American Radio Works is producing a four-part series on NPR about Common Core. Here is one segment. The program suggests a new turn in the reformer narrative: The Common Core is wonderful but the high stakes tests are horrendous.
I don’t mean to be cynical but I understand the idea behind Common Core and all the moving parts attached to it. In the 1990s, it was referred to as “systemic school reform.” The idea was that all the parts of the education system had to work in tandem, not separately. The standards, the curriculum, the tests, teacher education, teacher evaluation, textbooks, and every other part of the education system had to be seen as a synergistic whole. When that happened, scores would go up, and the system would achieve maximum efficiency and equity.
That is why–try as we might–the Common Core standards will not stay separated from the Common Core testing. Arne Duncan gave out $360 million to create the tests, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He pretended that the tests would not influence curriculum or instruction, but that is a transparent fiction. Tests drive curriculum and instruction, not the reverse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tests can promote dumbing down. Simplistic badly designed multiple choice tests can be wont to do this. And, the student motivation to do well in a science test can depend on the local job market. But, the aim is to design exacting assessment tasks which draw out the best in every student … Well designed tests are meant to motivate the student to learn: exacting short answer and short essay based tests are necessary to contribute to the educational process …
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And Bill Gates donates a lot of money to NPR, right?
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And Bill Gates donates a lot of money to NPR, correct? I expect that is the reason they are doing this series.
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AMEN! Gates does have a way of “buying” his way to get what HE wants .., our young. After all, Gates IS part of the Oligarchy of Oppression disguised as a helper. Save the kids from Gates and other predators.
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Bill Gates’ philanthropy is from the heart, except when its not–when its about a return on investment. And his philanthropy cures people; except when it doesn’t, like where his polio vaccines cause polio or polio-like syndrome/disease.
Anyhow, completely unrelated – but related:
http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/26010/cami-anderson-has-newark-parents-students-thrown-out-of-a-speech-at-a-rightwing-dc-think-tank
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It’s weird how DC never want to hear from any ordinary public school superintendents, isn’t it?
Only ed reform “rock stars” need apply.
It’s an absolute bubble. No dissenters allowed!
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There are opportunities. I have interacted with Secretary Duncan via Twitter and at SXSW, and I am hardly a heavyweight. Seek out these opportunities, and make the best of them to engage in a constructive dialogue. You might not see all your suggestions enacted, but at very least you have the opportunity to be heard.
One of the reasons I see this interaction is important is because I don’t agree with everything coming out of DOE, and I feel that grassroots contributions are important.
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Alex Kluge, I hate to break the news, but you are not communicating with Secretary Duncan on Twitter. Someone is paid to do that job, a very lowly someone.
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That possibility of someone posing as him occurred to me, but the interaction at SXSW was direct and face to face.
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Reblogged this on TN BATs BlOG.
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It’s brilliant. First the corporations buy the politicians. Then the politicians defund public radio and television so that corporations fill the void and buy NPR and PBS, and those same politicians also repeal the fairness doctrine for their masters. Any wonder that the only “reporting” the public gets on education is the kind of garbage Time sells, and why their is no investigative journalism in the mainstream media or on NPR? Once the corporations have completed the privatization of our schools their dream of an ignorant and complacent populace will have finally been achieved and our republic, like Rome’s, will be history.
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I do not disagree that the whole school reform is a package. I am concerned, however, that current basic skills testing limits curriculum and hampers instruction. Eliminating Common Core testing does not solve that problem. So, do we eliminate high stakes testing of basic skills and Common Core and hope that instruction will move toward higher level cognitive skills? I am interested in how the two approaches are integrated for struggling students. We are looking at the research but would love to hear more about applications.
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I was surprised and a bit dismayed by all the CCSS cheerleader comments, many supposedly from teachers, when I looked at NPR this morning. I feel like there must be two realities and I’m not in one of those.
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Yes, and it’s a good thing you’re not in that other reality!!
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NPR: Neoliberal Pretend Reality
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yup
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“The standards, the curriculum, the tests, teacher education, teacher evaluation, textbooks, and every other part of the education system had to be seen as a synergistic whole. When that happened, scores would go up, and the system would achieve maximum efficiency and equity.”
Yep, and those “standards” are the linchpin of it all. Unfortunately those linchpins are made of cheap steel that rust to the Core rendering them brittle and fragile, easily broken. Noel Wilson has done the testing on that steel and has found it to be “not up to industry standards” and has proven those cheaply made “standards” should be rejected.
To understand why those standards are so rife with weakness (errors) read his never refuted nor rebutted work “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 description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional 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 the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
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. And 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 attempts to measure “’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.
By Duane E. Swacker
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I am wondering if there is not a classic monopolistic consistency…….too much testing is bad, but common core testing is good, and we can control it and adjust things……..common core can take care of all the testing that will be needed.
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and by all….I mean constantly expanding.
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Diane Ravitch said: “Tests drive curriculum and instruction, not the reverse.” That has become the reality, and it is a tragic one.
Once upon a time, a guiding philosophy or vision and some ruminating about what schooling is for in a democratic society was the place to begin thinking about policy.
Once upon a time, notions about knowledge worthy of being passed along from one generation to the next was more ample than the three R’s –reading, writing, and math.
Once upon a time,there was time for teachers and those who educated them to think about whose knowledge really mattered..and to whom, and why.
I recall a time when educational leaders knew how to inspire, had a large and rich vocabulary for articulating some collective aspirations for our students–as human beings and as capable learners in and beyond school. They did not spout jargon of the day– “Gotta close the achievement gap,” “Gotta race to the top,” “Gotta raise the bar,””Gotta have accountably, and “Gotta have rigor, more rigor, plus suck it up, give me some grit.”
Once upon a time, tests did not drive the curriculum, ideas about the aims and purposes and functions of education did–and these ideas were not truncated to the economy first, last, and only.
Ideas about aims and purposes lead you to curriculum proposals–Rough sketches of ideas, often diagrams that could be and were fleshed out. A curriculum was not so much a set of lessons to folow, certainly not with grade level “behavioral specificiations” backmapped as if there is one and only one grand ladder from Kindergrrten to high school. We called curriculum ideas guidelines.
Once upon a time, instruction was a matter of learning tricks of the trade in addition to acquiring the experience and savvy to tell whether a clenched first of a seventh grade boy meant he was thinking hard, higing something in hand, or about to explode. If you could do that kind of “close reading: and other wonderfully perceptive acts colleagues flocked to you, wanted to learn from you, and students hung out after the class or day was over. You did not need to be confirmed as “highly effective” by the algorithms concocted by statisticians.
And teacher education taught teachers to think critically about a lot of things, not just comply with certification requirements and some “job-readiness” test.
I am not writing about a time of “transparent fiction.”
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Thank you.
I miss those good old days. The idea of early retirement from the job I love has always been foreign to me, but with successive inservices and pullouts about getting my kids able to close read texts to answer standardized test questions with evidence from those texts, or about introducing grit and rigor into my lessons and assessments so students can learn from failure, or about the need to show 1 year’s growth for every student in my building or risk a lowered school performance profile, or about how my colleagues and I should implement co-teaching and inclusion models even though we are afforded no time to collaborate, fewer resources, and larger class sizes,…well, teaching just isn’t teaching anymore, and early retirement is definitely a consideration.
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Laura, you are so correct. I just don’t see anyone talking about the aims, purposes and functions of education, which is where the debate should begin. I am a teacher, but I think some educators have done more harm than good by not talking about those things. Much of the rhetoric on this blog by commenters has focused on what is happening to unions and tenure and other things that affect teachers. Again, I am a teacher, but we of all people should be talking about the purpose and philosophies of education and the effect on students and the future of our society.
Why can’t we learn from societies that have failed? I realize money talks, but those of us in the 99% should be able to influence something due to our sheer numbers. The problem is we in the 99% do not all have the same values. Sadly, some 99%ers seem to share the values of the 1%ers in that they are all about what is in it for themselves and $$$$$.
The 1%ers talk about it being all about the kids. Many teachers sadly keep talking about themselves.
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And Robert, where might one find what should be the original and guiding purpose of public education?
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Duane wrote – And Robert, where might one find what should be the original and guiding purpose of public education?
I suggest a “good start” would be to read “Horace Mann: A Biography” by Jonathan Messerli. Of course, as the decades go by, the story becomes complex and constantly evolving
Tom
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Tom,
Not what I was thinking about but not a bad secondary start I suppose (I haven’t read that book but it sounds like it should have some decent information). My question still stands unanswered. Ah, trying to guess the test makers desired answer on short answer questions is so much fun, eh!
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and by all….I mean constantly expanding.
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Duane,
As Laura posted, “Once upon a time, a guiding philosophy or vision and some ruminating about what schooling is for in a democratic society was the place to begin thinking about policy.”
Not just for public schooling – for all schooling. There is not just one philosophy or one guiding principle. But intelligent, thinking people should be bringing to the forefront what they believe is valuable to pass on to the generations to come.
I fear we are engaging in mean-spirited and unproductive dialog that sets an example for our young people – that it’s OK to publicly humiliate one another and rejoice over the failures of others, that it’s all about us and our pay checks.
We don’t bring students to the table enough to hear what they want their education to be. We need civil, productive dialog that would highlight what we value as a society and for ourselves.
It’s obvious the 1%ers value power and making more money. What is not so obvious is what the other 99% want. I think most, if not all, true educators (you know, the ones who actually teach young people) know that schooling should be much more than training for a job. Strictly training for a job brings us right back around to “it’s all about me and the money I can make.”
Wouldn’t you like to hear and read and discuss what is important in life and how we can train our young people to value what is important?
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Robert,
“I fear we are engaging in mean-spirited and unproductive dialog that sets an example for our young people. . . ”
Not sure what your getting at. I asked a question of you that I believe is central to the discussion and should be the starting point. What is the guiding document and what does it say about the purpose of public education? (private education is a different thing as the purpose is up to the schooling agency, for example I went through the Catholic system K-12 and it has it’s own purpose which is not necessarily the same as public k-12)
A hint would be that there are around 50 of them.
“I think most, if not all, true educators (you know, the ones who actually teach young people) know that schooling should be much more than training for a job. Strictly training for a job brings us right back around to “it’s all about me and the money I can make.”
Definitely agree with your statement. There is a huge difference between training and educating.
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Duane, I never answered you because I never said there was one guiding document, or one truth for that matter. What I said was that people should be dialoging about what matters in life and what is worthwhile to pass on.
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The owner of this blog is understating the case.
Using somewhat different phraseology, let’s call on an articulate and extremely well-placed individual from deep inside the self-styled “education reform” establishment.
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 full blog posting cited above, and with much valuable contextual information, can be found at—
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
For those still in need of help understanding the point of the above blog posting, I suggest they turn to page 1 of their Marxist playbook:
“Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can’t make head nor tail out of it.” [Groucho]
You can thank me now or you can thank me later.
😎
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Mr Hess had an unusual day at American Enterprise Institute. Cami Anderson was scheduled to deliver a talk & engage in Q&A session. When she arrived, she found that parents & students from Newark had registered for the conference to participate in the Q&A session. Bob Braun’s Ledger will have info; also Washington Post 11-13 article by Lyndsey Layton. Hope Valerie Strauss will cover.
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NPR like PBS is sponsored by Gates, Pearson, etal. I know that they are currently interviewing teachers, but so did Education Nation. And knowing their agenda, it’s hard to trust any content NPR chooses to air.
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Not to mention the “Walton Education Fund” or something to that effect.
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To support and or reform/rewrite the Core Curriculum is to support the testing. They are inextricably bound together. Sen. Warren and Randi Weingarten, are on the wrong side of the struggle . Perhaps the Senator can be ‘educated’, but Weingarten has repeatedly demonstrated where she sits.
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“. . . has repeatedly demonstrated where she sits.”
On her arse???
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Duane, as usual, you provoke a smile, if not a laugh.
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You wrote:
“Arne Duncan gave out $360 million to create the tests, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He pretended that the tests would not influence curriculum or instruction, but that is a transparent fiction. Tests drive curriculum and instruction, not the reverse.”
Here’s a possibility: Arne Duncan sincerely believes that the tests would not influence curriculum. It’s not as far fetched as it sounds because if you are in an affluent district the curriculum doesn’t need to change to accommodate tests the kids will do well no matter what. Duncan and his reformers all believe that if SOME children can overcome the adverse effects of poverty then ALL children can overcome those effects. They also believe that if ONE child who successfully overcomes adversity because of the influence of a “good teacher” then ALL children can overcome adversity if they have a “good teacher”. Duncan and the “reformers” have a deep and abiding faith in their beliefs, a faith that cannot be shaken by evidence to the contrary…. and true belief cannot be overcome by reason. The only way to change the minds of these folks is to undercut their core beliefs through direct experience…
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wgersen, that is a good post. It certainly made a lot of sense to me.
Duncan (and his cohorts) don’t need widespread evidence, they just need occasional evidence. The few students who pull through. The teachers that love CCSS. The occasional charter success story.
They try to play the card, through newsppaers and other media sources, that those who don’t agree are the wacky outsiders, rather than the majority. It’s an element of propaganda that historian Norman Davies called “the rule of unanimity.”
Then add in a dose of “we’re just doing what’s best for children” because no one in their right mind would say that’s a bad thing to do and they’ve achieved “the rule of transfusion” which manipulates consensus moral values.
Next, at every chance just say that public schools are failing in interviews, editorials and news pieces so people are bombarded with the same message they believe it even though it is not necessarily true and he’s accomplished “the rule of orchestration.”
Call unions bad and reformers good to attain the “rule of simplification.” These hedge fund managers don’t have to take an interest in education. They’re doing it purely out of the goodness of their hearts. But those teachers and their middle class salaries (decreasing) are so evil and looking out for themselves.
Bam, there’s a developing narrative.
That got off the rails, but you’re right wgersen. Duncan has reached the point where it is now a fervid belief rather than a researched or proven idea or policy.
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I don’t buy it for a moment. The goal is money. Follow the money. All the rest is rhetoric and outright lies. For them to state that the bar has been set too low by teachers is a lie. For them to state how much earning value a “good” teacher adds to a student’s future is speculation, and spin. To “them” TFA provides good teachers. TFA’s teachers are ill prepared and know nothing about pedagogy, and often not about the subjects they teach. They almost always know nothing about the areas in which the “serve.” Please…don’t give credit to the 1%. Duncan doesn’t have a functioning brain…he is simply doing the bidding of his masters.
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This would be consistent with the business logic of the Obama administration. Take the Affordable Care Act: some people have health insurance, some do not. People in good health generally don’t sign up but are the bread and butter for the industry. People in bad health drain the funding pool, experience second class medical attention, and get coverage if they are lucky. So, if the problem is getting enough people to sign up for it, the solution is that it will be a requirement that everybody have insurance (or put money into the pool). Michael Kinsley just wrote an article (“Everyone into the Pool”) about this very thing.
Regulations shape industry and that is the problem with Common Core funding: it is more of a benefit to the industry than it is to the students. But then, we have seen this trend for the last 20 years in education. Will this be a predictor for the success of ACA? For the improved health care system and improved health of our nation?
One could argue that if you use the HMO model, which is prevention based, therefore making it more fiscally responsible to keep you healthy, there is theoretically a greater chance to change health habits at home. Can health care for the poorest of the poor increase overall well being, and therefore academic performance? Is this an essential element to a better quality of life for millions of children? It might be a better predictor of success than Common Core itself. We might even get to the point where intervention services such as counseling and family therapy are covered by all health care providers.
In general, how can any decisions be made at a federal level, without paying the piper of industry? Finding the balance between providing a truly valuable service to constituents and making wise negotiations with corporate America is key. You just can’t govern purely out of ideology.
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So disgusted in all the propaganda NPR does lately for Gates.
Sellout:(
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NPR and PBS: The Official Stenography Services of Corporate Education Reform.
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“STEMographers”
STEMographers like reform
And advertise its glory
Support of STEM’s the norm
And glowing is the story
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This would be a great Common Core test question to measure the 11th and 12th grade students understanding of analogies and irony before being launched into the harsh reality that awaits them. For example…
Find the pattern and create your own ironic analogy:
common core is wonderful: tests are not
big brother is watching : if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear
public safety is number one: even if it violates your civil rights
speech is free: but you are rich, people actually hear you
NPR is supported by public funding: corporations are people too
__________________________:_________________________
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As someone who has spent half my adult life living on the Dole, what people hereabouts would call Food Stamps, having failed primary school and high school English, I am motivated by vengeance against the ideas of those radical educators who oppose all testing in primary school, and argued for the abolition of fourth form and fifth form English external examinations in Victoria where I live.
My potential employers are wont to intone, if not say, poor w**** trash …
Therefore, I find disappointing this blog’s leading debaters who fail to understand the experiences of those deemed to have a poor command of English … In my view, exacting testing is an essential part of a multi-stage feedback process a set of feedback loops that generates better skilled and more knowledgeable graduates, a la basic electronics. Without testing, the whole process becomes more class-bound and unequal as it is like throwing the whole class in the deep end, sink or swim. The children of the rich swim, the children of the poor, the lumpenproletariat, sink …
It would sound from my reading hereabouts that the common core tests use inappropriate set piece multiple choice questions or set single questions without appropriate alternatives (say, for city folk small town folk and country folk and those in mining settlements and small hamlets)? Perhaps a new set of common tests needs to be developed …
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With all funds for the arts drying up, NPR depends on the $$$ folks to exist, so the very people who are sponsoring the Common Core crap, and pushing to end public education are sponsoring NPR. They cannot be relied on for the truth, and if the listeners knew the collusion, and how the Common Core hurts public education, what a sham it is, they would be furious!
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If the spin on the record doesn’t sound right the first time you play it…try playing it backwards…this is all just more Gate’s spin. When my superintendent starts telling us public education is broken (which he did at a recent in service), I know they’ve gotten to everyone! So why not try some more spin to scoop up the rest of us in this charter/CCSS/VAM/Danielson/High stakes testing melee.
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The backwards version: “There’s a sucker born every minute, sucker!”
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