Carol Burris, veteran principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, Long Island, Néw York, retired this week, to the tears of students, parents, and staff. In this article, part of a blog debate at The Hechinger Report, she explains her negative view of Common Core.
She opposes the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, and she cites what is known as Campbell’s Law:
“When test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.”
VAM is so unreliable that the Hillsborough Teacher of the Year in 2014 received a negative rating!
The Common Core is an integral part of a failed national strategy, she writes:
“Now back to the Common Core. I am not sure what you mean when you say that I “personified” the standards and that I believe the Common Core is “the root of the problems we are facing in education.” The Common Core is but one part of a failed reform strategy. The Common Core, teacher evaluation using student tests scores, Common Core tests, the expansion of charter schools and other disruptive change strategies were pushed by the $4.35 billion competitive grant known as Race to the Top. All are presented as interconnected parts of a school improvement plan.”
Burris gives examples of algebra questions that were based on concepts in advanced classes; most students had not been taught the concepts.
In her own school, the failure of the standards and the tests were obvious:
“Only 48% of Rockville Centre first-time test takers achieved that score. That excludes students who previously took and failed the test—if they were included the percentage would be lower still.
“This year South Side High School had no dropouts and our four-year graduation rate was 98%. Should we conclude that only about half of the graduates of my high school are college-ready, and that in the future, only 48% should graduate based on the results of this test?
“Every other indicator contradicts that conclusion. Every year, over 70% of our graduates pass an International Baccalaureate exam in mathematics. When I checked last fall, 92% of our entire Class of 2012 was successfully enrolled in college two years after graduation. My summer survey of whether students were required to take remediation resulted in only a handful of students. All were either English language learners or students with disabilities.
“So, Jayne, what should I believe? The Common Core test results, which say over half of our students are not prepared for college, or over a decade’s worth of evidence that tells me nearly all of them are? I understand that my school is well-resourced with only a 16% poverty rate. But surely the juxtaposition of Common Core scores with my school’s longstanding track record of producing college-ready students indicates that there is something wrong with the Common Core standards as measured by Common Core-aligned tests. It is time we move beyond the rhetoric and critically question the assumptions on which these reforms rest.”
God bless Carol Burris! She puts the “reform” movement where it belongs – in the trash!
Wake up Arne Duncan, President Obama, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, et al. – South Side High School is the foil to your fake “reforms.” You all are destructive forces in American education, and your actions will put you in the historical hall of infamy.
Wow! I couldn’t agree more! We are the top rated school in Western New York State and we have a similar graduation rate and population. We are a tiny school with 1500 students and each year we get crushed with low state aid due to our “wealth ratio”! Most schools enjoyed a Gap elimination return of 60% but we received 37%. Now add that to the common core, teacher evaluation and testing and we are so very frustrated!! We too have a consistent, proven track record of success but facing a serious uphill battle. It is an ineffective distortion of real educational progress and it is unfair to both our students and our teachers!
Bravo!
The people who believe that the Common Core standards can be divorced from the test are simply fooling themselves.
Here’s what Common Core creator David Coleman said (in 2011)
“the great rule that I think is a statement of reality, though not a pretty one, which is teachers will teach towards the test. There is no force strong enough on this earth to prevent that. There is no amount of hand-waving, there‟s no amount of saying, “They teach to the standards, not the test; we don‟t do that here.” Whatever. The truth is – and if I misrepresent you, you are welcome to take the mic back. But the truth is teachers do. Tests exert an enormous effect on instructional practice, direct and indirect, and it‟s hence our obligation to make tests that are worthy of that kind of attention.’
Anyone who does not believe that Coleman actually said that (I probably would not believe it myself unless I had actually seen it), can watch this video (starting at 4:49)
Bill Gates, who completely underwrote development of Common Core, also said something very similar (in 2009) when he talked about the curriculum aligning with the tests:
“When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching” [presumably in the sense of the famous Twilight Zone episode “To serve man”]
People need to pay attention to what these folks have actually said because their own words put the lie to the most important claim made about Common Core by supporters: that it doesn’t drive curriculum and teaching.
Can we nominate Carol Burris NOW to be the new Secretary of Education in the cabinet of President Bernie Sanders?
Unless of course, Dr. Ravitch, is interested.
And predating Donald Campbell:
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” [Charles Goodhart]
Two points I have made in previous threads bear repeating here.
1), It is frequently the case that those arguing in favor of CCSS and its conjoined twin, high-stakes standardized testing, and in favor of corporate education reform in general, use the phrase “multiple measures” as if this is a magic wand that makes all objections disappear. Read Anthony Cody, THE EDUCATOR AND THE OLIGARCH (2014), on how “multiple measures” keep circling back to those assessment tools that predict high standardized test scores.
2), Carol Burris is quite right in arguing in favor of human judgement. As a very old and very dead and very Greek guy put it:
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.” [Plato]
And even if numbers are useful, you’ve got to use good judgment!
*As in: a charter school that loses 30% or 40% or 50% of its 9th grade cohort over four years but graduates those that it make it to the end of 12th grade—have a 100% graduation rate!
Not!*
😎
And predating that, the “observer effect” in science: any “observation’ (in this case “test”) impacts the thing being observed — and,as a general rule, the more invasive the “observation” , the greater the impact.
It’s actually very foolish to believe otherwise and as i indicated above, the people who created common core actually understand — and count on — the impact of tests very well. It’s a critical part of their overall plan.
As reformers fetishize over the micro-management of teachers and their lessons, combined with an irrational desire to weed out the lazy and incompetent, the most important and completely overlooked idea is as simple as it is true.
The WHOLE of a student’s K to 12 public school experience is much, much GREATER than the SUM of its PARTS.
The performance of your high achieving students reinforces a belief I have long held: if every private school student was forced to take the Common Core Algebra Regents in 9th or 8th grade I have no doubt a fair number of students would do very poorly. But because there is no real common test except the SATs, ACTs and AP exams, private school students’ math performance gets a pass. And now that so many private colleges are not requiring standardized exams at all, private school students never have their so-called “college-readiness” tested. It is assumed that if their parents can afford a private school tuition they are “ready” to enter a college where they can get their degree without needing a single math class. Meanwhile if you are a public school student who can only afford a public college, your “readiness” must be proven again and again. To the rich go the spoils.
People whose goal is about looting Public Education fund and Teachers’ Pension Fund will NOT have CONSCIENTIOUS MIND or LOGICAL HEARING in order to do good for society.
Hopefully, Dr. Burris’ wisdom and care for the well-being of Public Education will make sense to Davis Coleman, Corporations’ greed and fearful/submissive educators, so that they will be conscientious enough to stop harming Public Education.
The case of a well-known LA Teacher Rafe Esquith has evidently shown the fabrication facts from CORRUPTED Administrators at LAUSD where these corrupted souls try so hard to dig up dirt of the past 40 YEARS to defame thousand of excellent/devoted teachers. Most of all, these educational Administrative personnel intentionally disrupts the best learning environment for all unfortunate students.
Students, parents, and Teachers should pray God and unseen Angels who can penalize corrupted souls to suffer emotionally, physically, and mentally much more folds that of we suffer, so that they will surrender and stop doing harm to their subordinates. Back2basic
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