Back in the 1990s, when I was on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (now the Thomas B. Fordham Institute), we began rating state standards and assigning letter grades to the states. Much to our surprise and delight, the media ate up the ratings. Whenever we released our grades for the states, there would be big stories in the newspapers in almost every state, and it helped to put TBF on the map.
Now, TBF–a conservative advocacy group for accountability, high-stakes testing, and choice–has become a major promoter of the Common Core. Coincidentally or not, TBF received significant funding from the Gates Foundation to evaluate the Common Core, which seems to be a wholly-owned property of theGates Foundation.
In this post, Mercedes Schneider reviews the reliability, validity, and consistency of the Fordham ratings of state standards when compared to the Common Core standards.
She ends her piece by including a bizarre video that TBF commissioned, in which its staff appear to be robots or zombies. They chant against smaller class size and in favor of the Common Core. If nothing else, you can understand the Institute’s priorities. Not for their own children, of course, but for Other People’s Children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“CCSS is not voluntary. It is coerced…You must push back.”
Agreed – we must!
How is it that for several years now, “grades” have been used to measure compliance with the reform agenda and not efficacy? Schools have not failed students, they continue to educate, inform and prepare. The failure comes from the unwilling masters of the free market who are insatiable and unwilling to give back a return on their growing wealth and power (in the form of the jobs that could and should ALREADY be waiting for students).
“She ends her piece by including a bizarre video that TBF commissioned, in which its staff appear to be robots or zombies. They chant against smaller class size and in favor of the Common Core.”
They’re parodying the objections of their critics, as I’m sure you know. They’re zombies and robots and they hate small class sizes.
It’s not a response, though. To me, it’s akin to “white suburban moms” and “special interests” and “coddled children”, none of which address any of the questions on Common Core.
My concern, living in the ed reform state of Ohio, is that public schools are being handed another ed reform mandate that will involve huge amounts of investment in new testing while the budgets of public schools have been cut. Since ed reformers lobbied to cut budgets to public schools in Ohio and funnel more money to politically-connected for-profit “cyberschools”, vouchers, and various other ed reform experiments, this is a real concern that no one is addressing. Ed reformers lack credibility to me, and this is based not on my belief that they are zombies or robots, but on more than a decade of the effects of ed reform on my local public schools in this state.
They can parody the objections all they want. At some point they’re going to have seriously and respectfully confront them and debate the issue. I even know when they’ll have to do this, watching what happened in New York. They’ll have to address them when the Common Core reaches local school districts. I don’t think one public school parent in 100 here even know what the Common Core is, but they are going to find out. While I appreciate the political tactic of parodying and dismissing potential critics before the critics have a chance to speak, I don’t think it’s a respectful approach.
It is my understanding that if strapped public schools (with budgets cut by ed reformers) are not able to come up with the money to put in the online capability to conduct CC testing on a computer, they will have to test children with paper. It is also my understanding that if school have to rely on paper, the CC tests will be simply another standardized test (not the “next generation of assessments!” that is being sold to the public).
The people at Fordham could address that question, or not, I guess, but someone will have to address it when CC reaches local public school districts, because I’ll be asking it at a school board meeting.
Money is it exactly. If your district doesn’t have it, the choices are few. And if you DO have just enough, budget cuts and increased mandates will help make sure your choices are still few. Basically, best solution is to exercise your constitutionally guaranteed right to be free to have lots and lots of money and put your kids into a fancy prep/charter/private school. That’s a “choice”, right?
I think we’ll get a debate here. We’re not completely “reformed” so we still have an elected school board and a democratic process to weigh in on running any public entity, like a public school.
I think they short-circuited debate to push this in, and the dismissive, patronizing approach is intended to short circuit debate again.
It won’t work. At some point they are going to have to defend the CC on the merits to public school parents, including informing us how they intend to pay for it.
Our superintendent is quite responsive. She’s enormously patient, actually, as a person. I can’t imagine her dodging questions on such a huge change in our public schools. As usual, ed reformers are coming up with the Grand Ideas and then sticking local public schools with the blowback of the reality. It’s been going on for a decade in this state. They’re simply not accountable for their ideas. They push accountability DOWN, which is to me just a red flag whether it’s done in a business or in government.
I remember having walkthroughs when administrators who had never raised a reading score, would come sniffing around looking to see if bulletin board were neat, since that is all that they could see, and that the standards were posted all around the rooms, which kids never would read. There had to be a “spelling wall”, no matter if it was updated or not.
In the late 90’s teachers were able to show how their reading scores went up, and not due to a dog and pony show. We would get the reading results, since each child had a percentile showing how they fared with other children, some went up and some went down. This was useful knowledge for a teacher. At some point we stopped getting these results and the kids were sliced into norm referenced 1,2,3,4 “proficiency levels”. “Grade level” had previously been the mean of any test population. Reading scores became arbitrary. Good teachers had no way of affirming their ability and senior teachers were hounded to the point, where they were forced from the schools to bring in younger teachers and lower salaries. Many teachers began to leave the profession and the trend has not diminished. All test scoring is a mess and now political.
I like her point that TBF Institute is not accountable to anyone—-it’s easy to just go around giving letter grades to other groups when yours is not under the same scrutiny.
I also think so much of this type work is work that has an avoidance agenda. How can I avoid going into a school and working with poor children? I know, I’ll work in an office that gives letter grades to those who are working with and on behalf of children all across the country! Then I can go out to lunch, go to meetings, have nice office furniture, feel empowered, etc. The mission and cause has a subtext, if you look hard enough (money, possibly, but definitely lifestyle—-working in schools is not glamorous).
Why should they bother to construct a plausible theoretical cover for their political “grading” operation? Its target audience is the hired echo chamber, which is assigned to convince the American people that resistance to their monopoly marketing scheme is futile.
It gets harder and harder to find any paid advocates on the Common Core $$ side who even bother to keep a straight face. Showered with unearned power and money, their runaway self-esteem propels them into self-indulgent displays of narcissism like the addendum Mercedes dug up. I have to ask, who is calling whom a “kook”? Here it is:
White suburban moms, special interests and coddled children. It’s a variation on that political tactic.
None of which address the merits or specifics of Common Core.
They didn’t have to engage in debate when they passed it, and they don’t want to engage in debate until after the “sunk costs” make it impossible to change course, like in New York.
I think it’s a DUMB political tactic, but it’s certainly one they can take out of the tool box, until the CC comes to local districts, which is what happened in NY.
chemtchr: yesterday I [unintentionally] watched Pitbull on ABC during its morning show.
“Pitbull” as in the edupreneur who’s raking in $tudent $ucce$$ while—you don’t know him? Well, prepare to be dazzled by the first lines of his “Juice Box,” er, “song”—
[start quote]
Money – ay oh ay oh ay oh wah – Money ay oh ay oh ay oh wah – Money
I want, I need, I like, to get – Money, money, money, money,
I want, I need, I like, to get – Money, money, money, I like
[end quote]
Just as the ideas and practices of the self-styled “education reformers” are thinly veiled borrowings of past failures, so too the TBF video is a thinly veiled [and poorly executed] take off of Pitbull, their hero.
Folks, it’s hard to make fun of people who dig themselves into a deep hole and then ask for more shovels.
But we can learn from their unintentional dig at themselves:
“A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.” [Joseph Conrad]
😎
I ran across that video and posted the link the other day. Glad you could embed it. People should see Petrilli’s arrogance and hubris on display. What’s with the beer bottles?
Petrilli has way too much free time. That is so bizarre, but not original. It’s based on this: Ylvis – The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)
Also, not that it matters to the “TBF”, but I don’t agree with their ideological stance on public schools, so I would be less likely to support the CC if they’re backing it.
Why would I support an organization that seeks to privatize public schools? I intend to RETAIN my public school. This isn’t a minor disagreement. As far as I can tell, watching “TBF” direct policy here in Ohio, nothing they have done over the last decade has benefitted or improved existing public schools. I would argue TBF had HARMED existing public schools in this state.
So why would I adopt their recommendation? I’m not a fan of Milton Friedman.
I’m with ya Chiara.
Milton’s points about education are interesting from an intellectual standpoint, but that’s about it. From a practical standpoint I think they will create unfortunate situations—already are.
I think this is remarkable, and is an indication of how nutty the ed reform debate is to me:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/de-blasio-farina-call-school-reform-truce-article-1.1561787
Read it. There is LITERALLY no mention of public schools. None. The entire focus is on protecting charter schools.
Is there even any concern for how ed reform affects children in existing public schools? How did it happen that 95% of kids are completely ignored?
Charter schools are emerging as a higher caste of schools in the eyes of high-caste Americans (e.g. Ivy grads). Regular public schools have a loser stigma about them. –approaching ‘untouchable” status.
That’s the feeling I came away after eavesdropping recently on an interview between a KIPP regional manager and a prospective hire who currently teaches at a Rocketship school (it seems the cafes of the Bay Area are filled with charter employees). The KIPP guy (young, of course) had that preternaturally alert, fast-talking air about him –more Silicon Valley than the tweedy academy. He bragged about how KIPP is expanding. The interviewee (also very young) revealed that she went to Dartmouth. “Oh, you have a Dartmouth degree,” he said, impressed. His attempts to woo her to KIPP intensified after that. I agree with Joanna –some of the energy behind this charter movement comes from avoidance –of seeming low caste. KIPP and Rocketship approach the glamor and prestige of Google and Netflix. Humble ordinary public schools do not.
Diane,
Thanks, in contact with Mercedes, and also with Fordham, requesting info. why our state was rated so low…just as we adopted CC, and our governor said we were ‘excellent’ Hmmmm