Across the nation, parents and educators are raising objections to the Common Core standards, and many states are reconsidering whether to abandon them as well as the federally-funded tests that accompany them. Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable vocally support them, yet the unease continues and pushback remains intense.
Why so much controversy?
The complaints are coming from all sides: from Tea Party activists who worry about a federal takeover of education and from educators, parents, and progressives who believe that the Common Core will standardize instruction and eliminate creativity in their classrooms.
But there is a more compelling reason to object to the Common Core standards.
They were written in a manner that violates the nationally and international recognized process for writing standards. The process by which they were created was so fundamentally flawed that these “standards” should have no legitimacy.
Setting national academic standards is not something done in stealth by a small group of people, funded by one source, and imposed by the lure of a federal grant in a time of austerity.
There is a recognized protocol for writing standards, and the Common Core standards failed to comply with that protocol.
In the United States, the principles of standard-setting have been clearly spelled out by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
On its website ANSI describes how standards should be developed in every field. The American National Standards Institute
“has served in its capacity as administrator and coordinator of the
United States private sector voluntary standardization system for
more than 90 years. Founded in 1918 by five engineering societies
and three government agencies, the Institute remains a private,
nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse
constituency of private and public sector organizations.
“Throughout its history, ANSI has maintained as its
primary goal the enhancement of global competitiveness of U.S.
business and the American quality of life by promoting and
facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity
assessment systems and promoting their integrity. The Institute
represents the interests of its nearly 1,000 company, organization,
government agency, institutional and international members through
its office in New York City, and its headquarters in
Washington, D.C.”
ANSI’s fundamental principles of standard-setting are transparency, balance, consensus, and due process, including a right to appeal by interested parties. According to ANSI, there are currently more than 10,000 American national standards, covering a broad range of activities.
The Common Core standards were not written in conformity with the ANSI standard-setting process that is broadly recognized across every field of endeavor.
If the Common Core standards applied to ANSI for recognition, they would be rejected because the process of writing the standards was so deeply flawed and did not adhere to the “ANSI Essential Requirements.”
ANSI states that “Due process is the key to ensuring that ANSs are developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the requirements of various stakeholders. The open and fair ANS process ensures that all interested and affected parties have an opportunity to participate in a standard’s development. It also serves and protects the public interest since standards developers accredited by ANSI must meet the Institute’s requirements for openness, balance, consensus and other due process safeguards.”
The Common Core standards cannot be considered standards when judged by the ANSI requirements. According to ANSI, the process of setting standards must be transparent, must involve all interested parties, must not be dominated by a single interest, and must include a process for appeal and revision.
The Common Core standards were not developed in a transparent manner. The standard-setting and writing of the standards included a significant number of people from the testing industry, but did not include a significant number of experienced teachers, subject-matter experts, and other educators from the outset, nor did it engage other informed and concerned interests, such as early childhood educators and educators of children with disabilities. There was no consensus process. The standards were written in 2009 and adopted in 2010 by 45 states and the District of Columbia as a condition of eligibility to compete for $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funding. The process was dominated from start to finish by the Gates Foundation, which funded the standard-setting process. There was no process for appeal or revision, and there is still no process for appeal or revision.
The reason to oppose the Common Core is not because of their content, some of which is good, some of which is problematic, some of which needs revision (but there is no process for appeal or revision).
The reason to oppose the Common Core standards is because they violate the well-established and internationally recognized process for setting standards in a way that is transparent, that recognizes the expertise of those who must implement them, that builds on the consensus of concerned parties, and that permits appeal and revision.
The reason that there is so much controversy and pushback now is that the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education were in a hurry and decided to ignore the nationally and internationally recognized rules for setting standards, and in doing so, sowed
suspicion and distrust. Process matters.
According to ANSI, here are the core principles for setting standards:
standardization activities is accessible to all interested
parties.* Openness
Participation is open to all affected interests.* Impartiality
No one interest
dominates the process or is favored over another.
* Effectiveness and Relevance
Standards are relevant and effectively respond to regulatory and
market needs, as well as scientific and technological
developments.
* Consensus
Decisions are reached through consensus among those
affected.
* PerformanceBased
Standards are performance based (specifying essential
characteristics rather than detailed designs) where
possible.
* Coherence
The process encourages coherence to avoid overlapping and
conflicting standards.
* Due Process
Standards development accords with due process so that
all views are considered and appeals are possible.
* TechnicalAssistance
Assistance is offered to developing countries in the formulation and application
of standards. In addition, U.S. interests strongly agree that the process should be:
* Flexible, allowing the use of different methodologies to meet the needs of different technology and product sectors;
*Timely, so that purely administrative
matters do not result in a failure to meet market expectations;
and
* Balanced among
all affected interests.
Lacking most of these qualities, especially due process, consensus among interested groups, and the right of appeal, the Common Core cannot be considered authoritative, nor should they be considered standards. The process of creating national academic standards should be revised to accord with the essential and necessary procedural requirements of standard-setting as described by the American National Standards Institute. National standards cannot be created ex nihilo without a transparent, open, participatory consensus process that allows for appeal and revision.
United States Standards Strategy
http://www.us-standards-strategy.org
How do we, or how does the ANSI proceed?
They must have known the CCSS did not meet the criteria.
Time has been ticking and are they or anyone else proceeding given such violations?
ANSI does not mandate or enforce standards. It has no regulatory powers. It is a voluntary organization that helps groups wanting to know how to create legitimate standards that deserve respect and wide adoption.
Contrary to Bill Gates, the standardized electric plug owes its provenance to ANSI protocols, not to a secret elite that he funded.
Good to see this amplified discussion of standards for “setting standards.”
Another useful discussion would sort out the uses and interpretations of standards as guidelines, as rules of thumb, as recommendations, as requirements with monitoring (by peers, by inspectors), standards with and without penalties for non-compliance, tiers of penalties etc.
When I entered teaching, guidelines for curriculum and instruction were common. They were produced by a collaboration between teachers and academics, and regarded as recommendations.
Then came the behavioral objectives movement. USDE funded programs to get all state guidelines re-written to conform with the behaviorist and training mantra: State your standards as objectives that are both observable-and-measurable. No more references to “developing an appreciation of…” “exploring ideas about…” and so on. That purging of ways to think and speak about education has continued.
These days, standards are treated as requirements and “targets” to be met on time, with penalties for not meeting these “targets.” Non-compliance with federal policies that really are off-the-charts punitive for students, teachers, schools and few states depart from these policies. Standards are written to specify “impacts’ that teachers will have on students. The horrid phrase “impactful learning” has become a routine expression in think tank reports and in professional development for teachers.
A related issue is the proliferation of standards in K-12 education. In Ohio, we now have 3,204 standards including the 1,620 specified in the so-called Common Core. A majority of these are stuctured by grade level, not grade spans such as K-2.
These standards are also discipline-specific, developed in the absence of conversations about the overall shape and purposes of education. Only a few of Ohio’s standards honor the idea (dating back to Dewey and others) that problem-based inquiry provides ample opportunity to muster knowledge from multiple sources, in addition to having much else to recommend it.
Recall that setting “world-class” standards was an aim of the Goals 2000 project (1994). In that exercise, separate groups set forth 4,100 grade-level benchmarks in 24 subjects, within 14 broad domains of study. Everybody was looking at trees. Not many saw the forest. Same problems today. The unfettered proliferation of standards expresses a false hope that our students will be nearly omniscient by age 17 or 18. For the Goals 2000 fiasco, see http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks/docs/process.asp
That educational standards, in this instance CCSS and standardized testing have “fatal flaws” has been know for quite a while. In 1997 Noel Wilson idendified at least 13 epistemological and ontological “fatal flaws” that render the processes of the educational standards and standardized testing completely invalid. That this is not wider known is beyond me because it seems like common sense, but we know there isn’t much common sense in the Common Core. To understand why CCSS is such educational malarkey and, in reality educational malpractice read his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Duane ~
Thanks for your scholarly comments and explanations. I cannot fathom, other than the default answer…money rules, that the CorpEdReformers are allowed to operate and ‘get away with murder’. The price our children and our teachers pay, the values we chose to live by, the permission of uneducated and undereducated non-educators with tons of money, from Gates to the President, legislators who lick their paws, to continue to move forward unchecked and unstoppable…..unbelievable, and they are all in my book, corrupt!
How does the ANSI figure into this? Do they have any clout? Where have they been all this time? What am I missing?
H.A. Hurley,
ANSI is a voluntary standard-setting organization that has been recognized as the authoritative source on how to set standards in every industry and every line of endeavor for more than 90 years. It has no enforcement powers. It lays out the protocol that is necessary for the very act of setting standards. The writers of Common Core ignored every protocol. There was no due process, no transparency, no participation of knowledgeable and informed parties, the whole process was underwritten by one foundation, and there is no way to appeal or revise the decisions of the writers. CCSS is not standards. It fails to meet the elementary process that all standard-setting requires in order to be credible.
Duane, I know you love Wilson but he did not comment on the Common Core standards more than 15 years ago!
I don’t think Duane is saying that Wilson was referring to Common Core specifically, but to national education standards in general. He’s applying what Wilson wrote (about any national education standards) to Common Core (which ARE national education standards). And I think what he is saying is that we shouldn’t have ANY national standards for education. At least that’s what I understood from the comment.
I don’t think Duane is saying that Wilson was referring to Common Core specifically, but to national education standards in general. Duane is applying what Wilson wrote, to Common Core State Standards (which ARE national standards), and demonstrating why we don’t need ANY national education standards (Common Core or otherwise). At least that’s what I understood from his comment, in which case I agree. Something we should have paid attention to more than 15 years ago.
Mindy/JonMindy is correct in that I didn’t say that Wilson commented on CCSS, he couldn’t of, space/time problems ya know.
What I am saying is that what he wrote more than pertains to the CCSS and that the CCSS suffers all the inherent epistemological and ontological flaws that he elucidated back then.
Diane, have you read the never refuted nor rebutted study to which I so often refer?
“he couldn’t have” not of.
“the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them…”
The “Magic” of drawing pupils into a make-believe world and then
convincing them “It” is a good approximation to the real world,
forms the basis of Socially Sanctioned Entities (SSE).
SSE are the product of invented tradition or a set of practices
of a ritual/symbolic nature seeking to inculate certain values and
norms of behavior. By repetition, which automatically implies
continuity with the past, illusions continue.
“And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.”
The preservation of privilege has always required the exercise of
power. Power to establish socially sanctioned entities.
Have you seen this?
“Joe Willhoft, the executive director of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, told reporters there will be snags, and that’s in part due to the nature of what a field test is — a test run and an opportunity to see what works and doesn’t. Already, out of concern there would be technical problems, Smarter Balanced delayed by a week to this week the start of its field tests.
“We have a saying in Smarter Balanced that if nothing goes wrong in the field test, then actually we have failed,” Willhoft said.”
Duncan is repeating this same line, almost word for word. It’s amusing. The same people who claim to value accountability are spinning this so any screw-ups on their part “were part of the plan!”
Accountability is for the little people. Specifically, for the very small people who have to take these tests. The adults at the tippy-top have decided they’re not responsible for whether it goes well or not.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2023204090_apxcommoncoretests.html?syndication=rss
Smarter Balanced Assessment, sounds like a good multiple choice question to test for the meaning of misnomer.
Basically what they are acknowledging is that the PARCC isn’t even ready for a beta test yet so they have to impose mandatory crowd sourcing on our children to find the glitches that the PARCC crowd are too lazy or incompetent to locate.
This is interesting, and out of conservative Arizona, no less:
“Advocating for public education, the business community must flex its muscle to stop bad bills in the Legislature and to make the convincing business case for education.
Lawmakers hear from constituents and interest groups that want to privatize education, punish schools financially and philosophically oppose public education. They must hear with equal force from business owners and operators who support students, who need smart, educated employees and can speak not only of the problems they see, but offer solutions.”
Those wild-eyed conspiracy theorists on the editorial board have apparently noticed that “interest groups” are pushing to privatize public education.
“Philosophically oppose” public education! This editorial board must be entirely composed on labor union members. That’s the only explanation for this… heresy 🙂
http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_60e4bc91-6519-52cf-af1b-6ebd2b66e944.html
What the illegitimate birth of CCSS does is create a great challenge of not letting the content and practices that are good become demonized.
For example, while the SC legislature debates a bill to ban CCSS, they also debate a bill to make cursive and memorizing math facts mandatory.
That’s the thinking behind at least some of the opposition to CCSS.
So opposition to CCSS, while justified, is tricky and has consequences.
I agree. Count me out for making common cause with the “this is a United Nations conspiracy” crowd.
Exactly. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
I also agree. I think everyone needs to be aware that some parties are fighting content and these parties will continue to be vocal when the “offensive” content comes from a more local level. I won’t join forces with people intent on censorship. (I think their ultimate goal is vouchers).
I did notice that Diane posted the CCSS is also going down a censorship path, but I still won’t join forces with the Tea Party. We should be able to fix this without holding hands with this group. (With apologies to John Lennon) – These folks aren’t talking even talking about evolution and they do speak about destruction – so you can count me out.
“also debate a bill to make cursive and memorizing math facts mandatory”
What is this?
Every aspect of education is up for discussion and vote by bloated rich folks and legislators? SC legislators want to regulate what, when, where & why of a child’s school day? Teachers are reduced to clean-up crew? But, TFA, the Best & Brightest, are the saviors of the day? What is going on with this country? We are either silly beyond measure or going down a very evil path.
Really, Emmy, they are. My point is that the Tea Party side of the opposition (Diane,mi know that’s not you) are the same people who want to take us back to the 1950s. Prayer and creationism with it. Back to Basics. All that.
I do believe that any level of government should just stay out of our schools. And we certainly don’t need to mandate any of this, but what’s wrong with teaching cursive or knowing math facts? And what was is so bad about a society that holds some of the values and ways of life that prevailed in the 1950s? (I said some, not all.) Perhaps if we had just a taste of that today, we wouldn’t be confronted with many of the problems we have since created for ourselves, including national education standards. And I don’t believe anyone is trying to force prayer and creationism on you, the way evolution and the recognition of every other religion BUT Christianity has been forced down the throats of Christians, in the name of separation of church and state within the walls of public schools. If you’re unsure, maybe you should pray about it. 🙂
In NC, the back to basics bill passed and it is mandatory that students learn cursive and memorize multiplication tables. I guess it is another cookies cutter bills making the rounds.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/04/04/2801884/nc-house-passes-cursive-handwriting.html
And so the same bills in SC and NC. Nice job ALEC.
Given the choice between Common Core and these Back to Basics knuckleheads, I would have to choose CCSS.
So how can we avoid having to choose?
Peter, I have no sympathy, no alliance with the Tea Party. I write as an independent scholar, owned by no one, with no allegiance to any employer or interest. The SC legislature, like many other legislatures, is now intruding into areas where it has no expertise or knowledge. It should not mandate how to teach anything. It should reject the Common Core, which was violates every protocol for standard-setting.
Well, this is ironic.
The standards were written without following the standards!
Of course, standards are established by we mere mortals because they capture and codify our collective wisdom about the subject at hand.
If these standards are generalizable and good—in other words a good expression about what we thinks works when writing standards— then we should expect any set of standards written without following them to be poor.
At some point, some promising young scholar will write a dissertation/book about “why CCSS failed”. This is the outline for an important chapter.
I can hear it coming. The CC$$ pushers won’t even bother to fabricate a new lie campaign. They will just copy and paste the “alternative certification” meme and claim that the CC$$ is just as good an idea as TFA “corpses” since both have been vetted by edict, in TFA’s case by an exemption that was slid under the door and into a bill in the middle of the night. They will just claim that ANSI methods “don’t apply” to them, an idea that Deming debunked decades ago or that magically, their method was just as good if not better. Perhaps they won’t even waste time confronting this in any large way since as we have seen, there is no lie, deception, dissembling or diversion from reality that is too shameless for them. This is actually very good (if annoying) for us as when the deformers keep their heads down and press forward, they’ll be ignoring the fact that their path is straight through the massive number of people and organizations that have a longstanding familiarity and relationship with ANSI standards methodologies, so the end result of their efforts to defend the CC$$ against this truth will be to alienate even more people with functioning brains between their ears who were not yet aware of the fraud of deform.
Back when I first started teaching in the early ’80’s, I used to refer to the Federal Addendum for my particular grade level. I used the Addendum as a model for my classroom objectives for the year. It was a wonderful guide of suggested objectives (standards) – I was not forced to use any of the objectives, but made sure that I covered all information that was suggested because I felt it was developed by experts in the field and it was a good way for me to stay focused the most important areas to teach to my students. I am wondering, were those Addendums following ANSI requirements? How did our government come up with the appropriate people to write those Addendums? When did the government stop writing the Addendums?
I just don’t get how we got into such a mess with our Educational system. We need strong leadership to say “enough!” We have the capabilities in the USA to develop the best school systems anywhere in the world. Why don’t we do it?
Caroline Perigo,I never heard of the “Federal Addendum.” The federal government is forbidden by law from seeking to control, supervise, or direct curriculum or instruction. Please explain.
I am very surprised you have not heard of them. I ordered an addendum for kg, first And second grades. It was my understanding that they were available all the way through high school grades with suggested objectives teachers could use for developing their curriculum. I am certain it was from the federal government because I took it and compared it to our state objectives and made sure if there was a gap in one set or the other, I covered all the objectives. These addendums were very “teacher friendly” – I wish I still had mine, but I passed them on to new teachers when I no longer needed them. I do remember our director of curriculum used to keep a complete set in her office for reference, but that was about 20 + years ago.
When I say they were “teacher friendly” – you could read each one and know exactly what you needed to teach. So many of the CCSS are open and vague and be interpreted in a variety of ways – our state standards have been like that for years now.
Caroline, regarding the Federal Addendum, if you can find any link or title or ISBN numbers, please let me know. I never heard of them and I was very aware of federal activities at the time. The 1980s was the era of the Reagan administration and it was not a big fan of federal involvement in education, other than to scold and call for vouchers and school prayer.
Maybe they were something I used in the early ’90’s? After NCTM developed math standards, Colorado govenor, Roy Romer, said these standards exemplified what needed to be done in other areas. When you were asst sec of education, in the Bush admn, George Herbert walker Bush convened wih the nations governors in 1989 and during that conference they agreed upon a set of national goals – which were to be reached by 2000. Those standards served as starting points for many states who needed support in writing their own standards. I believe this is the time I became aware of the national addendums a ail able for teachers – maybe the booklets I ordered were only for math. If that is so, I took those examples and wrote reading/language arts standards based upon that format. Have you found any addendums that are only for math? I have read that you were very focused on rigorous content, rather than standardized testing when voluntary standards were created for science, history, English, the arts, civics geography and foreign languages in 1991-1992. Do you have a copy of those standards anywhere for us to look at?
Caroline
It sounds like the ‘Federal Addendum’ that was used is in association with EHA/IDEA, goals and objectives for the development of IEP’s. This is the ONLY federal instructive policy & procedures manual every created regarding ‘standards’ (ie: goals and objectives) which were specifically delineated for usage under the federal registry for EHA ( Education for All Handicapped Children Act )(PL- 94-142) (1975) & IDEA (1990) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Of course these goals and objectives could be applied to any classroom or student, but were specific federal guidelines for school district’s under their specific laws and acts.
Implementing Common Core has allowed the government access to indoctrinate children as well as their parents, and therefore, our American society in general. Forcing young children to function in the Common Core Environment (CCE) should be considered “psychological rape”. It is an authoritarian punitive environment that does not allow children freedom to develop their own identity or individual sense of self. It is an environment of chronic traumatic stress that is considered “invalidating” by mental health professionals and educational specialists. In preWWII Germany it was called Schwarze Pädagogik. It is an environment that breaks the free will of a child.
The psychologist Alice Miller used the concept of Schwarze Pädagogik in her famous book “Drama of the Gifted Child” to describe child-management approaches that damage a child’s emotional development. Miller claims that this alleged emotional damage promotes adult behavior harmful to individuals.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-drama-of-the-gifted-child-alice-miller/1002358392?ean=9780465016907
The Common Core Environment is a violation of children’s human rights and should be treated as such. Organizations against Common Core, such as the BATS, NPE, National Opt Out, and others should collaborate to file a charge of “Violation of Children’s Human Rights” against Obama, Duncan, and Gates and present it to the UN.
It will take international media coverage to bring awareness to our self absorbed leaders who are in denial about the psychological damage Common Core is causing to children.
Thank you for this. I have been spending a great deal of time trying to excavate as many of the old grade-level standards as possible before they disappear completely down the memory hole. Common Core Standards are written as utter gibberish. I was compelled to take my children out of public school due to the other dirty secret of our education system gone wrong: pseudo psychology. For the longest time, I could not reconcile what I felt instinctively regarding the character of most of my children’s teachers (that my children were in good hands) with how the teachers were acting (bureaucracy at its worst). After discovering your blog, it all begins to make sense. Unfortunately, many parents have remained in the dark about what is truly going on. I believe it is because the message from primary media outlets continues to be something along the lines of the “Waiting for Superman”(Intrepid Industrialist To The Rescue)/”the public school system is broken”/”the only choice is to break it up”/”they are the enemy let’s get ’em” mantra that is broadcast on an endless loop. I am lucky that I have the option to homeschool, but I do not see this as a long term solution for our society’s future. It is possible that a wedge is being deliberately driven to force a divide between parents and teachers. If this is the case, recognition of such a tactic should reveal where the true strength of our future lies.
Michelle Sabre
”(Intrepid Industrialist To The Rescue)/”the public school system is broken”
Good summary.
I think the authors of the core argued that good process with broad consensus, creates a poor product with too much material. So I suppose the argument is that good process will not yield a great product, which may be sometimes true, but is probably just an excuse for expediency. Product versus process, I don’t think they even ended up with a good product… but I’ll let Robert Shepard take it from there.
LOL
http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2014/03/21/checking-the-claims-in-the-new-ad-about-florida-schools/
This is a piece debunking Jeb Bush’s PAC ad on how he’s improved Florida schools.
It’s a combo ad. It promotes Jeb Bush and his standardized-test based, privatization-heavy ed reforms AND it plugs the Common Core!
“This week, the Foundation for Excellence in Education began running a television ad in the Tampa Bay market touting Florida school progress.
The ad serves two purposes: it argues Florida schools are improving, and that improvement is due to annual statewide testing, school grading and other policies promoted by former Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush founded the Foundation for Excellence in Education. The ads are tied to the 15th anniversary of Bush’s A+ education plan.
The ad is also part of a public relations campaign defending Common Core math and language arts standards fully adopted by Florida and 44 other states. Bush considers Common Core to be the continuation of the A+ plan and he has been advocating for the standards across the country.”
Why does Jeb Bush consider the Common Core the “continuation” of his plan for Florida, and why have I never heard that before?
It’s not enough that we’ve had George W Bush’s NCLB for the last decade, then NCLB “on steroids” in RttT, now we have to have Jeb Bush’s A+ plan?
Is it maybe time to ask someone other than a member of the Bush family to weigh in on K-12 schools, or are we just planning on following the Bush family for decades, whether they’re actually elected to anything or not?
Diane –
There is an interesting transfer occurring here. When the Common Core first came out, Democrats opposed it, and Republicans wanted it. The Common Core was adopted here in Wisconsin initially with great zeal and enthusiasm by our Republican Governor and the Republican controlled legislature, but then something curious happened. Once the funding was committed to it and the process has been going on for 2-3 years, the Republicans now being pushed by the Tea Party want to strip the Core Standards and it is now the Democrats fighting to keep them. The Democrats aren’t fighting to keep them because they believe they are good, they are fighting to keep them because school districts have invested millions of dollars in curriculum and materials and to switch course again just creates more confusion and problem. So the Dems now seem to advocate to leave the system in place and let us figure out where the issues are and we will address them.
It is a really interesting dynamic to watch. I would consider myself a Democrat, but I have been troubled by the common core from the outset and so I get the financial commitment but I hate the high stakes testing and the penalties to school districts and teachers if scores aren’t high enough.
So where is the sweet spot as they say? Can we leave the standards for now but work on ways to improve the way in which we measure success? The fear here is that the Republican controlled governor’s office and legislature want to start over and have them assign a team to work on writing curriculum. Obviously there isn’t a lot of trust there from the Democrats so how do we work with the current standards provided by the Common Core and make appropriate adjustments in a bipartisan way that includes the use of data and research to establish new standards of achievement?
It seems like every decade we have an education reform and it is always driven by business. When will we have the audacity to tell business stop sticking your nose into education?
J
JM, the goal of the Common Core guidelines is to promote the corporate destruction agenda. Use them if you like them but oppose the federal tests.
The folks who paid to have these standards created wanted an extensive bullet list in each subject area, one that atomized the subject area into discrete bits that computer-adaptive ed tech could be correlated to. That was the whole point. The standards were part of a plant for an ed tech revolution in K-12 education.
Here’s one problem with that in ELA: ability as a reader, writer, speaker, listener, researcher, and thinker cannot be atomized into a SINGLE bullet list. No two outstanding adult readers, writers, or thinkers have identical skills and knowledge. Here’s another: ELA is not one of those areas in which there is a single, universal, linear learning progression that all need to follow. Many excellent progressions are possible, almost all of which are PRECLUDED BY the particular progression instantiated in the CC$$ for ELA. Here’s another: ELA is not all about skills. A lot of ELA is about knowledge. But the CC$$ for ELA is almost exclusively a list of abstractly formulated skills.
Here’s what these people should have done: Instead of preparing a bullet list for ELA, they should have established a few very broad, general goals and guidelines that would have enabled the degrees of freedom within which true innovation in English language arts pedagogy and curricula could have occurred.
And, apologists for the CC$$ in ELA always, in fact, refer to the same few GENERAL principles when defending it. They never refer to the particular bullet list because that list is indefensible. But that list is what is now determining the learning progressions being instantiated in U.S. ELA textbooks and online materials. It has become the de facto default learning progression: in Grade 8 we teach these skills; in Grade 9 we teach those.
BIG MISTAKE. And it’s the same mistake that was made in the ELA state standards that preceded the CC$$.
And more yes!!! Finally, someone who understands literacy learning (which is to say, we DON’T fully understand it, because it’s individual to each learner). I’m approaching this as a former elementary reading teacher, I’m guessing you are coming at this from the junior high/high school levels, but here’s a standard if we have to have one: “Teach your students how to read.” Pretty much covers it all, in my humble opinion. (That took me all of 3 seconds, and it’s free.)
Yes, yes, yes!!!
Im not an educator, but I have followed the Gates/Allen cartel and their disatser-after-taxpayer-funded-disasters for sometime.
I recall right around 1999/2000 there was an ad that really disturbed me. My recollection isn’t exact but I will do my best to recount it……
The scene opened with standard KOMO or KIRO local station-esque graphics and beepboopdoodeleedoop techie sounding intro music so it had the appearance of being done in conjunction with the station and ran as more of a PSA as opposed to an ad payed for by the B&MG foundation. Who knows where the truth actually lies in that department.
Cut to scenes of happy minority kids in a classroom with a voiceover informing us that “Bill Gates has a plan for (y)our kids future”. The ad’s basic purpose seemed to be informing the public of Bill Gates wisdom and benevolence. The ad’s focus was the donation keyboard pads with a small L.E.D. readout at the top of the unit and how this was helping to prepare lower income students to enter a technologically advancing workplace.
Basically it was the small keyboard pads that you see employees at fast food counters or telemarketing firms using. I have absolutely NO problem with EITHER of those jobs! An honest earned living is all right with me. I just took offense at the portrayal of this gesture as some grand philanthropic solution, especially when contrasted with the cutting edge computer labs he was outfitting Eastside schools with at the time. I believe this was an attempt at good PR from a cheap gesture that actually helped relegate poorer children to lower-level jobs. And as usual, the Seattle area media not only refused to call him out on it, they promoted this as an act of altruistic civic leadership
Will it really be a FATAL flaw? Can only hope.
The FATAL FLAWS (yes, plural) were identified by Noel Wilson in his 1997 dissertation (see above reference). The inherent errors and resulting invalidity of these processes have been known for quite some time.
One of these years, one of these years. . . .
Said in a Ralph Kramden tone of voice. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpHzPzjUTY8
Reblogged this on Saint Simon Common Core Information.
Achieve deserves a lot of the blame for never developing standards for writing academic standards. In theory anyone could have taken that on, but it would seem to be central to their mission and rather prominent role. It is almost impossible to contemplate a serious, comprehensive review of the *technical* issues with the standards, because there is simply no language to do so.
We should be able to say: “Aha, mixing this requirement to read myths into what is otherwise clearly intended to be a vocabulary standard is a violation of the principle of… ??? What?” Or… “Daving two nearly identical versions of the same reading standard that simultaneously apply to the same text but somehow are subtly different if we’re looking at the text as ‘informational’ or as a ‘history/social studies text’ violates THIS clearly established principle of standards-writing.”
Or for that matter, “The introductory matter of the standards cannot declare that ‘The standards demand…’ if this does not reference a specific enumerated standard.”
It also seems like what serious academic work was being done on standards, by, say, Lauren Resnick, ground to a halt after NCLB established a de facto legal definition. There wasn’t much point in suggesting to states other fundamentally different approaches at that point.
Or, we could forget this silly notion of having top-down, centralized control and issue a few broad guidelines–statements of general principles–and let autonomous teachers and schools adopt and adapt the best ideas and materials and approaches as they see fit.
Ecologies are healthier than are monocultures.
When, exactly, did we fall in love with having distant, centralized, absolute authorities make our decisions for us?
When did we decide to start telling every curriculum designer what predetermined learning progression he or she would have to follow, even if that progression violated everything that he or she knew from experience in the classroom and current research?
When did we decide to replace billions of specific, variously designed teacher-created tests with THE TEST?
When did we decide that every child should be identically milled?
When did we decide that differences in kids didn’t matter?
When did we decide that teachers needed to be scripted and/or replaced with teacher-proof educational technology?
When did we decide that it wasn’t a good idea to have COMPETING, VOLUNTARY frameworks, standards, certifications, learning progressions, pedagogical approaches, and curricula continually developed and refined by scholars and researchers and practicing teachers and professional curriculum developers that would vie with one another in the marketplace of ideas? that it was better to have some unelected group use some plutocrat’s money to hire some amateur to foist his ideas on everyone else?
When did we decide that standardization and regimentation was the way forward in a complex, diverse, pluralistic society that needs individuals with vastly differing interests and abilities?
When did we decide that in a time of rapidly accelerating technological and social change we needed to start casting our ideas in stone?
When did we decide that we were OK with having a Common Core Curriculum Commissariat legislate THOUGHT?
These discussions slide between layers far too easily… All I’m saying is that in addition to the overarching ANSI standards, there are generally standards specific to different domains, like IEEE for electrical engineers. If we want competing voluntary, adaptable frameworks, we really need some formal explanation of what kinds of things should and shouldn’t be in the framework, how it should be organized, etc.
Obviously this could be done well or poorly, but it certainly should be done, and hopefully done correctly.
Well done, Bob! Best comment I have read about Common Core and education — ever!!!
Does anyone know if standards that were previously developed by individual states were certified by ANSI? If so, were these standards simply abandoned?
The point made in this post is new. I haven’t heard it articulated in this way before, and Diane is absolutely right. Hers is an extremely important addition to the national discourse about these “standards.”
Once again, Diane, you have shown your leadership here and your discernment. My hat’s off to you. Well done!
I can hear it coming. The CC$$ pushers won’t even bother to fabricate a new lie campaign. They will just copy and paste the “alternative certification” meme and claim that the CC$$ is just as good an idea as TFA “corpses” since both have been vetted by edict, in TFA’s case by an exemption that was slid under the door and into a bill in the middle of the night. They will just claim that ANSI methods “don’t apply” to them, an idea that Deming debunked decades ago or that magically, their method was just as good if not better. Perhaps they won’t even waste time confronting this in any large way since as we have seen, there is no lie, deception, dissembling or diversion from reality that is too shameless for them. This is actually very good (if annoying) for us as when the deformers keep their heads down and press forward, they’ll be ignoring the fact that their path is straight through the massive number of people and organizations that have a longstanding familiarity and relationship with ANSI standards methodologies, so the end result of their efforts to defend the CC$$ against this truth will be to alienate even more people with functioning brains between their ears who were not yet aware of the fraud of deform.
Sorry for the double post, typed in the wrong field during homework time!
I am a parent of four school-age children. I have also been a teacher for 20 years. The objections to the CCSS outlined in your blog are understandable — I get it — process matters. Yes, it does. Unfortunately, our schools and our children are in crisis. We are NOT preparing them for college and career. When 60% of freshmen entering a four year college have to take remedial reading and/or math courses just to be ready for college level coursework, we are NOT doing our job. Something has to be done. National standards are a start. The standards aren’t perfect. But they are better than ANYTHING we’ve had up to this point. They provide a common language and common goals for teachers. They give us a picture of where students need to be upon graduation. They aren’t enough, however. I’d also like to see a complete revamping of pre-service programs for teachers. Lots of theory and not nearly enough practice — not to mention different theories and different methods of practice. Would that be the same if you were to visit different law or medical schools? Absolutely not. There is ample educational research that we, unfortunately, choose to ignore when it doesn’t match with our “theory of learning”. It’s about the kids, NOT US. I want our students (our future) to be successful, and I’m willing to do anything to achieve that goal. What do we have to lose?
Susan Koller Coleman, have your students taken the PARCC test or the Smarter Balanced test? When 70% fail, do you think they will be motivated to try harder? When 95% of your children with disabilities fail, and 97% of your ELLs, what will happen? Will you try harder? When kindergarten children get an academic curriculum instead of time to play and socialize, do you think they will be better prepared? When the achievement gap widens, how will you correct it?
Ah, but Diane, you are forgetting.
The tests are infallible. They are objective measures. And we know that because they produce data. And not just any old data. Data with numbers and stuff. Very rigorously determined raw-to-scaled-score conversions and cut scores and proficiencies. Super-dooper, charterific, infallible data. Lots and lots of it. I mean lots. Tons. You wouldn’t believe the data!!! Data for days. Rivers of data. Big, big data.
If the new tests show that 70 percent of students are failures, that’s because 70 percent of students are failures. And if the tests show that 70 percent of our students are failures, that’s because 70 percent of our teachers are failures too.
You see? The data show that those shiftless, ungritful kids and teachers just can’t measure up to “higher standards” produced by folks with VAST experience as educators. Folks like David Coleman.
And that’s why teachers need to be replaced with educational technology.
And that’s why the public schools need to be closed down and replaced with private schools and charter schools.
And that’s why the country needs to spend about 50 billion dollars making the transition to the Common Core and Big Data.
Because the Common Core data show a 70 percent failure rate!!!
Because numbers in a report, however they got there, are never wrong!
Why are they never wrong? Because they are data!
data data data data data
You see?
It couldn’t POSSIBLY BE that the tests are poorly conceived and written. It couldn’t possibly be that the standards are likewise poorly conceived and written. It couldn’t possibly be that what’s being called data-driven decision making is a variety of NUMEROLOGY.
Because the masters who designed these tests and these standards are infallible. They are the best makers of tests and standards (well, if you use those terms very, very loosely) that a plutocrat’s money can buy, that is, if the plutocrat is in a hurry, and if he doesn’t really give the matter much thought. You know, if he does this in the way that ordinary, nonplutocratic folks might, say, order up a pizza.
Glad I could straighten that out for you.
Just remember: The DATA show that everybody failed and needs to be fired and that everything needs to be privatized.
Oh, and lots and lots of new software and data systems need to be bought. I mean, billions of dollars worth. Billions and billions.
You’re welcome.
No matter how we slice it, CCSS will never escape criticism because of its flaws. Who will call it a good measurement when the vast majority of students are unable to pass, see what areas to improve? It has nothing to do with assessment whatsoever.
Here’s what’s going to save education deform, if anything:
They need to delay giving the ridiculous tests they are in the process of creating. The brightest of this dim lot are figuring that out. They are figuring out that
if they gave those tests this year, as they originally said they were going to do,
the fiasco in New York would be repeated,
and then there would be an educational policy supernova of a kind the world has never before seen.
I just created this at petition2congress.
Petition Title is, Dump Duncan
Please sign. It will be forwarded to all Senators, Congressmen, and President Obama as well.
http://www.petition2congress.com/14914/dump-duncan/
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Reblogged this on ohyesjulesdid and commented:
I agree with Ravitch that how Common Core Standards were developed is more problematic than the standards themselves. When she says, “The reason to oppose the Common Core is not because of their content, some of which is good, some of which is problematic, some of which needs revision (but there is no process for appeal or revision),” I heartily agree. Where I differ with Ravitch is the notion that we must oppose the standards. I’m all for injecting an appeals/revision process and using it in order to move toward a more transparent and legitimate process that involves stakeholders. I’d rather not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’d rather keep the good parts of the common core, but address the areas that are cause for concern (like the age inappropriate standards, the connection to high stakes testing, etc.). The fact that states, like Indiana, are opting out of the common core–i.e. take your RTTT money and shove it–yet still writing similar standards, again like Indiana (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Fight-against-Common-Core-not-over-in-Indiana-5359723.php) , show that the standards do have some merit despite what political foes like Stotsky and Pence have to say. It is unfortunate that standards that better reflect critical thinking skills will more than likely die a horrific political death because of lack of transparency and outright political demonization (most people do not know that the standards come from the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State Schools Officers to answer the call to develop standards that do not create inequity based upon a child’s zip code–and to have a fighting chance for federal grants). I stand with Ravitch in the that the process needs to happen. It does indeed matter. I just hope that once the process does happen, and we find that many of the standards are indeed worth keeping, that we aren’t attacked like Indiana.