Mercedes Schneider continues in her task to determine who wrote the Common Core State Standards. The first work group had 24 members; the second had 101. Very few in either group were teachers. The standards were produced in remarkably short order. Typically, it takes years to write state standards when major stakeholders are part of the process. So was ther. Secret 24? A secret 101? Or, as some think, a secret 60? Many unanswered questions, but one fact stands out: very few classroom teachers were involved in writing the nation’s presumed academic standards.
Someday we will have the answers to all these questions.
But for now, we will have to rest content with the likelihood that the national standards were written with large input GotMichal the testing industry, and small input fro working teachers.
For what it is worth, I think the CCSS are dying the slow death of a thousand cuts. This sad denouement illustrates the necessity of transparency, inclusion, and a democratic process. Just becauseBill Gates and a handful of other powerful people want national standards is not enough to put them over. What they lack is legitimacy. And that is a big problem.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There are no short cuts in democracy. It may be messy but real, honest democracy and collaboration simply produces better, lasting results.
Top down is so much more attractive and seductively simple. But it fails. Good leaders know that.
Then we are coming up short in the Good Leaders department, aren’t we? But maybe we can grow a new crop of good leaders and meanwhile, we now know For Sure that there is no substitute, no short cut, no seduction worth sacrificing our democracy.
There are literally millions of scholars, researchers, and teacher practitioners in the country whose expertise is relevant to deciding what outcomes to measure, how to characterize those, and how to assess progress. It’s insane, in such a situation, to draw upon what little happens to be known by a handful of amateurs who take it upon themselves to make these decisions for the rest of us.
We need competing, open source standards, frameworks, guidelines, lesson templates, learning progressions that draw continually upon the expertise of the community as a whole. THE LAST THING THAT WE NEED is this backward Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
In this brief essay, I explain ONE of many reasons why the invariant bullet list is a terrible idea:
The essay treats ONE part of ONE standards but the same sort of thing that I do for this one could be done with the whole of the backward, hackneyed, amateurish, prescientific, curriculum-and-pedagogy narrowing and distorting bullet list prepared by a few hirelings of plutocrats.
And, of course, independent schools and teachers should be able to draw upon the best of that open source material–to adopt and adapt it to meet the needs of their students.
That’s how you get real innovation.
Exactly, Bob Shepard. A “close reading” of standards by educational experts yields flaw upon flaw in the Common Core exactly because all that expertise went untapped. From a literacy standpoint I think the standards are lacking in many ways, most especially at the lower grade levels and the publisher’s guidelines are even worse. As Diane says, the whole process lacks legitimacy.
You will not get independent schools and teachers if you do not allow students to be independent as well.
TE, we’ve had that in the past. We can have it again. Ed Deform has taken us precisely NOWHERE.
We need to make it clear to the Deforms that WE ARE THE ONES who do not accept their vision for the future of education because we have examined it and found it to be of unacceptable quality. “Higher standards” indeed!!! What utter nonsense.
I thought we had terrible state standards in the past, at least that was your assessment in another comment.
Roll back the clock to the days of site based management, add open source dissemination of the very best of contemporary curricula and pedagogy, and then we’ll be cooking.
Traditional catchment based attendance policy becomes indefensible in a world where there is true site independence. That is why Waldorf, Montessori, progressive, and other truly differentiated instructional philosophies exist only in schools that families can choose or not choose to attend.
Fascinating and thoughtful essay. Aside from the obvious manipulations of the “reformy” crowd, it pinpoints for me the larger trepidation I have with regard to standardizing curriculum, particularly on a national level. Assessment that goes with it will continue the trend of narrowing and dummying what is taught, not to mention taking all discretion from teachers. It serves to limit, rather than expand, student learning and thinking.
An example I encountered of assessing a broad curriculum area with a narrow and misleading item had to do with identifying parts of speech, which you think would be reasonably straightforward. I did spend 5-7 minutes daily working with students on diagramming sentences. I found it useful, particularly with youngsters who spoke limited English. On a district constructed test (and this item was a release question from state testing), students were asked to distinguish between adverbs and a predicate adjective. There were only 2-3 parts of speech questions on the test, and teachers were scored on how well students performed in each category. Is this really where teachers should be focused in a district with a high percentage of ESL students?
If district officials (many amateurs) can be so out of touch on a relatively concrete skill, do we really expect national dilettantes to do better with something as abstract as figurative language?
Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to teaching Orwell as satire, rather than a blueprint for federal education policy?
Yes, it certainly would! Well said, Marian!
And when I feel as if I can’t take a minute more of the madness, I read these words you have typed and can exhale just a bit and imagine all the good works that are begging to be born. Please keep helping everyone to visualize next steps.
Here! Here! I agree 100%!
Reinventing the wheel — behold: a new square wheel.
lol
Call me a pessimist, but I think that even as Common Core potentially dies a death of a thousand cuts, the impetus behind it will live on and return like some reanimated corpse in a B-grade zombie flick. Or if you prefer, like Voldemort in the cemetery scene. Pick whichever analogy you like.
While CCSS and the specific tests to which it is aligned are taking shot after shot, it seems to me that most of the outrage is being directed at these specific tests or at “implementation” issues in general. There is also some anger from parents at the constructivist math and some of the pressure being put on young kids.
What I don’t see is the public or the politicians embracing the larger issues like the horribleness of detailed, utilitarian, skills-based standards, or the use of standardized tests as the primary measure education success, or the overall “accountability” paradigm. I believe the public, in its ignorance of how education works, still believes that we must “catch up” with the east Asian countries on test scores or we will collapse into ruin as a country. I also think most parents believe that something must be done about sub-par teachers, many of whom still teach their children.
And of course there is the bipartisan belief (magical thinking) among politicos that all societal problems associated with SES and/or “income inequality” can be fixed by “fixing” the schools. That belief isn’t going to change anytime soon, either. So I just really see this as being a for-the-foreseeable-future kind of fight. Better gird your loins.
I agree with you, Jack.
Defnitily Voldermort.
Look for rebranding very soon. Same mess, just called something else (think “Texas standards of excellence” or the “NY college and career ready standards”) and with the tag line “NEW and IMPROVED” alignment, resources and content.
Sigh
This is why we have to attack these absurd standards on the basis of their quality. These people need to understand that there is a knowledgeable community of practitioners that will not stand for a repeat of this amateurishness.
Time to put a stake in Son of NCLB.
Unfortunately, compliance with the CCSS has been hardwired into new teacher education tests designed by researchers at Stanford and approved by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). AACTE represents 800 teacher education programs.
This test, called edTPA (Teacher Performance Assessment), is aligned with the CCSS. Scoring has been outsourced to Pearson who charges a minimum of $300 per test, while paying $70 per hour to raters of the tests. In early 2014, edTPA was being used in 511 educator preparation programs in 34 states and the District of Columbia. CCSS will not just fade away. http://edtpa.aacte.org/about-edtpa
States can use edTAP scores for teacher licensure. Teacher education programs can use the scores for state and national accreditations. The edTAP scores of graduates, and gains in students’ scores that they produce on the job will now be used to rate the “effectiveness” of teacher education programs. The Obama/Duncan administration’s flawed policies and promotion of the CCSS are being foisted on teacher education. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/barack-obama-arne-duncan-teacher-training-education-106013.html#ixzz2zwfJdsRs
In addition to EdTPA, other tests for teacher certification require knowledge of the CCSS (e.g. Praxis http://www.ets.org/praxis/ccss). Certifications of teacher education programs will also hinge on serious attention to the CCSS. For example, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), approved new standards for teacher education in August, 2013. CAEP is a new entity created by merging NCATE, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and TEAC the Teacher Education Accreditation Council. In 2013, the merged organizations had accredited over 860 programs. CAEP standards must still be approved by USDE and appear to have been written for that purpose.
The standards from CAEP illustrate how hard it is to kill the CCSS, bury bad policies, and overcome horrific language about education. Programs that prepare teachers are now called “providers.” Teachers who graduate are now called “completers.” The CAEP standards rely on 110 uses of the term “impact” to describe what teacher education and teachers are supposed to do. (Ask Diane what “impact” meant for her knee, or how ‘impacted” sardines may feel in a can).
Here is CAEP’s Standard 1.4 for teacher education: “Providers ensure that completers demonstrate skills and commitment that afford all P-12 students access to rigorous college-and career-ready standards (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards, National Career Readiness Certificate, Common Core State Standards).” http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard1/
CAEP Standard 4.1: “The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider.” http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard4/
CAEP Standard 5.4: “Measures of completer impact, including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and acted upon in decision-making related to programs, resource allocation, and future direction.” http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard5/
Clearly, the demolition derby on K-12 is expanding to damage the independent voice of faculty in higher education. The “provider” language signals that alternative paths to teacher preparation are being honored. Unfortunately, the 42 member “commission” charged with developing CAEP’s standards was dominated by high-level administrators in education and entrepreneurs who appear to be totally unaware of (or indifferent to) the meaning of due-diligence in developing standards. They ignored sound scholarship that should have informed their work, including extensive peer-reviewed criticisms of the CCSS, value-added and related “growth” measures, as well as the flaws in industrial strength management strategies from mid-century last.
Standards for due diligence in setting standards have been discussed on this blog. Writers of the CAPE standards and writers of the CCSS have ignored the minimum due-process requirements set by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
The minimum process requirements are: 1. consensus on a proposed standard by a group or “consensus body” that includes representatives from materially affected and interested parties; 2. broad-based public review and comment on draft standards; 3. consideration of and response to comments submitted by voting members of the relevant consensus body and by public review comments; 4. incorporation of approved changes into a draft standard; and 5. right to appeal by any participant that believes that due process principles were not sufficiently respected during the standards development.
http://www.ansi.org/standards_activities/domestic_programs/overview.aspx?menuid=3 https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/22/reader-brookings-economist-sees-ccss-as-entry-point-for-big-data-machine/ https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/24/the-fatal-flaw-of-the-common-core-standards/
Faculty in higher education and other “providers” of teacher education are being entrapped in the same web of failed policies that began with K-12 education. I’d like to be more optimistic, but many in the “professorate” have aided, abetted, and profited from the present fiasco in American public education and teacher education.
Not to mention that the ACT and the PSAT, and SAT are “aligned” with the Common Core (and there are PLENTY of educators who think these are valuable, accurate tests). And the College Board’s AP program – adored by many, but unsubstantiated by research – is “aligned” too.
You are exactly right….there are many in higher education and in K-12 education (and let us not leave out the “leaders” of teacher unions and educational organizations like ASCD and the national PTA, and others) who’ve “aided, abetted” the Common Core.
As the old comic strip Pogo proclaimed, We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Great piece in which Tom Hoffman looks at a few of the mind-blowingly amateurish CC$$ “standards”:
View at Medium.com
Thanks for the link, Bob. Hoffman’s piece is a must-read for parents trying to understand WHY the standards seem so sloppy and redundant. Thanks too, for continuing to bring relevance to the CC argument with your throughtful and thorough posts.
Bob Check out Salon today. There is an interview with Randi Weingarten, She goes on recor,d, saying, in effect, what’s wrong with the Common Core is an :Implementation” problem. My lord, I am glse to have no part of her so-called ‘union’. She richly deserves the opprobrium that has been heaped on her in this blog. Trust her ? Yeah, right. I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.
She’s a lawyer. She’s talking about matters about which she knows NOTHING. Generally speaking, when the topic is something about which you know NOTHING, you should keep your mouth shut.
Hopeless. And doing a lot of damage with that kind of talk.
Bob, she may be a lawyer, but she’s also one of the top teacher “leaders” in the nation.
As I point out on this blog often, she has effectively sold teachers down the Common Core river.
She cannot walk back what’s she’s done, no matter how much praise she gets on this blog. It’s too late. She took the Gates money, and signed off on the Common Core, and she’s made a series of statements in its support. She helped to set everything in motion.
Maybe one day she’ll say she’s sorry.
But at that point, will it help any?
The mission of the Gates Foundation is to funnel billions in public school tax funds to the corporations and at the same time Gates sends his children to Lakeside School.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/04/a_huntsville_parent_decries_pr.html
“It speaks volumes that Bill Gates – who has funded Common Core with upwards of $200 million – sends his own children to Seattle’s exclusive Lakeside School, which uses its own standards. And when Candice McQueen, a leading Core proponent in Tennessee, was recently named director of Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, one of her first actions was to assure nervous parents that she had no intention of inflicting Common Core on their children.
Not only are private schools not rushing to embrace Common Core, but they seem to be perfectly capable of assessing the performance of both their students and teachers without the use of high-stakes standardized testing. What a concept.”
Thought you-all might be interested in this, it’s more on the all-charter district in Michigan. They’re looking for a new operator, because the for-profit operator couldn’t survive within budget:
“Muskegon Heights had problems complying with laws and rules regarding special education before the state takeover in 2012. But many compliance problems lingered once Mosaica took over.
Mosaica’s Connelly says special education services cost up to $400,000 more than MHPSA had budgeted for in the 2012-2013 school year.
Then in June, Muskegon Area Intermediate School District sent MHPSA a bill for $267,000 that Connelly says was “a surprise.” The bill was for students who live in the Muskegon Heights district that are enrolled in MAISD’s Wesley School, for students with severe cognitive impairment, autism and other special needs that cannot be addressed with typical education services at the district.
An official with MAISD says the bill should not have been a surprise because it’s noted in the contract between Mosaica and MHPSA. But the official said it’s understandable that Mosaica may not have been familiar with the arrangement because these costs usually aren’t picked up by charter schools, only traditional districts with school boundaries. Because MHPSA replaced the traditional school district, it has boundaries and must pay for special-needs students within those boundaries who attend Wesley School.”
I think this raises some good questions.
First, can a charter school operate without a public school district covering costs for special-needs students? Second, should the public school students get a bump in per pupil funding if they are providing that service to charter schools in mixed charter/public areas?
Are these truly equitable funding schemes, re: mixed charter and public, and if not, what is the public policy justification for the inequity?
http://michiganradio.org/post/charter-school-ceo-says-muskegon-heights-schools-owes-company-2-million
Diane, do you still believe the U.S. needs national standards?
Yes, I support voluntary, non/prescriptive standards that describe aspirational goals as well as the resources needed to work towards those standards. I would like to see national standards in the arts that describe expectations and resources without telling teachers how to teach or how proficient every student should be. The standards should be instructions for states and districts about opportunity to learn rather than goal posts that every student must teach.
As always, thanks for the response, Diane.
My bigger question is this, and I’m sure it’s something that you and others in the DOE grappled with in the first Bush administration: How could we expect that states would voluntarily adopt standards that were truly “national”? Is there any process by which that could happen that wouldn’t be criticized as undemocratic, or “top-down” in nature, or coerced by federal and/or private money?
You certainly couldn’t get a “national” curriculum if each state undertook to draft its own standards, so I assume you would need to have a single working group doing the drafting for each subject area. Then I imagine you could have a “notice and comment” period, as federal agencies do with proposed regulations. Then maybe you field test the standards. Then you’d need the states to voluntarily sign off on the standards. What incentive would any state have to do that? Would the signoff authority rest with state governors, or state education departments, or state legislatures, or the voters through referendum? The more democratic the process, the more difficult it is for me to imagine it happening.
Diane Ravitch is the voice of reason on this issue. Well said, Diane! There are many of us who believe that these “higher” standards did not reach nearly high enough. The authors of these “standards” did not reenvision them as flexible, open-source, crowd-sourced, continually evolving, decentralized guidelines appropriate for 21st-century teaching and learning.
Here’s the process, FLERP: Instead of mandating a single set of standards for all, you create an open-source portal for competing, voluntary standards, learning progressions, frameworks, lesson templates, etc., from which free local communities can choose. And you subject those to continual vetting and critique, appropriate to a democratic country. And the whole community of researchers, scholars, curriculum developers, and classroom practitioners participates.
Ecologies are healthier than are monocultures.
Imagine the innovation that we could have if we followed such a model!!!!
Imagine the competition among models, the vigorous, ongoing debate and study of those competing models.
Oh, and let’s not forget assessment. Such an open source portal should treat and provide varieties of assessments–diagnostic, formative, performative, portfolio, project, summative–and debates about and studies of those.
I disagree with you and agree with Peter Greene: It’s a big, diverse country, so national standards are just not feasible. Furthermore, even national standards that meet your specifications, Diane, would later become bastardized by the latest reform fad (count on it!). But instead of just impacting a few states, it would impact ALL of them. And even though such standards would be “voluntary,” there are all kinds of ways the feds can rope states into not abandoning the herd. So no, I do not support national education standards in any form.
Jack is absolutely correct. Leave “standards” to the states and local school districts. We don’t need them on a federal level.
The key word in what Diane said, above, is “voluntary.”
And she has also expressed support on this blog for the idea of open sourced, crowd sourced standards. And she has also, many times, in many ways, said that one size does not fit all.
One school, however, does fit all. It is whatever school that the student happens to be assigned to attend.
New arts standards have been written, reviewed, and should be published soon, on-line. The standards encompass the visual and performing arts of music, dance, theater, and the media arts. They are written for grade spans rather than each grade. They have some links with the CCSS. They will include some exemplary assessments.
They will not solve the more fundamental problems caused by federal and state policies that require the use of pre-and post-test scores for teacher evaluations. They are unlikely to leverage more time in the curriculum.
Although Tennessee is experimenting with digital portfolios for the purpose of teacher evaluation based on student “growth,” the end game is still a rating based on a comparison of student artifacts/evidence from the beginning to the end of a grade or course. Two raters (teachers in the art form with special training) judge these submissions independently. A third rater is required if these ratings are too far apart.
Opportunity-to-learn standards for the arts were last written in 1997. I do not know if these are addressed in the new standards.
“Duane, do you still believe the U.S. needs national standards?”
NO! I don’t.
Using the term standard implies that there is some sort of “measuring” that needs to occur. Standards and standardized testing go hand in hand (or is that hand in fist), are like peas and carrots, like Mom and apple pie. It is impossible to separate standards from the accompanying testing.
OH! Wait, that’s Diane and not Duane!
But since you got me started let’s just say that Noel Wilson have proven the complete invalidity of those two educational malpractices that render any results completely invalid. To understand see: “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, do you still believe standardized testing is invalid?
FLERP!
Let’s put it this way: I KNOW that standardized testing as is currently used in education is invalid.
Mercedes, most of the old ELA standards were bad too. They are largely unteachable, –and promote bad and fruitless teaching. For example, “students will be able to find the main idea” spawns lessons that teach the “strategy” of finding the main idea. But there is no valid strategy for doing this. It’s a waste of time. What ELA standards should specify is teachable goals: e.g. learn the rules of grammar; study “Huck Finn”.
How about ELA standards that include knowledge and understanding of literary devices. Try and find something this specific and teachable in the CCSS. Wont hold my breath.
•Allegory
•Alliteration
•Allusion
•Amplification
•Anagram
•Analogy
•Anastrophe
•Anecdote
•Anthropomorphism
•Antithesis
•Aphorism
•Archetype
•Assonance
•Asyndeton
•Authorial Intrusion
•Bibliomancy
•Bildungsroman
•Cacophony
•Caesura
•Characterization
•Chiasmus
•Circumlocution
•Conflict
•Connotation
•Consonance
•Denotation
•Deus ex Machina
•Diction
•Doppelganger
•Ekphrastic
•Epilogue
•Epithet
•Euphemism
•Euphony
•Faulty Parallelism
•Flashback
•Foil
•Foreshadowing
•Hubris
•Hyperbaton
•Hyperbole
•Imagery
•Internal Rhyme
•Inversion
•Irony
•Juxtaposition
•Kennings
•Litote
•Malapropism
•Metaphor
•Metonymy
•Mood
•Motif
•Negative Capability
•Nemesis
•Onomatopoeia
•Oxymoron
•Paradox
•Pathetic Fallacy
•Periodic Structure
•Periphrasis
•Personification
•Plot
•Point of View
•Polysyndeton
•Portmanteau
•Prologue
•Puns
•Rhyme Scheme
•Rhythm & Rhyme
•Satire
•Setting
•Simile
•Spoonerism
•Stanza
•Stream of consciousness
•Suspense
•Symbol
•Synecdoche
•Synesthesia
•Syntax
•Theme
•Tone
•Tragedy
•Understatement
•Verisimilitude
•Verse
Interestingly, almost NONE of these appear in the “higher” standards, and almost none are treated on the assessments.
The only two on the grade 8 ELA “metaphor” and “theme”
At least according to the students I overheard discussing the test. Ha
Make that three. “Point of view” as well.
In fact, NY teacher, at the NTI for English (I refuse to call it ELA), a regents fellow is on record for saying that finding examples of these terms in literature is unimportant to CCSS. Look for claims, not those silly metaphors. The point of CCSS is to NOT teach students how to use these tools for analysis. In fact, analysis of literature as most of us would understand it Is not promoted through the standards. Which is exactly why these standards are amateurish and will not prepare students for college level English.
I don’t know the first thing about how to write standards, and so I will speak as a layman. My reaction to what you wrote here is: Boy, that just feels right.
But you can’t have standards with that level of generality if you also want high-stakes testing. The higher the stakes, the more standardization is required.
Would having this level of generalty in standards do anything usefull in mathmatics education?
That is exactly right. There is world knowledge (knowledge of what) and procedural knowledge (knowledge of how), and these ridiculous so-called “standards” we’ve had foisted on us almost entirely ignore the former and formulate the latter so vaguely that they cannot be taught or assessed (the essential step of operationalizing them and atomizing them and making them concrete was not taken).
“But you can’t have standards with that level of generality if you also want high-stakes testing. The higher the stakes, the more standardization is required.”
Great.
Lets agree on these standards and ditch the expensive, time consuming, stress inducing, high stakes testing.
Oh, wait. How will Pearson..or anyone else… be guaranteed a ton of $.
Never mind.
😉
Mathematics and ELA are different worlds, TE. The idiots who wrote the CCSS did not understand that there are very different kinds of learnings and acquisitions of very different kinds of knowledge and ability that have to be characterized in correspondingly different ways and, of course, assessed in correspondingly different ways. The amateurishness of what was done in the preparation of these “standards” is mind-boggling.
So when I see you criticize the CCSS i should just understand that you are not criticizing the Math CCSS, just the ELA CCSS?
FLERP,
I don’t want high-stakes testing.
TE, that’s a whole other discussion. In some ways, math is simpler because almost every set of math standards is PRIMARILY a curriculum outline, as E.D. HIrsch, Jr., pointed out on this blog a few months ago. The CC$$ in ELA are not a curriculum outline. They are an amateurish list of abstractly formulated “skills.” A different beast, with different problems.
I don’t see it as a whole other discussion. I think that allowing families to choose schools is a NECESSARY condition for the kind of independence of approach that you seek.
You and I, TE, have had some discussion on this blog of the math standards, and I have shared my views. These new math standards are basically a tweaking of an existing consensus–almost all the state math standards were variations on the NCTM standards, and and so the CC$$ in math is not a huge departure. It seems to me very funny that people think that a document so little changed is going to result in vastly improved outcomes.
The one-size-fits-all nature of the math standards is a huge problem. They are rightly criticized for not giving proper preparation to those kids who might go into science and engineering. And they are rightly criticized for asking primary school kids to do thinking involving kinds of abstraction that most do not have the equipment for at these ages.
My own view is that if we are going to publish such curriculum outlines, then we should have several of them, for differing kinds of students and instantiating differing approaches.
But I have much more radical ideas about math instruction, as you know. Basically, I think that the elementary curriculum should be scrapped entirely in favor of activities to build the neural capacities–the fluid reasoning skills–for mathematics, and that formal mathematics instruction should be started later, after this is done. I think that there is very good evidence suggesting that if this were done, our kids would learn more in less time, later, when they are developmentally ready for this kind of abstract reasoning.
Right now, as it is, we’re doing variants of the same thing we’ve done forever, and it doesn’t work. MOST people come out of our K-12 systems loathing mathematics and are, a few years after graduation, practically innumerate. 60 percent of U.S. adults, according to a study done only three years ago, could not calculate a ten percent tip even though all they had to do was move the decimal point!!!!
What we are teaching, now, is the loathing of mathematics. And that’s because we are trying to do it before kids have the mental tools for it. The whole constructivist v. math facts and algorithms war we’ve had for decades is misguided. YES, doing math requires UNDERSTANDING IT, not simply mindlessly carrying out procedures. But kids cannot do the former until they are developmentally ready for it. If we do the latter early on, all we teach is the hatred of math. If we do the former early on, kids are simply lost and confused. A PLAGUE ON BOTH THEIR HOUSES. People do not understand that the neural hardware of the brain for doing abstract reasoning develops over time. It’s important that they started to grok that.
As I can’t say too many times, I have absolutely no expertise in standards or curriculum. Or mathematics. For starters.
But, oh, man, I do not like the sound of “radical ideas about math instruction,” or “the elementary curriculum should be scrapped entirely in favor of activities to build the neural capacities–the fluid reasoning skills–for mathematics,” or “formal mathematics instruction should be started later.” I don’t know exactly what you mean by it, and I don’t know what the curriculum you’d prefer would look like, but I can say that I don’t like the sound of it, not one bit. When I see phrases like “radical ideas” and “should be scrapped entirely” and “there is good evidence suggesting that,” placed closely together in a single paragraph, my impulse is to run.
FLERP, your impulse should be to run from an approach that clearly is NOT WORKING for ALMOST ALL the people who are trained using it. Again, MOST American adults, all of whom have been through 12 years of math instruction, are functionally innumerate and, on top of that, HATE MATH. Not good.
You may be right, what the heck do I know. Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve been hearing my whole life that Americans can’t do math and that mathematics instruction needs a total overhaul. As far as I can tell, the end result has been a rotisserie of math curricula that nobody seems to like. So I am in a very reactionary mood when it comes to all things education.
See Richard Nisbett’s great book Intelligence and How to Get It, which treats the results for g–general reason ability–of doing play with kids involving activities for developing fluid intelligence. Really remarkable. The brain is a plastic organ. Parts of it that do certain kinds of abstract reasoning are not fully developed until people are in their mid 20s!!!!
“Parts of it that do certain kinds of abstract reasoning are not fully developed until people are in their mid 20s!!!!”
That would explain a lot.
There were some interesting longitudinal FMRI studies done at Johns Hopkins that confirm this. For example, parts of the prefrontal cortex that do long-term planning and impulse control don’t start developing until the mid teen years and are not full developed until the mid 20s.
But again, the brain is extremely plastic. Lots of play with patterns, early on, builds the neural pathways that can then be applied to mathematical reasoning.
Bob,
“That is exactly right. There is world knowledge (knowledge of what) and procedural knowledge (knowledge of how). . . ”
. . .and then there is DOING!
Well said, Ponderosa. Yes, indeed, the state standards were just as bad. In fact, what Coleman and his buddies did was simply hack together, overnight, what they believed to be the best of the lowest-common-denominator groupthink of the existing state standards and sprinkle a little New Critical fairydust over the whole.
Try and find these in the CCSS:
Noun any abstract or concrete entity; a person (police officer, Michael), place (coastline, London), thing (necktie, television), idea (happiness), or quality (bravery)
Pronoun any substitute for a noun or noun phrase
Adjective any qualifier of a noun
Verb any action (walk), occurrence (happen), or state of being (be)
Adverb any qualifier of an adjective, verb, clause, sentence, or other adverb
Preposition any establisher of relation and syntactic context
Conjunction any syntactic connector
Interjection any emotional greeting (or “exclamation”)
I think this stuff is covered in the ELA standards.
Can you list them?
i can give you the reference later tonight
I don’t want the reference. Just list a few content rich standards.
I just administered 4.5 hours of CC aligned, ELA tests. NOT ONE content based question regarding parts of speech, writing style, grammar, and maybe one or two references to simple literary devices.
So if they’re in the standards, why aren’t they testing them?
Not what I would call a rigorous test in terms of subject content.
jeez, if you’re going to get all bossy about it, then i won’t bother with either. i’ll just say that i recall that the ELA standards include the parts of speech you listed. if you actually care about whether that’s true, i’m sure you know how to verify it.
Sorry, whimping out doesn’t count. Either they are there, or there not. If they are, just copy and paste like I did with math 8. If they are their, they will not be taught if theyre not on the test. And their not.
pardon my they’re v. their mistakes.
Most of my students learn those terms in my Spanish classes and have not learned them in English class. Yes, there is a need to know how to talk about a language.
Ponderosa, what I find remarkable is that generations of Americans have managed to be well educated in public schools with no fixation on standards. To say that a standard of “students will be able to find the main idea” is “fruitless” presumes a complete absence of teacher competence in translating the standard into “fruitful” lessons by use of his-her training, experience, knowledge of the students in the room, and creative expression of the teaching craft. Even Chester Finn (of the highly-pro-CCSS Fordham Institute) tried to defend the “fine” California standards against poor implementation– thus admitting that there is more to standards than their mere presence.
Of course, in the case of CCSS, the goal is to standardize and privatize– ulterior motives that make cries of “poor implementation” highly suspect, to say the least. I have said it before: CCSS was intended to be a noose around the neck of teacher professional judgment.
Back to your comment:
If you think “learn the rules of grammar” is a “teachable” goal, you are not in my classroom. It requires constant drill of select rules of grammar for me to get a handful of students to master such rules. And I must do so in the context of our reading and writing assignments, not in isolation.
As for “study Huck Finn,” again, translation of this goal requires me to know where my students are; how much assistance they need from me, and an awareness of how deep I can go in teaching the novel.
Bottom line is that teacher professional judgment plays a huge role in classroom success, much more so than any set of standards.
Suppose the classroom is a science classroom, say biology. And the teacher’s “professional judgment” is that Creationism is Biblical truth, sort of a higher “standard.” And so the teacher teaches Creationism rather than the scientific theory of evolution as the answer to how the Earth came to be and how humans and plants and animals originated?
Democracy,
I think that the “standard” for your creationism example has already been set by the courts.
“Bottom line is that teacher professional judgment plays a huge role in classroom success, much more so than any set of standards.”
Agreed. And I agree that the reformers want to de-skill the profession. But I don’t think “No standards at all” is a winning position for teachers, so it’s incumbent on us to offer an alternative set. Perhaps good teachers can translate “find the main idea” into a fruitful lesson, but if so, it’s despite the standard, not because of it. Bad standards are often impediments to good teaching. Good standards can be aids (e.g. I would have trouble teaching about Islam in my district if it weren’t written into the CA history standards).
Ponderosa,
“But I don’t think “No standards at all” is a winning position for teachers, so it’s incumbent on us to offer an alternative set.”
We’ve had that “altenative set” called curriculum all along. Another lie of the edudeformers is that we haven’t had anything like curriculum and expectations up until the magical CCSS. Bovine Excrement.
I don’t think they should teach the “pathetic fallacy” to high school students. It is a stupid and outmoded term that belongs rather in a course on a history of literary criticism. Fine for college students. Let high school students get some background in actual reading.
I agree, emphatically, that the focus of instruction should not be on such terms. Treating those should be incidental to engagement with what writers have to say. However, the point remains that out of the vast possible design space for ELA curricula and pedagogy, the CCSS authors plucked a few hackneyed bits, leaving out MOST of what might be taught. One could drive whole curricula through the lacunae in these amateurish “standards.”
And I do think that with high-school kids it can be extremely valuable to introduce them to several different ways of approaching texts–to various critical approaches. It’s not as difficult as one might imagine to do that.
Let’s imagine, for example, giving kids a taste of what Deconstruction is all about.
We tell them, people tend to divide the world up into binary classes: male/female, sacred/profane, hot/cold, liberal/conservative, emotion/reason, our people/foreigners, I/thou, rich/poor, civilized/savage, married/single, proletarian/bourgeois, cultured/vulgar, young/old, sane/insane, etc. And often, one of these classes is privileged.
And when they write and speak, they assume these categories.
We look at some texts to identify these kinds of unexamined assumptions.
Then comes the Deconstruction part: Teach the kids ways of challenging those assumptions:
1. Create a third category, or many other categories.
2. Deny that these are really separate categories. Lump them.
3. Privilege the class that usually is not privileged.
4. Show how the characteristics usually attributed to members of these classes are actually reversed.
You see? Now, Deconstruction is pretty sophisticated stuff. It’s very challenging. But one can break it down, take kids step by step through it, and teach them a technique, a heuristic, for doing some pretty powerful thinking.
My favorite opening to a textbook, ever, was the beginning of a book called Calculus Made Easy (or Made Simple, I forget which) by a guy named Sylvanius. His opening sentence was, “What one damned fool can do, another can.”
I can think of several professors who would have benefited greatly from the exercise of trying to teach someone what deconstruction was. Not to mention the scores of undergraduate and graduate students who would have benefited from the instruction.
Well, anything that livens up a class, but strictly speaking, this is criticism (history of), not literature.
My half-baked, dream ELA standards:
1. Learn the conventions of English (e.g. capitalization rules) by heart –and test this with a state-test.
2. Memorize between 5 and 20 great poems –while the brain is young and supple. This will provide kids mental/spiritual wealth even if they end up having to work at Walmart. It will also strengthen their appreciation of poetry, their vocabulary, their grasp of the human condition, etc. Many benefits. Test this at the school level. Have kids recite.
3. Read dozens of seminal American, English and international novels and write papers about them. This will connect American kids to their great cultural heritage, give them insight into humanity, provide them with fodder with which to be creative, build vocab, Perhaps have a senior year state-wide essay test on two great novels. Imagine test prep that entailed deep study of Willa Cather’s My Antonia! and Brave New World Imagine a generation of kids who all had two novels –not just TV shows or movies –in common.
4. Read lots of great literary non-fiction, including literary analyses and essays, so that kids have a mental template to consult when they do their own non-fiction/academic writing. But focus on content/meaning, not form, when reading these. Read Montaigne, Orwell, M.F.K Fisher for the worlds of thought they reveal, not just for their writing craft.
🙂
I share much of this dream! Oh, for the day when we can go back to teaching English. But first we have to drive these deformers out of our classrooms!
I particularly like the committing material to memory, Ponderosa. This is a very, very powerful pedagogical technique. It works on levels that most people have no clue about. Memorizing builds neural circuitry for language. Memorizing poetry makes the rhythms and phonetic tropes and grammatical structures used a part of the working machinery of language in the brain. Have you by any chance read Dylan Thomas’s journals? At the age of 14, he was writing in a voice remarkably like that of his adult poetry. How did he come by that? Well, he internalized the rhythms of the Welch preachers he heard, as a child, intoning the King James Bible, and the stories and songs of the old folks around him. All that language hardwired him, created the functional mechanisms in his head that made that breathtaking speech of his possible. the opening sentence of “Under MIlkwood”:
It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black,the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and- rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”
It’s one way, Harold, into and out of works of literature. It’s a way to read. One of many. With its own virtues and drawbacks. It’s powerful magic, Deconstruction. But dangerous. One teaches this to young people with great caution. It should come with a warning label: May make the ordinary, the familiar, appear to be very, very strange. It has led a lot of people into absurdity verging on madness. Unchecked, this technique becomes self-consuming, an Ouroboros or Erysichthon.
Graduate school, I should have said. Those terms would give high school students a very weird idea of what literature is all about.
No one was suggesting that HS students learn every single literary device on the list. How about a little common sense. My daughter is a junior taking AP English and she was very familiar with most of the terms. Pathetic fallacy was one she didn’t know. Please don’t miss the larger point:
CCSS in English Language Arts is almost completely devoid of content knowledge. It is a list of abstract, subjective skills, with a bent that takes readers into a bizarre world where the adolescent reader is asked to emphasize author’s intent or tone.
Can you find these on CCSS?
Expository; Descriptive; Narrative; Persuasive writing styles.
So THE only accepted and “complete” college and career ready, K – 12 set of standards in the English language arts is missing parts of speech, grammar, literary devices, etymology, or writing styles.
Some of these are in the standards, NY teacher, but they are referred to so generally and vaguely that the descriptions cannot be operationalized and so cannot be validly assessed based on the standards that mention them. The writing “standards” are completely vague and hack the world of writing into three “modes”–narrative, informational (or expository), and argument (which the authors of the standards want teachers to emphasize over persuasion, having made that decision for the rest of us).
Those writing “standards” are almost identical from grade level to grade level and encourage the writing of five-paragraph themes in one of those three spurious “modes.” But most real-world writing is narrative, and most of the rest of real-world writing contains elements of each. Those writing “standards” contain no mention of any of the thousands and thousands of concrete techniques from the toolkits of writers, and so they will inevitably lead, are already leading, to non-operationalized instruction in vagaries, to writing instruction that is worse than useless because of its opportunity costs. One gets the impression, reading the writing “standards,” that Coleman and Pimentel simply ran out of time or energy and decided to copy over a few puerile generalizations at each grade, with slight rewording from year to year. These are amateurish in the extreme and will have dire consequences for writing instruction. Really, Coleman and Pimentel could have bothered to learn even a tiny bit from the vast and fruitful literature on instruction rhetoric and composition before foisting their embarrassing writing “standards” onto the entire country.
There are a few isolated standards that deal with parts of speech, grammatical concepts, literary devices, and etymology, but these are absurdly incomplete (one asks, why this and not a thousand other things?) and plopped into a particular grade level’s standards completely AT RANDOM. Though the standards are grade-by-grade, ALMOST NO ATTENTION WAS PAID TO COHERENCE IN THE LEARNING PROGRESSION.
Why words from Greek myths at Grade 4? Why at this particular grade? How does this connect to an overall progression of studies? Is Grade 4 to be Greek myth year? Who made that curriculum decisions for everyone else and on what basis? Shouldn’t study of Greek and Roman classical materials be ongoing, woven into the curriculum throughout K-12, at various levels of sophistication? And what about oratures generally and the wellsprings of literature in those? There’s a lot more in that breathtakingly rich mine than a handful of retellings of Greek myths. Where is the attention in the early grades to gaining experience with and sensitivity to the elements of oral works that formed the basis for literature–archetypes, narrative structures, and prosody? (Not explicit knowledge of terminology for describing these, mind you, but experience with and sensitivity to these.)
And what leads up to that and what follows upon that study of words from Greek myths in Grade 4? And what about any of thousands of other topics related to word origins and construction? And are the authors aware that almost none of an adult’s working vocabulary, active or passive, was explicitly learned–that giving kids a list of random words to memorize that share some origin is pretty much a waste of time because brains are not built to acquire vocabulary in that way? And are we to limit our study of words that have such origins to ones at a Grade 4 reading level? What about morphology, chthonic, mercurial, nemesis, etc?
These “standards” don’t bear up under the slightest critical evaluation. Really, if I were teaching a college methods class and a group of students submitted these as a project, I would tell them, nice try, but you really have a lot to learn before you attempt anything this grand.
Thanks Bob. Appreciate your expertise. I was just applying a little hyperbole. Glad I didn’t go as far as pathetic irony.
You might consider linking Louis with both the first and this second parts re who wrote the Common Bores? Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:01:08 +0000 To: sjhume@msn.com
I’m a retired public school teacher and administrator: 32 years elementary, 6 years middle school. My last 18 years were in Tennessee, so I am totally supportive of all that is written about the evils of testing and the utter atrocity of using the results in teacher evaluations. VAM started in Tennessee, and I had the opportunity to challenge Dr. Sanders years ago about the ceiling effect of Value Added. All I got was chastisement from a school board member. I also wrote the first grievance against the new evaluation system in support of a terrific special educator. I was told that no one really looks at those scores anyway… Now I am a private contractor working as a school improvement coach in one of the highest poverty/lowest performing elementary schools in Tennessee. I am also a consultant in a middle school facing achievement gaps between minority and whites, and between students with disabilities and those in regular ed. There is nothing wrong with using assessment data to look deeper into student progress and what might be impeding that progress, and this works extremely well when the teaching professionals create the units, write the assessments, and establish the performance criteria. Screw the testing companies and the legislatures that keep them in business. ALEC is the major demon, so please know how much I appreciate all of the effort to abolish the insanity of testing our kids as we currently do.
I also understand that the CCSS were written based on college expectations for graduates. The standards were never properly piloted/beta tested/proven effective before states like Tennessee were strong-armed to adopt them hoping to grab onto the golden carrot (I think our state received $500 million as one of the first two “winners” of RTTT funding).
But I never see anything in this blog that finds a shred of good that has come from getting away from learning discreet skills easily tested with selected response bubble tests, and tossing a challenge to our beleaguered teaching professionals that has incredible potential.
The testing frenzy created by legislators should not be equated to what could be a major change for the good when it comes to curriculum. Many states and districts are making a huge mistake trying to write verbatim lessons that stymie good teaching. However, creating an expectation that gives kids across the country a level playing field is a worthy endeavor. Almost 75% of the student population in Nashville qualifies for free or reduced lunch. The school where I work is located in the center of the projects, and the students come from extreme poverty and a very dangerous neighborhood. Yet the school is an oasis, a safe and welcoming environment with adults who choose to be there, and many of them are at the top of their game.
Because of the emphasis on writing in CCSS, a direct result of the ELA standards, we are finally addressing a subject that provides EVERY student with an opportunity that has been put on the back burner for years. Regardless of all that is currently wrong, CCSS creates an opportunity to give students the most necessary skills in a democracy, the ability to read critically and respond rationally. What is wrong with that?
Could we please all agree that something had to be done after NCLB created a 12-year cohort of kids who were never encouraged to challenge opinions through a structured series of cognitive skills? A chronic weakness in math reasoning has also been addressed. But I believe that logical reasoning has a direct impact on one’s ability to write a legitimate argument. Therefore, the emphasis across disciplines seems consistent. (Awkwardly constructed, no doubt, but the intent is cohesive.)
The teachers with whom I have an opportunity to interact are responding positively to the new challenges. They are creating learning experiences that take me back to the days before good teaching was measured through a biased once-a-year test.
I read this blog daily. I agree with much of what is presented. But please understand that I see more than the evils created by Big Money, Profiteers, Politicians, and Pearson. I see teachers doing what they are trained to do: presented with a target, they design learning experiences to attain the desired outcome. At least with CCSS the target is the same regardless of where you live or how much money your family earns. Of course, kids in the highest poverty demographic should be provided a free PUBLIC education – all year long. We can’t afford to lose ground with them every summer.
Tennessee has decided to throw out PARCC. A much better decision would be to do what I saw happening in China a few years ago. Educational reform in China is given at least 10 years. We should call for a moratorium on high stakes testing, and/or provide a hold-harmless clause on teacher evaluations in states that continue to use the tests. Tennessee has decided to use the same blasted test again next year and put out an RFP for a new test on CCSS for 2015-2016. That means that the kids who need field trips and project based learning the most will be subjected to another horrible endurathon of test prep… The entire school relies on the third and fourth grade teachers for at least 35% of their evaluations. It’s just not right.
If our school does not make the gains deemed appropriate (whether realistic, or not) to call it a success, we will be vulnerable to the sanctions of the state law. It would be a tragedy to lose what has already been accomplished…
Ultimately, I see the turn provided in CCSS (or a more sustainable and democratically produced series of educational standards) as positive given the current political climate. We need citizens who can think and see the forest through the trees. They should question policies, rather than listen only to the voices with whom they already agree.
Diane Ravitch, you are my hero. I have shaken your hand and told you so. I respect your mind, your experience, and you incredible work ethic as you champion the cause for change. If CCSS gets tossed, could we end up where we were at the beginning of NCLB? Tennessee had some of the lowest standards in the country, and we bragged about our success… Let’s start writing about what should be done to create standards that give all of our kids the same chance to be academically successful. There has to be a solution.
Because of the emphasis on writing in CCSS, a direct result of the ELA standards, we are finally addressing a subject that provides EVERY student with an opportunity that has been put on the back burner for years.
This is emphatically not true. In fact, the puerile writing “standards” have taken us away from rich writing curricula based on the writing process model and reinforced instruction what I call formulaic InstaWriting for the Test.
It is a tragedy for our country that the CC$$ authors should come forward with their puerile prescriptions without recognizing that far more interesting and valuable approaches than they had any clue existed were widespread. This is what happens when amateurs presume to write standards for the rest of us.
You make some very cogent points.
And I agree with you that “We need citizens who can think and see the forest through the trees. They should question policies…”
So, perhaps you can explain why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable –– which promulgate policies that are antithetical to the well-being of a sound economy and a vibrant democratic society –– are such enthusiastic supporters of the Common Core?
Or maybe you can shed light on why the ACT and the College Board –– which churn out tests and programs that are more sham than helpful educational aides –– were so deeply involved in the creation of the Common Core, and why they’ve “aligned” all their products with it.
Maybe “success” in education, especially public education, has less to do with standards, and far more to do with alleviating poverty and promoting equity and democratic citizenship.
Sorry to say Barbide, but what you have written is pure GAGA*-speak. It appears that you willingly have attempted to implement all the NCLB and RaTT educational malpractices, albeit in good fath no doubt.
Allow me to reiterate, what you have implemented are malpractices that have harmed many students no matter how well meaning your intentions. And that is dead wrong!
Going Along to Get Along (GAGA):
Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers’ agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution upon their passing from this realm.
Karmic Gods of Retribution:
Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
The issue is not standards. We are drowning in standards,1620 in the CCSS, if you count parts a-e. No rationale justifies the variable quantity and grade level distributions of the standards. No reasoning that explains why geometry is the only math topic given systematic attention, Kindergarten to high school.
Having taught in an inner city school. I know that expectations matter, but even more is a love of learning and conversations with students about what they are learning, would like to learn, and what matters to them.
Teachers need and want to have good reasons for reflecting on what they are teaching and why. If the standards and your own savvy are making that happen, so much the better, but that could also happen without the CCSS and it was happening in many districts before the top-down bullying tactics.
Your narrative is a powerful case against the necessity of standards and for the necessity of wisdom gained from experience, along with the optimism required for longevity as teacher.
Here is what I added to Diane’s comment when I posted the link to this site at Oped:
i agree with Diane Ravitch who says: “For what it is worth, I think the CCSS are dying the slow death of a thousand cuts. This sad denouement illustrates the necessity of transparency, inclusion, and a democratic process. Just because Bill Gates and a handful of other powerful people want national standards is not enough to put them over. What they lack is legitimacy. And that is a big problem.”
I agree! Especially since I was teaching before top-down administrators told the practitioner how to practice pedagogy. I remember an authentic practice — where as the teacher-practitioner, I used the state and city syllabus for determining objectives and outcomes as the guide for my lessons. That WAS the core. Every 7th grade teacher in NYC knew that grammar and structure were part of the syllabus. We all taught it differently, but all kids who graduate had to be able to write good sentences, organize them into paragraphs, and be able hang words on thoughts with some clarity.
In grade 7, according to the listed outcomes, a language arts teacher ensured that all her students –after ten months with her— would be able to DO THINGS!
(i.e Learner will be able to compare and contrast a passage with…)
MY own standards were standards set by my PROFESSION, WHICH IS WHY I HAD TO BE EDUCATED WITH A LICENSE.
Maybe, TFA movies with a few months of ‘training’ must be given standards to reach, but real teachers SET STANDARDS and can be trusted to choose curricula that WORKS,,,, just as a doctor chooses the best procedure to enable healing and health. He doesn’t need the top-boss, to tell him how to practice. His profession has standards.
This whole conversation exhausts me. THEY CREATED THIS CONTRAversy in order to bring in the testing industry and charter schools.
Go to the Ravitch blog and hear real teachers and PARENTS reveal what is afoot in the land.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Tale-of-Two-NGA-Press-Re-in-Best_Web_OpEds-FACT_INDUSTRY_Press-Release_Pressure-140502-132.html#comment486571