As readers of the blog know, critics of the Common Core span the political and ideological spectrum. So do supporters.
Many who consider themselves liberals oppose the imposition of grade-by-grade standards that are inflexible and take away teachers’ ability to tailor instruction to the needs of their students. Early childhood advocates are critical of CC’s demand to force academic instruction into the earliest grades. Many object on principle to the absence of any transparency in the development or adoption of the standards.
Now the right is mobilizing to fight Common Core and brands the standards as a federal takeover. It will use the Common Core as a reason to fight for school choice, the far right agenda of charters and vouchers.
The irony is that some of the major stalwarts of the rightwing are advocates for Common Core, including Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and various far-right governors.
The US Department of Education thought it pulled a fast one by using money from the Gates Foundation to develop the standards, then used the lure of Race to the Top to get 45 states to adopt Common Core, in some cases sight unseen.
But the absence of democratic process and transparency has poisoned the well. Tricking the public is not a good move in a democracy. It sows suspicion and distrust.
Common Core is the most controversial issue in education today, and the pitched battles in every state are indicative of the Obama administration’s failed plan to create national standards by stealth. If Politico’s article is right, Common Core could be a potent weapon to undermine public education, destroy unions, and promote charters and vouchers.
If this was the goal of the Obama administration and the Gates Foundation, it’s working–and it’s tragic.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve been trying to beat this drum for a while. For many people on the right, CCSS and its attendant abuses don’t look like an aberration of the system, but the ultimate expression of it. They see CCSSetc and they don’t say, “This is an unholy deforming of what public education is supposed to be.” They say, “See. I told you. Public education is finally showing its true colors.” For these folks, CCSS is not a problem to be fixed; it’s final proof that the beast must finally be killed dead.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-worst-that-can-happen.html
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Oh, it doesn’t matter if we have public schools. Public schools are status quo thinking.
It’ll be great. Everyone will get a 5000 dollar voucher and they’ll shop on a state marketplace. 5000 dollars was the number ed reformers in Michigan came up with when they floated a total voucher plan. I wonder if we’ll be able to persuade our politicians to establish a “public option”. I doubt it, but maybe we can try.
I think the goal is to take our existing universal public K-12 education system and turn it into the broken, fragmented, wildly expensive and hugely inequitable private health care system.
Who can argue with that?
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So you think Obamacare is better than the previous health care system? It used to be that anyone with a job with a company got health insurance as a benefit. Those not working got Medicaid. It’s inequitable, sure, but it wasn’t unfair. If you worked you got a better deal.
Perhaps “public education” would be better off if it consisted of a $5000 voucher. Freedom of choice seems to me to be a higher principal in American culture than “free universal . . . ” whatever.
That teachers work hard, and in some cases under very difficult conditions, but it IS arguable that the public schools are providing a ‘good’ education to its graduates, most of whom do not understand the fundamental ideals of the Constitution.
Granted, many are smart, and have a good skills education (although in some districts the literacy rate and graduation rate is woeful), but no kid understands citizenship except in the progressive way.
Most teachers don’t either.
So what can one expect?
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“Those not working got Medicaid.”
You’re too smart to believe that, Harlan. The gulf between “not working” and “getting Medicaid” was and is a yawning chasm. That’s why there were 45 million uninsured people, remember?
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Not to mention, of course, the vast numbers of working people whose employers did not provide them with health insurance, even in the days before “ObamaCare” allegedly scared employers away from providing health insurance.
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True to an extent, Harlan. But it used to be that private health insurance was much more affordable than what it’s evolved into, today.
I remember a book, published in the early ’70s, called, “Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations”. It detailed how these ever expanding corporations were hard at work, figuring out ways of obtaining greater power and influence. One of the means cited was to make working for large corporations the only means of obtaining affordable health care.
I know there are other factors at work when it comes to the cost of health care now as compared to 40 years ago, but I remember being impressed with the analytical aspects of this book:
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I guess that counts as a defense of Obamacare (aka ACA). I’m not sure that government regulated healthcare as the only source of healthcare is preferable to corporate provision of healthcare. In any case the average cost of health care declined in 2012, but no one knows quite why, says an article in the WSJ today (section A). As I look at my son’s premium, and increase in my own, I can’t help but think that the ACA is making health insurance more expensive for me and my family, without eventually having any effect on actual health care spending. We’ll see. Many are automatically being shunted to Medicaid, an insurance that doctors appear to be shunning. So more people covered won’t add up to better care automatically. If health care spending goes down, it will be achieved by rationing and denial of care. Is that what you see coming as well?
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Oh God, no, Harlan. Please. My faith in Obama’s motives has eroded beyond recognition.
My best friend just retired from the communications industry at age 62. It was a “mutually agreed upon” retirement. So much for respecting your elders. So far, it’s Florida in the winter and travel to find another place for the warmer months. He’s covered by Cobra for now, but when it lapse his premiums will be considerable and his deductible will be $5000.
$5000.
Unless the roof caves in, he’ll be paying out of pocket for everything and then have the honor of paying expensive monthly premiums, to boot.
Ain’t that nice? Some states are cheaper, but the bottom line is that the costs are going up for all of my friends either retired or forced to buy in.
What I meant by my post is that the insurance industry allowed for affordable PRIVATE (aka: individual, family, very small business) health care plans previous to the squeeze that’s been put on us over the past few decades. Nothing whatsoever to do with government control of the industry.
If it’s not going to be single payer, then I don’t really see the point…but I’m not an expert on that at all, so I’ll be more than interested to hear good and bad points concerning on that subject.
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It seems we already have a wildly expensive and inequitable public education system. The problems with the public education system are multiple and they begin wirh social declines that increase poverty and incentivize irresponsible behavior. The same tactics have been used for years: create a crisis and then use the crisis to chip away at liberty. This is not, nor has it ever been, a left/right issue. It is a ruling elite imposing themselves on their subjects. It is the Hegelian principle: thesis/antithesis leads to synthesis. We have capitalists and socialists in lockstep with one another.
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A plague on both their houses, is it? Then what?
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You write, “The irony is that some of the major stalwarts of the rightwing are advocates for Common Core, including Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and various far-right governors.” <— Yup, nailed it. That is the irony of the decade.
Let's hope many truly do begin to connect the dots and see who is really behind Common Core and vouchers. I am guessing we will soon find that the fight against the ed profit industry is also non-partison.
Thank you, Diane.
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Love your statement, “Let’s hope many truly do begin to connect the dots and see who is really behind Common Core and vouchers. I am guessing we will soon find that the fight against the ed profit industry is also non-partison.”
TRUE. Remember NAFTA. Remember Clinton started standards and testing in AK. Hillary oversaw that program. If it works in AK, must work elsewhere. DUH….what a crock. It is about making money for the FEW and controlling the Masses—and has always been.
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Clinton started standards in Alaska?
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Not sure right or left is the issue, as much as either a unified or dual campaign(s) to disable, demean, undermine and then “reform” or destroy the institutions that serve the public to increase private profit.
For one side: it may be CC controlled “government” run schools for the children of the less advantaged (quotes because no one elected Klein, Murdoch, Gates, the regents or “fellows” guiding their policies, and yet their policies seem to guide our elected leaders..) that will enrich private gov’t contractors/providers. The end result being tenuous controlled survival in poor schools with few options and no funding, abandoned by those able,picked clean by “public” schools that will lure more capable students and leave challenging students in the same schools with even fewer resources: running on a shoestring budget and policy-forced to disrespect professionals and the needs of students.
For the other side: it may be CC controlled “free market” run schools for the children of the less advantaged (quotes because Klein, Murdoch, Gates, the regents or “fellows” are market interests pushing policies through elected leaders control the market and limit freedoms) that will enrich private corporations looking to abolish gov’t controls over monopolization. The end result being tenuous controlled survival in poor schools with few options and no funding, abandoned by those able,picked clean by for-profit “choices” schools that will lure more capable students and leave challenging students in the same schools with even fewer resources: running on a shoestring budget and market-forced to disregard professionals and the needs of students.
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I don’t know. It looks like a right/left issue to me. The right supports ed reform because it bashes public education, teachers and unions. They oppose CCSS because it’s a good political issue (as Politico says) and opposition does fit their ideology.
When there is support from across the political spectrum for charter schools and quashing CCSS, it ends up as support for an agenda the right wing has co-opted. Hard to get around that.
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The deeper question, Bill, is whether “public education, teachers[,] and unions” OUGHT to be bashed. Let’s take each item in the series separately rather than conflate them. Public education was not always parasitized by unions.
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If I understand correctly, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t! From the beginning, Common Core was designed, built and implemented by corporations to privatize public schools (charter schools). Now, those very same corporations are fighting against Common Core as a reason to privatize our schools. Do I have this right?
In other words, heads I win, tails you lose?
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Pamela Verity: you have hit the nail on the head.
So don’t be surprised to hear, e.g., in the backlash against the iPad catastrophe in LAUSD, the clarion call to “reform” our public schools a la charters and privatization—even when the whole debacle was the result of die-hard followers of the charterite/privatizer movement.
A lose-lose situation for us? Irrelevant to them. If there’s $tudent $ucce$$ in it, they’re in it to win it. Rheeally! And if that means speaking out of both sides of their mouths—even with feet firmly planted in them—they’ll do it.
Morality? Honesty? Fair dealing? Pshaw! Adherence to their Marxist dogma trumps decency every time:
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well, I have others.”
¿? Groucho, of course. Who else?
😎
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There are extremely serious problems with the ways in which the CC$$ in ELA characterize education in each of the domains covered. In almost every line, these standards [sic] instantiate or assume extremely controversial notions about the teaching of vocabulary, grammar, writing, literature, nonfiction texts, speaking, listening, research skills, and critical thinking. Many superb, well-vetted and genuinely research-based approaches to curricula and pedagogy in each of these areas are PRECLUDED BY the CC$$ ELA “standards.” And so the adoption of this amateurish bullet list is a tragedy for our country. Adopting the list effectively ends innovation in ELA instruction.
Achieve appointed David Coleman and Susan Pimentel absolute monarchs of education in the English language arts. Ours is but to obey. They have told every curriculum developer and curriculum coordinator in the country, in effect, what you think you know about what to teach to whom, when, and why, is of no further interest. David has made these decisions for you.
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The CC$$ in ELA, prepared by amateurs and not vetted at all, are a recipe for mediocrity. If the goal is to undermine public education by forcing public schools and curriculum developers to follow invariant, mediocre standards [sic] slavishly, then clearly the goal will be accomplished.
At the end of his delightful Archy and Mehitabel poem “The Old Trouper,” Don Marquis has his ancient “theatre cat” turn to Mehitabel, that “cat of ill repute,” and say,
“both our professions/are being ruined/by amateurs.”
That just about sums up the CC$$ in ELA. If these had been voluntary guidelines, subject to dramatic amendment and to scholarly debate and continual improvement, that would have been acceptable. But foisting Coleman’s amateurish bullet list on the entire country clearly is not.
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Because the Common Corporate Standards are primarily a vehicle for introducing ever more high stakes tests, and because high stakes tests are a weapon against public schools and their teachers, it follows that it is a strategic effort to undermine public education (in addition to being an attempt to impose a profit-centered monoculture in the schools that preps the majority of students for a future of powerless, tedious, poverty-wage jobs).
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AMEN, Michael.
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Michael Fiorillo: for those that still refuse to acknowledge the connection, I refer one and all to a money quote from an insider and intellectual star of the “education reform” movement and supporter of CC, Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute:
[start quote] In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes. [end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
As is so often the case, courtesy of Dr. Mercedes Schneider, not a member of the “education reform” movement and not a supporter of CC.
Or what we used to call, in old-fashioned terms, a decent and honorable human being.
Thank you, KrazyMathLady!
😎
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How darkly ironic, indeed, it is that organizations that CLAIM to oppose top-down totalitarian regulation by central committees–organizations like the Business Roundtable, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce, and Achieve–are falling all over themselves to support the establishment of a Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
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Robert,
Have you read this yet?
Laying Bare of Questions Which Have Been Hidden by Answers: The English Language Arts Standards of the Common Core, K-5
Click to access 4d7455803e514c868a9db6f01d01565a.pdf
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It’s a superb article. It’s time that this amateurish bullet list started receiving high-profile critique. Thanks for posting this link!
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“But the absence of democratic process and transparency has poisoned the well. Tricking the public is not a good move in a democracy. It sows suspicion and distrust.
“Common Core is the most controversial issue in education today, and the pitched battles in every state are indicative of the Obama administration’s failed plan to create national standards by stealth.”
Bravo!
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“by stealth”
exactly
“And be these juggling fiends no more believed,/That palter with us in a double sense” –William Shakespeare, Macbeth
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Think…OLIGARCHY, not democracy in this country. This is the problem.
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As a teacher and administrator it was my goal to take students at whatever point they were in their education, take them from that spot and develop them as far as time, their talent, and my – or teachers – skill would allow. One should have goals and objectives well defined but broad goals of education MUST be included as has been stated on these blogs for a very long time. We train animals, we should educate people. For me, education means searching for and implementing the best ideas that humanity has come up with over the centuries. Yes, ideas keep enlarging. Aristotle is superseded by Newton, Newton by Einstein, Einstein by the “Norsemen” but one thing seems consistent, freedom of thought and democratic idealism allowing for creativity and critical thinking etc leads to progress. Totalitarianism, thought domination by self appointed dictators leads to stagnation over time. I was taught to believe in the efficacy of democratic idealism. Nations fail when money, ideas are isolated at the top and those on the bottom are considered less worthy.
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Very, very well said!
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“We train animals, we should educate people.”
Amen, Hallelujah, TAGO!
“For me, education means searching for and implementing the best ideas that humanity has come up with over the centuries.”
Amen, Hallelujah, TAGO (at least a 36 point font for that thought)!
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Our hostess would be better positioned to document her observations of Deformers’ statements about where the profit motive intersects with the School Choice Movement.
There certainly is a subset of the Deformers – aka the Profiteers – who mouth the language of student-centered doublespeak but plot on how to end the Monopoly (on Money) that centralized school districts have.
Think of all the leverage (borrowing) one can achieve if each public school building were treated like commercial real estate with a public revenue source as a tenant. The Profiteers long game: Pressure for high stakes tests, Pressure for Grading Schools, Pressure to close schools, Pressure to drain students out through “choice”, Obtain a building for $1, Find a charter school tenant & sign them up to 40 year escalating cost lease, Issue bonds based on future revenue & buy up more land.
This is how to break up the Monopoly on Money through distributing the district buildings.
Another fav quote of mine and it has appeared here before gets to another aspect of getting at the money comes from Joanne Weiss (ex of Gates Fdn and Dept of Ed Chief of Staff):
The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.
And of course we know that the winning Profiteer who markets a cookie-cutter standards-aligned product will decrease the marginal costs of new product as it sells to multiple customers.
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Tone, pt. 4: Dystopian Fiction, Passion, and the Education Reform Debate http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/tone-pt-4-dystopian-fiction-passion-and-the-education-reform-debate/
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So the Quixotic Quest to rid the world of educational standards, standardized testing and the sorting, separating and “grading” of students qualifies me as a looney??? (or is it the extra question marks???)
Well think about what Wilson has to say about these educational malpractices:
“It requires AN ENORMOUS SUSPENSION OF RATTONAL THINKING to believe that the best way to describe the complexity of any human achievement, any person’s skill in a complex field of human endeavour, is with a number that is determined by the number of test items they got correct. Yet so conditioned are we that IT TAKES A FEW MOMENTS OF STRICT LOGICAL REFLECTION TO APPRECIATE THE ABSURDITY OF THIS.”
Is it my use of capitalization for effect or the continual citing of Wilson’s never rebutted nor refuted dissertation that make me a looney? or both or all three or four mentioned??? Are there more thing?
I guess “That’s on me.”
Excellent article, Paul! Thanks!
Duane
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I am confident that the CCSS initiative is about destroying public schools, and I have no doubt that Duncan and Obama knew it beforehand. Keying CCSS tests to NAEP purposely is designed to push parents away, especially middle and upper class parents.
It is working. I refuse to place my kids in public schools in such a toxic environment. I want my kids to be in a joyous learning environment, not one with busy teachers running around teaching to the test. No thanks.
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For me, in the great midfield of the country, it is the state based standards that have been aimed to destroy public education, at least when it comes to science education.
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They are indistinguishable, TE, in their dreadful quality. The distinguishing characteristic of the CC$$ is that they create economies of scale for educational materials monopolists. That is, after all, why the monopolists paid to have them created.
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The common core state standards do no ten corporate the young earth hypothesis as a viable scientific hypothesis. They do not entertain the idea that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, and the explanation for fossil record is that the bad swimmers drowned first in the Noahianic flood.
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But I don’t think Charters and vouchers will happen without the standards, which is ironically eliminating all choice. The standards and testing will be what makes the weak even more vulnerable, and the strong weaker.
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Common Core is not only destroying public schools, its killing the private schools that follow its path. The issue with vouchers is not that they help children learn better, but the fact that schools that take the vouchers are tied to the same regulations that are counterproductive to the public school system.
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Exactly. I just don’t see how the CCSS will go away. It is intrinsic to measuring progress before, during and after.
So ultimately, “Choice” will not exist; voucher money will follow students to whichever corporate educational franchise they choose, which will spring up from the new corporate/government alliances;
Ultimately, all will offer the same “product.” Possibly the flavor will be in the content, but if you don’t pass the test, that school will simply buckle down and teach exclusively to the test. Better schools will get to add a little more flavor. Kind of like what we have now.
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As a Christian and proud member of the right wing, I don’t like the idea of vouchers even though I think that in many regards they are fairer. I think that once the govt. gets involved with private education by giving them any kind of funding, they will gradually insist on calling the shots. As a result of new legislation here in California, the doors were removed from preschool toilet stalls. Our 4 year old granddaughter came home very upset about it and our daughter never took her back to that school. Now because of that AND Common Core our 3 grandkids were moved from local public school to a small and relatively affordable private school. No, our kids can’t afford it, so we try to help out. But recently we were notified that they will be having a parent’s meeting regarding Common Core, so I imagine this private school will become infected with the Common Core VIRUS too. Is there no saving us from this travesty of non-vetted, non-rigorous, data mining, dumbing down “future worker” indoctrination Mr. Gates has bankrolled and Mr. Obama has stealthily slipped passed us?? Just like the ACA, now that it has already been passed we are finding out what it is, and we on the right and left alike can not be fooled!!!
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The left is still defending it. I am coming to think that the paranoia on this blog about the destruction of the public school system is possibly realistic, but the real question is whether the government should be in education in the first place. Just think what we could do with the tax money we pay to state and local jurisdictions to support public schools which philosophically speaking don’t even believe in freedom and capitalism.
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It’s not about the right or left. The big money interests invest in candidates from both parties. Obama is not the champion of the people that we were led to believe he was, imo.
It’s easy to get depressed about these contrivances. I know I do at times. But we’ve got to keep our chins up and do what we can to shed light on the sources and repercussion of what is being forced on us.
We’ve gotten hammered for more than a decade by the reformers. They’re tactics have been very effective, yet we’re still here and I think we’re gaining ground, now. I’ve always felt that parents would win the battle for us and we’re finally getting more and more of them on our side. Can’t give up. Just can’t give up.
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Thank you, of course you are right, we must carry on. It seems that many in education were vulnerable to the promise if more rigor, international standards and of course funding. My niece who referred me to this blog and is a teacher has gradually come to see the real dangers and compromises of Common Core. Are you a teacher too?
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I’ve taught for twenty years in the field of special education. I left the world of corporate management and was more than happy to find a field in which discovering and serving individual needs was such an integral part. Teachers and principals were given a lot more latitude back then, in order meet the needs of their school’s population.
Sixteen years ago, I attended a professional development session in which we were told that the math curriculum was going to be radically changed for both general and special ed (with no distinction between the two). “Process over Product” was the mantra and any pre-existing curriculum (no matter how effective) was to be shelved in favor of the new one. During Q&A, I said that this would take a very important structural component out of the mix for my special needs kids, most of whom were very much in need of concrete operational skills.
I then asked, “Why are you choosing to do this?”.
The answer:
“We met with some CEOs of very successful Fortune 500 companies and asked them what they need from our graduates. They said, ‘Problem solvers. We don’t need calculators. We can buy those at any office supply store’.”
When I brought up the idea that there were plenty of kids who would never see the inside a Fortune 500 company’s office building (kids with different skill set needs), they ignored me and moved on to the next question.
Since that day, the march of the corporate world into that of public education has steadily increased in scope, hand in hand with a steady propaganda campaign that’s maligned teachers, principals, and the very system that created some of the most brilliant minds of our times. It’s been a very effective smear campaign.
I’m sorry to give such a long winded answer to such a simple question, Laura, but there’s much, much more I could say. The decisions that are being made are so all encompassing and so few of them include the input of educators, child psychologists, and parents. It’s difficult to deal with, given the magnitude…but what choice do we really have?
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“What choice do we really have?” I guess the emphasis is on “really.” The corollary seems to be: “if we want to continue to be employed by our current school system.” Is that the bottom line?
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I’m surprised to hear you say that, Harlan.
Of course we want to maintain employment in the field that we’ve dedicated ourselves to. Give me an example of someone who wouldn’t. But there’s also the REASON we dedicated ourselves to the field of education and why we didn’t just bail when things got tough:
The Kids
Harlan: I’m thinking of the education of the children throughout the entire United States of America. This is crux of the matter.
Do you really think that this reform movement will further the opportunities of a good future for these kids in a better way than what could be done by incorporating the technological advances with the already proven model? I don’t.
Yes: I’d like to stay employed, continuing to do the good work that I’ve been doing for the past 2 decades, without outside influences without any knowledge of my kids telling me how to do my job.
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lol…I should be an editor. My last paragraph should’ve read:
“Yes: I’d like to stay employed, continuing the good work that I’ve been doing for the past 2 decades, free of outside influences (with no knowledge of my kids) telling me how to do my job.”
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Thank you. Excellent post.
Bob Weiss
Vice President for Administration
Meadows Foundation Inc.
3003 Swiss Ave.
Dallas, TX 75204
(214)826-9431 xt. 8109
bobweiss@mfi.org
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