The problems with the Common Core are multiple. Many states are now experiencing a populist revolt against it, sometimes led by extremist groupss, sometimes (as in New York) led by responsible parents and veteran educators.
Support is strong and includes the Obama administration, major corporations, Republicans like Jeb Bush, and educators who like the new standards. Opposition is strong and spans the ideological spectrum, from parents who object to their complexity or to a federal takeover of standards to the Chicago Teachers Union and others who say the standards were developed in stealth, excluded classroom teachers and teachers knowledgeable about early childhood education and disabilities. Others are alarmed that the standards were pushed onto the states without discussion, without means of revising them, but as a condition of Race to the Top and waivers.
The battle over the Common Core has raged in several states. So e states has dropped their commitment to participate in the federally funded tests. At least one state–Oklahoma–wants to drop Common Core altogether.
What is the likely outcome of all this dissension?
No bold national idea has ever taken root in such contentious circumstances. For one thing, Common Core has thus far made its way based on promises, which may or may not be true. Will it raise achievement? Will it reduce achievement gaps? Will it prepare students to be college- and career-ready? Will it vault American students to the top of international competition? No one knows.
One thing we do know is that the transition to Common Core will be very expensive. Los Angeles, only one district, is spending $1 billion for iPads for Common Core testing. Common Core will be a bonanza for vendors but will bring with a high price that few districts or states can afford.
Given the controversy, which shows no sign of abating, and given the costs, what is the likely outcome?
Some states will drop the federal online testing. That is a good thing, because NAEP already provides state-to-state comparisons and has done so since 1992.
Some states will drop Common Core and use their old standards or write new ones. As Tom Loveless of Brookings has shown, standards don’t have a big effect; some states with high standards, like Massachusetts, still have big achievement gaps. Some states with excellent standards, like California, have low overall performance.
Loveless wrote in 2012:
“Similar stories can be told in many states. Standards have been a central activity of education reform for the past three decades. I have studied education reform and its implementation since I left the classroom in 1988. I don’t know of a single state that adopted standards, patted itself on the back, and considered the job done. Not one. States have tried numerous ways to better their schools through standards. And yet, good and bad standards and all of those in between, along with all of the implementation tools currently known to policymakers, have produced outcomes that indicate one thing: Standards do not matter very much.” He concluded: “On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.”
The likeliest outcome of the controversies today is that the Common Core will be adopted by some states, not by other. The federal tests will be used in some states, not others.
We are likely to end up with a natural experiment, in which we finally get the trials that the founders of Common Core preferred to avoid. We will be able to compare the progress of the states that are 100% Common Core aligned with other states.
The claims of the Common Core advocates will get an airing in real time, while those who oppose it will not be required to comply with its edicts.
And some day, maybe a decade from now, we will know more than we do today.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please read and post about North Carolina http://www.wral.com/house-senate-take-bites-from-common-core-apple/13701482/
Rep. Michael Speciale, R-Craven, responded that the state only got into Common Core “for a big check” and now needs to reclaim its public schools.
Read more at http://www.wral.com/house-senate-take-bites-from-common-core-apple/13701482/#TpPtJxJPTsW9Ru75.99
This comment is coming from the party that supports vouchers.
I would like to know the details of their plan before I get excited.
The inconsistent results in some states that have high standards such as MA and the overall underperformance in other states with high standards such as CA indicates we should be looking at factors other than the actual standards for the reasons for underachievement.
clearly
The factor to look at and deal with is, of course, poverty and children who come from third world countries legally or not. For instance, Mexico, where the high school graduation rate is about 33%. Most immigrants from Mexico to the United States often come from poverty and many parents don’t even read Spanish let alone English.
I remember a 16 years old from Mexico who never went to school before and had to learn how to hold a pen/pencil. If this was now, I’m sure before he was eighteen, the Machiavellian Common Core machine would make sure he was tested and his teachers judged from the results.
What I stull cannot comprehend is this thoughtless-practice of “more technology = better pedagogy = better scores”. Very little research shows any, if little, correlation to better learning from CAI (computer assisted instruction). Miami-Dade County Public Schools has thrown millions of dollars of valuable taxpayer money at this beast I call “the idol of the golden hammer” (the purchasing and use of newer technologies that do not do a better job at conceptual development than older ones [“iron hammers”]).
We are spending new bond money to put Promethean Board, with projector, into every classroom that does not currently have a SmartBoard. I will get this upgrade and look forward to using it, for I am a techno-dinosaur (who did not see a computer, Apple II E, in a classroom till college in 1984). Yet, our principal said she never wants to see an overhead, and acetates, again.
So, how is a new delivery system (golden hammer) inherently better than an older one (iron hammer)? Does a brain learn better/easier/more efficiently with a .gif through a Proxima projector, or the same image from a 10 yr old acetate on an overhead?
Do districts project long term purchasing and maintenance costs for these newer golden hammers? I’m sure it is cheaper to maintain overhead projectors in 10 years than Proximas.
Will I never see a pay-raise again because of the purchasing of golden hammers? If there is little to no evidence they actually improve learning, then why are we obsessed about riding the “4th wave” of “cutting edge tech”?
Sure, corporations market the unsupported idea that golden hammers do a better job, and the public swallows it hook-line-sinker, but teachers know that sometimes, if not often, having technology “support” learning actually lets the machine do it for the student, and the student actually has poorer cognition, assimilation and lower test scores.
The Matrix calls to us with her alluring calls “buy me, I assist learning”, but if paper and pencil do a better job, then we should ignore her calls. For if we heed her vain and futile charms we become enslaved to her and forget that she exists to serve us, not us to serve her.
Our district wants to implement BYOD (bring your own device) so that students can access the WiFi, and I will supposedly show more YouTube and Kahn videos in class (versus teaching these things my old, iron hammer, way via acetates and overhead).
Yet, now the issue is students doing things on their devices that inhibit learning, ex. checking email, Facebook, Twitter…ad nauseum. So, I’m expected to walk around and always be policing their device activity? This newer golden hammer will improve pedagogy in my class? I don’t think so, for the students will just vainly look at their reflections on the golden hammer, and forget that the iron hammer actually helped them learn better.
Hammers have a function, and all districts need to seriously evaluate any possible benefit-to-risk ratio before buying newer “better” hammers.
I wish I could like this a thousand times. I have nothing against technology, and, if fact, work in a job where I help institutions implement new technologies. Which is why, perhaps, I realize more than most that MAINTAINING technology is very expensive. It is only one tool, and it can be helpful, but I certainly don’t think it is necessary to have any technology (well, maybe electricity in dark climates) to get a good education. I love the golden vs. iron hammer imagery and will probably steal if from you to use in discussions our cash-strapped district is having about capital improvements. Honestly, I think I kids could use playgrounds and renovated bathrooms as much as anything.
Well said Rick!
As you know, my school has had SMART Boards since the day we opened seven years ago. Don’t get me wrong I love it. The only thing these boards have done is make it easier for me to display concepts and what not. It certainly does motivate students as they enjoy coming to the board to respond to a question or solve a problem. The challenge still is how to get these students to actually apply the concepts and knowledge.
Great posts all three of you. I agree with the Wendell. So many of our students learn processes and facts but simply do not know how to apply them. Something is missing and I think the technology tsunami has blocked some part of the thinking process that allows for those much touted “higher level thinking skills”. When I talk with classroom teachers, I often ask them if they experience this with their classes and the answer is always “yes”.
Clearly students enjoy interacting (being entertained by) the technology but real thinking seems to be taking a hit. Just my thoughts.
I worked for a company that required that we have a Powerpoint for all presentations. So, I took to creating Powerpoints that consisted almost entirely of pictures–conceptual metaphors. I would cycle through these as I gave my talks. This annoyed the heck out of the bullet list folks. But it made for memorable presentations.
I will predict the outcome of states that stick with the Machiavellian Common Core testing regime. They will fail miserably compared to the states that dropped out, and the people behind the Common Core in every state will do all they can to muddle the numbers, cherry pick facts and hide as much of their failure as possible. And if no one stands up who has the power to challenge them and make them pay, they will get away with it, too.
For instance, in the mid 1980s, the school district where I taught in California, forced a program called the Whole Language Approach to teaching reading and writing on all of its English teachers. We were forced to trash thousands of grammar textbooks. Later that would cost the district dearly when those books had to be replaced.
The theory behind the WLA was that kids would learn on their own by reading independently outside of school hours for thirty minutes or more daily, seven days a week.
When the program was forced on the teachers by the school boards and district administration in many of California’s school districts, the state was ranked near the top academically compared to other states. A decade later, California had dropped, I think, to second from last, and the WLA was quietly dropped with no admission of guilt or apologies given as teachers were told to start teaching grammar again.
For all the new teachers hired during that decade, that meant taking classes to learn how to teach grammar because during that politically popular forced program that was supposed to magically take the work out of learning, teacher programs dropped classes that taught teachers how to teach grammar from their curriculum, but it didn’t take the universities long to add those courses back once those newer teachers had to return to learn those skills before they could teach them. Some of us older veteran teachers had defied our administrators and managed to hide a class set of the grammar books we were ordered to throw in the trash. I had a set and out it came when the WLA proved a total failure.
The flawed theory behind the WLA and Common Core’s Machiavellian agenda that punishes teachers and closes the schools is based on the flawed thinking that 100% of children are all hungry and willing to learn and if they aren’t learning it has to be the teacher’s fault.
Studies going back to the 1960s prove this thinking is wrong, but few if any above the classroom level seems wiling to pay attention to those reports that no one has managed to disprove and we all know the answer that explains why: Profit, Profit, Profit, Profit—no matter who the Bill Gates and Waltons of the world have to run over and turn into road kill.
I’m sure there are individuals in school districts and in government who know the Common Core is just as wrong as the WLA was but out of fear, most of them will bite their tongues and keep silent because the big money coming from people like Bill Gates will crush them like bugs if they dare to speak up. It takes a lot of courage for one person to stand up when all that stands between them and poverty is a monthly pay check.
As for the elected politicians all the way to the White House, they have no excuse. For them, it’s the fear of losing power and all the benefits that come with that power, because without the financial support from billionaires like Gates, those narcissistic cowards might lose the next election and the thought of seeing their ego balloon deflated is more than they can take. They’d rather destroy millions of lives than risk losing their power.
But how will we know wich states succeed and whci states fail? What is the mechanism that determines this? How will it be measured and who is dictating the method of measurement? I am not sure I trust the accountability police.
Maybe Stanford could do more studies. One thing we do know, the private sector Charters don’t want anyone to know what’s really going on in their classrooms, or how they are spending the money. Maybe we could as Green Peace to investigate.
Thank you for the thoughtful article. I would like to add, however, that NY parents are a savvy group and very well educated on the perils of common core. I am proud to work beside some of the most intelligent, determined parents I have had the pleasure of encountering who have led us in the fight to rid our state of common core. We have numerous groups attempting to do so, including teachers, but I cannot objectively say that the lead belongs exclusively to educators.
Here’s the experiment that no state is trying but that would actually improve upon micromanaging education through the publication of these bullet lists:
Publish competing, voluntary frameworks, standards, learning progressions, and lesson templates
developed by various researchers, scholars, classroom practitioners, and curriculum developers
for particular domains within the subject areas and/or
particular target student groups
on a wiki.
And continually update these based upon the best that the entire community of researchers, scholars, classroom practitioners, and curriculum developers come up with.
And allow local schools to choose from among these and to adopt and adapt them as they see fit.
THAT’S how to create REAL innovation in our pedagogy and curricula. That’s how you get a vigorous, ongoing debate about methods and materials.
ANY invariant mandate for everyone, whether it be a federal one or a state one, will reflect lowest-common-denominator groupthink and will have a chilling effect of prior restraint on the creativity of teachers and schools.
Let’s draw upon the best of the thinking of our ENTIRE community, for a change. Let’s get away from the ridiculous notion that monocultures are healthier than are diverse ecologies.
You should start the wiki.
I should, FLERP. I think I’m going to have to do this. It’s a large undertaking. Unfortunately, I am not independently wealthy, and so I have to work, and I cannot devote myself to this full time.
But yes, I am going to have to do this.
Yes. I am going to do this. You are right. I have to do this.
Just remember, Bob, it was my idea for you to do the thing that was your idea!
FLERP. That is just beautiful!
You made my day with that!
I think, Bob, that you will find that there are a fair number of subversive teachers out there who still manage to teach and have not thrown out the lifetime of lessons and projects that they and others have developed over the years. Unfortunately, since good materials tend to be shared, tracing them to their roots can be hard. As a special ed teacher, I relied on subject matter experts for the bulk of my curriculum since my students would return to their classes. I tweaked and massaged and sometimes created my own materials, but separating and giving credit where credit is due would be impossible. And that is only taking into consideration the informal network of distribution; I cannot begin to credit the published works I drew from over my teaching career. We would really have to separate egos from products as well as attempt to cover ourselves legally. You are probably uniquely qualified to deal with these issues if anyone can do it.
never2old, this is what teachers must do. Like the monks of Skellig Michael who copied manuscripts as barbarism spread across continental Europe, individual teachers must keep real teaching alive, nurture that flame. This dark era will pass. Ed Deform will fall apart under its own dead, stupid weight. In the meantime, here’s to all who continue to teach, say, writing, instead of InstaWriting for the Test.
Bob,
Have you seen the Utah open educational resources initiative?
http://www.uen.org/oer/
Wow.
This is what the end looks like for traditional educational publishers.
Just before its typewriter business went belly up, the company Smith Corona put up a website that read, on its home page, “On the eighth day God created Smith Corona.”
Once educators recognize that they can do this, it is only a matter of time before open-sourced, crowd-sourced materials completely outstrip anything offered by traditional publishers. The publisher know this. They are not stupid. They have seen it happening, already, in a bigger way in post-secondary. Many of the things they are doing–making assessment a bigger part of their business, offering complete online virtual courses at all levels K-college–is in reaction to the threat that open-sourced and crowd-source materials presents to their traditional business model.
Look for the new Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth’s office of educational materials compliance to go after these open source programs’ alignment with the Common Core. They will have no difficulty crushing small competitors. One can always find SOME REASON on which to base a judgment that a program is “not aligned,” and small publishers will not have the financial resources to challenge a decision that their program is not aligned. But when they go after these public initiatives–ones carried out by states–they are going to wake some giants.
Bob – Just saw this in The Writing Project newsletter. Great lesson. Reminds me of a unit I would do comparing the elements of literature/art/music and applying it to a hoot graphs project.
http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/5856
wow
This is the sort of project that changes people. These students will never again look at a work of art as a contained object. They have learned that art is about human realities, that it ramifies, that a single work of art becomes part of the whole from which we form the art of the future. This teacher created the conditions in which students would necessarily stretch themselves, emotionally and intellectually. A really powerful teaching.
And think of the practical skills that students learned as well, and how much they learned of architecture. And of how they gained of visceral appreciation of the idea of structure in art.
Outstanding.
This is the kind of thing we could be talking about instead of how to prep students for answering the technology-enhanced evidence-based short multiple response questions on CCSS.Literacy.ELA.11-12.666a.
Other readers. Check this out:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10M6gwuGQSiQhZYB_XCJQxpiZVhJcMl9xjduB_GduliA/edit
On could add to that list of terms used in literature and in archtecture
Articulation
Atmosphere
Baroque
Canon (from Greek kanon, for a straightedge or rule)
Circumlocution
Cliffhanger
Column
Construction
Deconstruction
Extraterritoriality
Framing
Gothic
Niche
Passage
Rococo
Scene (from Greek skene, for stage)
Third wall
Topic (from GR topos, place)
Standards make a difference that no one seems to recognize.
These silly bullet lists are taken as gospel by educational publishers. And so, instead of writing the best possible chapter on the American Transcendentalists for that Grade 11 American literature textbook, they write a chapter that follows, slavishly, whatever prior restraints were placed upon the material by some committee that wrote the standards and wasn’t thinking about this particular part of the curriculum, and so that material gets narrowed and distorted.
Imagine that you gave a committee a task of creating specs for one outfit of daytime business casual dress for men and one for women. Imagine, then that all clothing manufacturers had to follow that same set of guidelines, even if they were designing clothes for toddlers, hazmat suits, clothes for doctors and nurses to wear during surgery, and so on.
Well, something like that happens with these “standards.” Anyone who has ever worked in curriculum development for an educational publishing house will tell you that the standards, though well intentioned, end up dramatically distorting the products. An editor doesn’t sit down with writers and plan the best possible unit on the short story for students in grade 9. He or she sits down and plans a unit on the short story that meets all the specs in the standards bullet list. But the folks who were making up that list weren’t thinking about this particular application, and so there is a disconnect there, and the unit on the short story ends up dramatically distorted–ends up being much worse than it would have been if the editors and writers had simply been working from broad pedagogical frameworks and using their best judgment based on what is known by the entire community of scholars, researchers, and practitioners about teaching the short story.
Bob Shepherd: ah, as Yoda would say, “Topped yourself, you have!”
😉
The other day [5/29/14 on this blog] you came up with an instant classic about CCSS: “Think: Literature instruction that SKIPS OVER THE LITERATURE; instruction in the reading of nonfiction texts that SKIPS OVER THE CONTENT.”
And today: CCSS = “prior restraints.”
I look forward to the next instant classic.
😎
Exactly, a committee meets and draws up a list of apriori notions, prior restraints, and these inevitably end up distorting, often grotesquely distorting, curricular materials.
So, if the standard says that the student will trace the development of two themes in a work of literature, that means that if the work really deals only with one major theme, or if it deals with four major themes, the lesson won’t deal with what fits the work. It will deal with two themes because that’s what the standard says.
I SEE THIS EVERY DAY OF MY WORKING LIFE–lessons that have been GROTESQUELY distorted to fit them into the Procrustean bed of some set of “standards.”
“Imagine that you gave a committee a task of creating specs for one outfit of daytime business casual dress for men and one for women.”
I had to laugh at that. I saw a group of bankers this morning stopping for coffee after a meeting. All of them, men and women, were dressed in black with white as the only accessory color. I did see one woman who daringly wore brown heels and a few dresses rather than suits but the background was without exception dominated by black. You don’t even see that much black at funerals anymore! I found them rather disturbing.
Here in Louisiana the parents I have gotten to know during this war are far from extremists. If anything, they are thoughtful, educated, well-rounded individuals who value freedom of thought and rich curricula for their kids. They are working tirelessly to try to get my state out of this CC$$/PARCC nightmare. I am proud and humbled to do what I can , as a teacher not afraid to speak out, to help them in any way I can. Thank God for these parents!
I don’t know any states or Stop-Common Core movements that are led by extremists. It is all parents leading the charge. I kind of am getting resentful of the Stop Common Core groups being characterized this way. And my opposition is not becuase of it’s “complexity” in fact I feel it to be a completly sub-par program that is cheating my kids out of a proper education. When I hear someone say it’s led by extremists I think the person either 1) still does not fully get what is going on or 2) Is too partisan to see this objectively.
From the horses mouth it is fewer and narrower – fewer and narrower are words that conjure up am image of it being “less” or “incomplete”. What did we think they meant by fewer and narrower? How did people hear these words and interpret better? This has been the biggest snow job we’ve ever seen.
Jen – it was conservative parents in tandem with Tea Party Glen Beck acolytes that finally got some traction against the Common Core here in Louisiana. That’s not to say that some of us liberals weren’t right in there riding the wave. The key now is not to let that wave morph into their pro-charter/voucher agenda. I will report though that because these parents became engaged in the reform conversation because of CCSS, they got an earful of the truth about charters and some of the other reform agenda. Let there be no doubt that the “extremists” were the voices that got heard.
It’s just interesting that wanting to put the skids on what is essentially a very poor, subpar program that was adopted under the pretense of a grant contest pretty much sight unseen is seen as extreme. The definition is anything outside GAGA is seen as “extreme” and fringe.
Reblogged this on We Are More and commented:
What Will Be The Outcome?
Some states will drop the federal online testing. Some states will drop Common Core and use their old standards or write new ones.
The likeliest outcome of the controversies today is that the Common Core will be adopted by some states, not by other. The federal tests will be used in some states, not others.
“On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.”
That last statement fails to take into account the opportunity cost that comes from having prior restraint on curricular and pedagogical development. In the absence of that restraint, true innovation can occur, but we can never know the forms that that innovation might have taken in its absence.
This applies to the new national standards and to any state standards adopted instead of the national ones. If they are mandatory, the constitute prior restraint on innovation in curricula and pedagogy. And this has a chilling effect that is not widely appreciated.
There is an opporunity cost. Indeed!!! That is MY kids opportunity being lost. But the “choice” on making this trade was made by other’s NOT by me.
I wish that you had included the central fact that the Common Core standards for English Language Arts are without substance. Those standards mandate failed pedagogy from the 1950’s for the teaching of reading and ineffective pedagogy in place before the 1970’s for the teaching of writing. The result will be a generation of students who are severely limited in their ability to think deeply and broadly. Then, considering the demands of the modern world, we will truly be a nation at risk.
Exactly, Ann. See my extensive posts on this thread regarding these puerile, backward “standards”:
Part 1
From the post by Diane:
“The likeliest outcome of the controversies today is that the Common Core will be adopted by some states, not by other. The federal tests will be used in some states, not others.”
And yet, the Common Core is already with us.
Both the College Board and ACT Inc. were partners with Achieve in developing the Common Core. Both now say that all of their products are “aligned” with the Common Core. That means products like the ACT test, the PSAT and SAT tests, Advanced Placement courses are all tied to the Common Core. And as ACT touts on its website, “ACT’s Course Standards and College Readiness Standards™ successfully align with the Common Core State Standards.”
The ACT and the College Board and Achieve are all linked to the National Math and Science (NMSI). Despite the fact that there is no STEM (science, technology, math, engineering) “shortage” or “crisis” –– we graduate three times the number of degree holders as there are jobs –– the NMSI says on its website that “The United States is losing its competitive edge in math and science while the rest of the world soars ahead.” The College Board adds this flat-out lie: “As a nation, we are not graduating nearly enough STEM majors to meet this need.”
A 2004 RAND study “found no consistent and convincing evidence that the federal government faces current or impending shortages of STEM workers…there is little evidence of such shortages in the past decade or on the horizon.” The RAND study concluded “if the number of STEM positions or their attractiveness is not also increasing” –– and both are not –– then “measures to increase the number of STEM workers may create surpluses, manifested in unemployment and underemployment.”
A 2007 study by Lowell and Salzman found no STEM shortage (see: http://www.urban.org/publications/411562.html ).
Indeed, Lowell and Salzman found that “the supply of S&E-qualified graduates is large and ranks among the best internationally. Further, the number of undergraduates completing S&E studies has grown, and the number of S&E graduates remains high by historical standards.” The “education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand.”
Part 2
Lowell and Salzman concluded that “purported labor market shortages for scientists and engineers are anecdotal and also not supported by the available evidence…The assumption that difficulties in hiring is just due to supply can have counterproductive consequences: an increase in supply that leads to high unemployment, lowered wages, and decline in working conditions will have the long-term effect of weakening future supply.”
Lowell and Salzman noted that “available evidence indicates an ample supply of students whose preparation and performance has been increasing over the past decades.”
Beryl Lieff Benderly wrote this stunning statement recently in the Columbia Journalism Review (see: http://www.cjr.org/reports/what_scientist_shortage.php?page=all ):
“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students. In fact, according to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”
Why all the emphasis on STEM, and “reform” and “standards?”
Benderly explains it:
““Simply put, a desire for cheap, skilled labor, within the business world and academia, has fueled assertions—based on flimsy and distorted evidence—that American students lack the interest and ability to pursue careers in science and engineering, and has spurred policies that have flooded the market with foreign STEM workers. This has created a grim reality for the scientific and technical labor force: glutted job markets; few career jobs; low pay, long hours, and dismal job prospects for postdoctoral researchers in university labs; near indentured servitude for holders of temporary work visas.”
There is no STEM crisis, and there is no “crisis” in public education.
Simply put, the emphasis for “reform” is pushed by the wealth “elite,” and by corporations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable. They are the ones funding the Common Core and NMSI and STEM.
And they are NOT doing to improve democratic citizenship. Quite the opposite.
oops…And they are NOT doing it to improve…
democracy: thank you!
A young man of my acquaintance with one of the best scientific minds I’ve ever encountered (this fellow aced the courses in organic chem, differential equations, abstract algebra, etc) recently switched out of STEM. No engineering degree for him. One reason? No jobs. No good ones, that is. He just started an organic community garden in an inner-city neighborhood and is studying permaculture and polyculture. He has a vision of creating self-sufficient communities within major cities where people have turned back the clock and practice traditional crafts and folkways and a common and barter. He has taught himself to can and has done a number of construction projects. I just learned that he has taken up sewing. 🙂
The main thing people need to realize is that these standards are not research-based. Period. How can you force this style of standards on children without research to back it up? I retired after 32 years; the last year of CC was hell. Children were forced to do work that was above their grade level; kindergarten and first grade were doing work that was not developmentally appropriate for their grade level.
Handwriting is now not being taught, which, I think, is a travesty. Research shows that cursive handwriting helps with brain development. What a way to dumb down our students. Art and music are out the door. Those are shown to develop math skills.
Face it. Most of our problems come down to poverty. As long as we have all the broken families with one parent not there, available for the children, it leaves the spouse/live-in/baby daddy, poor. Thus, the children suffer. And, the poor are getting poorer. More crime, more drugs, greater poverty. THAT is the crux of the problem. Until the community leaders in the poor communities say it’s not okay to keep having babies and talk about abstention from sex, things are not going to get better. Those leaders need to lead. Write to your legislators and governors. I have.
Since Anne is retire I hope she becomes a spokes person on all levels to defend all those students and parents who are caught up in this “travesty” and fight for academic freedom, public education, and all that was right in the past.
As regards, “Loveless wrote in 2912:
‘…Standards do not matter very much.” He concluded: “On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.’ ”
I beg to disagree; the philosophy and pedagogy of CC is basically flawed. The NY Learning Standards prior to the imposition of CC were superb. It is very obvious that the people who constructed them were educators with a philosophy embedded in the Constructivist approach. I, for one, found great support in them as did my fellow colleagues. When those standards came out numerous workshops and meetings were held explaining their goal and activities to develop them.
Once again I think of those 12th graders in Tenn., Ark., and W.V., who purportedly scored the lowest percentile. With standards anchored in the Constructivist philosophy that would NOT have happened. Think of the States that have mandatory retention of all third graders who do not pass the state reading test. First of all the state “standardized” test does not give the read ability level. Basically, however, the students are forced to learn via a very difficult approach- impossible for some. Retaining a student puts bad omen on them- the student begins to embark on a defeatist attitude – no confidence- which will haunt them through life. We must also remember that there is a third choice between retention and social promotion: providing a support system that has scientifically been proven to be successful – the Reading Recovery, Literacy Collaborative- any program anchored in the Constructive approach. Reading Recovery has been proven to be successful with the At Risk emergent reader. The complaint is that the program is too expensive because teachers need special training and its a one-to-one approach for the At-Risk-emergent-reader. To repeat again for the umpteenth time: stop all state standardized testing and use that money for instruction- a support system that will work in tandem with the classroom teacher. The Reading Recovery and Literacy Collaborative programs give assessments and they are standardized. However, the assessments are administered in a non threatening, conversational way. (No way should the support system be used to teach or reinforce phonics in isolation.)
As Dewey maintained, the curriculum and child are interdependent – one doesn’t make sense without the other; e.g., I have to know the child/children’s background, their experiences, and how they learn. Teaching Shakespeare to a group of high school students is ridiculous if they can’t read it or can’t relate to the text. If they are fifteen and don’t care about the curriculum something has to be done about it. There comes the challenge – making the connection with the child and the curriculum. We can’t blame the students if they aren’t interested- a connection has to be made.
Not all children need the extra support – for sure not my two grandsons who are entering kindergarten next year. One already reads fluently decoding multi-syllabic words along with compound words and complex sentences. He even makes up his own imaginary games such as the “Talking Cards.” Each player draws two playing cards. When it is players turn, the player makes up a story about the two cards. With the aid of games and the iPad, he is learning – independently- to speak and learn the Russian alphabet. He is still only four years old; he turns five this month. The “one size fits all” is for the birds.
“Loveless wrote in ‘…Standards do not matter very much.” He concluded: “On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.’ ” The CC is already having a major detrimental affect on students, parents, and community.
Mary, I have been speaking up since LAST May when I retired. My co-workers were, and still are, afraid to speak up for having supervisors find out. Then it affects their observations. For good Lord’s sake, don’t let the superintendent find out about it. The politics would play very badly for teachers. My friends that are now retiring are speaking out. And, I will continue to, as this is bad for students, families and family connection to schools. And, that JUST what they want.
Here are some articles on research and teaching cursive.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/what-learning-cursive-does-your-brain
http://www.washingtonparent.com/articles/1212/cursive-writing.php
From my understanding, one of the major changes in education due to technology is cheating. Google translator and wikipedia being two of the most common, and obvious methods.
Ken Robinson says, “In class, you ask someone for help, and that’s called cheating. In the real world, that’s called asking someone for help.”
Standards became law with No Child Left Behind. We have had twelve years of failed standards based reform. Removing standards from measuring learning is a sensible step.
I just wrote this bit on what happens when system thinking and identity is at odds, like we have with standards-based reform. Standards are of industry. They are not of intellect. Standards can only measure with a binary bar incompatible with the complexity of learning.
Identity http://sensablelearning.blogspot.com/2014/06/identity.html
Your website, Della, is addictive. Great stuff there!
from Delia’s website:
http://sensablelearning.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-standards-cannot-measure-student.html
It is time to get back the basic of Body – Mind – and Spirit.
In all public education, I would like to suggest the very basic and simple fun for students of all levels.
For their body, students will be trained by practicing track and field, or by skipping, or playing soccer, cycling, or doing gymnastic, chin-up, push-up, and squash. These exercises cost very little, but they tremendously develop students’ good habit for their health, team work, and individual endurance for their life time.
For their mind, show and tell will motivate students to read, to discuss, to create the solution for all selected books which are appropriate for each level of learning. Also, this will allow students to exchange their background languages skills, cultural food, music, and history. This can promote students to compose and share their own ideas/ feeling/solution through their own written stories, or poem towards all daily problems or wonder around their surroundings like in public libraries, movie theater, parks, hospital…
For their spirit, we should motivate students to read, and to watch all documentaries all available religions in the world. Then, we should have impartial discussion about humanity and civilization regarding each ritual, or practice that affect our mutual inner peace.
In conclusion, it is very easy to acknowledge the happiness and contentement in children materially or spiritually. If educational system is correct, children will thrive in and enjoy learning without fear. That is simple. Back2basic
Btw: I think Oklahoma and South Carolina have now officially withdrawn from CCSS.
Responding to Anne-
Anne
June 5, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Mary, I have been speaking up since LAST May when I retired. My co-workers were, and still are, afraid to speak up for having supervisors find out. Then it affects their observations. For good Lord’s sake, don’t let the superintendent find out about it. The politics would play very badly for teachers. My friends that are now retiring are speaking out. And, I will continue to, as this is bad for students, families and family connection to schools. And, that JUST what they want.
Touche!
My former colleague, too, are afraid to speak out. It’s the gag rule.
What state are you from?
Imagine this.
We have an entire nation full of English teachers afraid to say what they think of these new “standards” for fear of repercussions on the job.
Isn’t that lovely? That we have come to such a point that our nation’s teachers ARE AFRAID.
This is what Ed Deform has done.
Just before the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government announce a period of openness. Meetings were held in local communities all over the country. People were encouraged to come forward with their grievances.
And then, a couple months later, all those people were arrested.
I have to laugh a bitter laugh every time I hear of some poll that has been taken of teacher’s attitudes toward Lord Colman’s puerile list.
These polls are like elections in North Korea or Syria.
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is amazing and 5 is with the total and eternal patience and love of the great mother goddesses of ancient mythologies, how do you rank the tender care with which Peerless Leader nurtures the hopes and aspirations of the people?
1 2 3 4 5
Do you believe that every student deserves to be held to high standards that will ensure his or her readiness for success in a college or career?
1 2 3 4 5
We’ve come to a pretty awful place in our history when those who teach our children have to say to one another, “When you retire, speak up. Say something. They can’t hurt you then.”
I will repeat my long term mantra: the best thing that we can do for education in the U.S. is to close all of the schools of education.
Sad but true Bob. I was written up once shortly before I retired and had I not retired I would have been run out.
I recently lost a contract because of my posts about problems with the CCSS. I was not “on board.”
I lost all my contracts because of my stance.
Life in the age of the Thought Police.
Nah, that’s life in any age. Few people want to hire someone who is opposed to the product or mission they are trying to promote. Heck, people can get nasty if you are rooting for the wrong little league team.
I do not agree, 2old2teach. Smart managers encourage diversity of opinion. They do not surround themselves with “Yes People.” Do you really think that wise administrators and publishers should fire everyone who does not think that the Common Core State Standards are perfect–that they are some sort of Holy Writ?
Offering constructive and professional criticism internally and publicly disagreeing with the stance of a company for whom you want to work are two very different things. While I happen to agree with you most of the time, I would not be inclined to hire you to design core aligned curricula. I certainly would not hire you to function in any sort of role where you would have to interact with core supporters. While I agree that a well managed company wants to hear a diversity of opinion, there comes a time when a decision is made. The time for expressing divergent opinions is over. No, a good manager is not going to fire all those who express dissenting opinions, especially if those individuals accept it when the debate is over. You would be out the door if you could not support a company decision in which you were expected to play a role. If you were lucky and valuable, a good manager might find a way for you not to be involved with the project. My original comment, however, was directed toward gaining employment. It is just commonsense that a company will hire people who have not been publicly and vociferously opposed to ideas or products they are promoting. We all know that administrators and/or companies get rid of people who do not fit. It is not a new phenomena. We have passed all sorts of laws to try to protect against obvious injustice, but people are forced out of jobs all the time and stay quiet in the hopes of finding another job. The current debate in education has certainly captured my interest, but I was a teacher, and there are still a surprising number of people who are unaware and ignorant of the growing disturbance. It is peripheral to their lives. It is not as intense as the Civil Rights movement was in the sixties nor as passionate as the Vietnam War crisis. Not everyone feels they have skin in the game.
So, 2old, you think that I should not dare to speak publicly about problems with the Common Core if I am working in US education today? Do you think that I have the choice between accepting the Common Core and being silent about any issues that I have with it or being UNEMPLOYED? Interesting. Perhaps I should take up waiting tables for a living. Is that your recommendation? For that is the choice that you give me: Either be silent as damage is done to kids, or be unemployed.
No, Bob. I find your speaking out to be courageous. I am just trying to express what I see as predictable responses by those who do not want to hear what you have to say. I don’t see this behavior as any different than it has ever been, but now there is a lot of power concentrated behind not wanting to acknowledge what you are saying. I hope you keep speaking out. While I vent here anonymously, I do not avoid discussion in my own community. As a “retired” teacher, my take on things is listened to. More often than not I find that I am adding to the knowledge base of people who have only absorbed pieces of the propaganda. I can put it in context, but I do pick my audience. You are exposing yourself to a much broader audience. I hope you have the capital to survive any backlash.
2old, I thought about this. I thought long and hard about it. I could have signed on here anonymously, as so many do. I do not judge those who do. Many have mouths to feed. Many cannot afford to lose a job, and the CCSS deformers have created a climate of terror across this country. People are afraid. I believed, I believe, that I have no choice but to speak, in my own voice, without disguise, about these matters, to put my honor and my reputation on the line. And I know that this could cost me dearly, that it already has.
Sorry, 2old, about my defensiveness. This is a touchy subject for me. Speaking out on the Coring of the country has already cost me dearly.
I totally understand. Somewhere I did not express myself very well. You have my total support.
This is not a theoretical matter for me, 2old. I know that I take risks when I speak out. But I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror if I did not.
Are you really OK with my having to choose between being able to be employed and saying something about this stuff? REALLY?
I find that appalling.
I hope my last post explains my thoughts better.
In almost all states in the United States today, 2old, the adopted standards are the CCSS or some variant thereof. I am a curriculum developer. So, what you are saying is that I should never be hired again to write curricula because I am not on the CCSS pom pon squad. Great.
I have written materials correlated to hundreds of sets of standards. For a couple of years now, I have been writing materials correlated to David Coleman’s puerile list. As always, I do the very best job that I can within the constraints that those standards create. I am very, very good at my job, 2old. But you think that no one should ever employ me again, I guess. Interesting.
No,no,no! I am glad that there are people out there who recognize your professionalism and will hire you because you are good at your profession. It gives me hope to know that. it gives me hope that more of them than not secretly share your opinions.
2old, not a week passes but what I have a discussion with some editor at some publishing house who is absolutely appalled by the Common Core State Standards. Most, however, keep their opinions to themselves and speak their disdain for these in private.
Thank you for sharing that. I’m glad to know that there are others out there and that maybe some of them have your back.
I could tell many stories, but people have a tendency to swear me to secrecy before they let spew the vitriol about the CCSS that they have been saving up. But yes, the editors in these houses tend to be highly educated, experienced people, at least the ones I typically deal with. And many, many of them are appalled or, at best, see the CCSS as just more of the same. After a while, one has seen a lot of these deforms–and many see this stuff as just what happens to be hot on the K-12 midway this carnival season.
Whereas I see it as part of the movement that ended my career which perhaps explains my paranoia. 🙂
2old. I have worked in education for many, many years. I have seen many sets of standards come and go. Never before have I seen anything like what is happening with the Common Core: the intensity of the demand that people follow, lock step, the party line. We’re living in something like the Stalin era in Russia. No dissent is tolerated.
Now, I have seen stuff like this before. The state adopts a whole language curriculum, or the district adopts a constructivist discovery math program, and some teacher clings to her grammar books or to her explicit teaching of basic algorithms for calculation, and her administrators get upset about this. But I haven’t seen anything like the intensity of the current enforcement of uniformity of opinion, anything like the ruthlessness with which dissent in US education is being crushed. This is not a good thing.
Agreed. What is happening is not a good thing.
He’s got the current management buzz down. I’m not sure I believe him. He will take problem solvers over experience in hiring. What the heck does that mean? aren’t all those little TFA recruits problem solvers? They definitely are not experienced! Deming is more my style and we threw him out! This very brief reaction is totally inadequate and most likely thoroughly biased. Certainly my reaction lacks authority. My gut is not impressed.
You mention Deming. I have actually read Deming. He was a great champion of dissent in the workplace and an opponent of autocratic, totalitarian, top-down, authoritarian management practices. He of all people would be on my side in this debate. He championed the voice of the employee and argued for decades that hearing that voice was in the interests of everyone, including the employer!
Absolutely! We are not disagreeing; reality is not quite as rosy.
But often, never2old, it is.
The Toyota miracle was all about worker empowerment. Japan had one of the most traditionally autocratic, top-down cultures on the planet. But after World War II, when the ideas of Deming and Juran and Shewhart could not get a foothold here in the states, the Japanese embraced them. They created factories in which ordinary line workers could stop the production line because they didn’t like what was happening on it. They created quality circles. And in industry after industry, this paid off–in consumer electronics, in automobiles, in copy machines. But you know this, certainly.
Yup.
In Stalinist Russia, a geneticist who dared say or write that acquired characteristics are not heritable risked not only being fired but being sent to a labor camp or killed. This is what happens in totalitarian societies. Dissent is crushed. Absolute adherence to the party orthodoxy becomes a condition for employment and advancement. That’s not the sort of situation that we should be happy to see in education in the Land of the Free.
The same thing happened with Galileo when he dared to go against the common, politically-religious belief that the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. When he dared to disagree and even offered scientific evidence to support his theory, Galileo and other scientists, were persecuted horribly.
The foolish mob mentality of ignorance can be brutal to anyone who dares not agree with the religious/political correctness of the time and place.
We see this happening today in the Middle East—actually all over the world—with the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist Muslims and even born-again evangelical fundamentalist Christians. These nut cases are more than willing to kill even babies to force others through fear to follow their agendas. For instance, the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995 that even killed children or the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.
Dare to be different enough that you threaten what someone else believes, and you, too, may become a target for a nutcase who refuses to stop being an ignorant fool. In fact, all that needs to happen is someone like Rush Limbaugh calling one person out by name out on his show and accusing that person of the hearsay of going against the political/religious correctness of the group he panders to and that person starts receiving death threats and possible driveways of their house.
Should we start to install bullet proof glass and armor the walls of our house—at least the wall that faces the street. And what about drones? Armored roofs too?
“We will be able to compare the progress of the states that are 100% Common Core aligned with other states.”
How will you compare progress? By what measure? Everything is aligning to CC.
If the test has been created to measure the standards, those who don’t follow the standards won’t understand the tricks of the new test, and they will fail.
NAEP already compares states.
A new report from MSNBC quotes Randi Weingarten as saying the following:
“[P]olicymakers, listen to the voices of those closest to the classroom. Enable educators, with the proper resources and supports, to make the transition to focusing on the critical-thinking skills that underlie these standards,” Weingarten told msnbc.
I very much hope that this is a signal that Ms. Weingarten will support, going forward, replacing the Common Core State Standards with a few broad, general guidelines that will provide the autonomy and degrees of freedom that teachers and curriculum developers need if they are to meet the needs of their particular students and are to innovate with regard to curricula and pedagogy.
The one good thing to come out of the whole CCSS debacle is that there are some new projects, around the country, that have brought teachers together to plan curricula.
More of that. Much, much, much more of that. But free of the prior restraints of mandated, invariant standards.
Let teachers draw upon everything they know. Put teachers in charge of teaching for a change.
Make the union a force for fighting for such teacher autonomy and for the time and resources for teachers to be able to meet together, to go over what’s working and what isn’t, to share pedagogical approaches, and to plan lessons.
I am very, very pleased to hear this from Ms. Weingarten.
I think I’m confused here in Florida. We had standards that were called Common Core but now they have a different name, something to do with connectors. I certainly can’t connect all the dots to see what is and what isn’t the same; as in what it means for students, teachers, schools, and tax payers. Being a older person I can reflect on all the times the name of something has impacted the public’s perception, so there isn’t much faith on my part in a name change. Add on top, all the other legislative hocus-pocus and how once a law is passed we have to work through what it all means, understand flying an airplane as it’s being built so see all the layers of confusion and doubt.