Abby White is a junior at Shaker Heights High School in Ohio and an editor at her high school newspaper. She researched the Common Core, read the standards, interviewed faculty, and developed her own views about their strengths and weaknesses.
She wrote this article for her school newspaper, the Shakerite.
She has done more research than many newspaper reporters, who like to quote what people say for and against the Common Core, without deigning to read them. She works harder to understand and explain the subject than many people twice her age.
Without spoiling her effort to analyze the standards, I present here her biggest concern: how do we know they will measure up to all the promises?
She writes:
“That’s like devising a new surgical method to fix a man’s heart condition, not testing that method, and going ahead with the surgery anyway. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would never act so rashly. Sure, the new method could work; it could also kill the patient.
“The Common Core State Standards are changing the face of America’s education for approximately 50 million students, teachers and other public school faculty — not including parents. Imposing such a huge change with no gauge of its effectiveness is downright irresponsible. Our education system is the patient, and we have no guarantee it won’t die on the operating table. In fact, right now, I don’t think its chances are good.”
See more at: http://www.shakerite.com/opinion/2014/04/08/the-craze-and-craziness-behind-the-common-core/#sthash.JnWj6rH7.dpuf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
WONDERFUL… THANKS DIANE. I put it up, and in my comment said that Abby should write for The NY Times on education…not David Brooks.
.Com mon now, You(s) should give it a chance to work before having to start from the beginning/drawing board all ovor again.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
Here’s my favorite point from Abby’s magnificent deconstruction.
“By imposing so many new tasks and requirements upon schools, the standards make learning into a check-list. Have I learned to “interpret expressions that represent a quantity in terms of its context?” Check! Am I competent in my ability to “analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work?” Whoops, forgot that one, gotta go back to aisle four! -”
She points out the stimulus-item checklist behind Common Core’s bogus “critical thinking” claim. She also points out the discipline creep of the non-fiction “critical reading” standards. Science and history teachers would be required to train their students to generate hundreds of words of hollow, formulaic exposition in response to any drivel they are presented with.
If Corporate CCSS backers are determined to train up a generation of academic bullshitters like themselves, though, they’ve lost this one. Abby White is a genuine thinker.
It’s a great piece and she makes a great argument, but I’m not sure it matters.
“Imposing such a huge change with no gauge of its effectiveness is downright irresponsible.”
Irresponsible, reckless, thoughtless, I’ve used the same words to describe ed reform for a decade now and I’ve come to the conclusion that they don’t value public schools.
They don’t believe any of the things she’s afraid of losing are valuable. The goal is to “disrupt” and “rip off the band aid” and then just let markets happen. Hey, if her school benefits, that’s great, but if it doesn’t, then the Great God Markets has spoken and she should “relinquish” and look for a “great!” school.
People simply don’t treat something they value this cavalierly. Compare the approach to ed reform with the approach to health insurance reform. My God, they bent over backwards to mollify insurance companies and allow people to keep what they valued about the old system. We sure didn’t hear a whole lot about the value of “disruption” in insurance markets.
That care and concern doesn’t happen with public schools. We march, we cry, we mourn and all of that is ignored in this grim, joyless “reform” process. If her public schools don’t “work” with Common Core and the initiative does damage, why not replace her school with a set of privately-managed and privately-owned schools, or perhaps a voucher where she can choose from a set of private schools? That’s the attitude I see.
They don’t see anything inherently worthwhile in the school she has, and she does. Seems like an impasse to me. You’d have to care about something to treat it carefully. I’m not sure we have that crucial element.
It matters because ultimately it will not be up to the reformers.
It matters because the parents of kids like Abby and kids not like Abby all love their children too much to let this continue.
In the end it will implode despite the best efforts of those who brought us this mess
Amazing. Abby White has demonstrated more maturity and thoughtfulness than people many times her age. From my viewpoint her research, writing and analyses are spot on. My favorite part of her editorial is her fiction/non-fiction analysis. I would have struggled mightily in school had fiction not been an essential learning tool.
I do have a question that seems to go unaddressed in CCSS conversations. What happens if and when students do not reach these standards? Is there a timeline associated with CCSS? I’m sure there is. Otherwise teachers and schools couldn’t be deemed failures. I just don’t recall seeing it.
In Denver we already have had standards based report cards, hence standards based learning for many years now. With these standards, the achievement gaps have widened significantly, and not many positive changes in educational outcomes can be detected. Students who don’t meet the standards are mostly passed along. Will CCSS just produce more meaningless standards? Will CCSS, PARRC, Smarter balanced change accountability? If so, how ?
Congratulations to Abby White and to her school newspaper and its advisor for developing and nurturing such an intelligent young woman and for allowing her the freedom to write what she believes.
Jeannie Kaplan
Denver, Colorado
Aren’t Colorado teachers already subjected to an evaluation system that relies heavily on student grades on tests? Aren’t they closing or turning around low performing public schools? Since I don’t live in Colorado I am not well versed in what is happening, but I seem to remember reading about various reform practices that were disrupting the public school system.
Denver is truly the quintessential reform district. It flies under the radar I think because it is in the middle of the country, i.e., not on the coasts. We have the harshest teacher evaluation legislation, written by Michael Johnston. 50% of teachers’ evals on test scores. We have 41 and counting charter schools serving about 15% of our students. We have 29 so-called innovation schools most of whose only innovation is no worker protections, leaving a total of 70 out of 210 schools non-union. Denver is the only district out of 170+ statewide to have innovation schools or having already “piloted” the strict teacher evaluations. We have closed, reopened, transferred neighborhood schools into charters, built new facilities for charters, gotten rid of professional educators (much due to pension costs), and have tested out the wazoo. What has this produced? An increasing achievement gap across the board, a gradation rate of 61.3%, remediation rates of 60%, and proficiencies in reading of 54%, math, 46%, writing 42%. And these do not tell the story of chaos, rising inequities, and staff churn. Oh yes, and choice and co-locations. Choice for those who can drive their children; co-locations to divide and conquer neighborhood after neighborhood. A very clever device for maintaining control. 9 years and counting for this “reform.” But when you have only one newspaper which is in grasp of the politicians and moneyed folks and when you have elections being bought and frankly people who do not grasp the importance of what is happening here, you get failed public education that is allowed to continue. It makes me very sad. I can see a day in the not too distant future when Denver public schools will be for those who have no other choice.
I’m reading John Kuhn’s book on public schools (I heard him speak in Texas) and I’m just blown away by the difference in how he talks about public schools and how ed reformers talk about public schools.
He values public schools. It comes thru in every paragraph. His work is like night and day with what I read from ed reformers. He’s writing about an entity he loves.
So how can you trust people who don’t value public schools to “reform” public schools? You can’t. This is more than a difference of opinion, and it isn’t going to be solved with a series of policy roundtables.
A student from here in KY has also written an op-ed about testing
http://www.kentucky.com/2014/04/18/3200965/lashana-harney-test-taking-not.html?sp=/99/349/
How much wiser this girl is than are the “leaders” of our educational system!!!
much wiser, for example, than is the Secretary for the Department of Education Privatization, formerly the USDE, Arne “Dunkin” Duncan
An award winning article, IMO. Well done.
Thanks for sharing.
Now this is a student who is college and career ready without the benefit of CCSS.
Wow! What a great job! And without any exposure during her own education to all those key Common Core Standards!