Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers that the suburban revolt against Common Core has a simple explanation: white suburban moms are discovering that their children are not as brilliant as they thought, and their schools are not as good as they thought.
Here is a description of his remarks and the rationale behind them.
According to blogger Rick Hess, the appalling results of the Common Core tests were supposed to set off a suburban uprising against their public schools and unleash a demand for vouchers and charters. Hess thought it was unlikely, and he was right. Suburban moms and dads of all races–not just whites–are angry at the Common Core, angry at the tests, angry at the state officials who seem determined to hurt their children and destroy their community public schools.
Duncan apparently thinks American students are mostly dumb, and US schools are awful.
Other supporters of the Common Core share his low opinion of our youth.
In July 2012, Jeb Bush–one of the strongest proponents of the Common Core–warned that when the states begin to release the Common Core test results, there would be a “train wreck” and “a rude awakening.” Since Bush is an avid proponent of charters, vouchers, and e-schooling, one may safely assume that he anticipated a flight from public schools to those alternatives, as failure rates were released.
In New York, the fly in the ointment was that with only a few exceptions, the charter schools fared even worse on the Common Core tests than the public schools.
Up until now, Duncan had been blaming the pushback to the Common Core on the Tea Party and extremists.
He really doesn’t get it.
Bottom line: Suburban parents–moms and dads of all races–blame the tests, not their kids or their teachers. They know this is a manufactured crisis (hat tip to Berliner and Biddle). Their kids are not failures. The Common Core tests are.
Why is this man still in this position?
Duncan’s remark certainly applies to his own white mom.
That is the funniest comment ever! I totally agree!
LOL….SO TRUE
Billionaire Eli Broad sent him; no one is allowed to send him back.
I think we need to reform that. It’s time to storm the castle again–the white castle, that is.
“Why is this man still in this position?”
Because we gave his boss another term.
Because he is too dumb to know when it is time to quit.
Because his picture is next to both “toady” and “sycophant” in the dictionary.
Because Obama likes playing basketball with him.
FYI Diane, the first link just says “blank.”
I’m guessing the primary reason why corporate “reformers” want to privatize the suburbs is because that’s where the REAL money is –school districts flush with cash from high property taxes. I’ve been looking at homes and their annual property tax rates in the suburban districts in my area a lot lately and it is not unusual for families to pay $50K and higher annually in property taxes. And they get what they pay for around here –well resourced, truly excellent progressive public schools.
Duncan, Bush et al. live in a bubble and have a lot to learn about real people. They should look around and notice that their bubble IS bursting…
Reteach for America: this is the first link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/16/arne-duncan-white-surburban-moms-upset-that-common-core-shows-their-kids-arent-brilliant/
Here is a trenchant response to Duncan’s latest nincompoopery:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2013/11/arne-duncan-vs-white-moms.html
well done!
I am a white mom and Arne Duncan makes me furious.
Question: when did having a Curriculum coach in buildings become the norm and doesn’t it seem that, as a whole, they are the first line of defense against disseminating CCSS parts that are not good to our children? That is, if teachers are expected to perpetuate this “abuse” (as some would call it; still searching for the right word), then aren’t the Curriculum people who stand over their heads in the role of thought and action police the first ones who should have said “we are not doing this. You’ve got to give us something else.”
It seems that CCSS relies on the Curriculum folks to uphold it. And what if the Curriculum folks lack the backbone or perception or wherewithal to say “No! This is not good for American children.”
Congratulations, Arne, on discovering the bell curve and evolution. Humans develop and respond to their environments and human knowledge goes with that. Now move out of the way so folks who do have some sense can get on with schooling our children properly.
What’s Michele Rhee’s word. . . “Sucks.” I think she might want to use it in a sentence about Arne and his job as Secretary of Education.
The competing global bit does nothing for me except make me wonder why we are not teaching the Metric system. This white mom teaches her kids the metric system and has straight talks about CCsS test scores with her children.
Joanna
Abuse is the proper word..
It is Test abuse which is stress abuse which is Mental Abuse.
These tests have caused our children to hate going to school..
and our teachers to hate their jobs and feel so inadequate over these ridiculous tests…
I can buy that. Test abuse vs. abuse of children (although it is an abuse that causes children to suffer). Remember, I am married to a lawyer. Every word I utter is subject to the scrutiny of his wonderful mind and I only want to find the right words to help save our schools.
YES!!!! Joanna I totally agree. When did we start needing all this curriculum coaches and data coaches??? It’s pretty disgusting to hear there’s not enough money for additional teachers which would decrease class size, when there is money coming from somewhere to pay all these coaches!
Every time a school hires a curriculum coach or a data coach, or contracts with a turnaround firm, or other consultants, there will be larger classes, fewer teachers, fewer social workers, fewer librarians, fewer psychologists–less of everything that kids need.
Well said, Diane! Exactly!
Thought experiment: Imagine Arne’s dismay if some of his favored Shock Doctrine happened to be applied to the places where so many “suburban white moms” send their children– private schools. I have no doubt that plenty of tony academies are perfectly good schools, but of course without the all-important accountability metrics of Arne et al, no one will ever know– nah, no high-stakes, standardized over-testing, and all the misuse of the results, no InBloom Date Gather, none of that corp-reform stuff there. Heavens no. But if there was, my goodness, Arne could REALLY see the anger of the classes as well as the masses. Somebody really needs to start a compendium of this guy’s Greatest Hits.
That’s an interesting point. I think that in this political football game Arne would punt it and hope that the receiving team takes all of the blame. Pretty much every politician is in bed with the privatization lizards, so whoever is running is guaranteed to pick up where Arne left off.
Since these folks admire graphs and charts to the point of fetishism, I’ll put it this way for them: You don’t get to do the Bloom stuff unless you first take care of the Maslow stuff.
Exactly! Aways ignored, because it’s easier to blame the teachers than it is to fix poverty.
I love this- I have been saying this to my teachers for years. But since there used to be no Bloom stuff I just was substituting school. “You do not get to the school stuff until you take of most of the lower level Maslow stuff” 🙂
Do Bloom’s Taxonomy, not inBloom.
Very good! 🙂
Snap!
Great quip!!!!!!!!!!
🙂
Arne and his corporate pals needs to learn that the suburbs are Lake Wobegon enclaves, where all children are above average. NO ONE will EVER convince those families otherwise, especially government officials who have the power to determine cut scores on standardized tests at whim.
You are right. People who live in suburbs have the right to make up their own minds and to live in suburbs to begin with, even if in doing so they insulate themselves from interaction that could very well lift others up.
I sense that Arne and maybe Obama hate that suburbs breed insular community and attribute some of inner city decay to that fact. And for a strong America there may be some validity to that. But forcing things down people’s throats to try to make them look and feel inferior or inept is not the way to convince them to not live the way they live. In fact, his approach is hurting everyone, and the poor and minorities are suffering more because of his attempts to punish white, suburban folks who live their lives with a confidence that is normal and healthy.
I almost wish they had enough social conscience to hold “insular” suburbs in contempt but I don’t think so. We must remember that Mr. Obama did attend the Punahou School in HI, very private indeed. What goofy defense does Duncan have left in his arsenal?
It must be that the kids are dumb and the schools even dumber.
So obvious and lame brain, we should arrange an emergency IQ test for him on the spot.
Yep, the suburban schools are where the money is, as the fed dollars dry up, and We The People figured that out without the benefit of a report from the Dept of Treasury.
Note to Arne and his corporate cohorts: You can’t have the kids. You can’t have the schools. You have lost the hearts and minds of their parents. You are welcome to pack up the Common Core crap and cancel all related contracts to your crooked cronies. Arne gets it all right, he gets that he isn’t going to get it and he is very, very angry.
My favorite part is that rather than look at all the evidence that my children are successful, I should worry that they may not score better than kids from Finland. (not the CC test were ever internationally benchmarked). Because as you know our country has always trailed Finland in economic development, research, opportunities, I adore Finland and would love to emulate their education but not because they are such a global leader, but because they treat education like a profession!
I am going to print Cody’s article out and give it to people. Very well written.
I always feel relieved when a teacher honestly states that she does not like Common Core. As a parent, I do not like what I see of Common Core. There are still teachers, principals and curriculum folks who try and tell me what it is and what it is doing (like I can’t make up my own mind); but I am sorry; I don’t buy it. And I am wildly confused at why they do.
I think I put this comment in the wrong spot. Sometimes I have the blog open on several windows. Woops.
This angry, white, suburban mom IS angry–but it’s not because I was delusional that my children are “brilliant” or that our suburban public schools aren’t that good. We have funding issues, to be sure, but that has NOTHING to do with the amazing teachers, staff and kids. This angry mom gets the national and state agenda to try to get us to run away–FAST–from our traditional well-loved schools. And it’s not going to work if we keep pointing out their warped and sneaky agenda!
Nice part about insulting white, suburban moms is that we get ANGRY! And we love to gossip! And we love social media! So bring it on, Arne. You have just angered some pretty protective she-bears…
Here is a petition to remove Duncan 🙂
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-arne-duncan-secretary-education/w0DYCDDm
I clicked the link. On the page to sign, it states that the creator signed on Nov. 16, and there are only 364 signatures on it. Then it said that I have already signed this petition. I have not signed anything from that date nor today–so how could I have signed it? Perhaps there is some funny business going on.
I signed it this morning…No problem……I think I was around 221 or something…will check now…
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-arne-duncan-secretary-education/w0DYCDDm
this is the link but you may need to refresh. up to 510 right now 🙂
I re-registered. 951, now.
It is time to start CALLING the White House, your Senator and Congressional Representative to demand Mr. Duncan be fired. White suburban moms are a coveted voting block. Let your representatives know you cannot support them if they support Arne and the failed policies of the DOE.
This kind of misogyny is likely the same hatred that fuels the attack on teachers. As if the only reason “white suburban moms” could object to the Common Core is because it would make their children look not as brilliant. Mothers could not possibly have any reasonable objections to this scheme.
The Common Core tests were designed to “break” the good suburban schools. This was the plan from the beginning. I suspected as much two years ago, but his comments just verified this for me. He doesn’t want any public schools, just charters and for-profit schools so that his friends on Wall Street can make money. This is now crystal clear. Let’s see how the rest of the public reacts once the tests start rolling out.
Given that a third of first year students at my institution must take remedial math, I think Arne Duncan may be correct about this.
TE….if you look to your feeder schools, do the majority of students taking remedial math come from the same high schools?
There are about 1,300 each year that have to take remedial math, so I don’t think we can point to particular buildings as the problem. This seems to be a general issue as another poster found an article about similar numbers of students taking remedial classes in the cal state system.
TE
The need for math remediation for the marginal college student will never go away. This does not mean that Arne Duncan was right.
Brilliance comes in many hues, only one of which is ability to brainlessly complete out of context math problems. Formal math ability is probably similar to musical ability in that it requires a particular type of brain wiring that not everyone has. If US schools required every student to play a musical instrument well enough to participate in a college orchestra there would be a lot of students taking remedial music lessons in college. The good news is that math as an academic accomplishment, is fairly over rated. Witness the fact that millions upon millions of people live very happy and productive lives despite the fact that they “suck at math”
I think EVERY child should play an instrument from elementary school all through college. Our culture would be very different if everyone had a taste of the kind of discipline required for such an endeavor. The Greeks favored the Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (well, acoustics). But still, there is a real human connection in making music.
Also, I believe we may be seeing a decline in math ability simply because of folks like Duncan…..teachers have been forced to teach to the test, and we’re now seeing how it has harmed students academically.
High School students…most…..can not add in their heads a list of five two-digit numbers……
My state has not implimented the CCSS, nor do standardized test scores have any impact on anyone in the K-12 system, so I don’t think that is the explanation.
TE, we’ve had over ten years of people teaching to the tests as a result of NCLB. Common Core is just more of that.
Unfortunately, despite claims otherwise the common core dumbs down math for high school so I am not so sure that is going to help you TE. The problem is we told everyone they should go to college. My plumber and hairdresser make more money than I do.
TE: Wouldn’t you think that a decade of NCLB and RTTT has something to do with their math skills? They have learned to take the tests, but they haven’t learned math. Cause and effect?
Exactly!
EXACTLY!!!!
TE, what is the name of your institution? Is it a community college?
I don’t believe TE has ever said but from his hints my guess is. . .
KU as in Jayhawks.
But I can understand his not wanting to give out that information, even those in post k-12 have reasons to worry.
Duane,
Don’t be so protective over TE. . .. He is lily-livered.
If he is unwilling to give the identity of his institution, then he is blowing smoke.
He refused from the get go…always found that odd.
He’s going to lose his job because he comments? I am Linda Hall from CT.
I’m Robert Rendo from New York.
And I’m Ron Poirier from Rhode Island. But what I asked was, what is the name of the institution at which TE teaches? The one that supposedly gives remedial math courses to a third of its enrollment?
All he has said is box shaped state, middle of the country. I can’t figure out why he’s so secretive…even just the state? So, sorry, I don’t know.
He won’t reveal the name of the institution because he’s blowing smoke. That’s the simplest explanation and the one that is most likely true.
Robert, I wasn’t attempting to be “protective” of TE. He can and does handle himself quite well enough. But for many here he is seen as a gadfly and I think at times he does come up with some good questions.
I can appreciate both the privacy desires through anonymity for some, while at the same time appreciating those who are more open about who they are. I think you all know which camp I’m in. One doesn’t come up with a screen name such as is my real name. Hell, I’ve told everyone where I live, what part of the county, the state and have given out my email. At 58 I don’t give a shit what “could possibly happen”-notice the subjunctive-over what I write on the internet. Other than hopefully convincing the world (at least here in the US) that educational standards, standardized testing and the “grading” of students is COMPLETELY WRONG from a logical and ethical viewpoint!!! And should be abolished, eliminated ASAP.
A third of incoming students require remedial math?
So?
Apparently your university knowingly admits “at risk” students.
Surely reviewing the transcripts reveals these students lack higher level math courses and/or high grades in those courses in high school as well reveals poor scores on the SAT/ACT math sections.
Your university is making a buck off of admitting students who did not do well or choose the lowest level courses in high school.
I think giving these kids another shot is grand, and I fully support it. But don’t blame the high schools if they struggle.
Unless you are trying to say that the remedial kids all aced AP calculus ?
This is a major issue with many post-secondary schools. Back when the baby boomers expanded the college population, colleges and universities built up and expected to keep up the revenue to support these facilities. Now to keep their budgets solvent, they accept more students which means they obviously must accept sub-par students, take their money, and then complain that they are sub-par blaming the feeder schools. Sounds like an economic problem.
When my dad went to college in 1956, college was not for everyone. Nowadays, college is the new high school, but should this be?
We’ve had over ten years of NCLB and standards-based testing, and the math standards have been virtually identical across the nation–all modeled very closely on the NCTM standards. And you see the results of that, TE.
It’s the height of idiocy to look at a policy that clearly isn’t working and to say, “Well, what we need to do is to ratchet that up a lot.” But that’s exactly what we’re doing with CCSS, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced.
“It’s the height of idiocy to look at a policy that clearly isn’t working and to say, “Well, what we need to do is to ratchet that up a lot.”
Yep, Doing the Wrong Thing Righter
The proliferation of educational assessments, evaluations and canned programs belongs in the category of what systems theorist Russ Ackoff describes as “doing the wrong thing righter. The righter we do the wrong thing,” he explains, “the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right.”
Our current neglect of instructional issues are the result of assessment policies that waste resources to do the wrong things, e.g., canned curriculum and standardized testing, right. Instructional central planning and student control doesn’t – can’t – work. But, that never stops people trying.
The result is that each effort to control the uncontrollable does further damage, provoking more efforts to get things in order. So the function of management/administration becomes control rather than creation of resources. When Peter Drucker lamented that so much of management consists in making it difficult for people to work, he meant it literally. Inherent in obsessive command and control is the assumption that human beings can’t be trusted on their own to do what’s needed. Hierarchy and tight supervision are required to tell them what to do. So, fear-driven, hierarchical organizations turn people into untrustworthy opportunists. Doing the right thing instructionally requires less centralized assessment, less emphasis on evaluation and less fussy interference, not more. The way to improve controls is to eliminate most and reduce all.
Former Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan (Viet Nam) did when he noted in Sir! No Sir! that:
“I was doing it right but I wasn’t doing right.”
And from one of America’s premier writers:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher
Robert D. Shepherd & Duane Swacker — a few money quotes from THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION by Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn (2013, paperback) that preface [respectively] the first three chapters:
1), “What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value.— Art Costa, professor emeritus at Cal State-Fullerton” [p. 1]
2), “Initially, we use data as a way to think hard about difficult problems, but then we over rely on data as a way to avoid thinking hard about difficult problems. We surrender our better judgment and leave it to the algorithm. — Joe Flood, author of The Fires” [p. 55]
3), “When the right thing can only be measured poorly, it tends to cause the wrong thing to be measured, only because it can be measured well. And it is often much worse to have a good measurement of the wrong thing—especially when, as is so often the case, the wrong things will in fact be used as an indicator of the right thing—than to have poor measurements of the right thing. — John Tukey, mathematician Bell Labs and Princeton University” [p. 147]
An added note for the “Hasty Skeptics” and “Optimistic Privatizers”—the last quote is by “a towering figure of twentieth century science” according to no less a figure than Howard Wainer, who refers more warmly to him than anyone else in his last book as “My mentor, the Princeton polymath John Tukey.” [UNEDUCATED GUESSES, 2011, pp. 1 & 128]
And just who, pray tell, is Howard Wainer?
From his Amazon page: “Dr. Wainer received his Ph. D. from Princeton University in 1968. After serving on the faculty of the University of Chicago, a period at the Bureau of Social Science Research during the Carter Administration, and 21 years as Principal Research Scientist in the Research Statistics Group at Educational Testing Service, he is now Distinguished Research Scientist at the National Board of Medical Examiners and Professor (adjunct) of Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.”
In other words, if one is looking for a scathing critic of the Sacred EduMetrics of the High Holy Church of Testolatry or an apostate of same—it ain’t Dr. Wainer.
In some ways he is the ultimate insider [look above at his ETS connection!] so when he, In the politest of terms, eviscerates VAM [see pp. 136-137 of EDUCATED GUESSES] it’s worth paying attention to.
Thank you both for your comments.
😎
KTA, thanks for those quotes. Will have to use them! Maybe I ought to get the book and read it-ha ha.
KTA,
It’s also interesting that Noel Wilson, like Wainer, was also in the belly of the beast developing standardized tests for the state of New South Wales in Australia.
What’s that old saying “Familiarity breeds discontent”?
Duane Swacker: Mark Twain had a bit of a different take—
“Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.”
😎
P.S. I would recommend THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION but beware the poor editing. The quality of the book is in inverse proportion to the quality of the proofreaders.
While there may be a little truth to this stereotype, Duncan is still engaging in race speech here. I somehow doubt you would be as accommodating to other racial stereotypes as you are to this one despite the tablespoon of truth to any of them.
Your point has been addressed before, but white moms having a hyperbolic sense of their children’s worth probably has very little to do with remedial education at the college level. I would probably look to NCLB first and how children are taught to pass those tests. Or you could look at the numbers of students entering college compared to the number of students entering college from decades ago–there are some surprises there. I would also look to your college–it has been said–although I do not necessary follow conspiracies– that some colleges deliberately raise the bar so as to get more money from their students. Or sometimes the last math class a student took in HS was during their eleventh grade year, and they have become a little rusty with their math skills; a restructuring of HS math is in order in this case. I would probably examine these well-worn areas of study before I played Duncan’s race card.
I do not understand why this man has not been fired.
Suppose he has said Black Basketball Moms…He would have gone down yesterday..
I am confused as to how he can get away with this…
I signed the petition…
We started putting calculators in their hands as soon as they became allowable on high-stakes tests. So, because of the way we’ve had to teach to the tests, children are lacking mental math skills. This is also why children can’t write. We spent the NCLB error training them to fill in bubbles, instead. Duncan cannot use the horrible consequences of high-stakes testing to justify more nonsense!
Just signed, almost 800 now.
When I ponder, for just a few seconds, the hubris and ignorance behind Arne’s “white mom” statement I become so outraged I cannot contain myself.
What example is this to our children? They are watching!
We have an alarming crisis of leadership in this country.
So very well said.
I also have that rage..and it is because of his blatant discriminatory statement. He needs to be fired.
This comment was posted on the answer sheet. I didn’t get the readers name. I will check back.
All need to read this:
Duncan is schlepping CC for the corporate establishment that created it. The CCSS is an abusive micro-managing apparatus that guarantees teachers will teach to the test and mandates an educational pedagogy of fear, coercion and punishment. Despite slick subterfuge and propaganda to the contrary, the architects of the CCSS, backed by wealthy billionaires, ARE soft peddling an apparatus of mind control. “Career and college ready,” is a slogan that once deconstructed, reveals an educational structure that undermines creativity and freedom and while institutionalizing obedience and control.
The CCSS imprints upon the minds of children an experience based on radical behaviorism without their consent. Like pawns in a massive chess game, as early as KDG, children are denied experiences that enhance their love of learning and instead are forced to participate in massive amounts of high stakes testing and an education that emphasizes fear and compliance.
There are two forms of education in this World. The first is to provide children with opportunities to achieve and develop from the inside out. This form of education enhances children’s pre-existing capacities and gifts. A second form of education we have observed expressed in totalitarian regimes who imprint upon the minds of their young citizens what the leaders of the state value. This is the CCSS.
You want data? Here’s your data: 30 years of standardized testing on the formative minds of children and over 26% of Americans have a mental illness of one form or another. Gap between rich and poor at it’s highest ever and the middle class is shrinking like never before.
Who are these people peddling the CCSS? Follow the money trail and it leads back to the same greedy rich white suits, the corporate establishment, who tanked the economy in 2008, specialize in high speed derivatives trading and peddle billions of dollars of influence at the highest levels of government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/16/arne-duncan-white-surburban-moms-upset-that-common-core-shows-their-kids-arent-brilliant/
Arne Duncan is the bought-and-paid-for tool of corporate profiteers, and the White Suburban Moms (as well as lots of other moms and dads of all descriptions) have turned out to be a lot smarter than he initially thought they would be.
I’m not surprised. His approach when he meets resistance is to patronize and insult.
When he last lashed out about the Common Core, he told media that public school leaders had been “lying” to parents about the quality of public schools.
Arne Duncan and his band of billionaires and political hacks are the only brave truth tellers. Everyone else is “lying”. It’s an outrageous thing to say, yet he repeats it every time a Common Core criticism is raised.
Duncan’s problem is he’s an ideological devotee of “choice”. But public school parents don’t rely on “choice”. They’re not going anywhere. These are their schools and they (rightly!) believe they own them. They’re not heading down the road to the nearest charter. We rely on “voice” to influence the decisions made in public schools. It’s the fundamental difference between Duncan’s favored charters and existing public schools. Voice over choice. He can’t handle that.
“Governor Bush said that the more rigorous Common Core standards, if backed by equally rigorous assessments, will show that only one in three children in America qualify as college or career ready. Bush warned that such bluntness about the poor health of American education and student achievement will trigger serious political backtracking. He said, “My guess is there’s going to be a lot of people running for cover and their going to be running fast.”
This piece of stupidity and poor reasoning should have been called out long ago. It leaves no room for Bush to be wrong.
If every objection to ed reform is immediately characterized as “cowardice” or politically motivated ed reformers never have to justify or defend their agenda.
I don’t know how they got away with this nonsense, but they did.
Bush is immunizing himself against the possible failure of his plans BEFORE the plans are even put in place, by announcing that anyone who rejects his ideas is a hack.
Duncan is doing the same thing with his ridiculous accusations that everyone except him is “lying” about public schools. That formulation leaves no room for Duncan to be WRONG.
Tis a clever piece of stragedy, eh!
“Several speakers warned that if the Common Core effort fails it will result in the further erosion of America’s international competitiveness. During breakout sessions business leaders from some of the largest, most innovative and successful companies in the world—General Electric, IBM, Boeing, Disney, Apple, and Intel—lamented that they had good jobs in American factories and offices they couldn’t fill because they couldn’t find candidates with the required math and science skills to do the work.”
Been hearing that list bit for a couple years now? Is there any truth to this?
Problem are is the High Stakes Testing determining the fate and abilities of all of the children using the same cookie cutter.
This is not right…
In my state at least the MAP exams have no impact on students. I know other states like New York have had high impact exams like the Regents exams for a century. Should New York drop Regents exams?
The Regents exams are an interesting case. Sometime during the late 90s/early 2000s, the state of NY designed different routes to compliance with the Regents testing program. I could have the timing wrong because I heard this during an interview back in April. These would result in different certifications for their students. The most “prestigious” of these had the highest test burden for students. This was intended to be the standard to which high performing schools would aspire. There were other levels below that, with the lowest level (let’s call it “basic”) requiring the least amount of testing. Highly regarded private schools in NY decided to participate in the basic level, because it had the lowest amount of required testing and they could have those days for teaching. Then the well-regarded public schools decided to do the same thing. This was the opposite of what the regents themselves wanted, so they took away the basic option.
So maybe they should get rid of it since it seems to be a) a bait and switch and b) more of a hammer than a carrot.
The Regents exams used to be a mark of distinction. About 20 years ago, the state commissioner of education Rick Mills decided to “raise standards” by demanding that ALL children pass the Regents. Guess what happened? Any bar that must be cleared by all must be lowered.
Again, very well said, Diane!
TE,
That’s for the folks of NY to determine. But if I lived there I would say YES!
The Regents used to have about 4 tracks, Regents with advanced honors (maybe it was high honors), Regents with Honors, Regents, and a Local Diploma.
The upper levels required 1-2 more tests, and you needed higher averages to attain them when your scores were averaged. The “regular” Regents diploma required the usual assorted mix of 55-65.
Over time, they eliminated the other Regents degrees (as Diane noted) and initially tried to bring up the difficulty of the exams. Then, in the early 21st century (around about 2001-02 – when NCLB started holding states ACCOUNTABLE) the exams started becoming easier as the bar was being raised.
Then we ended up with a bar so low that it was laughable. This was not the design of teachers. This was the design of politicians, non-educators.
Then teachers were blamed for the lack of achievement and the Regents somehow escaped unharmed from that decade-long debacle with an “oops – we’ll make it harder” – no heads rolled – there was no responsibility, no ACCOUNTABILITY.
Yet, Teachers are still grappling with the after-effects of that (and the incredible ratcheting of the far above what it ever was after a decade of dumbing down the tests to score political NCLB points. We are still being blamed.
And it’s because we tried to fit all students into one diploma, because who would ever need multiple paths to success? What happens when all of your students come out of schools with few distinctions?
Granted, the Advanced Regents diploma still exists, and they created one with technical certifications. But they still require a 65 from all students, no matter who they are, on a minimum number of tests, regardless of their impairment, and there’s a minimum of 1 test in each subject except art/music/gym (so far).
Our students are now either spectacular successes, or lumped together failures – if they can’t pass 1 exam out of the several required, or even come close, those 4 years can be wasted.
It’s a waste of human potential, and an insult to our students. When a few points on a test that is decidedly less than perfect can ruin a student’s life because they didn’t get asked just the right question instead of the wrong one, and the Regents didn’t grid the scores in their favor.
They can’t find qualified candidates with the required math and science skills to do the work for $10/hr.
NO!
I am so angry at this man that many four-letter words are coming to mind..
But I was taught not to use such language…
Seems to me this man would not understand anyway..
He needs to be fired..
Duncan is now officially stuck. So much has been invested into CCSS that it can’t simply disappear. Grant money has gone out. Testing consortia have been paid for their “services.” States have committed to it. He now has to defend it to the teeth.
I’m amazed that a federal official is so staunchly defending something that was “created” by the states. Perhaps because it was leveraged in relative secrecy?
Suburban communities have become increasingly aware of the beating that schools have taken. They’re just late to the party. In my state, education reform was THE issue in 2011. Literally 80 or so bills passed regarding everything about schools. It has slowed since then because people are getting in the game. As awareness has increased, so has resistance to these policies. Now the reform ideas are surviving on the basis of the bankrolling of the wealthy with venture philanthropy.
It’s getting clearer that the corporate agenda is running into public resistance. We have seen some school board elections where the “underdog” financially still won.That wouldn’t have happened in 2011. Glenda Ritz (though being legislated around) still won against reform superstar Tony Bennett in a diehard Republican stronghold. John King pulled back on K-2 testing due to public pressure. Texas has declared that too much testing is occurring.
In my state a long-standing charter school recently unionized. And they’re protesting against their for-profit leadership about cuts and layoffs. Even charter teachers are getting the message that employees need protections against corporate ownership that underpays its talent while rewarding itself. (I do believe that if teacher compensation gets too low, even charter teachers will consider the benefits of unionization.
I won’t say the writing is on the wall but Duncan is certainly deaf to increasing public sentiment. Maybe it’s because every Obama administration education summit only includes people who have the letters CEO in their titles. Duncan needs to meet the people on the ground but then he’d see that he’s messed a lot up. I don’t think he has the humility to do that.
Steve K, you are right. Duncan will not backtrack on Common Core. He has made it his signature initiative, which is odd, because federal officials are prohibited by law from interfering in curriculum or instruction. That is why the stealth funding–not so stealthy–came from the Gates Foundation, which plopped $200 million into the process of writing, evaluating, and advocating for the standards. There are very few organizations inside the Beltway that have not received millions from Gates to help with advocacy and implementation of Common Core. Duncan, by law, should have nothing to do with advocacy, but you can see that he missed the class on federalism and no one at the DOE briefed him on the law that says he is prohibited from involvement in what schools teach.
Ohio reformers are playing this ridiculous marketing game where they’ve rebranded charter schools as “community schools”.
We’re now supposed to call local public schools “district schools” and charters managed by national corporations “community schools”. Of course, as always with reform marketing efforts, public schools lose in this branding game.
Local Ohio media won’t accept the name change, which is amusing. They continue to use the name they’ve used for 20 years, which is “charter”. I don’t know that they can run away from the tanking public perception of charter schools in Ohio by rebranding 🙂
Yes, the common core state exams are failures because passing scores were set near the 88 percentile of correct answers to show inadequate schools. What the tests prove is state officials failed to fool the public and parents will not accept false cut scores presented as legitimate measures of learning.
Robert Manley,
This was failure by design.
exactly
I agree. The only force to counteract this power play is the collective energy of parents exercised strongly in the face of legislators.
Help push this group 🙂
Moms Against Duncan (MAD)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/381566968642568/
Yet another Duncanism.
I agree with this post completely, but please let’s not just point a finger at Mr. Moron Duncan.
Let’s also point the finger at his boss, his boss’s vapid “you do anything it takes to go to college” wife, and all the ruling elite who are bribing the boss to retain Mr. Moron Duncan, such as Penny Pritzker and Eli Broad, to name a very few.
They are all in bed with each other, in one big bonanza bltiz orgy of school privatization . . . . . . . . . .
We are up against some very powerful forces out there.
“Yet another Duncanism”
He’s just trying to catch up to one of his idols but they’re nowhere near as good as all the Bushisms that Georgie the Least used to spout.
Doo-ane,
I long for the days of W. Bush with regard to education compared to what we have now. . . .teachers were not as tied to test scores as they are now. . . . . still, both presidents are catasptrohic for education. . . ..
We need a whole new paradigm, and it’s the opposite of Obama and Bush, I think.
Duncan is not qualified to teach. He’s not qualified to write or evaluate curriculum. He’s not qualified to serve as a public school principal or superintendent. He’s not qualified to discuss evidence based instructional practices. He’s not qualified to analyze or conduct education research. He’s not qualified to lead the local PTA. So why is he the Secretary of Education?
Duncan has awakened parents in every state. Parents are communicating with social media about the issues related to one-size-fits-all Common Core curriculum scripts, for-profit high stakes testing, bogus Common Core homework, the education industrial complex, teaching to the tests, Pearson’s profits, FERPA policies (that were changed under Arne’s watch) and Rupert’s nefarious data mining campaign called inBloom that Arne promotes.
American parents and their children are very smart and refuse to be manipulated by Arne Duncan and the profiteers. American parents will work to abolish the federal education department.
I know this seems odd but I keep thinking Arne’s white suburban mom comment may be more help by increasing the awareness & voices to advocate for our children & public education. He is feeling the pressure and on the defensive. Unscripted he is helping by adding to the talking points and broadening awareness for the cause. Maybe he has helped this noble effort more than we think. I know we can keep up the pressure and in doing so maybe he’ll keep helping us out.
Debbie Rice, I agree. Duncan made an error. He spoke unscripted and said what he believes. He sees no reason to listen to “white suburban moms,” or for that matter, inner-city black and white moms who don’t want their schools closed. Social media is a powerful tool. He is a rigid ideologue whose views are indistinguishable from those of Jeb Bush and others who want to replace public schools with choice.
I know it’s a fact of history, but there is something that makes me angry about this. I chose, after graduating from the University of Chicago in 1969, to teach in Chicago’s inner city schools. Until the early 1980s, those of us who taught in the “worst” schools were respected, because most people realized that most teachers could not do the jobs we were doing every day. Even in those days, the professors realized it.
After “A Nation At Risk,” the war against the public schools began. But during the 1980s and most of the 1990s, it was aimed almost exclusive at those of us who taught in the nation’s large, segregated urban school districts. Within five years after “A Nation at Risk” we got (courtesy of the Chicago Tribune) a book called “Chicago’s Schools — Worst in America” by William Bennett. Those two propagandistic packs of mendacity have set the tone of the corporate side of the debate since.
But the debate would not have been so lopsided against us for so long but for the racism of those “suburban Moms” who joined with the consensus attack on us. As the decades of attacks moved ahead, the corporate privatizers became more bold. We had few allies during the 1990s and early 2000s when the attacks were just against us. Arne Duncan did “Renaissance 2010” on behalf of Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago’s ruling class, closing nearly 100 real public schools and expanding monstrously the charters through the early 2000s.
And part of the basis for the ability of the ruling class to do that was the general racism that pervaded the suburbs, growing during those years.
It was one of those, “And finally they came for me…” moments. Maybe now the winds of politics have finally shifted, but during those lonely decades (many of us read and recommended “The Manufactured Crisis” for the past nearly 20 years) things might have been stopped long before Barack Obama got away with making Arne Duncan U.S. Secretary of Education and beginning that long odious string of New York Times articles cheerleading Duncan and Race to the Top by Sam Dillon and others.
This had to be said. The day the Chicago Board of Education voted to fire me (August 2000) at the behest of Paul Vallas (then CEO of CPS), most of my friends were afraid to stand up against what we then called the “testocracy.” When Jarvis Williams, then President of SEIU Local 46 took the floor to speak on my behalf and compared what I had done with Nelson Mandela (whom Jarvis had met and worked with; many of us worked against apartheid when it was less than fashionable), Paul Vallas went crazy.
But Vallas continued to get plum jobs and rake in millions of public dollars, while those of us in the resistance had to work on a shoestring the survive and continue publishing the truth. Now it’s time for the resistance to spread, but let’s be honest about the history as we create the new day. Just as some were abolitionists in the 1840s (and one of our Illinois heroes Elijah Lovejoy was publishing against slavery back when “12 years a slave” was a reality for millions), so it was worth celebrating when in 1865 the 13th Amendment finally passed. But…
Well, that’s enough for today.
So sad but true. The children of “white” suburban moms and dads comprise the ranks of TFA, let’s not forget. George Schmidt IS correct that this is a “and finally they came for me” moment. We cannot deny the racism that has allowed some suburban school districts (there are awful ones–since most of the standardized tests are partial if not worthless, even passing them does not say much about one’s education and abilities) to create their gilded, enrichment-laden, overnight-trip-taking bastions of privilege while nearby urban or more remote rural schools languish in moldy, crumbling building without art, music, or even recess.
I would definitely sign the petition, but I would also hope that all American parents stop and examine our stratified and divided society.
Thanks for your honesty. We have to acknowledge the past, learn from it and work to be better.
Maybe now we can all stand together for what’s best for children.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health/Human Services, was asked if she would resign and her answer was that she was comitted to getting the website working right. Duncan needs to take a hint. After all, these two programs depend on each other.
At least Sebelius didn’t ask for the spotlight like her “witty” dept. head brother–Duncan.
As a parent and education advocate, I am not against the Common Core as a starting point for schools to make sure that students are able to have sound base of knowledge. The challenge comes with implementation being guided by people who are wed to standardized testing as the only important measure of, and more important, predictor of success.
This was a problem from the moment that No Child Left Behind was established (with your support, Ms. Ravitch).
Pablo Alto, I was wrong to support NCLB. So were Senator Ted Keedy, Congressman George Miller of CA, and 90% of Democrats in Congress. Miller is head of the Democrats on House Education Committee today. He still defends NCLB and receives heavy funding from DFER, the hedge funders.
Pablo Alto, have you read “Reign of Error”? You won’t get very far into the book before you encounter Dr. Ravitch’s honesty and decency in stating that she was wrong to support NCLB. She has never tried to hide this fact. If you’re trying to discredit her, you’ll have to find another way. Before you do, however, I urge you to read her book and do additional research of your own.
Another challenge, Pablo Alto, is to ask yourself the question: Do you know for a fact that your local curriculum was indeed inferior to Common Core, or are your feelings based on assurances from media, superintendents or developers of CCSS?
I meant “previous local curriculum”.
Book reviews are pouring in for the new book, “White like me”, by Arne Duncan. Critics are raving, no one knows white people like Duncan. Finally, a white skin person telling what it’s really like to be white in white America!
Ah classic a**hole treatment from the elites in Washington- as if suburbanites aren’t working their tails off helping their kids to achieve. This isn’t going to go over well and I can tell you being the sister of a white Republican who has his kids in public school -he and his wife will fight like hell for their schools because they actually supported the Capistrano teacher’s strike some years back….Arne you have no idea the mess you’ve just made for yourself.
I think Duncan was inadvertently speaking of his mother, who must be disappointed that he continues with his foolish policies and can not admit his errors. He has certainly shown her that he is perhaps not as bright as she thought he was. He further compounds this by blaming others. Parents are understanding how inappropriate these tests are, how we have never been concerned about “international standing” before, and our politicians served the interests of the country, not business. Thanks Arne for gaining more allies for us, the parents that can put an end to this nonsense.
If a teacher made a public racist and sexist comment the media would be all over it!! Why is it that not one article that I have seen on this addresses the fact that his comment was also Racist and Sexist! Why WHITE Suburban MOMS! 1. Why not just Suburban Moms! Does he either deny that there are black Moms in the Suburbs, or think that they do not care! 2, Why not Suburban Parents does he think that fathers are Not involved in the education of their children? 3. Why suburban at all? Does he think that urban parents do not care? 4. Why does he say white at all about anything? Does he think of people in terms of black and white instead of just people?
Exactly. Considering the empathy and cultural sensitivity Obama brought up concerning Trayvon Martin, if he lets Duncan keep his job beyond the end of this week without an apology, he makes a mockery of ending racism.
Duncan will remain because “we took his comment, analysis out of context.” Cronyism reigns supreme with this administration as with the three previous ones (Pres. Obama I inclusive). “Yes we can (win)” was only applicable to the Chicago crew.
Two out of three is not too bad Arne.
Susan Duncan is white
She lives and works in Chicago
Her child is suddenly not as brilliant as she thought
No Tea Party thinking here. Apparently there are plenty of reasons to feel negatively about the implementation of the CC Nd the “testing” joke that is wasting Tim and money and creating so much stress in students, teachers, and parents. Arne Duncan is insensitive and uninformed. The level of disrespect for teachers is appalling. But simultaneously insulting the “brilliance” of students while claiming that the CC will make them become ready for college while making sure that 70% of students fail is mind-numbing!
Why on earth it’s ok for Arne Duncan to make a statement about “white” suburban moms is beyond me. That statement alone should call for his job. He is ignorant in his statement and ignorant in his position. Government has no position in our schools. We don’t want common core. Our children are individuals, not common with a one size fits all education. They have been stripped of indivuality and creativity in the classroom. We are not China, we are not Japan and we are not Finland with homogeneous societies where a one type eduction may fit. We are the greatest country in the world with the greatest individuals waiting to emerge from each generation. Stop stifling their growth.
Arne Duncan- Still politically tone-deaf and still functioning on a below basic level. Now insulting “white” moms. Who is next? Please Arne, let that tongue slip. Come on. That way you can be jettisoned to the ash heap where you belong.
In all the comments I have read, I don’t believe anyone has mentioned that there are certain kids who refuse to even try to complete a test. They will sit and stare, doing nothing, and since teachers aren’t allowed to single out a kid and nudge him/her, the score will be meaningless. But Arne would apparently blame the teacher.
Suburbian kids outscored the world on the 2009 PISA. Arne Duncan should be fired for his blatant disregard for public schools.
Duncan seems to have a real problem with the idea that too many kids think they’re special, or that their parents think their special. Maybe he believes that life is a bell curve and if the bell curve isn’t reality, then he needs to change the reality.
What he maybe doesn’t get is that a bell curve is an abstract object – an abstraction of an abstraction. A truly objective measure won’t match a bell curve, because no test is perfect. By trying to manufacture bell curves and making that the goal by moving out the “testing imperfections”, they create a place where not all kids CAN succeed – how can we move 100% of kids to proficiency if proficiency is the high end of the bell curve that they’re always normalizing against?
Our children are scaling mountains and these jokers pull the rugs out from under them.
Was Duncan not loved as a child? Did he envy high performers? Did he have a superiority complex and had to look down at everyone?
The only loser he has successfully manufactured is himself.
I am embarrassed to live in a country run by such idiots. The Republicans would be no better. We would all wish to be governed by people not parties.
I’m with all of the posters here that are of the opinion that Duncan should be fired for his remarks. And, WHERE was the press when Duncan made these remarks? Asleep at the switch? Duncan should get the boot – the sooner, the better.
Duncan appears to have hit a nerve. Putting aside his ham-fisted approach, do blogers here honestly disagree with his point: the most strident opposition to increasing the benchmark for raising the bar on what counts as academic proficiency comes from those who have least to gain from this change, or any change for that matter. Ravitch et. al would like to believe that things were just dandy before NCLB. Far from it. For an historian, she has a rather short and selective memory.
Andrew, I care about kids and the future of our society more than test scores. How about you? Try reading my book.
Here, yet again, you reduce the whole of educational reform to “kids” vs. “tests”. You are a smart woman, Diane, so I can only assume that you understand this is a false dichotomy.
Why then do you continue to peddle this reductive nonsense?
As for me, I spend my days working hard -very hard – to prepare teachers to prepare their kids to read relatively complex, authentic non-fiction texts and write credible arguments on issues broached in these texts. That’s how I “care about kids and the future of our society” these days. Who knows? Maybe in a few years they will even read Reign of Error and recognize how little it has to offer us on how to reform the American education system so that it adequately and equitably serves children.
In May, the students will take a”high-stakes” test that assess their skill at writing argumentative essays after reading a group of non-fiction texts related to a debatable issue. The teachers and administration are overwhelmed and frustrated by the challenge of preparing their students for it. The kids are way behind. So much to learn so little time. Too many cops and metal detectors in the school. Not enough support or accommodations for ELLs and special needs students. The test itself is flawed and overly ambitious. The easiest thing would be to write books and hold lectures that document every miscalculation and misdeed of the “reformers”, every flaw of the current systems of assessments and student/teacher evaluation. I have plenty of “insider” knowledge to take this angle if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. Why? Because I believe that preparing teachers to prepare kids – all kids – to read and write complex texts about complex ideas is a fundamentally good thing. Despite obvious flaws, the Common Core and Common Core aligned assessments have the potential to raise the level of teaching and learning across a broad spectrum of schools. In disparate school settings, I see signs of this change as I observe, confer and plan with teachers. So, instead of hawking books and indiscriminately denouncing “reformers” , I choose to spend my time getting behind the better elements of the current reforms and helping teachers work through the discomfort that always comes with substantive change.
It might be different if teachers’ jobs weren’t on the line based upon test scores that are meaningless when applied to curremt ly used curricula and grade level appropriate assignments.
The rush to jam through these changes using tests that have not been vetted is nothing less than bullying behavior. Putting up with dismissive remarks from the likes of Arne Duncan is unacceptable.
The only appropriate way to inject new programming is through field testing and by implementation that starts at the kindergarten level and builds, taking a full 13-14 years to assure complete understanding and buying in to the appropriateness of the changes.
Sweeping changes leave too many people floundering and children should not be subjected to being left high and dry.
I don’t know what the purpose of the rush to make these changes may be other than for the corporate forces to meet their bottom line obligations to investors. Plus there is a need to push technology, lock it on for 3 years, and see what the fallout may be. They can shrug off the tech failures, leave the districts holding the bag, and push for even more tweaks to their ill-informed methods.
Furthermore, I would like to know how your qualifications, Mr Rayner, permit your condescension to Diane Ravitch.
Your words are beyond unprofessional, “Dr.” Ratner. I would hope that your research fellows take heed of these remarks and how well they represent your institution of employment.
Diane Ravitch is an historian who has done her research several times over. Just because she hasn’t drunk the reform kool-aid to the point of “teaching to it” doesn’t mean she is out of line with any of her points. Her distance lends to her credibility as she is no direct insider.
You, however, are arrogant and obviously short-sighted neither of which are strong nor desirable qualities for those who are training teachers. I do not believe you will ever be evaluated using the Danielson model, but Charlotte Danielson would give you a “1” for both “maintaining an atmosphere of respect” and “communication skills.”
Are you sure you should be training teachers in your “urban education” methodology?
Definitely below standard…not even close to developing. Pity the teachers under his watch.
Perhaps the urban standards are riddled with put-downs–that sounds like a very new approach to professional discourse toward standards implementation.
He could write a rebuttal defense to his evaluation explaining how important it is to stop Diane and her “scary book” from ruining his job.
Andrew, how very much I wish that it were, in fact, the case that the Common Core in ELA were simply about helping kids to read closely and to respond intelligently in writing to what they have read. These are sound goals, and there are other general goals enunciated in the Publishers’ Criteria that make sense, such as having kids do extended reading within particular knowledge domains. However, the Common Core is not simply such a set of general principles. It’s a specific list of “standards,” and many of those are very, very backward, and every day, I see what publishers are doing in response to those “standards”–treating them AS the curriculum and producing materials that lack coherence because lessons are created solely for the purpose of “covering” particular “standards” (as in This lesson covers standards CCSS.ELA.RI.5.2a), and those particular standards are often very poorly thought through, and the resulting units lack coherence. One practical consequence of the CCSS in ELA and of the state standards that preceded them is, as a result, curricular incoherence. Developers of curricula start not with a body of material and do whatever is necessary to give kids access to that but start, instead, with the list of “standards” and try to shoehorn individual texts (“selections”) into that taxonomy, and this just doesn’t work. Oner ends up with Monty Python-like curricula (“And now for something completely different.”) Matters are greatly complicated by the fact that the CCSS in ELA is, basically, a list of hackneyed misconceptions and halftruths about education in the English language arts formulated as descriptions of abstract skills to be mastered. For example, the CCSS in ELA seem to have been written in almost complete ignorance of how, in fact, kids acquire vocabulary and the grammar of a language, for individual “standards,” throughout, assume prescientific notions about these matters. In reading, the emphasis on abstract skills encourages curricula and pedagogy that ignores WHY we read. We don’t read in order to master our finding the main idea skills. That mastery is an incidental benefit. But the pressure to “cover” the standards for the tests drives people to create learning progressions that move from one standard to the next in order to “cover” them all and that concentrate not on texts but on the abstract skills per se, and in this way, the spirit of the Common Core is completely undermined by the letter of it. The CCSS are, predictably, leading to a horrific narrowing and distortion and destruction of coherence in our curricula and in our pedagogy and, like the state standards before them, turning our schools into ill-conceived test prep. The CCSS in ELA appear, to me, to have been written in haste, by self-appointed amateurs. with the sole purpose of creating a uniform version of previously existing state standards that were themselves really backward. And those amateurs basically overruled every teacher, curriculum developer, and curriculum coordinator in the country with regard to what the outcomes to be measured should be. The “standards,” as written, are incompatible with many, many approaches that we should be taking in ELA, given our current understandings of language development and acquisition, and so they are a powerful reactionary force, holding back the innovation that would occur if we had competing, voluntary standards prepared by experts with different visions about curricula, pedagogy, and learning progressions in the specific domains that the “standards” cover.
And, of course, these “standards” were not subjected to informed critique by experts in learning in the domains that they cover. They were not vetted AT ALL. They were foisted on us. Their preparation was not undertaken with the high seriousness that such a task demanded. If they had been, there would have been, for example, working committees of cognitive scientists and linguists who are experts in vocabulary acquisition working on the vocabulary strand and making RECOMMENDATIONS in that area. There would have been literature professors weighing in on what a sound progression in THAT domain would look like. And all of that would be the BEGINNING of a conversation, resulting not in a codification of THE LAW but in living, changing, competing documents–recommendations to be revised, continually, in light of the emerging sciences of language acquisition and emerging best practices in the teaching of English.
Instead, we have one ring to rule them all. Big mistake.
I agree wholeheartedly with this Robert Shepherd!
Can you explain why the NEA and other education groups like Ohio Ed Assoc. are buying into it when local associations are not? It is puzzling.
Deb, in one word: money.
The NEA and the AFT have received a great deal of money from the Gates Foundation to transform themselves into the Propganda Ministry of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat.
And many school districts around the country have gotten a great deal of Gates Foundation money in exchange for becoming laboratories for these various deform initiatives, including VAM and LDC.
Robert Shepherd said: “We don’t read in order to master our finding the main idea skills. That mastery is an incidental benefit. But the pressure to “cover” the standards for the tests drives people to create learning progressions that move from one standard to the next in order to “cover” them all and that concentrate not on texts but on the abstract skills per se, and in this way, the spirit of the Common Core is completely undermined by the letter of it.”
This is to my mind a *much* more forceful critique of the impact of Common Core than the one that you see most often, namely that its too hard.
I really wish more people were discussing this.
Right now I’m working on developing essentially the first usable learning progressions in the very poor state in the very poor country that I work and live in, and one of the biggest things I’m trying to avoid is “covering the standards” in the way you describe.
Once, in a fit of frustration, I made the comment “I don’t CARE about the standards” while in a 4th grade meeting. Well, wouldn’t you know, our resident mole told the principal, and this was used against me.
I only meant that my first loyalty was to the curriculum guide for our district and that the standards were secondary to my obligations.
Watch what you say and who you say it to. Some people would sell their mother to keep in good graces with the “boss”.
Andrew, who died and appointed David Coleman and Susan Pimental absolute monarchs of education in the English language arts in the United States? Who gave them the final word about what the outcomes to be measured in the various domains in the English language arts ought to be? The last thing we need is some sort of absolutist codification of these. We need voluntary, COMPETING standards that encourage intense dialogue and debate about curricula, pedagogy, and learning progressions in the various ELA domains–living documents that are continually revised and improved in light of new understandings from the sciences of language acquisition and in light of emerging best practices in the teaching of English–not this reactionary “one ring to rule them all.” The CCSSO should have enunciated some general principles as the START of such a dialogue and debate instead of presuming to codify all this for everyone. The last thing that we need is an invariant, inflexible, one-size-fits-all set of national “standards” that effectively shuts down progress in thinking about what outcomes to be measured, and the curricula and pedagogy that will yield those outcomes, ought to look like.
Truly.
The last thing that we need is some Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth dictating these matters for the entire country. Codification of learning professions and outcomes to be measured is precisely how NOT to get innovation and continuous improvement.
It’s Ratner, not Rayner. I never knew that one needed qualifications to condescend.
Excuse me. My phone changed the t to a y.
I simply meant that you seem to have an air of self-importance. I wondered why you think you have clout.
You have already proven that qualifications are not neceessary and it looks like hard working Andrew is hawking Andrew.
You’re the only one working hard, very hard, to improve teaching and learning….evidently a legend in your own mind.
We will take Diane over your arrogant, pompous, self serving persona any day.
Oh, yes!
I saw MO alternative solutions either.
A moment of silence for the teachers (charter temps) “trained” by Andrew The Great, poor things.
That would be NO not MO.
I got it. Don’t worry. 🙂
I know that there are plenty of hard working people in schools. I also know that Diane Ravitch is not one of them. She doesn’t work in schools which could explain her superficial comments and gross generalizations on matters of curriculum and instruction, charter schools,etc. Given how removed she is from the day-to-day life of schools, it’s harder to explain why some teachers so readily and uncritically accept her positions and pledge allegiance to her agenda.
Btw, the teachers I spoke of earlier work in a conventional public high school in Brooklyn; they are not “charter temps” and I do not “train” them.
So who are you? With what”authority” do you speak?
You mean you don’t know who Andrew Ratner is?
Is he at City University of NY?
I was being sarcastic..never heard of him except for on this blog where he regularly insults Diane and he is extremely rude and full of himself. But see here:
http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/Andrew-Ratner.cfm
Yes I found several Andrew Rayner’s on Google. That one at CUNY sounds like his self-description. Sounds like it is his job to indoctrinate the new standards.
Ratner, A. R. and Shiels, S. (2008) Thinking and Writing Benchmark Administration and Norming Guide. Prepared for KIPP Foundation.
Ratner, A. R. and Shiels, S. (2007) Thinking and Writing Benchmark Data Summary. Prepared for KIPP Foundation.
Ratner, A. R. (2007) The KIPP Writing and Thinking Benchmark Assessments. Prepared for the KIPP foundation.
Oh, KIPP.
Kids in Prison Program….slanting, marching, eye contact, finger snapping, clapping, etc.
You know, “scholars”.
Now we see the real “master” behind his remarks. It isn’t very smart to represent KIPP in such an unprofessional manner.
I see that charter organization still has not accepted the challenge poised by Diane to take over an entire so-called “failing” district and “turn it around.” While I’m positive there are some fine educators at KIPP, the organization still does not have the answers to the issues facing the education of the entire public until it educates the entire public.
Until KIPP actually faces the general public on a daily basis like the vast majority of CC dissenting teachers, I see very little credibility in the experiences of this man.
It doesn’t appear you are one of us and your dismissal of those who support and appreciate the real teachers tells me all I need to know about you.
You are NOT intimately connected to the daily life of children: see, hear, support, comfort, mentor, inspire, cheer, and applaud them in real time 7 hours a day.
We appreciate and respect Diane because she gets it.
You, Andrew, clearly do not.
Your ego is in the way, a good reason for you not be close to children.
All this talk of “us” and “them”. This is why I have a problem with Diane Ravitch. She has propagated an image of the educational landscape that neatly divides it into two distinct camps (those who support teachers vs. those who don’t; those who love children vs. those who don’t, etc.). How is this any better than Arne Duncan characterizing all the critics of the Common Core as “soccer moms”?
Andrew really? And here you are to unite us on your white horse. Reflect much? Arne answers to Gates, Broad and those in power. He could care less about kids and we can all figure that out for ourselves. The divide was not created by Diane. If you’re so concerned call Arne during the day when you’re NOT in a school with real children. You’ll probably bond quickly.
Andrew, no one compels you to read the blog. It is a free country.
Please start your own blog Andrew. It can be all about you.
I agree completely with Andrew that Prof Ravitch is coarse in the extreme in her treatment of the relevant issues,
I think it goes to the tension between being a scholar and being an advocate. In my view she has largely abandoned serious scholarship and analysis in lieu of fervent advocacy for the causes she supports. Its the same tactic every half-decent politician uses to drum up support. Avoid any nuance and cast opposing views as not just wrong, but evil!
This sounds like a criticism of Prof Ravitch, but it isn’t. If she came to the opinion that defense of public schools is her mission, she probably realized that the most efficacious way of defending public schools is not through thoughtful, nuanced policy analysis but by framing it as public schools and kids and parents and teachers and sunshine and puppy dogs versus evil corporate billionaires with their evil corporate money trying to enrich themselves off the suffering and misery of students.
I can’t really blame anyone for choosing the most efficacious method of getting their point across, even if it leaves some people wanting more serious analysis.
Andrew used a lifeline and called a friend. Do you work at City College too?
No, I don’t work at City College and I don’t know Andrew Ratner at all.
I was actually disagreeing with Ratner. He means to criticize Prof Ravitch by characterizing her views as coarse and reductive, whereas I’m saying that if Ravitch honestly believes that defense of public schools is an important and urgent matter, then one cannot blame her for being coarse and reductive, because thats the most efficacious way to gain wide grassroots support, as every politician knows.
Andrew, Diane is not the one who is foisting mandates on the country. That’s being done by Achieve and the Gates Foundation, via their lackeys. Imagine an analogous situation: A self-appointed national committee decides that henceforth, all citizens in the country have to wear a particular uniform. A government agency–the IRS, say–is enlisted to “encourage” this. Your taxes go WAY down if you wear the uniform. Now, it’s the national committee that has created an us-them situation–those opposed to the mandate and those who embrace it. It makes no sense to say that the critics of the mandate are the ones being decisive. That charge would apply to anyone opposing any mandate anywhere at any time.