Politico.com recently reported that a new group called “the Collaborative for Student Success” saw the recent election as vindication for the Common Core and evidence that there is no reason for Republican candidates to run away from the controversial standards.
But who or what is this organization?
Mercedes Schneider did her usual digging, and she found the usual suspects, funded by the usual foundations, the same ones who have been paid to beat the drums for Common Core.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One would think they’d spend less time and money hiring people to promote the Common Core politically and more time and money hiring people to make it a substantive success.
From the outside, just as a parent-observer, it seems like a very difficult thing to do well, particularly considering public schools in this state have 500 other ed reform mandates to put in at the same time. It just looks like a recipe for doing NONE of them well and carefully.
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That would require their seeing the CCSS as a political, policy, and pedagogical issue. Currently, the entire process has been treated mainly as a marketing issue. Worse, they seem to think they are marketing an iPhone when a lot of stakeholders think they are marketing New Coke. To listen to Michael Petrill sing the praises of EngageNY you would think he found religion, but many teachers think they’ve found a squashed bug after trying to use the materials.
Marketers tend to see everyone else as suckers.
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” that there is no reason for Republican candidates to run away from the controversial standards.”
Tens of millions of public school kids will be taking a brand new test based on brand new standards, no one has any idea how that will go for public schools, teachers and students, and the big concern is whether “Republican candidates” are frightened of their base.
Have to love how the high expectations only flow DOWN.
Careful coddling and coaxing of adult politicians but let’s throw the kids into the deep end of the pool and see who comes up for air!
I heard Jeb Bush whining about the Common Core yesterday. Poor baby! His base is mad at him!
It’s just incredible. WHO CARES whether the ed reform leadership survive their stupid primaries?
I don’t.
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Utah has yet to distribute the individual scores from last spring’s Common Core tests to the students and parents. Teachers can see the scores assigned to them (even if they never taught the student in math), but parents have not seen the scores. I wonder why?
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Rob Astorino, the Republican candidate for governor here in NY just received over 50,000 votes on his “Stop Common Core” ballot line. Before the folks at “Collaborative for Student Success” get too worked up about this CC vindication mirage, they need to be reminded that very few states have yet to feel full, blunt force trauma of failing test scores/failing schools. Just wait until the PARCC/SBAC train wreck hits the nation this spring.
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Lord Gates’s vassals know this; that’s why they have been trotting out the “go slowly on the tests” line lately; these tests are so badly conceived that they will lead to a policy meltdown of unprecedented proportions
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Off topic, but a truly outrageous read. Here is the USDOE’s take on NCLB waivers, which means. the full, four-pronged Common Core agenda:
Here’s what the department said in its release on new guidance for new NCLB waivers:
The last three years have seen a historic shift in the relationship between the federal government and states, with more than 40 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico receiving flexibility from the prescriptive, top-down requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This flexibility has allowed states and districts to develop creative solutions tailored to their individual cultures, with major benefits for all students, regardless of background. This is a shift away from simple compliance and toward creativity with high expectations.
The law has been due for reauthorization since 2007, but in the absence of reauthorization, the Obama Administration began to grant waivers from the law in 2012 for states that promised to adopt college- and career-ready standards and assessments; create accountability systems that target the lowest-performing schools and schools with the biggest achievement gaps; and develop and implement teacher and principal evaluation and support systems that take into account student growth—among multiple measures—and are used to help teachers and principals improve their practices.
These waivers expire at the end of the current school year, and the U.S. Department of Education is offering renewals to states that want to extend this flexibility and continue the progress they’ve seen in the last three years. The guidance for renewal requests can be found here. The Obama Administration remains committed to working with Congress toward a strong, bipartisan reauthorization of ESEA.
The link to the full article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/14/gops-kline-smacks-obama-over-nclb-waivers-says-administration-has-not-gotten-the-message-from-elections/
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Arne Duncan has the audacity to refer to the CC agenda as “flexibility” for states and local school districts. If he were Pinocchio, his nose would have left our solar system for these comments.
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NY Teacher, that is a wonderful metaphor. Belly laugh.
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Mercedes Schneider offers another “How It Works” analysis of the New Feudalism
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Lord Gates has been a busy fellow
Oh Leezie lass, you muan ken little maun: must; ken: see, understand
if you say that ye dinna ken me dinna: do not
For my name is Lord Ronald MacDonald,
a cheiftain of high degree
A thousand claymores I can muster, claymore: Scottish longsword
ilk blade and its bearer the same ilk: each
And when round their cheiftain they rally,
the gallant MacDonald’s my name.
–Eighteenth century Scottish ballad in the version by Robbie Burns
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cxs:
Lord Gates has been a busy fellow
Oh Leezie lass, you muan ken little
if you say that ye dinna ken me
For my name is Lord Ronald MacDonald,
a cheiftain of high degree
A thousand claymores I can muster,
ilk blade and its bearer the same
And when round their cheiftain they rally,
the gallant MacDonald’s my name.
–Eighteenth century Scottish ballad in the version by Robbie Burns
maun: must; ken: see, understand; dinna: do not; cheiftain: chieftain; claymore: Scottish longsword; ilk: each
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“. . . the single CFSS mission of selling CCSS.”
CFSS =
Country Fried Selling Sisters (yeah, that band hasn’t found a label yet)
Common F. . .head Silently Slobbering
Come For Stealthily Stealing
Cumbiya Friends Simply Sleeping
Help, help!! CFSS = CCSS?!?!? AYYYYYYYYYY I’m going down, down, down, down to hell with Acronymania.
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Now here’s an idea: If you want a pedagogical innovation, put it forward and let people judge it on its merits and adapt or adopt it or do something different and better for their own reasons. Or, we could legislate IDEAS here in “the land of the free.”
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Student “success” depends upon which yardstick is used to measure that success. Hitler and fascism use one yardstick. Democracy – in its best form – uses quite another. It seems that our politicians have forgotten that as mentioned in another blog answered today.
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Thank you Dr. Schneider,
Dr. Vail, superintendent of Miamisburg Schools in Ohio, wrote a column about Common Core, published in the Dayton Daily News, last week. There was no mention of the massive out-of-state funding to promote Common Core nor, Bill Gates involvement.
A superficial familiarity with copyright law, makes me question his blanket statement, “We have local authority and flexibility to set curriculum and instructional practices….”.
The column summary includes the statement, “Basically, (Common Core ) is essentially a national curriculum”.
I’ll send your article to Dr. Vail and one, clarifying copyright law as it pertains to Common Core. And, I’ll ask him about the apparent contradiction in his statements.
Thanks again. I see your work increasingly cited in national publications.
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