Randi Weingarten sent representatives to the Pearson shareholder meeting in London to complain about the gag orders that keeps the tests secret, after they are administered.
In a wide-ranging interview with Josh Eidelson in Salon, Rani reaffirmed her support for the Common Core but predicted that the rush to implement it has generated an anti-testing backlash that could cause it to fail.
She also said that the Newark teachers’ contract, which she once hailed as a model, has been hijacked by the Christie administration.
She blamed much of the backlash against the Common Core and the testing on the intransigence of State Commissioner Zjohn King. She said: ” The implementation of the Common Core has been worse than the implementation of Obamacare. And Obamacare, people adjusted and adjusted, adjusted when they saw problems. In New York state, at least, when they saw problems in terms of the Common Core … unfortunately what the state education commissioner did is put his head in the sand …”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“A” Common Core “might” work if it were developed by the correct people, vetted, implemented grade by grade to evaluate effectiveness before being thrust upon all grade levels at once, regardless of developmental appropriateness, and if it were used for diagnostic purposes.
“This” Common Core does not fulfill the reqiirements. It is misguided and it is punitive.
To defeat this Common Core the tests have to be shown to be invalid. With NY saying that there can be no test prep beyond 3.5 days…there will be some districts thrown into a panic sinceany are scrambling to create a curriculum that the “powers that be” believe will keep their district functioning at an acceptable level. Yet in the end the teachers are the ones who are blamed as teaching to the test although the districts design the professional development to embrace that philosophy.
“To defeat this Common Core the tests have to be shown to be invalid. ”
Tis already been done before CCSS and the accompanying tests were a synaptic spark in David Coleman’s brain.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Read Noel Wilson’s complete destruction of the concepts of educational standards and standardized testing in “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.
Powerful, powerful post here! Many thanks for the sharing. Major thumbs up.
Bob Shepherd has often pointed out the business plan behind CCSS.
So, states should have been more like Craig’s List when Ebay tried to buy them out. They should have said, “No way. Money is not what matters to us. We provide a service to our citizens and we’re not selling that for financial gain.”
But they hadn’t studied game theory. Or something. And the “buyout” happened. Now we have to figure out what to do after states made this poor business decision.
Encountering a lion in the market place lets the world know who you are. Right about now, I am wishing NC were Texas.
Common Core is an undemocratic “releasing of powerful market forces” according to the man who has paid documented BILLIONS for this “state led” effort that is being ovewhelming promoted by those outside of the public school classroom.
Nothing about the creation of Common Core bespeaks respect for the profession of teaching.
It needs to die.
Absolutely! And thank you deeply for all your work in behalf of that expiration. Union dollars spent on travel to London just to sit in a shareholders meeting and tell Pearson what they already know and could care less about?
Without CCSS rhetoric, I do want to get into something that Weingarten seemed to dance around.
She mentions test and punish policies and talks about the testing being the main driver rather than implementation. But I get the sense she does not understand fully the following progression:
CCSS standards lead to the tests. Test scores determine everything (especially and including teacher evaluation VAMs). Test scores determine rating and potential employment. Teachers must then teach to the test. The standards only matter because they are the basis of the test.
These aren’t just innocuous standards. They are,”you must do” standards that all teachers will be coerced to use whether they like them or not. Think about Louis C.K.’s tweets the other day. A math teacher in our building said that she thought that it was good that students could have exposure to multiple types of representation to answer math problems to solve problems. But she thought it was stupid to force students into using a specific type of representation with out allowing for other options. As long as a kid has a method to get to the right answer, does it matter how they got there?
But see, that’s CCSS. Weingarten kept saying to “get away from rote memorization” but this is something new for students to memorize. Students won’t memorize information but rather the process required to work with that information. For example, I teach AP European History and kids work with Document-Based Essays. There are one or two heavily recommended ways to work toward good essays. Once kids memorize the proceudre they’re good to go. That’s not really problem-solving. That’s memorizing a template to solve problems. Big difference. Just a different kind of rote.
Agreed. She uses a few hollow mantras to justify her support of these “standards.” As far as I know, she hasn’t explained how the standards as written will promote problem solving and knowledge application. The sample test questions I’ve seen are evidence that they won’t do that at all.
The standards are reductive. They have the potential to close down thinking instead of expanding and deepening it.
Steve K: the tight connection between CCSS, test-and-punish policies and high-stakes standardized testing is no secret. The following recent comment comes from an insider of the education status quo, Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute:
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
The link to his blog and more context can be accessed at: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Now literally an inside view of CCSS, Dr. Louisa Moats (who helped write them), from an interview posted online in January 2014:
[start quote]
Dr. Moats: I never imagined when we were drafting standards in 2010 that major financial support would be funneled immediately into the development of standards-related tests. How naïve I was. The CCSS represent lofty aspirational goals for students aiming for four year, highly selective colleges. Realistically, at least half, if not the majority, of students are not going to meet those standards as written, although the students deserve to be well prepared for career and work through meaningful and rigorous education.
Our lofty standards are appropriate for the most academically able, but what are we going to do for the huge numbers of kids that are going to “fail” the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) test? We need to create a wide range of educational choices and pathways to high school graduation, employment, and citizenship. The Europeans got this right a long time ago.
If I could take all the money going to the testing companies and reinvest it, I’d focus on the teaching profession – recruitment, pay, work conditions, rigorous and on-going training. Many of our teachers are not qualified or prepared to teach the standards we have written. It doesn’t make sense to ask kids to achieve standards that their teachers have not achieved!
[end quote]
Link: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-development-central/201401/when-will-we-ever-learn
IMHO, CCSS = the tail of testing wagging the dog of learning and teaching. That’s how it was set up. Take away the high-stakes standardized testing and the scripted bullet lists that support them—and by extension, their [few] rewards and [many] punishments—and you’ve eviscerated the very core purpose of CCSS.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Great post!
My problem with Randi is that she’s working to fix the CCSS so that it will be “successful”, rather than realizing that there is no such thing as a “successful” implementation of CCSS. The more “successful” the implementation is, the worse it is for students.
The problem, as I’ve said for several years, is the VERY IDEA of national standards. Top-down implementation of a fundamentally wrong-headed game plan is always a loser. People bickering over whether it’s a Communist-Muslim-Zionist-Socialist conspiracy to sap our Precious Bodily Fluids completely miss the point (and always will). And that’s in no small part because what they would have in place of THESE particular standards is at least as bad and probably worse.
Every accusation I read about the literacy standards being fraught with pornography or the math standards being designed to “dumb down” America’s children convinces me that only a complete idiot would believe for a nanosecond that it’s possible to implement national reform monolithically. All reform has to be local, it has to be independent, it has to be endlessly flexible and responsive to the needs of CHILDREN – not Wall St., not politicians, not publishers, not ethically bankrupt union leaders whose agenda is covering their own asses (sorry, Randi, but that’s what you look like to me), not parents who can’t look at anything without putting a political, religious, or otherwise crazy lens to the table, not teachers whose primary motivation is minimizing their need to change, learn, and grow as practitioners because the way they’ve done business for so long has been so comfortable (“We fear change!”), not testing companies: children and their deep need and desire to understand their worlds must be the central criterion upon which curriculum and instruction is based. The rest is utter nonsense for the most part, and very much besides the point.
Gradual, not instant change is what is needed. And it needs to happen in the context of educating all the stakeholders. If parents and teachers don’t participate in figuring out change and its implementation, don’t come on board with whatever local version of meaningful growth is agreed to, wheels will continue to spin, b.s. will continue to be the order of the day, and effectively nothing will happen that’s good for kids. Bet the farm, the house, the ranch, on it.
“People bickering over whether it’s a Communist-Muslim-Zionist-Socialist conspiracy to sap our Precious Bodily Fluids completely miss the point (and always will).”
TAGO!
Not familiar with TAGO!, Duane, but the urban dictionary suggests a connotation that isn’t flattering. What was your intent?
“children and their deep need and desire to understand their worlds must be the central criterion upon which curriculum and instruction is based.”
Very well put, Paul.
However, that would imply that “truth” or “true understanding” must be the ultimate criterion of curriculum and instruction.
And that implies “science” as the criterion of “true understanding.”
If you accept my logic, I can agree with you.
But here’s the problem, so many seem to see global warming as real science. If we cannot agree that global warming as the conclusion of climate so-called science is false, what hope do we have of agreeing that the criterion is really “to understand their worlds.”
I’m skeptical that we can avoid having a “lens” for our curricular. I might agree that some religious lenses are “crazy,” but I certainly agree with the tea party that some political lenses are crazy as well.
Thus we would seem (to me) to HAVE to debate about what specific understandings are true.
Try Rorty’s PHILOSOPHY AND THE MIRROR OF NATURE (pretty heavily academic/scholarly) or maybe CONTINGENCY, IRONY, AND SOLIDARITY or some of his collected essays for why “truth” and “true understanding” aren’t even vaguely what I’m talking about. As for getting climate science into this, you’re just muddying the waters. Why you seem so dedicated to doing that sort of thing eludes me. Just as my first name seems to elude you. Can’t really be THAT hard to copy it, can it?
Thank you MICHAEL for the reading suggestion. I’ll try to understand what your claim is if you are not in fact accepting my translation of “world” and “understanding.” Rorty is an author I haven’t heard of. I like “heavy” and “academic” quite a lot.
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is off his dissertation and hence the least readable, most “academic” thing he published (at least as a book). Not all that much fun, but it sets the tone for the rest of his oeuvre. CONTINGENCY is the one I read first and still re-read parts of now and again. His volumes of collected essays have lots of gems, and can be picked through if you see something of interest.
I don’t buy the notion of a privileged “truth” that is objectively out there, timelessly, for everyone everywhere. So I’m fine with students finding their own answers to their own questions as viewed by them in their local worlds.
T hat’s A G ood O ne
“Gradual, not instant change is what is needed”?? Just the opposite, we need a moratorium on testing altogether to “assess” what the heck is going on. A good piece with a problematic conclusion.
Joseph, I don’t think you got my point. I’m not speaking about what to do about the Common Core, which I’d be more than happy to see scrapped. I’m talking about how to make meaningful changes in schools. It can’t be top-down and it can’t be a magic bullet that claims to be able to fix everything instantly.
My problem with Randi is she works for Bill Gates not me.
Implementation in New York is over. Finished. How do we get the Randi Weingartens of this country to leave that issue behind and move on? How do we get them to understand that the common core is a flawed, defective product — and that it has been a flawed, defective product since its earliest days on the drawing table, and in “R&D” (research and development), etc.? How do we get them to see that common core is doomed to failure on its own merits, having nothing to do with any of “us?” If only we could can get “them” to understand….
As it stands now, the problem is that if (when, hopefully) common core fails, it is we parents and other advocates who will be blamed. The finger will be pointed at us as saboteurs, and at our children as our pawns. How do we get Randi Weingarten (and others) to grasp the fact that they need to pull this flawed, defective product out of the marketplace before it does more harm???? We need to get Randi Weingarten out of the “it was the implementation that was flawed” mindset and into “it’s the product itself that is defective and flawed” mindset… and quickly!
Let’s keep it simple: Randi Weingarten has sold out her membership, public schools and communities on two fronts: she supported a ‘bill of goods’ collective bargaining agreement re Newark contract that she should have known better than to support , given the sorry state of New Jersey government; and second, she continues to support Common Core and attributes any problems as issues of implementation.
YEP!
Thanks, Duane. The Weingarten saga of failures are shameful. Yet, shame and anger appear to be insufficient motivators for change. What position will she next rationalize or move around like a shell game?
You got it right John!
Substitute “has failed” for “may fail” and she’s about right.
> > HOW ON EARTH CAN SHE ENDORSE THIS CCSS EVER? The problems are boundless, reaching beyond the rush to cash in. As this blog consistently proves, the core is not age appropriate, standards aligned, ethical, or fair. Duncan has dropped classic literature and put his pal’s poorly written romance novel in for secondary reading. The math equations are a national joke. The approach to reading comprehension is demented as the Gettysburg Address section demonstrates. With 70% or more failing the assessment and students sick with stress and dread, I am appalled byRandi’s reckless efforts to save face as she plays this out like it’s possible to do her job as AFT leadership while advocating for billionaires who hate teachers. Just last week she was defending Bill Gates because he vaguely conceded to viable concerns about CCSS . One critic confronted her about this and she explained that Gates was having a breakthrough. While she is praising Gates’ latent epiphanies, teachers are facing ruined careers, foreclosures and many are becoming homeless. In LA teachers are dropping like flies. This rarely makes the news or district newsletters. One died at her desk while grading papers late in the day. She was a target in witch hunts. Another committed suicide when she realized her stay in teacher jail would not end with her name being cleared. Those are just this years casualties that I know of . Dozens have died since Deasy ratcheted up testing, became an exterminator . He issued a directive to administrators to purge veteran teachers any way they could. And they do. A lot if us believe every time a teacher dies an administrator is promoted. None of this horror would be possible were it not for this woman’s compromises with the devious dregs of humanity who dare to call themselves philanthropists. I hope it was worth it for Randi W. who is just as treacherous and self-serving as they are. Chris Christies contract with teachers is unlikely to be reasonable , btw, but Randi won’t be making these stupid remarks much longer. She will not be voted in as dog catcher much less union president . Maybe she will get appointed in the DOE. I suppose she will pose less of a threat to teachers there, but it is obvious she will not do anything to actually improve education because she doesn’t care about it or students or the ideas we hold dear. Randi cares about her career and high end associations. Diane, dump her before she damages your credibility. We cannot afford to risk that now with all you have and can accomplish . > New post on Diane Ravitch’s
> >
Randi must still not understand what has happened here.
RTTT and NCLBW are not just a package deal, they became state education LAW. You cant pick and choose like your at a buffet. Standards + Tests + Test-based evaluations/threats/punishments + Student data + Charter regs. You support them ALL or you don’t.
If VAM were not an intrinsic part of the CCSS, would you still be against the CCSS?
Yes.
CCSS is fatally flawed from substantive and procedural perspectives, This is a case in which you can throw out the baby with the bath water.
There is no such case, in my opinion. It’s always destructive to toss good ideas simply because they’re proffered by bad people or as part of an overall bad initiative. Doesn’t mean you have to accept the package: just acknowledge explicitly what’s worth culling for later use.
Michael, Thanks for your response. Your points good ones, but I do respectfully disagree, especially with your opening sentence “There is no such case, in my opinion”. That sentence explicitly excludes a universe of possibilities. But, let’s not haggle.
My point was really that I can’t imagine such a case. And in this context, I can’t get away from the issue of “Eliminate the Common Core Standards By Any Means Necessary” leading many “critics” (and I use that word in the broadest sense – maybe “opponents” would be more on-point) to very explicitly be willing to see many ideas in mathematics teaching/learning tossed onto the trash heap because the idea are, in their minds at least, irreparably tainted by appearing somewhere that the words “Common Core-aligned” were appended. But that’s just silly and potentially destructive. Plus, of course, no sane person can call for the rejection of the entirety (or even very much) of the Math Content Standards to be rejected because, like it or not, they represent the foundation of US school mathematics content for the last century or more.
The conflation of the CCSS Initiative with the standards themselves, with the testing itself, with the various and sundry textbooks that claim to BE the standards (or imply that they are, or that people rather fatuously claim them to be), with any given pedagogical principle or manifestation in a given text (or in the generally execrable Engage-NY modules) is a very dangerous game and has made reasonable conversation nearly impossible except among fairly like-minded individuals. When I try to point this out, I’m attacked by people from so many points on the political spectrum that I’m almost certainly either an escaped lunatic or pretty close to being right about most of these issues.
I continue to aver that CCSS-I will set math education back 25-50 years (thanks, David Coleman and Jason Zimba!) because of the intensity of the reaction against the really bad aspects of CCSS-I has poisoned the well against anything good (at least in math education).
or the loss of her friend who was President of NYSUT due to an outraged membership.
Randi Weingarten –– acting as the head of AFT and presumably on “behalf” of teachers –– helped to set the Common Core in motion. So did the myopic “leadership” of the NEA. In effect, they sold their memberships down the river.
Weingarten has gotten an awful lot of well-deserved flack and pushback for what she’s done. But she still endorses the Common Core. Simultaneously, she tries to walk back her ill-advised positions. She can’t have it both ways.
As to the idea that Common Core will fail (and I am not a supporter), that’s doubtful. The Obama administration is all-in. The vast majority of states have signed on. Major educational organizations (ASCD, for example) are supporters. Professional organizations (nation PTAs, superintendents, secondary and elementary school principals) are in favor. And consultants (including some very well-known ones) are licking their chops at the money they can make.
More importantly, the biggest testing organizations (ACT, College Board) were not only deeply involved in developing Common Core, but also they’ve already tied their products to it. The ACT touts that its test is “aligned” with Common Core. The College Board says that its products (PSAT, SAT, AP) are too. The whole STEM craze is linked to Common Core as well.
Weingarten deserves all the criticism she gets…and then some. But she’s hardly the Lone Ranger. She’s joined by a cast of thousands.
Final judgement will come down to PARCC and SBAC tests. After all the hullabaloo, we are still waiting for the tests to hit the fan. Since the tests become the curriculum and even the pedagogy, we will have to wait and see. Or will we? Up to now all CC instruction is being based on supposition. What teachers, districts, and publishers THINK the tests will be like. If the secrecy of the exams is maintained, everyone will still be guessing. SBA states have the added problem of customized, adaptive test items.
The end result will be a far cry from the USDOE claim of monolithic standards, monolithic curriculum, and monolithic pedagogy that would supposedly allow transient students a much easier transition into a new school that is on the exact same page as their old school.
A real nightmare unfolding if you are a CC proponent.
CCSS may survive in some form or other, simply as a set of standards (de-facto suggestions). The punitive testing will go away.
Amen!
Albert Shanker would have been on “our side”. He was an educator, not a politician.
Ms. Randi has not ever impressed me. And at this crucial time, she has failed the membership.
By the way, my second grade granddaughter in AZ wrote me a letter and I shall quote the entire body of it “I passt my test. I love you very much.”
Shanker was a potent force in NYC politics. He controlled the union with an iron fist. Just interview insurgent rank and file membership from the mid to late ’60s and later. He was a creature of his times re supporting traditional ‘liberal’ rather than more left wing positions. One thing is clear: he would fight for his membership and neither support nor condone Randi Weingarten’s educational politics.
the real tragedy is that the Democratic party is going off the cliff with her leadership.
More empty words from Weingarten, certain to be belied by her actions, intended to misdirect teachers and disguise her collaboration with the so-called reformers, of whom she is one.
Common Core is about like Hucklberry Finn as described by the new judge in town: It night be reformed with a shotgun maybe. Randi needs to give Bill Gates a big wet sloppy kiss and say it’s not you it’s me and we’ll always have Seattle. When she gets it through her self serving opportunistic skull that the common core is a money grab and a disaster and has nothing good for kids, teachers or education she will be able to resign with some scrap of dignity but not much.
huck’s pap that is…
Common Core is no doubt in for a very harsh shellacking (sp?) as they have been implicated in the local school district’s problem with the argumentative premise that tasked 8th graders with determining if the holocasust ever happened. They cited first level sources which included a web site that said Anne Franck made it all up.
Who wrote the Common Core?
Jennie Duggan: could you document where there’s a reference/link to that site in the Common Core?