The Education Writers Association held a panel discussion on the future of the Common Core. The panel included strong advocates for the controversial standards but no equally strong critic.
Is EWA afraid of a genuine debate?
“DENVER, Colorado – The Common Core needs to avoid an internet catastrophe with its new tests for the country to embrace the new multi-state education standards, a panel of experts agreed Thursday,
“It will need to survive the release of low test scores in late summer, just as Republican Presidential debates begin.
“And it will have to overcome ongoing “misinformation” – as supporters call it – before the public will fully accept it.”
Very likely there was no discussion of the millions of dollars spent by the Gates Foundation to sell the standards. Some of those millions went to EWA panelists.
It would not have been difficult to find a credible critic, like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, Stephen Krashen, or other qualified voices.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder, did the EWA make a public attempt to invite credible critics like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, Stephen Krashen, or other qualified voices, and then publicly announce before the one-sided, biased panel discussion that the invitations were refused and the EWA couldn’t find one person to speak in defense of the transparent, non profit, democratic public schools versus the corporate reformers who support opaque, for profit, often fraudulent and inferior corporate Charters.
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Some great quotes from this event. Here is a passage from the linked article:
“Petrilli and Ricker, who agreed on several parts of the discussion, had very different views on the growing movement by parents to pull their kids out of testing – to “opt out.”
“Telling parents they should opt their kids out of state tests is like telling parents to opt their kids out of vaccines,” Petrilli said.”
I agree. Taking standardized tests is scientifically proven to prevent polio!
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They are really getting desperate with such hyperbole and hysterics. You know with language like that from Petrilli, the facade is cracking revealing a rotten Core.
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“.. . the facade is cracking revealing a rotten Core.”
Wilson already FRACKED the foundation of CCSS. See below for the reasons why.
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Did the “choice” advocates discuss this at the meeting?
“Unlike public schools, private and parochial schools can opt out of the end-of-course exams this year, which many have chosen to do.
However, private schools must administer the exams to students who attend on vouchers. George Jones, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus, said five of 11 area Catholic high schools have opted to test all students, while three will assess only voucher students. The others have not decided how to proceed.”
Can you imagine? Only the voucher students will have to take the Common Core tests.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/02/23/opting-out-of-state-tests-has-costs.html
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Some schools are more equal than others.
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This is not the first time that Petrilli has compared standardized testing to health care and vaccines. Here is a quote from his website at the Fordham Institute:
“I don’t want to end it because tests, as unpleasant as they are, do provide valuable information. I don’t love taking my kids for their annual physicals either—especially when they are due for shots—but I do it because I love them and want to make sure they are healthy and that their development is on track. That’s the same reason we test our kids every year—to make sure that they are academically healthy and that their educational development is on track. Importantly, we also want to know if their schools are healthy and on track.”
http://edexcellence.net/articles/stump-speech-contest-what-members-of-congress-should-say-about-testing
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Petrilli’s analogy is offensive to people who support vaccines. His comparison trivializes an important safeguard for children and equates it to a money making scheme for Silicon Valley.
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“annual testing” is not an honest debate, and they know it.
The biggest driver of testing in Ohio is the third grade reading guarantee and the teacher rankings. Both of those policies were pushed by ed reformers.
This ridiculous insistence that they are responsible for only one test is a lie. The Common Core ITSELF is two tests a year. They’re not even straight with people on that. Any ordinary person looking at the two sessions of CC testing would say “that’s two tests”.
Opt out is NOT ABOUT one test a year. That’s simply not true.
Common Core is two tests a year. Fact. They’ve already doubled their current claim that they seek “only” one test a year.
Who can trust people who spin and shade the truth like this? They can’t even tell the simple truth about the CC testing.
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Chalkbeat which has cookie cutter offices in Colorado, Tennessee, New York and Indiana along with Idaho Education News all present themselves as “independent education news”. One only has to search a bit to find their corporate sponsors are the list of “usual suspects” in the deform movement. Independent? Here’s what Anthony Cody had to say. http://www.livingindialogue.com/education-writers-association-independent-bloggers-need-apply/
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The Educational Writers Ass. has received more than two million dollars in grants/bribes from Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation. Perhaps that is why they did not invite Anthony Cody or Carol Burris to their Common Core Love In.
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David, a most informative post. EWA would not bite the hand that feeds it. All roads will not lead one back to Mecca, but rather to the usual suspect funding sources.
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I’m of an age when I remember when the national news used to provide equal time for differing political views. As a child I listened attentivly and find it increasingly difficult to tease the news from the stories spin doctors have put together.
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That’s because we used to have The Fairness Doctrine, but it was repealed under Reagan:
“When it comes to influencing public opinion, broadcasting has been the single most powerful force in American society since the turn of the 20th century, but especially since 1987.
Why 1987?
Because that’s the year American society lost accountability for one-sided opinions spread over the airwaves. More specifically, August 1987 is when American broadcasting lost The Fairness Doctrine, an FCC regulation that required owners of broadcast licenses to present both sides of controversial issues considered to be in the public interest.
Failure to comply risked a challenge to the owner’s license.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-graham-holm/bring-back-the-fairness-d_1_b_4775492.html
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Just who belongs to the EWA? What is an educational writer? Is one a textbook author, a critic of textbooks, a reporter of education news?
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It’s hard to find the answers. Here is something from ewa.org:
EWA Board of Directors Committee Structure 2014–2015
For all the listings below, committee chairpersons are listed first.
Steering Committee
Scott Elliott Elizabeth Green Cornelia Grumman Scott Jaschik Felice Nudelman
Includes officers of the organization and makes policies between board meetings, to be sanctioned by the full Board at the next board meeting.
Audit Committee
Scott Jaschik Felice Nudelman Christine Tebben
This committee is responsible for engaging an independent auditor and overseeing and reviewing the annual audit.
Digital Strategy Committee
Dakarai Aarons Greg Toppo
This committee oversees the development of digital resources and programming for members.
Board Nominating and Development Committee
Cornelia Grumman Scott Elliott Stephen Henderson Christine Tebben Scott Widmeyer
This committee handles the process for nominating board officers and reviews board composition to assure that the board is broadly representative of EWA’s current and potential membership. Makes recommendations of board candidates to the board president, who selects and appoints members.
Finance Committee
Felice Nudelman Cornelia Grumman Scott Jaschik Christine Tebben Scott Widmeyer
This committee works with staff to develop strategy and leads for raising revenue for the organization.
Membership and Marketing Committee
Dakarai Aarons Scott Elliott Elizabeth Green Stephen Henderson Greg Toppo
This committee advises on EWA’s membership strategy, as well as external marketing policy.
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So this is interesting as I have the same complaint about the only daily newspaper left in Seattle – the Seattle Times. They have run stories – about Common Core, about opting out of testing – and yet don’t tell the WHOLE story. It’s a glaring thing that anyone can notice. And the Times has an “education lab” blog and who funds it? The Gates Foundation.
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I’ve said this before on this blog, but it bears repeating. The state of education reporting in this country –– and that surely includes ‘The Educated Reporter,’ Emily Richmond’s blog for the Education Writers Association –– is abysmal. And, in the case of the EWA and ‘The Educated Reporter,’ it most certainly isn’t independent.
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Jo Ann Armao, the fact challenged education editor writer for the Washington Post, told teachers at a EWA conference that they were stupid and incompetent, in particular, for criticizing Michelle Rhee.
Also, late last year EWA decided they could no longer allow Anthony Cody and the like to be considered for any of their awards for writing about education.
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yea
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“And it included Mary Cathryn Ricker, executive vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, which backs the standards, but opposes many uses of new Common Core tests.”
Remember folks how important “having a seat at the table” is!!
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Duane, one ca’t restate that point too often. The AFT can ‘look’ like an ally, but it remains ever so hungry to sit at the table…and look the fool. A dangerous fool, undercutting the best interests of it’s members.
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Perhaps the gerbilists, oops I mean journalists, at EWA needs to read and understand what Noel Wilson has written about educational standards although that might tax their meager brains and one isn’t paid to read it, sooooo…… They can at least read this:
“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.
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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Teachers who can write: Please do so, and send out to news outlets, and keep doing it. And don’t get discouraged. You will mostly get nos, but the more who do it, the more they will start listening, and looking at other views. If all the English teachers in the country started a blitz, it would be noticed.
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I read some ed reformers on Twitter and it’s amusing how interested they all are in public schools during this brief Common Core testing season.
All of a sudden our schools are vitally important and doing a super-awesome job because our kids are involved in their national experiment.
People who spend their workday promoting charter schools 24/7 have discovered the schools 90% of kids attend, but only while our kids are testing.
Fair weather friends. They’ll be back to public school bashing as soon as these tests are in the can.
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EWA
Current Sustaining Funders (listed in alphabetical order)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (over $3 million)
Ford Foundation
Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
The Joyce Foundation
Lumina Foundation
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
Nellie Mae Education Foundation
Raikes Foundation
Spencer Foundation
The Wallace Foundation
The Walton Family Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
http://www.ewa.org/ewa-funders
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“Villainthropies”
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