The conservative journal “Education Next” reported a poll showing that support for Common Core plummeted among teachers from 76% to 46%. Conservative supporters of Common Core think that teachers are afraid of accountability but that doesn’t explain why 76% thought it was a good idea last year.
Peter Greene explains the teachers’ change of mind, which he is well-qualified to do since he is a teacher.
Here are a few of the reasons:
First, writes Greene, was the lying.
“Remember how supporters of the Core used to tell us all the time that these standards were written by teachers? All. The. Time. Do you know why they’ve stopped saying that? Because it’s a lie, and at this point, most everybody knows it’s a lie. The “significant” teacher input, the basis in solid research– all lies. When someone is trying to sell you medicine and they tell you that it was developed by top doctors and researchers and you find out it wasn’t and they have to switch to, “Well, it was developed by some guys who are really interested in mediciney stuff who once were in a doctor’s office”– it just reduces your faith in the product.”
Second was when we discovered that we were not allowed to change anything to make it better suited to the needs of our students.
Third was when they started training us and kept telling us to shut up and do what they wanted. Our experience counted for nothing.
Fourth was when they slandered opponents as extremists. Either do what they said or find that Arne Duncan labeled you as misguided and misinformed.
Fifth was when we learned how much the Common Core would cost, how many consultants would be hired, how it would suck up all the new money in the budget.
Then there was the child abuse: “Many of us just finished our first year of Core-aligned curriculum, and in many cases it was awful. We were required to force students to operate at or beyond frustration level day after day. We watched school stamp out the spirit of the smallest students, whose defining characteristic is that they love everything, including school. While CCSS boosters were off sipping lattes in nice offices, we were there at ground zero watching 180 days of exactly how this reform affected real, live students.”
And there is more. Those who believe in Common Core should read what Peter Greene experienced. It explains why teacher support fell like a heavy stone.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How do you know when a so-called education reformer is lying?
They open their mouths.
Love it, Michael.
I have a t-shirt with the saying, “those who can, teach; those who can’t pass laws about teaching”. This says it all.
Sue
retired high school mathematics teacher
Presidential Awardee
I don’t know how it was sold to teachers, but I resent how it was sold to parents.
They used fear. Our kids would never get jobs or go to college unless we put this in immediately. It was 100% fear-based until the testing concluded.
Then, having reached the goal of experimenting with this test on tens of millions of kids (which is exactly what was done, even if you approve of that you have to admit that’s what happened) once the tests were “in the can”, they then they shifted the sales pitch to make it warmer and fuzzier.
I expect this sort of thing from commercial vendors. I get why the company selling the alarm system has the home intruder smashing thru the sliding glass doors. I don’t expect it from state and federal government, and I resent it.
We should have been given a calm recitation of the benefits and the potential downside (expense, the difficulty of putting it in, the possibility that actual school districts with ever-shrinking budgets and real human beings would have problems, etc.) EVERYTHING has a potential downside. There is no 100% risk-free experiment. We all know that.
Cost/benefit was never debated. We weren’t treated like adults. Instead it was roll out Arne Duncan and Condeleeza Rice and a slew of CEO’s who were happy rely on a “skills gap” to explain flat or sinking wages and launch a fear-based political campaign.
I’m okay with higher standards. I’m wary of people who use fear to sell them, and I’m sick to death of fear being used as a tool in public policy.
“I’m okay with higher standards.”
I’m not! Not okay with lower or in between standards either as standards by definition imply, necessitate measurement. The teaching and learning process is an area of human activity that defies “measurement”.
I’m okay with good curriculum with goals, objectives, etc. . . . Curriculum does not imply measurement but prescribes a course of study.
The term “standards” is edudeformer’s eduspeak.
Common Core was imposed on teachers by non-educators. We were fed a lot of mistruths along the way, as well. However, there would be no backlash if the CC founders gave us an educationally sound reform package. We are rejecting CC primarily because the standards in ELA are un-teachable and un-testable, abstract and subjective thinking skills – essentially content free, the math standards are the SOS shifted around in developmentally inappropriate ways using unnecessarily confusing pedagogy, and the tests tied to teacher evaluations have become the epitome of educational malpractice. Furthermore, the notion of producing educational excellence with standards that cannot be changed, altered, deleted, or improved, is insult to our profession. And until the ESEA is dealt with by Congress, we are stuck inside a very deep hole, whether we support the CC or not.
I hope a lot of English teachers started opposing the CCS as soon as they read some of the more vague and poorly worded “standards,” or after listening to ten minutes of any speech by David Coleman. That should be enough to make you question the whole thing. For me, establishing common “standards” across the states was a bad idea to begin with.
Readers who oppose the CCS might want to get in touch with Cory Turner and his supervisors at National Public Radio. He’s billed as an editor/reporter with NPR’s Ed Team. I’ve heard him spread misinformation on the subject in several stories on Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and I can safely say that he knows a lot about education that just isn’t true. At times he comes across as a shill for corporate education reform. This might not be surprising given that NPR’s sponsors include the Walton Family Foundation.
In his report on this morning’s Morning Edition, you can hear Turner “debunking” the idea that the Common Core is, in essence, a federal program:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/20/341668003/a-tale-of-two-polls
He’s claims to be trying to analyze the results of two polls about the Common Core. But what he really seems to be doing is supporting it by dismissing public concerns.
Here’s Turner “Debunking Common Myths About The Common Core” on All Things Considered on August 3, 2014:
http://www.npr.org/2014/08/03/337602099/debunking-common-myths-about-the-common-core
So called education reformers are actually greedy corporate moguls with psychological characteristics recognized as the Dark Triad:
Narcissism – Machiavellianism – Sociopathy!
YES, indeed. How do they look at themselves in the mirror. Oh…it’s just about money, greed, and control, NOT educating our young.
Common Core was imposed by non-educators using lies and false promises. However, there would have been no teacher or parent backlash had they delivered and educationally sound reform package. Instead they gave us ELA standards that are a set of abstract and subjective thinking skills that are un-teachable and untestable, and virtually content free, math standards that are essentially the SOS repackaged in a developmentally inappropriate sequence at the elementary and middle levels requiring unnecessary and confusing pedagogy, and tests tied to teacher, administrator, and school evaluations that have been designed to support the false claim that our schools are “failure factories”. Furthermore, the notion that educational excellence can be achieved using national standards (affecting 50 million students) that cannot be revised and improved is an insult to our profession.
The media in my state still buys the “written by teachers” dreck that is spewed about the Core. I am SO tired of reading that crud everywhere.
This is an important and edifying post and should be shared widely. It gets to the heart of the problems and gives ammunition if you need it! Thanks for sharing this, Diane. I would never hear about so many of these ideas without you.
My opposition to the LA CCSS began on the very day I was handed a copy. I sat down and gave the document a “close reading.” (I know, as an older veteran teacher I’m not supposed to know how to do this, but it actually is within my skill set.) Reading this blog as well as doing independent research deepened my understanding of why CCSS should be abandoned. And then came the final and most persuasive piece of evidence…my students’ total lack of interest in the boring and silly CCSS-aligned lessons we were supposed to “incorporate.” I suggest the authors of CCSS (none of whom are real teachers) spend a day with my 13 and 14-year-olds explaining how those stupid lists of skills (completely devoid of content) will make them college and career ready. Oh…they should also explain why, apparently, it is not important to be ready to be aware citizens, active community members, and individuals of good character.
Dear MST, thank you for your post. Can you elaborate on “boring and silly lessons” please?
From the perspective of high school mathematics, if there is any complaint about CCSS it is that the standards are difficult to implement, chiefly because we are not supposed to teach traditional methods of imparting “knowledge” to passive vessels, but to put students to work discovering while probing problems of a real world variety. Of course, I always thought that the old way of doing it accomplished the same thing: some things must be put in place by the teacher first, and then we presented the dreaded thing known as “word problems.” From what one CCSS math website says, the teaching paradigm is reversed, and the classes become student centered with the teacher being the guide on the side, at least for the so-called “conceptual lessons.”
My colleagues would love to implement this kind of teaching, but we continually find students giving up because they are forced to think, and this is something they have not done much of in the past. If that last sentence implies that the creators of CCSS wanted teachers to learn a new way of instructing so that kids would learn how to think, then CCSS makes sense. Unfortunately for CCSS, we teachers often fell back on what we did best because we could ensure the kids were doing something–taking notes, working on and practicing problems, etc.–when the kids shut down because engaging or “rich” problems caused them to give up. You wind up scaffolding and being didactic when we’re not supposed to.
On the other side of the coin, CCSS math lessons for younger children are ridiculously over-complicated. No parent who would want to help their child would even consider teaching subtraction the way it is presented by CCSS.
Its not that students don’t want to think. Its that they, rightfully, expect teachers to teach. Sorry, but it is not the adolescents job to reinvent math while you are the guide on the side. As a primary methodology, constructivism (aka discovery, project based learning, etc.) has been debunked a long time ago. Besides the CC reformers constantly remind us that the CC standards do not dictate the curriculum or the pedagogy. And they are correct, standards are the destination, not the route. So when you and your colleagues are required to use such round-about teaching methods, remind them what educational standards are meant to be. Unfortunately I think some of the math standards are, incorrectly, enmeshed with pedagogy.
NYTeacher,
Well, I agree with all that you said…I think. When you say, the kids “expect us to teach…and not be guides on the side,” I couldn’t agree with you more (guys like Grant Wiggins have different ideas, but I don’t like playing games by other people’s rules).
But here’s the problem: when the superintendent and principal stand in the back of your classroom, or when the Title I DAIT Team do the same, we get looked at like we’re dinosaurs. Also, because I teach students that never learned how to do arithmetic, my ways usually don’t help the kids with a grade-3, 4, or 5 math level ability. So, yeah, I feel that I’ve swallowed the poison about constructivism because Traditional teaching, which is my strong suit and is what makes ME effective, doesn’t do enough for those who should have been left behind. Even the respected and creative Esquith says the same thing about being left behind.
That being said, I will continue to do what works for me, but will incorporate more word problems in an attempt to help the kids be better problem solvers. Now, if we had a textbook…
…the new school of thinking eschews textbooks. Ok, let’s reinvent the wheel. Do you get that feeling?
I appreciate your response, so if there is anything more you would like to add, please feel free to do so.
Peter Greene, you nail it again! Every beginning teacher should have you as their mentor ,or at least be reading your blog daily! Peter, you, and Diane offer such incredible wisdom and are changing the world for children. Thank you Peter. Thank you Diane.
Peter Green wrote: Second was when we discovered that we were not allowed to change anything to make it better suited to the needs of our students.
NY teacher wrote: However, there would have been no teacher or parent backlash had they delivered and educationally sound reform package.
Add 1) in NCLB’s annual testing, 2) the test scores=teacher evaluation score Kool-Aid and the corporate vultures seizing an opportunity handed to them, 3) and politicians seizing anyone and anything to blame –
and we are where we are.
Said it before and will keep saying it:
1) Stop the federal extortion: “Play by our rules to evaluated teachers and measure anything that moves or we take away your funds”
2) Stop the myth that excessive and more testing improves anything
3) Dump and start over or re-vet and revise CCSS
Then flexibility of what and how to teach and local control will prevail – with revised, professional high rigorous challenging make-you-think standards
Reblogged this on Crazy Crawfish's Blog and commented:
Posts don’t get much better than this. Check out Peter Greene’s post (from Curmudgication) on why teachers (like him) turned on and rejected Common Core. I’m not a teacher but many of his reasons for rejecting it are 100% reflections of my own. Read Diane Ravitch’s summary of course, but the full post is really worth the effort to click through to get. Peter will remind you of many of the reasons you’ve been alarmed and have been fighting. It’s always nice to read when someone else really “gets it.”
Thanks Peter.