% pts.), I get credit for their “academic growth”. However, if a different student scores a 21 on the pre-test and a 38 on the post test (+17% pts.), I get no credit for their academic growth because they did not advance to the next band. This system would receive a failing grade in any intro to stats course yet it now plays a major role in our Annual Professional Performance Review.
Reblogged this on Blog of an e-marketer by Main Uddin.
Did they ever release their data? I’ve searched their site without success.
Yes the data is released. Check our Technical Report on our website. Children are not developing any faster!
I have long maintained that the CCSS in both ELA and mathematics are developmentally inappropriate for most students at the early grades. In ELA, it’s well established that students are on very different schedules with regard to language development but that their abilities tend to converge after a few years. I did not speak a word until after my second birthday. My mother was very concerned that I was not on the normal track there. Fast forward a few years, and one finds me getting a perfect score on the verbal portion of the GRE. Fast forward a few more years, and one finds me the author of many books, including market-leading textbooks on grammar and composition, literature, and speech. But in the current climate, I would probably have been identified early on as language deficient, placed in remedial classes, and subject to the Rosenthal Effect, also known as the Pygmalion Effect, whereby expectations of the labeled child are fulfilled.
Children differ. They are not nuts and bolts and screws to be identically milled. It is a terrible mistake to judge them with identical instruments based upon identical standards. Doing so causes children extreme harm.
I believe that the math standards are even worse because of their emphasis in K-8 on understanding of abstract formal concepts. I am convinced that the parts of the brain, in the prefrontal cortex, that do abstract formal reasoning particularly well don’t really start developing until around the age of 14 and are not fully in place until around the age of 25 or 26 (there is great research on this from Johns Hopkins based on FMRI studies). When we ask most kids, before the age of 14, to do grasp mathematics on a conceptual level, we are, I think, doing the equivalent of handing them Phillips screws to turn when the tools that they have for that job are large, blunt butter knives. I am convinced that if instead of trying to get kids to understand mathematics conceptually, at these early grades, we did lots of exercises with them (play) to develop fluid intelligence pathways in the brain–exercises in pattern recognition–and postponed formal mathematical instruction until 14 or 15, kids would learn more, then, in 2 years than they now learn in 12, and they would enjoy it. What we now teach, mostly, in our math classes is that a) math is difficult and b) math is no fun. That this is what is MOSTLY taught by our approach to K-12 math is clear if one interviews the products of those programs–adult Americans. Most are innumerate. Most are math averse. Most hate mathematics. Almost none do it recreationally. Almost none are interested in developments in mathematics. Almost none read in math for enjoyment. But we’ve been going in the opposite direction, pushing abstract formal reasoning lower and lower, and the new math standards are more of the same there.
Now, let me hasten to say that some formal reasoning machinery is present from birth. We have, for example, from birth neural machinery for intuiting syntactic structures and for interpreting some kinds of patterns in our environments. But a lot of the part of the brain that does abstract reasoning doesn’t start developing by leaps and bounds until years after birth.
Kids differ. In the area of when they are equipped to do abstract reasoning about and within formal symbols systems, they differ ENORMOUSLY–by YEARS. One size does not fit all, and this is one of the BIG problems with the CCSS. Mark my word, in a few years, the common wisdom will be that we went through a disastrous era in which people actually thought that it was a good idea to have one set of standards and tests for every student. Those will be remembered as the dark times in American education.
And Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, and others will be remembered as the ones who turned out the lights.
And people will be stunned in the future to learn that we were once a “superpower” fueled bright bright innovative people. Sadly, I fear we will become a footnote in history, an “also ran.”
We are witnessing an educational train wreck on a scale that is almost unimaginable. If we don’t stop this soon, it will take generations to reverse the damage caused by David Coleman and Co. They have willfully ignored all we have learned about brain development and cognitive learning because of their shameless arrogance and greed.
How many times have I responded to a post about CC by saying COMMON CORE IS NOT DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE FOR THE EARLY CHILDHOOD GRADES! ? Thank you for this posting!
The CCSS is a classic example of know-nothing outsiders coming in and foisting half-baked solutions of people who know better. I hate to say this, but I think that this deform movement wouldn’t have gotten as far as it has if a) teachers were not mostly women microconditioned from birth to be polite and conciliatory, b) if teachers earned more and so had the influence that money buys, and c) if teachers had unions with leaders who actually represented their interests.
The NCLB waiver and Race to the Top money were the carrots – CCSS/PARCC/SBAC the sticks. States were compelled to take the bait because of the AYP goal of 100% proficiency set forth in NCLB that had become impossible to meet. It didn’t really hit teachers in the trenches until it was too late. There was a real lack of information in the early stages combined with often conflicting and confusing information making it very hard to combat. Here in NY we should be demanding that State Ed return the $700 million RTTT money we “won” in the federal contest and re-tool this mess on or own. I am hoping that the inertia of the CCSS reform movement has not grown too large to reverse.
We can reverse the trend, but only if we act. Teachers have to organize with parents and scream out, “NO MORE!” using every forum available to us, whether it’s blogs, demonstrations, “Occupy . . .” type events (including TV stations and newspaper offices!), writing to the editors of local papers, etc. We cannot take it any longer!
Teachers tend to be generally compliant. I believe the term “activist teacher” is in the official handbook of oxymorons.
Something along the lines of a Michael Moore expose on the hi-jacking of public education by corporate forces?
Some of the the most prominent names in the field of child development and/or education signed the following document expressing concerns about CCSS, among them David Elkind, Ellen Galinsky, Howard Gardener, and Nancy Carlsso_Paige (aka Matt Damon’s mom).
Click to access joint_statement_on_core_standards.pdf
That document needs to be re-issued with much fanfare. It was originally written over three years ago and obviously the corporate founder of CCSS turned a deaf ear. Very frustrating and quite ironic that in their quest for data driven evaluations that they would ignore the most current data that cognitive learning theories and MRI brain development studies have to offer. Further proof that the CCSS reform movement has no desire to act in the best interest of children.
Where are the studies that show that assessments based on the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts are valid measures of specific reading and writing abilities and of reading and writing ability overall? What independent measures have these tests been validated against? Are those independent measures themselves valid? These are deep and difficult questions, and they have not been addressed. Not at all. In fact, these tests are being given in the total absence of any validity studies and, importantly, of scientific scrutiny of those studies.
Why are we giving tests that haven’t been validated?
Let me lay my cards on the table: I think, prima facie, that these tests do not validly measure reading and writing ability and wouldn’t do so even if they validly measured attainment of the ELA standards because those standards themselves do not adequately capture what one is able to do if one reads and writes well.
The CCSS in ELA were rushed together by nonexperts. They were not subjected to extensive critique and review. They do not reflect current scientific understanding of learning in the various domains that they cover. They were not field tested. The very idea of having a single set of standards for all kids was not itself subjected to careful analysis, discussion, debate, and scientific study. The shoddiness of this whole process is breathtaking.
I’m curious as to the finding in relation to these words (end of paragraph three):
“… our national study collecting developmental information on over 1400 children across the country is in its final stages of data collection. This data, to be released in Fall 2010, is expected to further support what we know about how children develop and what they know at various ages, as well as the importance of focusing on appropriate methods for teaching young children.”