In an editorial that is remarkably uninformed, the Washington Post defends the Common Core, insists that it was created by the states, and asserts that the federal government “merely encouraged” states to adopt them.
None of this is factually accurate. The Common Core standards were written by a small group of Washington insiders, with the largest contingent coming from the testing industry. There were few classroom teachers on the writing committee. Early childhood educators were not at the table, nor were those familiar with children with disabilities or English language learners. The standards were written behind closed doors; their development was underwritten by the Gates Foundation. The federal government paid $360 million for two testing consortia to create Common Core-aligned tests. Most states adopted the standards in 2009 because the U.S. Department of Education dangled nearly $5 billion in Race to the Top funding, and states had to adopt “college-and-career-ready standards” to be eligible for a piece of that huge pie. The standards were not actually finished until 2010, meaning that most states adopted them without having read or reviewed them. They are copyrighted and cannot be revised. It is a basic principle of standard-setting that stakeholders must be represented at the table, that no single interest should dominate their creation (e.g., the Gates Foundation), and there should be a process for revision to correct errors. None of these criteria was met.
The editorial says:
“The pressure [against Common Core] is built on bogus premises. Common Core is not a federal takeover of education. States developed the standards, accepted them voluntarily and implement them with local flexibility. The federal government merely encouraged states to adopt them, as it should have. The standards also aren’t some conspiracy to force children to learn about climate change and evolution; they cover basics in language arts and math. Even so, Republicans in various states are trying to repeal them, in some cases successfully, or to at least defund implementation.”
“Liberal opposition to Common Core, meanwhile, is proving at least as harmful. Teachers unions have resisted the accountability that consistent and meaningful testing might bring, and they have used their own form of Common Core sabotage: Along with misguided anti-test activists, they have encouraged parents to refuse to let their children take exams meant to assess how well students are meeting Common Core expectations. They have succeeded in undermining educational standards in New York: Parents pulled an astonishing 20 percent of students grades 3 through 8 out of the tests last school year, upsetting efforts to track student progress.”
So the Washington Post puts itself in the position of opposing those–like the American Statistical Association–who challenge the validity of test-based accountability for individual teachers. It criticizes parents who object to their children losing weeks of instruction to test prep. It criticizes the opt-out movement, which has mobilized parents to say “no” to the misuse and overuse of standardized testing. And it fails to explain how the parents who opt out upset efforts to track student progress. And not a word about the Common Core tests with their absurd passing marks (cut scores), designed to fail the majority of children.
I am shocked that the Washington Post could be so misinformed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Doesn’t Jeff Bezos own WaPo these days? ‘Nuff said.
I have a book that WashPost should read. They can buy it from Bezos if they like:
http://www.amazon.com/Common-Core-Dilemma-Owns-Schools/dp/0807756490/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428766297&sr=1-1&keywords=common+core+dilemma+who+owns+our+schools
Not misinformed, just a paid advertisement. That’s what mainscam media are these days.
When it comes to the award for “Most Lies in One Editorial,” this one’s going to hard to beat.
I remember one education activist offered up a vivid description of his experience watching the school privatizers’ propaganda film “WAITING FOR SUPERMAN.” He said that, while watching it, the most blatant and easily refutable lies came at him so quickly, and with such rapidity, that he couldn’t mentally refute one before another one came at him … and another .. and another… and another…
“It was like driving the wrong way, down a one-way street full of cars, only instead of cars flying at me and then past me, there was a barrage of corporate reform lies. After a while, it just became dizzying.”
If only our teachers’ unions were fighting Common Core. We teachers have to fight for better union leadership instead.
Got that right. Mulgrew is a major cheerleader of the standards. As is Weingarten. It’s pathetic.
As is Eskelsen-Garcia.
You may have discussed this elsewhere, but I’ve only recently discovered your blogs, so I apologize if I should know this–but have you had a chance to talk to Bill Gates about Common Core and standardized testing? I would think with your expertise he would have sought you out at some point, since I think he is well-intentioned, even if his efforts are having unintended or negative consequences.
Dear Jeanette,
Thank you for writing. I have tried to talk to Bill Gates. I was in Seattle three times and tried to meet him. He was never available. I did meet with the president of the foundation (no longer there). He took me for a beautiful lunch. I asked why the foundation had given almost $400,000 to ALEC. He was shocked to hear it. I asked why they put so much emphasis on testing. He said they don’t. Etc.
Please disabuse yourself of the notion that Bill Gates is well-intentioned. He absolutely is not. Those consequences are not “unintended”.
Why would you be surprised when the owner is Jeff Bezos? He is another member of the Billionaire Boys Club and he wants to privatize public schools like the others so he can make more money and destroy all unions. Look at how he is treating his own workers as reported in the news tonight. Upper middle class parents need to get their act together soon or many of them may not like the NEW SCHOOLS created by these Billionaire Boys. Why are people not challenging the patriotism of these Billionaires? Pay taxes at a lower rate than most taxpayers, if they pay at all and pay for politicians and lobbyists to create laws favoring themselves and working with nations like China to transfer jobs to cut costs even though some of these nations have anti-democratic laws and policies like the freedom to practice any religion which is totally prohibited in China. This is what happens in a nation when a handful of Billionaires own the Media. Is this how it started in Germany?
And if Mr. Trump wins the presidential election, the USA will be the modern Germany of 1937.
Good points. Economist Dean Baker points out that Amazon couldn’t exist in its current form except that it hasn’t been required to collect sales tax in the same way that brick-and-mortar retailers are. The company is subsidized by government policies that allow the company to undercut the competition:
“While the willingness of investors to pay large amounts of money for the stock of a company that makes little or no profit has been important to Amazon’s success, it is also worth noting that through most of its existence it has been exempt from the requirement that it collect sales tax, unlike its traditional competitors. This has allowed it to undercut them in the market giving the company an enormous competitive advantage courtesy of the taxpayers. The savings from not having to collect sales taxes dwarf Amazon’s cumulative profits since it came into existence.”
Baker posted an addendum that clarifies and re-emphasizes the point that Amazon and Bezos have received what amounts to billions in corporate welfare:
“Having read through the comments here, I will make a couple of quick points.
“1) Don’t waste anyone’s time or kill any electrons talking about customers being obligated to pay the tax. This is a blog about the real world. No one sends their sales tax to the government for the things they bought on Amazon. What matters is the law as it’s enforced, and that means that Amazon’s brick and mortar competitors (which includes many Internet sellers) had to collect state sales tax all along. Amazon has just recently started collecting taxes in some states.
“2) Not having to collect sales tax is a huge subsidy to Amazon. (Yes, it is a subsidy. States and cities collect revenue — if Bezos gets out of paying it, then everyone else pays more. It is the same thing as if the governments sent Jeff Bezos a big fat welfare check every year.) And it mattered a huge amount to Amazon’s growth and survival. If it thought it could have raised prices by 4-8 percent (the amount of state sales tax) without hitting its market share, it would have done so. The fact that the company has generally operated with near zero profits indicates that collecting sales tax would have been a very big hit.”
http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/amazons-tax-breaks-are-essential-to-its-survival
“Oct. 1, 2014 1:47 p.m. Wall Street Journal
Amazon.com today begins collecting sales tax from purchasers in Minnesota and Maryland, marking the 22nd and 23rd states where the online retailer assesses the levy.
With the new states, about 69% of Americans—nearly 219 million people—will be subject to tax on their Amazon purchases.”
Raj:
The Dean Baker quotation is from May 29, 2014, when the loopholes were still open. My tax preparer has had me voluntarily paying my Amazon sales tax for a couple of years. Just recently the company started billing me on each purchase. Here’s Baker’s latest comment on the topic, dated August 22, 2015:
“It is also important to note the big handout that Amazon has relied upon from taxpayers. Amazon has not had to collect sales tax in most states for most of its existence, giving the company an enormous subsidy in its competition with brick and mortar competitors. The cumulative size of this subsidy almost certainly exceeds its cumulative profits in the years that it has been in existence. Any discussion of Bezos success should mention this huge subsidy from the government.”
Twenty years after the horse got out, the barn door is finally closing. The Borders I used to visit is now a Binny’s Beverage Depot.
We live in a “sick” nation fueled by ego maniacs with $$$$$ and little if any morality.
To me, the best line by far: “resisted the accountability that consistent and meaningful testing might bring.” Good God! Cry me a river, reformers. I can only imagine all that “meaningful and consistent testing” your kids must be taking. We are really missing out.
This is the end of the lead paragraph:
“I’m for higher standards, state-created, locally implemented, where the federal government has no role in the creation of standards, content or curriculum.” In other words, he’s for Common Core.
Jeb is quoted, but look at that description of Common Core code. What a bunch of lies by both Jeb and the editorial board. Right up front. What a wild mischaracterization as well.
I believe that 17 out of the 24 positions filled to write the CCSS were occupied by k to 12 teachers back in 2009, BUT all but one of those teachers had not been teaching for 9 to 15 years . . . .
I could swear reading this from Mercedes’s stats.
If they had not been in a classroom for nearly a decade then they were not teaxhers. They were former teachers, at best.
I agree.
I’ll have to do my homework on this but as I remember it, the majority of actual K-12 teachers involved in the creation of CCSS were part of the second tier or “review” committee. They were asked to provide insight and give recommendations on what had already been written and, from what I read, rarely if ever heard back/received feedback regarding their comments. They lwere placed there to add “legitimacy” to the project.
Two of the concepts I kept hearing during the initial roll out were the famous “building the airplane in midflight” campaign and that members of the current system (teachers, child psychologists, admins) posed an impediment to creating the massive changes that were deemed “necessary” by the reformers.
Am I wrong?
The five main authors were all professors and/or testing corporation people.
Most of Post editorials on education are written by Joanne Armao. In 2011 I met her at an event for the Education Writers Association co-sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of NY, to which about a dozen education bloggers had been invited to participate by the then ombudsman of the organization, Linda Perlstein. When I mentioned that Valerie Strauss had put up several of my pieces, Armao was very blunt, telling me that there were those of them at the Post who thought that Valerie was very wrong on education. That may tell you all you need to know
Ken, as you know, Joanne Armao at the Post adored Rhee and defended her to the end.
You’re right Ken, It’s Joanne Armao’s work. Some here are attributing this to Jeff Bezos, but as you know this kind of editorializing about education has been going on for a long time at the Washington Post, long before Jeff bought it. If you look up Joanne’s background, she has no experience in education at all. People, myself included, have been writing letters to the editor and comments on their blogs for years about her and the Post editorials, but she keep writing crap like this.
Maybe parents should REFUSE to buy from Amazon.com, too!
First the NYT and then athe Post. Someone is calling for major pushback against the rising tide of reform resistance. Good! The sooner it comes to a head the sooner we can fight this war openly.
Chris in Florida,
Do you remember how the major newspapers across the country published editorials in fall 2008 urging Obama not to appoint Linda Darling-Hammond but to choose “a real reformer,” like Arne Duncan. Coincidence?
I agree Diane. Someone is putting the word out to newspaper editors to maintain the party line.
Something similar to all the major newspapers calling for illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan back in the early 00s. Remember those “weapons of mass destruction” and that formerly if not still at the time on the CIA payroll terrorist “leader” Bin Laden??
Why is anybody shocked by this?????!!!! Really!!
Like the NYTImes last week, we are somehow shocked that deeply establishment, neo-liberal, corporate-perspective papers back common core and oppose its opposition? Come on!!
The shocking thing is that we are shocked!
Can we please buck up a little and try real hard to bring our collective A game to this fight….and that means starting get in front of things and assume that nobody on the other side is going to have a change of heart because our side has all the facts and better arguments. This isn’t a debate-team style fight. That we are right on every level hardly matters and it won’t. We need to start to put up a resilient, informed, sophisticated, and aggressive fight.
No more shock please. This is what it feels like to LOSE and be right at the same time. No shock required.
I think offense is sometimes the best defense. That’s why the Lederman case is so important. While I am not a litigious person, sometimes you have to take a stand and fight back. That is what the union should be doing. Frankly, I think we need to examine all the issues related to the CCSS, testing, VAM and charter funding and file lawsuits where there are grounds. Maybe a Go Fund Me project such as Justice for Public Education could be launched to help pay for it.
There is the Education Law Center. Reach out to them.
Diane,
Thanks for the tip on the ELC.
I have contacted them concerning what I consider to be one of the most important civil rights issue of our time-discrimination against/of students through innate mental abilities/capabilities that occurs in the sorting and separating process that is standardized testing. I contend that those innate mental abilities/capabilities should be considered in the same category as other innate characteristics such as race and gender and for the state (public schools) to discriminate against a student due to his/her innate mental makeup is wrong. The key now is how to figure out how it is/should be illegal for such discrimination to exist.
As always a big thanks for all you do on a daily basis!
Duane
Shocked in New Jersey!
Being from NJ, we are use to Politicians’ lies but when editorials are outright lies that is another story.
It is acceptable to have a view different than yours but you are still expected to support your stance with truths not lies!
I don’t have much sympathy for a group of people who created and then installed a huge standards program in thousands of public schools with no public debate and are now angry that 1. the public is insisting on a debate, 2. they aren’t controlling the debate.
Oh, well. That’s the price they pay for deliberately and carefully excluding “the public” from public schools. I don’t think they’ve learned anything, either. Two weeks after the state of Ohio had to dump their Common Core testing contractor to appease public school parents, the state of Ohio pushed a law thru literally in the middle of the night to take over 5% of public schools with no public debate.
On the subject of Jeb Bush’s education policies, this is a great local piece on how Bush’s foundation gained, and then lost, influence in Maine:
“At the height of its influence in Maine in 2012 and early 2013, the foundation shaped large portions of LePage’s education agenda, including the successful introduction of virtual charter schools and the “A-F” grading of public schools.
The collapse was sudden.
Emails and other documents acquired through a public records request show close, constant contact and collaboration between Bush’s foundation and senior Education Department officials right into August 2013, when two events appear to have weakened their bond.”
It seems all you need is one strategically placed independent agent in government to break the lobbyist stranglehold, and get some sunshine in there.
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/16/education-agenda-in-maine-shifts-abruptly-and-ties-to-bush-model-go-cold/
Diane,
In your entire last paragraph summary, you never once mention anything about the actual standards. iMO, you underscore that the pushback has nothing to do with the standards themselves.
It’s all about the assessments and accountability.
It’s all politics.
I can’t speak for all parents, but why would people isolate the standards from the testing? Actually the only part of this that parents see is the testing.
The two things were coupled, deliberately and carefully. Insisting that the standards are not the tests is true, but why does it matter to ordinary people? One comes with the other. They are linked.
Are there a group of ed reformers who offer the standards without the testing as a practical matter? This insistence on what amounts to a legalistic and abstract point may garner debate points, but why would it matter to actual parents and children in existing public schools?
Common Core standards = Common Core tests. Is there a state where that is NOT true?
John,
If the standards stood alone, without the tests; if the standards could me revised to be developmentally appropriate for young children, then they would not be controversial. Unfortunately, the standards come as a package, with testing and teacher evaluation. They can’t be revised. They are thoroughly political.
Diane,
Yes, there is currently no process for the CCSS themselves to be modified (a mistake IMO), but AFAIK, states have made changes to them in their implementations and called the “common core-aligned”, true?
That’s true in NY, but it hasn’t kept them from being controversial. I’ll be blunt. IMO, they are controversial because:
1. Teachers don’t like APPR and APPR depends on the tests, so teachers are against state assessments (in ways that they never were before).
2. Many schools and teachers have overemphasized the tests because of #1 and because of school accountability that has nothing to do with CCSS.
3. Parents are confused by their kids’ homework and are susceptible to suggestion that the standards are defective, and dislike the overemphasis on tests where it’s happening.
4. Politicians see opportunity in 1-3, hence lots of flipflopping as the political winds blow.
5. *some* legitimate criticism about the suitability of the standards in some situations.
6. Backlash about how they were created and how RTTT was used to coerce states to adopt them.
As an experienced teacher of kids with special needs, I had developed extremely effective remedial reading and math programs that were easily adaptable for any particular kids’ individual needs. They worked well and my admins were happy with that.
These programs were both aligned with the NY State standards, btw, which were pretty good, too. Not the best for Special Ed but we were allowed to adapt them according to our needs.
Bloomberg and then the CCSS came along and that was the end of all that. All the schools were given one math and one reading program. General and Special Ed. Same.
We objected. Our admins were under extreme pressure. My AP saw me using my own reading program one day. She took me aside during my next prep and told me that if she saw me using either of my programs again, she would take all those workbooks and textbooks and “personally burn them”.
We had good standards to begin with John. And they were subject to peer and public review and allowed to be changed. No copyrights. The CCSS were a MASSIVE change, hastily written by amateurs and forced upon us both on a local and federal level. The reasoning for this “need” has been debated and, in my opinion and that of many others, been thoroughly debunked. This is about Bill Gates and a handful of other extremely wealthy people trying to push their considerable weight around. If their intentions are “good” (another debate able point), then this phrase might ring true:
“The road to ruin is paved with good intentions.”
Standards are the basis for the tests. I have no problem with accountability. I just do not need non-educators telling me how to do my job. Plus, too many Reformers and their minions confuse accountability with a perverse form of retribution towards educators. Look at Kasich, Walker, Campbell Brown, on and on.
As often as you comment here, I hope you read what others are writing. There have been many, many detailed critiques of the standards, especially for the early grades. Diane mentions how the standards are tied to the tests – that’s because no one would use the standards if they weren’t forced to by the tests. If the standards were as deliriously wonderful as their proponents make them out to be, there would be no need to enforce them with tests – teachers would be stumbling over themselves to use them.
Dienne,
Yes, I read everything written by others.
The tests are terrible, but that isn’t because of the standards, it’s because they are poorly written. They were before CCSS and still are.
Most teachers that I talk to actually like the standards in general. They dislike the tests. Seems we should be focusing on poorly written tests instead of CCSS in general.
John,
The tests are aligned with the standards. The standards were intended to be part of a completely integrated, aligned system: standards, curriculum, tests, textbooks, teacher evaluation. The MOU signed by governors says that standards may not be revised in any way. The best way to save the standards is to get rid of the tests.
John, the tests had flaws, but not to the degree of Common Core — at least in NY State. And an artificial cut score was not imposed that forced teachers to spend inordinate amounts of time teaching 8 year olds how to choose among two semi-plausible answers to an ambiguous question. The notion that so many 8 year olds who are able to read, write and do math are “below standards” because their elementary school teacher hasn’t taught them a skill that will harm them in the long run? To forget their own ability to reason logically and “think like a test maker” even if the “right” answer isn’t really correct? That’s an excellent way to undermine public schools and make sure even the smartest students will have to unlearn those “test-taking techniques” in order to do well on the far better-designed standardized tests that private school students also take. No wonder all the folks who send their kids to private schools are cheerleading for the exam and appalled that public school parents are fooled into thinking that is how their child should be educated.
Until private schools all opt in to this exam because they believe it is meaningful, the exam will continue to be poorly designed with a cut score that shows huge numbers of students aren’t learning.
Again, John, I’m not just talking about the tests. Multiple posts and comments on these forums have discussed flaws with the standards themselves irrespective of the tests. Spanish & French Freelancer below mentions Bob Shepherd – he has dissected specific standards in minute detail. Other writers have looked at the standards as a whole, particularly for the lower grades. Yes, the tests are flawed. But even without the tests, the standards are hardly worth the paper they’re printed on (or the bandwidth they take up).
Diane wrote:
“The best way to save the standards is to get rid of the tests.”
NO! There is no need to “save the standards” as the concept of educational standards has been shown by Noel Wilson to be a false, invalid mechanism to improve/better the teaching and learning process.
The correct/better/best term and mechanism to use is curriculum. The curriculum should be the guide for all that the teacher does in the classroom. And that curriculum should be made, implemented, revised as needed by those who will be using said curriculum in the classroom, in other words, the teachers.
Standards be damned!!
John, there are a number of excellent posts by Bob (Dr Robert) Shephers at this blog, regarding overall concept problems with the CCSS-ELA, buttressed with specifics.
Sorry, Shepherd
John,
You had to know this would be forthcoming from me-ha ha!
Yes, it is “the standards” that are the problem!
From the gitgo, the foundational concepts, educational standards have serious, fatal flaws in the assumptions, epistemology and ontology and making, using and the accompanying standardized tests that render the whole process COMPLETELY INVALID.
Yep, guess what you should read to understand why? None other than Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
When you have read and understood what Wilson has proven about the complete invalidity of the concept of educational standards, please get back to me with any rebuttal/refutation. I’m all eyes and ears.
Lest you think I’m totally bonkers, John, I do believe in having a pedagogically sound curriculum in place as a guide for what the teacher does in a subject/grade level. And yes, that curriculum should be viewed as part of the “whole” curriculum involving all the grades and or classes in a particular subject. I’m not in favor of willy-nilly teacher does whatever he/she wants. I think by now we can figure out a logically consistent curriculum for all grades/subjects that has goals, objectives, suggested activities, etc. . . with no need for false concepts such are “educational standards”. There is no logical reason to include false concepts in our curriculum.
“5. *some* legitimate criticism about the suitability of the standards in some situations.”
There is no suitability for using the false and invalid concept of educational standards in any situation. It’s that simple, John.
Lest any not remember what Wilson has proven in his never refuted nor rebutted treatise here’s my summary and comments about it:
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 words 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.
Survey: Common Core support dropping nationwide
http://theadvocate.com/sports/saints/13201302-65/national-support-for-common-core
The national survey shows that disenchantment with the new benchmarks in reading, writing and math among teachers is a key reason for the slippage nationwide.
Quote from The Advocate’s article
But testing and evals have gotta be a big part of it!
How in the world did this country survive before those magical standards and testing to “measure” students and teachers. I guess we got incredibly lucky to have survived without them, eh!
Duane,
Apparently you don’t realize we are a failed state. A third-world country. Without CC, we are doomed.
On the ever-tighter connection between government and various industry actors, I bring you yet another former Obama Administration who is now working for the private sector in a high-profile public relations position:
“we turn now to Amazon senior VP of global corporate affairs, Jay Carney, a former White House Press Secretary”
No wonder people are cynical. They have every right to be cynical. They would be crazy NOT to be cynical.
Uber, McDonalds and now Amazon are ALL publicly represented by former Obama Administration officials. I mean, come on. What are we supposed to think? Obviously these people are hired because of their connections to lawmakers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jay-carney-defends-amazon-this-is-an-incredibly-compelling-place-to-work-2015-8
“On the ever-tighter connection between government and various industry actors,”
Hhhmmmm, you mean fascism?
John Kasich supports the Common Core standards and testing, because there is no ed reform that John Kasich doesn’t support and each and every “reform” that comes down the pike is haphazardly and carelessly thrown at existing Ohio public schools. He’s a consistent rubber stamp- I’ll give him that. Of course, as in is the case with many ed reformers, his children don’t attend our public schools so they miss out on a lot of the exciting chaos and incoherence he subjects our kids to.
I’m curious why he’s so rarely mentioned as a supporter. I hope they’re not protecting him politically.
Kasich was against the standards before he was for them, and then against them, …
The New John is waffling and maneuvering to try and make the GOP cut. With a personal BFF line to St. Peter, who knows? Maybe he’ll win New Hampshire by Divine Intervention? Of course, the rest of us Mundanes do not hear the same message and just have to take Kasich at his latest word. But he is a misanthrope that threatened to “break the backs” of teachers in his first campaign and pushed the draconian Senate Bill 5, which was defeated by voters. But the GOP ignored democracy and put SB5 in a budget bill, anyways. Kasich won the last election with only 25% of voters against a weak candidate smeared in the media over a driver’s license. Kasich needs that local media protection and handlers to hide his true nature. If they are hiding his support, we do not hear it. The national media hasn’t given Kasich much attention other that a cursory look.
Just watching him and his administration here I cannot imagine a governor who is less interested in public schools. Outside of testing, scolding and cutting funding, his entire focus has been charter and private schools.
It’s outrageous that 90% of the kids in this state attend public schools and 0% of the state (political appointee) employees are working for them. How do they “improve” public schools when they never valued public schools in the first place? The recklessness and complete disregard for how these experiments affect actual kids and existing public schools is an indication of how little our schools and kids are valued. People don’t take these kinds of risks with things they value.
This is what we’re up against. Propaganda from the mainstream media. Brought to you by the billionaires who are enjoying the oligarchy that they’ve created.
And the most valid criticism, as evidenced by every family with kids having to endure these assessments is this: the tremendous test anxiety which the kids go through. Funny, no mention of the kids!
I just hope this philosophical divide doesn’t affect Valerie Strauss the way it did Michael Winerip over at the Times.
With Bezos as owner of Washington Post, Valerie’s column is an anomaly
It is only as matter if time before the WP throws Vakerie out.
This is the Ohio Department of Education Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/oheducation
95% of it is testing. Tell me again how the standards are different than testing. Great point! One debate point for the Common Core promoters!
Too bad this distinction doesn’t make a bit of difference in practice on the ground. The testing already ate the standards, because testing consumes everything, always, and ed reformers don’t do one thing to stop it.
I am shocked that you are shocked, Diane.
Mitchell,
The day I lose my capacity for being shocked is the day I stop writing.
I’m shocked that everyone else is shocked that still others are shocked!
Hey, just replace the ed editorial sections of all newspapers with portions of the transcript of ‘Waiting for Superman’!
“I am shocked that the Washington Post could be so misinformed. “
The Washington Post editorial on the Common Core is recycling propaganda, joining other media desperate to save the Common Core. That anxiety is evident in the shrillness of the blame game and the outrageous claims. The editors should focus on the massive investments in “messaging” about the Common Core and idea that public schools should do nothing more than college and career prep, with everything other than English and math a side show.
Recent lies, misrepresentations, fabrications about the Common Core—have been guided by the original perpetrators—The Council of Chief State School Officers and National Governor’s Association, Achieve, Inc. aided by content in public relations campaigns dating from 2007 (the college and career meme) and up-scaled in late 2012 amid growing criticism of the Common Core (CC).
You can find some of the same kind of boilerplate used in the Washington Post editorial circulating far and wide. The talking points have been honed by high end public relations firms like Education First. Education First is one of the firms churning out PR for the “Common Core Funders Working Group” philanthropies that want to see the CC and tests based on them hardwired into public schools well into the future (See the client list for Education First here http://www.education-first.com/our-clients ).
Since early 2013, the equivalent of a super-pac has been created through back scratching relationships among the Common Core Funders Working Group (CCFWG) and a vast network of “education-friendly” foundations. These foundations are being enlisted to frame “positive” messaging for the Common Core, including a revisionist history and characterization of the CC.
The messaging campaign has several aims. One of the first is is to nudge foundations to shore up ”good will” for the CC and emphasize the importance of keeping CC-aligned testing in place . The second aim is to suggest that foundations use their wealth to audit CC implementation in schools, districts, and states.
In this PR campaign, there is no reluctance to say that the talent in foundations, and (the talent foundations can muster), is far better and greater than can be found in public schools where hapless educators are ” overwhelmed,” “confused” and “worried” about the CC in addition to being victims of vendors selling “CC-aligned” instructional materials that are NOT aligned with “fidelity.” (Fidelity is a key word in the rhetoric about implementation issues).
“The Common Core Funders Working Group” (CCFWG) is weirdly apt in name. It betrays the truth without intending to: Key members of CCFWG actually paid for launching this whole CC initiative. It is by now well-known the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has poured millions into the launch, the marketing, and now the reinvention of narratives about the history and “promise” of the CC and tests. Other leaders of the CCFWG are the GE Foundation, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.
The CCFWG was preceded by the Education Funder Strategy Group founded in 2009 before the CC were published. Among its priorities: “implementing the Common Core state standards, including professional development and supports such as aligned assessments and learning tools.” This strategy group of 30 foundations functioned as an early lobby for the CC initiative, holding quarterly meetings in DC with top policy makers, promoting “ideas on reform priorities,” with “monthly conference calls to discuss federal education policy initiatives” including implementation of college and career state standards and new models of learning.”
In December 2012, the mounting criticism of the CC led to the founding of the CCFWG with the major purpose of shoring up the whole CC initiative through a coordinated messaging campaign.
Here is a small sample of the misrepresentation and the “pitch” for the CC.
“Announced in 2009 and voluntarily adopted by many states, the Common Core State Standards offer a new blueprint for what students in virtually every corner of the country will learn in English language arts and literacy as well as mathematics.
The Common Core—with a reorder¬ing of instructional priorities in the key subject areas—represents a fundamental shift in American public education. States and local school systems are work¬ing overtime to implement the new stan¬dards. Meanwhile, advocates and critics are engaged in spirited discourse over whether the standards can effectively drive improvement in K-12 education.”…
“Although the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards has been hailed as a major milestone in American education, the real work has just begun as educators focus on successful implementation and helping students achieve the standards.”
“The Common Core aspires to ensure students have the skills and knowledge to succeed in college and the work¬force. They emphasize problem solving, analysis, writing, and critical thinking. They are internationally benchmarked and address what employers and univer¬sities say high school graduates need for success. Thousands of educators con¬tributed to their development, and they represent a mainstream consensus for student learning in the 21st century.“
“Studies of high-performing education systems have shown that most, if not all, have high standards against which they measure progress. But adopting higher standards is just the first step in a series of coordinated efforts to enhance student learning. The standards specify the out¬comes we seek for students—elevating the goals toward which our education systems are striving—but they do not provide the means to reach those goals. In order to improve student outcomes, the new standards must be translated into practice and carefully synchronized with many related reforms, such as higher-quality assessments and new educator performance evaluation systems.”
The pitch is much longer, but the claims in these paragraphs seriously misrepresent the CC initiative, in addition to forwarding outright lies.
So what does the CCFWG hope to accomplish? Initially, they set a modest agenda: They offered “two high-leverage opportunities for funders to impact the ground game for the Common Core in their communities: supporting quality implementation of the new standards and building and maintaining public will.“
I think the really big agenda is steering as many foundations as possible to function much like Arne Duncan’s strong arm did, leveraging money “to support changes in public education—— from grants to schools and districts to support of nonprofit technical assistance efforts to advocacy campaigns——the scope and sweep of the Common Core State Standards will (should) impact grant making strategies.”
The leaders of the “Common Core Funders Working Group” have enlisted over 215 foundations to help in their effort to keep “on message” so that the Common Core in implemented with “with fidelity,” “precision,” and according to a “systems plan” suggested by an expert at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. (The sysems plan is not unlike those used in engineering projects to coordinate all parts of the project for on-time delivery).
Among others engaged in the same messaging campaign are 25 philanthropies and groups known as “Fordham Institute Partners;” 35 philanthropies in the Education Funder Strategy Group; 14 philanthropies in the Growth Partnership Networks, 228 members of the Education Funders group, and over 220 others who have joined the CCFWG. (My spreadsheet is groaning with this information.)
Gates wants to control messaging abut the Common Core because it is one of his major investments. The CCwith tests initiative is so draconian it enlarges the failure rate in public schools. This failue is planned to enlarge the market for “alternatives.” Gates is huge funder of charters and carter authorizers, management companies and anything bearing on technology and data gathering on education.
In addition to direct grants with a paper trail, Gates and other philanthropies also send money to surrogates. One of these, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, arranged for an early Gates-funded propaganda campaign to stoke up (another) “crisis” in K-12 education. That started in February 2007, with $1,058,313 “to establish a national public awareness campaign about the crisis in American schools;” followed in July by another $5,283,589; then another $9,958,245 in March 2008 ”to support a nonpartisan public awareness campaign aimed at elevating education through a vigorous and detailed discussion of the issue.” Who got all of that money is not a matter of public record.
There are other organizations that launder money for philanthropies. One is the New Venture Fund. More than half of the 50 largest US grant making foundations have projects hosted at NVF, including 8 of the top 10. In April 2012, Gates sent NVF $6,500,000 “to foster change in communications and media through strategic philanthropy and innovative projects; in October 2013, $3,213,686; ”to support Common Core implementation” with another $12,250,300 in May 2014 for the same vague purpose. The contractors who do these campaigns are in a black box, hence the label”dark money.”
The Common Core Funders Working Group, with the help of comprehensive public relations services, continues to work on dominating media reports about the Common Core, They are also steering grant-makers to publications, webinars, conferences, power points, testimonials, and the whole nine yards from the original pitches for the Comon Core published by Achieve, Students First, the CCSSO, and so on. More than you wanted to know at http://www.edfunders.org/common-core
Thanks to Mercedes Schneider who launched me on some of this work in addition to the most meticulous history of key players in launching the CC iniative.
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/…/a-funders-guide-to-the-common-core- state-standards/
Bill Gates is about as well-intentioned as a cobra who has gently slithered around your neck.
The Washington Post article made steam come out of my ears. So angry.
Sigh. Big, big sigh.
The Washington Post’s editorial page editors is Fred Hiatt. Hiatt has demonstrated, again and again, that he has little familiarity with facts and the truth.
Under Hiatt’s so-called “leadership,” The Post editorialized continually (more than two dozen times) for war in Iraq from late 2002 through early 2003. And even though there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – as reporter Walter Pincus of The Post and others pointed out numerous times – and Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, and Iraq had no ties to al-Qaeda, Hiatt would not admit that he was wrong about the war, maintaining in 2007 that “The decision was right.” Oh boy!
Every so often, Hiatt extends his fantasy to opining on education, but he usually leaves that to Post editorial writer and ostrich-in-chief Jo-Ann Armao. Armao too has a fleeting grasp of accuracy and honesty.
Armao pushed Waiting for Superman (rabidly), yet it was taken apart by critics and researchers who noted its very selective editing, its oversimplification(s) of education problems, its gross mischaracterization of the effectiveness of charter schools, and its sloppy research. Armao has consistently touted more standardized testing, more charter schools, and merit pay for teachers. Solid research has undermined them all, but you’d not know it from reading Armao’s screeds.
Jo-Ann Armao showered praise on Michelle Rhee as DC schools chancellor, and scolded Rhee’s critics, even when it increasingly appeared that the Rhee “miracle” was a mirage.
A USA Today investigation into cheating in the DC schools under Rhee found that for a school to be “flagged” for possible cheating a “classroom had to have so many wrong-to-right erasures that the average for each student was 4 standard deviations higher than the average for all D.C. students in that grade on that test, meaning that “a classroom corrected its answers so much more often than the rest of the district that it could have occurred roughly one in 30,000 times by chance.” The classrooms in the DC schools “corrected answers much more often.”
When half of all the schools in the system are flagged for grossly abnormal wrong-to-right erasures on tests and “the odds are better for winning the Powerball grand prize than having that many erasures by chance,” then it’s it’s almost certain that more than just “some cheating” took place.
Yet, in a fit of obtuseness, The Post (Armao) opined that “there are many innocent explanations for changed answers.” Worse, The Post told the public, inaccurately, that Rhee and her cronies “were cleared by an outside firm.” None of it was true.
Jo-Ann Armao has written a whole series of education editorials that are, to be kind, not worth the paper on which they are printed. If Fred Hiatt had to disavow everything erroneous that gets printed on The Post editorial and op-ed pages, he’d likely never sleep a wink in his life again.
There was a time when The Post was well-respected for its opinions, and for the quality of the writing and thinking on its op-ed pages. Occasionally, a glimmer of that past resurfaces, but it’s usually obscured quickly.
Here is Vermontâs take
Oops Forgot to send link
http://education.vermont.gov/news/field-memos/2015/august/12#Understanding Why We Test
This is result of new ownership. Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
“The use of high stakes testing and VAM to evaluate teachers is having this same Amazonian effect on the education workplace. People are quitting in droves after trying their best to succeed in this newly cutthroat world being created in schools. The difference is that because of these very actions and other factors, education is not drawing enough new young teachers dedicated to a lifetime of teaching. Where collaboration was once Queen, it seems competition has become King, especially in States run by Tyrants and maybe even friends of Amazon Emperor, Jeff Bezos.
What else has Bezos been up to regarding Education policy? Alternet reports:
“Bezos gave $100,000 to support charter schools in a 2004 referendum. Supporters raised more than ever before, mostly from a handful of wealthy individuals, and had a 10:1 financial edge.”
“Bezos’s mother and stepfather gave a total of $1 million in 2012 in support of a pro-charter education initiative that narrowly passed. The measure will allow up to 40 charter schools to open in Washington State during the next five years. Supporters raised more than ever before, mostly from a handful of wealthy individuals, and had a 10:1 financial edge.”
“Meanwhile, None of Amazon’s 90,000 American workers are unionized.”
Is this the future?
Finally, “Bezos has turned his eye to the latest cause célèbre for the capitalist class: school privatization. The 2011 financial disclosures for the Bezos Family Foundation reveal a $15,000 donation to New York City-based Education Reform Now, a group founded primarily by finance industry titans that advocates for charter schools.”
“There are also significant contributions directly to various charter schools, school privatization groups in Oregon and Washington State, and hundreds of thousands of dollars logged in support of Teach For America, which in recent years has made advocacy for charter schools and high-stakes testing a core part of its mission.”
Now he owns The Washington Post. Will Valarie Strauss still have her job?
Is this the future?”
https://dcgmentor.wordpress.com/2015/08/
and the WP Valerie Strauss, who made your heir, Carol Burris? After Watergate the WP became a tool of the Fortune 500.
They are not alone. ThinkProgress is similarly misinformed. I’ve commented on articles and begged them to talk to you. Finally, I called the reporter ” lazy, lazy, lazy” and tweeted the article to you.