On Friday, Néw York Times’ columnist David Brooks wrote a column excoriating critics of the Common Core standards as “clowns.”
He didn’t seem aware that his personal opinion piece, devoid of documentation other than anecdotes, is precisely the kind of writing that David Voleman abhors. In his most famous statement about the Common Core, Coleman said that when you grow up, no one gives a &$@& about what you think or feel. Brooks told us what he thinks and feels, but gets all the facts wrong.
Here is Mercedes Schneider at her best.
Schneider writes:
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David Brooks, Common Core Circus Performer
Why newspapers hire individuals to regularly offer the public unsubstantiated opinions baffles me. I am a researcher. Unless my posts are grounded in my personal experience, I offer my readers links to document my position on matters about which I write.
David Brooks is an opinion writer. He publishes his opinions regularly in the New York Times (NYT) and has done so since 2003.
Brooks is not a teacher. He has no firsthand experience with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Nevertheless, Brooks has an opinion on the matter, and the NYT has published his opinion because, well, the NYT publishes Brooks’ opinions.
Brooks supports CCSS. That is his opinion.
Allow me to present another opinion: that of the “lead architect” of CCSS, David Coleman. Coleman is quoted here from his presentation, Bringing the Common Core to Life:
Do you know the two most popular forms of writing in the American high school today?…It is either the exposition of a personal opinion or the presentation of a personal matter. The only problem, forgive me for saying this so bluntly, the only problem with these two forms of writing is as you grow up in this world you realize people don’t really give a **** about what you feel or think. What they instead care about is can you make an argument with evidence, is there something verifiable behind what you’re saying or what you think or feel that you can demonstrate to me. [Emphasis added.]
How is that for irony? David Brooks writes his opinion on CCSS, and the “lead architect” of CCSS is knocking opinion writing.
Brooks’ opinion is that opponents to CCSS are part of a “circus.”
How sad it is that Brooks does not realize that he is part of the very circus about which he writes. Brooks believes he writes about CCSS from an op/ed perch outside of the Big Top. However, his place is in the ring of the many who support CCSS on the unsubstantiated opinion that CCSS is necessary to American public education; that it was properly and democratically created and chosen by stakeholders; that it is the solution to some supposed failure of American public education, and that opponents of CCSS act only from “hysteria.”
In his op/ed, Brooks presents the “reality” of CCSS as it appears to him in the Fun House mirror.
Brooks refers to a time “about seven years ago.” That would be 2007, the year that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was declared a failure. Brooks notes “it was widely acknowledged that state education standards were a complete mess.” So, in his effort to support CCSS, Brooks blames varied state standards for “huge numbers of students were graduating from high school unprepared either for college work or modern employment.”
Brooks provides no evidence to support his statements. How “non-CCSS” of him.
He even contradicts himself by the end of his article: “The new standards won’t revolutionize education. It’s not enough to set goals; you have to figure out how to meet them.”
Those who actually have careers in the classroom know there is more to the issue than “setting goals” and “meeting them” based upon a set of standards.
In 2007, David Hursh of the University of Rochester published a paper on the failure of NCLB. Hursh does not mention “common standards” as a solution to some widespread failure of public education. However, he does mention other complex issues that have a bearing on the classroom and which are ignored by the likes of Brooks in promoting the CCSS “solution”:
The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) marks the largest intervention of the federal government into education in the history of the United States. NCLB received and continues to receive support, in part because it promises to improve student learning and to close the achievement gap between White students and students of color. However, NCLB has failed to live up to its promises and may exacerbate inequality. Furthermore, by focusing on education as the solution to social and economic inequality, it diverts the public’s attention away from the issues such as poverty, lack of decent paying jobs and health care, that need to be confronted if inequality is to be reduced. [Emphasis added.]
Notice how the focus has shifted from the NCLB goal of “closing the achievement gap” to the Race to the Top (RTTT) goal of “competitiveness in the global economy.”
Neither NCLB with its “100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014″ nor RTTT with its “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments, teacher evaluation, data systems, and ‘turning around low performing’ schools” accounts for economic influences upon learning, not the least of which is the relationship between student learning and community economic viability.
I wrote about the fact that based upon employment projections for 2014, 2016 and 2020, Louisiana will have far more jobs available for high school dropouts and high school graduates than it will college graduates.
CCSS Fun House writers like Brooks do not address the disconnect between the call for “academic rigor” and the sagging economies that cannot support the Brooks-style finger-wag.
Know what else is funny? In 2007, when NCLB was openly acknowledged to be a failure, some legislators were still crying, “Stay the course.”
Sounds like CCSS “stay the course” opinions here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here….
You get the picture.
Another interesting fact about 2007: It was the year that David Coleman started his national-standards-writing company-gone nonprofit (first 990 on file not until 2011), Student Achievement Partners (SAP). Prior to SAP, Coleman and fellow CCSS “lead writer” Jason Zimba started a company to analyze NCLB test data.
Coleman had his foot in the proverbial NCLB door and “just happened” to start a company completely devoted to CCSS in 2007, the year that the NCLB circus began to show impending collapse.
A truly astounding, “state-led” coincidence.
Brooks also states that “the new standards are more rigorous than the old,” yet he also uses the Fordham Institute “finding” that CCSS is only “better” than standards in 37 states. I wrote about the 2010 Fordham Institute “grading” of state standards here and Fordham CCSS peddler Mike Petrilli here. Petrilli even tried the “stay the course” line in Indiana– a state with standards that Fordham graded as superior to CCSS.
Attempting to convince a state with standards “superior” to CCSS to keep CCSS is part of the CCSS sales job, yet this act somehow escapes Brooks’ notice.
How convenient.
As to another convenient Brooks oversight: The 2010 Fordham “grading” of state standards offers no logic between scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Fordham grade for a state’s standards. Thus, a state could have low NAEP scores and have a high Fordham grade on standards, or vice-versa. No logic. Nevertheless, Brooks assumes Fordham to be standards-grading “experts,” and Fordham Executive Vice President (nice title) Petrilli travels the country (for examples, see here, and here, and here, and here) advising states to “stay the course” with CCSS standards that Fordham admits are not better than all state standards.
As to Brooks’ assertion that CCSS “unpopularity” is “false”: He believes it is enough to cite some survey evidence (no reference provided) for Kentucky and Tennessee, and New York (linked)– three states. More Fun House illusion: that “evidence” of CCSS “popularity” in three states justifies a nationwide CCSS. Not so.
As to survey “evidence” on CCSS and education perceptions in general: I have written detailed accounts on a number of these surveys, all in 2013: NAESP (principals) survey; Stand for Children Louisiana survey; Gates Scholastic survey (partial results release); NEA survey; Associated Press (AP) survey; AP and Gallup survey; AFT survey.
My “overwhelming” conclusion: CCSS was an imposed education “reform” that administrators, teachers, and the public were forced to deal with. CCSS is not “popular”; it was tolerated at best as indicated by these 2013 survey results. As to the public perception: in 2013, the public was largely unaware of CCSS. Now they know. Now CCSS is in the news; it is in the classrooms, and it is in the statehouses.
CCSS-related legislation abounds.
As to Brooks’ Fun House assertion that CCSS is “state led, let us not forget the infamous CCSS “lead architect” David Coleman, who made the following statement to data analysts in Boston on May 31, 2013:
When I was involved in convincing governors and others around this country to adopt these standards, it was not “Obama likes them.” Do you think that would have gone well with the Republican crowd? [Emphasis added.]
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Though it might be difficult for Brooks to admit, Coleman just declared himself “CCSS Ringmaster.”
To Coleman, CCSS was a product to sell to “governors,” and he couldn’t say that “Obama likes” CCSS if he expected to make the sale to “the Republican crowd.”
Coleman must have made an effective sales pitch; in 2009– before CCSS was complete– 46 “states” had already “agreed to be state led.”
And so, our Big Top performance has come full circle in this post that began and ended with the CCSS Ringmaster, David Coleman.
It is one feat to “convince governors” to buy into CCSS; it is quite another to “convince” America.
Brooks is right; the circus in indeed “in town,” and in his opinion-spouting position, Brooks is attempting to sell tickets to The Greatest So-called “Standards” Show on Earth.
Those familiar with the CCSS imposition know better than to buy Brooks’ line that CCSS is “a perfectly sensible yet slightly boring idea.
From reading Brooks’ unanchored appeal, one issue is certain: This fount of unsolicited CCSS opinion is not a classroom teacher.
Let us leave him now, unsold tickets still in his ungrounded-opinion-writing hands.
thank you for your insightful comments and hilarious commentary. Brooks and the other bloviators do not care if they know what they are writing about, they are given the assignment to write a piece promoting or tearing down an issue/idea and are given brief talking points. They have no idea if the talking points are factual, real, correct and they do not care. Their job is to wrap it up nice and throw it out there. Now that the rabble are rousing, these pro-ed reformers are getting caught in their own words and are doing some serious back tracking, rebranding, and trying to come up with new ways of saying the same thing as before that will be acceptable to their rabble. Dr. Frankenstein knew, once roused, the rabble are hard to control.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
You mean thy’ve come full circus on the Common Core. And how much would David abhor all the noise the abolitionists made about the great idea of slavery.
I sent this to the NY Times editorial and publishers. You speak for all of us teachers!
I am not defending David Brooks, but think about the predicament he is in: 2 columns a week for 30 or so weeks–wow that is a lot comment on. Using my pundit added model (CAM), a ratio of knowledge to ignorance divided by quantity, David’s pay attention to his column score is 15%.At least David is doing better than Tom Friedman, who hit an all time low of 6% last week. Now I currently working on the next computational level of my CAM which would factor in knowledge in special areas, like education, economics, etc. When I work out the bugs in that computation will send it along. I should add, I plugged in some numbers for Bill O’Reilly, but something is wrong with my computations because my model should not produce minus numbers. But have something to due with by regression analysis equation.
LOL! Very funny, Alan!
I cannot remember anything that Brooks has written on any subject that is well grounded in fact or that even demonstrates an awareness of the existence of facts. He is a third or fourth level rehasher of the misinformation of others, and I’m sure he gets paid way more than any teacher to churn out his drivel. Good Germans abound in the deformer camp.
David Brooks proved himself, in this column, to be a completely permeable membrane for the PR generated by the propaganda mills of the plutocrats and oligarchs.
And he does that a lot. He parrots the received opinions of a certain kind of hale fellow well met Rotarian. And he’s paid handsomely for that. Not for thinking, clearly.
Come on Bob, Brooks is just looking to be the very first winner of the Common Coleman Award in print journalism. Can you blame him? It is a rather prestigious honor after all.
As chief administrator you should play close attention to the reports we get back fro Lake Placid in early May.
The national thought leaders at Camp Philos are probably going to be at each others throats over this. The Common Coleman Award can generate some very competitive juices.
I wish you would put this into 120 words and write an eloquent letter to the NY Times. They ought to publish it and they might.
Fat chance of that. The New York Times is to Education Deform what Pravda was to Stalin’s Soviet Union. It’s the primary propaganda organ. Time magazine, as well.
We’re now expecting newspaper opinion pieces to be accompanied by “documentation”?
You have a point. We should recognize this as what it is. People read this stuff to have their preconceived opinions validated, not to learn something. That’s what Brooks is paid handsomely to do. He writes pieces parroting the opinion that a certain kind of middle-of-the-road conservative Rotarian sort of person wants to have validated. These also happen to be the opinions that the oligarchy wants to have disseminated. So, no documentation, or thinking, necessary.
Right, it’s a genre. I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s no thinking required, but there’s certainly no documentation required. You can make a persuasive “argument” that is not just an expression of “personal opinion” without using “documentation.” An argument can rely largely on reasoning, and there’s a difference between “evidence,” which can be anecdotal or (when the form permits) presented informally, and “documentation.” I’m not a David Brooks fan because I generally don’t find his arguments convincing. (They’re almost invariably some version of “these guys say X, and these other guys say Y, but actually they should be saying Z,” with “Z” being a presumably nuanced combination of what’s good about “X” and what’s good about “Y.”) And, like many opinion piece writers, evidence is not his strong suit. But nobody expects “documentation” from newspaper opinion writers. It’s just not one of the conventions of the genre.
No documentation is required for OPINIONS. When they are stated as FACT, the rules do change.
Are these supposed to be taken as Brooks’ opinions?
>About seven years ago, it was widely acknowledged that state education standards were a complete mess. Huge numbers of students were graduating from high school unprepared either for college work or modern employment. This was a state-led effort, supported by employers and financed by private foundations. This was not a federal effort, though the Obama administration did encourage states to embrace the new standards.But the new initiative is clearly superior to the old mess. The math standards are more in line with the standards found in the top performing math nations. It is true that the new standards are more rigorous than the old, The idea that the Common Core is unpopular is also false. Teachers and local authorities still have control of what they teach and how they teach it<
I intended my response to be a sarcastic dismissal of the genre. One either writes opinion pieces that are grounded in evidence, or one writes drivel.
You are expecting that because when falls under the rubric of “opinion” people should feel it is ok to lie their heads off?
FLERP,
Mercedes point is that Brooks’ personal opinion about the Common Core is exactly the kind of writing rejected by Coleman and CCSS. Some reference to valid sources is a good idea, even for Brooks. His article reads like it was culled from Duncan press releases.
Right, I know that’s the point she was trying to make. I just don’t find it convincing. Brooks wrote a conventional opinion piece, and it follows the conventional rules of that genre. Maybe it wasn’t a compelling argument, maybe the evidence is disputed or even weak, but it’s not an expression of “personal opinion” as opposed to “argument.” It’s argumentative writing in the genre of the newspaper opinion piece. I’m sure you’ve used the form many times.
FLERP, I am all for opinion writing but somewhere in the piece should be a solid base of factual information. In Brooks’s piece there is only misinformation. Like saying that the writing of the standards was “state-led.” Hmmm. Wonder where he got that fiction. Or that US education was in trouble because of state standards. Or that standards matter as much as he thinks. There are states with high standards and low NAEP scores. Vice versa.
they are called op eds and need no documentation of facts or statements. The idea is that knowledgable people provide information and analysis based on their experience, what do they make of the situation? But the danger is that one must accept the expertise, that the writer is unbiased and not pushing some hidden agenda, and that the paper would provide a platform for rebuttal. The ed reformers (the anti smoking is bad people, the anti womens choice equality people, the people who find global warming a fairy tale–all the same type) know that they can use certain media outlets and specific bloviators to put their talking points out there. Do that often enough and people think they remember reading factual pieces that agree with the stated opeds based on made up or heavily spun factoids. Repeat repeatedly. Every once in a while, the paper will print a badly worded, jargon filled piece from some academic citing data and references and quoting dead white academics that none of the readers has ever heard about, just to be fair and balanced, dont you know. But these pieces are meant as smoke screen, they play the role of the so-called liberal on the faux news media shows. They are there to set up the softball questions, to provide the failed status quo reply that is so easily dismissed–to play the fool.
Brooks is just part of the paid bloviation team that makes up the ed reform network. Think tanks, so called researchers, education centers at universities, ed reform groups like rhee and mindtrust and the dems for ed reform or choice or whatever they call themselves now, Teach Plus and Teach for America!! They repeat the same thing, they reference each other as though these were scholarly references, and they cite their own heavily funded publications such as finn’s Education Next as peer reviewed journals equated to the New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA. But they win because we fight with data and honest evaluation, they do it with rhetoric and sloganeering.
Many of his statements are not written as opinion. They are written as if they are factual. Please re-read his column and you will see that the tone is one of clearing the air and dispelling the myths.
Exactly right. Brooks pretends. He is dispelling falsehoods and myths. But he doesn’t know what he is talking about. He repeats Duncan’s talking points.
Brooks is not some unknown, random citizen bloviating on a blog like me. He has one of the most prestigious forums in the world and with that comes a responsibility to write in an informed and responsible way. Repeating warmed-over, discredited talking points is just lazy and irresponsible opinion writing. The circus may have come to town, but Brooks happens to be playing ringmaster. Put a tent over him.
“Many of his statements are not written as opinion. They are written as if they are factual. Please re-read his column and you will see that the tone is one of clearing the air and dispelling the myths.”
TAGO!
NY teacher: I remember some of the HS students I worked with called folks like this “posers.”
Apt, don’t you think?
😎
Si
If Brooks can provide one link, he can provide several.
I think it is also important for a newspaper to be responsible in its “opinion” pages and post the opinions of those with OPPOSING views. Ted Koppel would always moderate as a tv journalist by inviting those with opposing views to express their views (and without interjecting his own views). And Koppel was discriminating when he chose people to express their views. They were typically experts in their fields or the “movers and shakers” in events unfolding…but the interviewees opposed one another. The public was not “sold” a viewpoint. When a newspaper CONSISTENTLY has “opinion” writers expressing views that point to one side of an argument AND the opinion writers do not even have experience or expertise in the views they express, one must question the motivation. The newspaper is TACITLY interjecting its views by omission and an irresponsible omission at best! Perhaps the public should hear a square off between the opinions of both Diane Ravtich and Arne Duncan. Perhaps the public should read an opinion of a title one public school teacher and those of a KIPPS Charter teacher. And certainly to make an opinion carry more weight, the person writing the opinion should have learned in early days of school to add the factual information so people don’t finish reading and ask, “Where’s the beef”! I do love the delicious irony in that this NY Times “professional” opinion writer would certainly FAIL a Coleman created “rubrik” for opinion writing!
artsegal hits another one out of the park.
Last night I googled NYT common core in order to see if there were a balance between pro-CCSS and anti-CCSS pieces.
Nothing doing.
Great rebuttal, Mercedes! I remember watching that video of Coleman with my principal and department chairperson and all of us shuddering in horror at Coleman’s statement about narrative writing and how it is not valued. Right. Tell that to all those students applying to college, graduate school, medical school, and residencies. That personal statement is rather important. Brooks is so far removed from public schools that he is not even qualified to comment about them.
While I was reading, I inadvertently read the word state houses as slaughterhouses. Now I’m wondering if my slip was closer to the truth than the original.
LOL
Since when has anything David Brooks has written been “credible.” The guy has a 25¢ haircut on a 10¢ head and collects a nice salary in the process.
Diane:
Firstly, thank you for all your hard work.
Regrettably, Mr. Brooks is a 21st century “Snake Oil Salesman.”
Here is a fine description/depiction of such a person:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/08/26/215761377/a-history-of-snake-oil-salesmen
The Common Core State Standards are the 21st century equivalent of the “Patent Medicines” of the 19th century.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Best regards,
Chris Lawrence
Thanks to Mercedes for this wonderful lampooning of the over the Brooks puff piece. I looked at one aspect of the column from a reading instruction perspective here.
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2014/04/david-brooks-hearts-common-core.html
Russ Walsh:
And thanks to you for your great post. I’m truly sorry to hear that David Pearson supports the Common Core Standards, but at least he does it “with reservations.” I hope some of Diane’s readers will read his 1994 article on reading comprehension, which you cite in your post:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb94/vol51/num05/Synthesis-of-Research-~-Reading-Comprehension@-What-Works.aspx
The New York Times is THE propaganda outlet for the White House ( and the Oligarchs who were lucky enough to get their guy into it), regardless of the party of its current resident. None of their editors or columnists, center, right, or right-of-right, actually come up with these ideas of their own. Thier job is to ape the opinions of Oligarchs (center, right, and right-of-right). Their job is to give legitimacy to the Oligarch’s various agendas and make it safe for the professional classes (particularly lazy academics) to have something to talk about at the office. It also gives legitimacy for the lower tiers of the punditocracy to ape what has been printed by the NYT.
I appreciate the effort to debate Brooks by marshaling evidence to counter his claims, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be more effective to satirically lampoon him and the goofs he works for. People will ape his opinions as long as you treat the NYT as a serious news outlet, because they feel smart when they tell co-workers about what they read there. When people find themselves being laughed at for reading David Brooks and the NYT, they will turn to other sources.
Not to belabor the point about Mr. Brooks circus column, the problem we educators will always be subjected to is summarized in a comment made to me by a Superintendent at an acrimonious board meeting over the adoption of a year-long school calendar (it was turned down):your proposal was well thought out, but you know everyone’s been to third grade.” What he meant by that comment is everyone in this country has experienced a school in some form and thus believes they are an expert on how to run a school. Few us, maybe except Tom Friedman, would dare to challenge the expertise of a physician, lawyer, or our plumber. But no one hesitates to offer their educated opinion when it comes to complex issues like tenure, or the adoption of new math program, or drugs in schools, or sex education programs, the list is endless. When my wife and I would attend social gatherings I always told her don’t tell anyone I was a principal, because if that information got out I would spend the night cornered by one attendee after another telling me how to run a school –“you know, the way you stop drugs is to get dogs.” I would add the obvious, that offering expert viewpoints on an occupation or institution you have not worked a day is intellectually reckless. A well-educated individual, which Mr. Brooks likes to believe he is, would never offer policy solutions for an institution or occupation strictly based on an ideological belief system. A responsible public intellectual should continually test their ideas against the realities they write about –sitting in a KIPP classroom is not a test. Teaching for a month in an urban school might be the kind of randomized experiment Mr. Brooks ought to try — and then let’s sit down a talk education.
Just because you were once a student doesn’t make you an expert on education.
Brooks picked a really unfortunate metaphor when he compared Common Core opposition to a circus. Mercedes Schneider did a great job of turning it upside down. I love her characterization of Brooks as a circus ticket salesman. But there’s a chance he’s also one of the dupes.
He obviously doesn’t know very much about the Common Core and the legitimate criticisms of it. But then again neither does Paul Krugman, who isn’t known as a huckster for the .01 percent. Both Brooks and Krugman are happy to swallow the Common Core whole.
Krugman’s column (title “Stupid Is A Strategy”) supporting the Common Core was published August 19, 2013. His opening sentence:
“Bill Keller has a strong, stinging column about Republican attacks on the entirely praiseworthy, up to now bipartisan effort to create a Common Core curriculum.”
Krugman talks mainly about “stupidity” and conservative politics, but his concluding sentence suggests that he, too, has been duped:
“No project, no matter how worthy and blameless, can escape becoming a target for orchestrated rage.”
Krugman usually makes a lot more sense than Brooks, but on this topic neither knows what he’s talking about. (Krugman seems to know even less than Brooks.) It looks like they’ve been taken in by the Common Core promotion machine (generously funded by the Gates Foundation).
Here’s the Times op-ed cited by Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/opinion/keller-war-on-the-core.html?hp&_r=0
“The only problem, forgive me for saying this so bluntly, the only problem with these two forms of writing is as you grow up in this world you realize people don’t give a **** about what you feel or think.”
Every time I read this quote by Coleman I wonder if he has ever entered a Target or Kohls. I know I can’t leave any store without being asked to fill out a survey. If I call the cable company for a customer service issue they ask me to fill out a survey. None of these surveys are asking me how much I paid, they are asking me questions about what I think and feel about my experience.
Every company wants me to “like” their Facebook page and retweet their tweet so that I can let my friends know what I think or feel about a given product. The entire entertainment industry is driven by not only making me think and feel but relying on what I think and feel about what I see and hear to promote their product. We have an entire genre of tv shows built around viewers voting to either keep or kick-off contestants. If all of that isn’t enough evidence that EVERYONE CARES what I think and feel we have the whole of the political process built around polling and campaigning so that candidates can better understand and influence how we think and feel.
Coleman is wrong, our entire economy is built around what we think and feel. Maybe people would care what about what he thinks if he would say something worth listening to.