Anthony Cody was appalled to read an article on the “Think Progress” website with the headline “People Like Common Core Better When They Know What It Is.” Cody says, “Caution! Common Core Spin Doctors at Work.” We have recently seen the same spin from the New York Times and the Washington Post in what appears to be a desperate effort to save the Common Core from its toxic reputation.
The article cites the recent poll published by the conservative journal Education Next that showed the opposite to be the case. Among teachers, who certainly know what Common Core is, support is plummeting. 76% of teachers support Common Core in 2013, but in 2015, support has fallen to 40%. Among the general public (which is not necessarily well informed about Common Core), support fell from 65% in 2013 to 49% in 2015.
Cody points out that these poll numbers do not support the headline. The people who know the CCSS best (teachers) like it less and less each year.
He also writes that:
If your bank account dropped by 12% last year and another 4% this year, would you feel as if your situation was “stabilizing”? And just so we are clear on sources here, Education Next is a publication which lists as its prominent supporters the Hoover Institution and the Thomas B Fordham Institute. It exists to promote corporate reform.Some bastion of “progressive” thought. The credibility of organizations like the Center for American Progress and Think Progress suffer when they publish this sort of propaganda.
The very real problem that this propaganda is attempting to distract us from is that we are seeing a huge drop in student test scores as a result of the new, “more rigorous” tests.
Some people (like me) believe that the Common Core architects and planners designed the tests to have a passing mark so ridiculously high that most students were doomed to fail. The cut scores on the tests are aligned with those of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Proficient on the PARCC and the Smarter Balanced Assessment is supposed to be the same as “proficient” on NAEP. But in no state in the nation other than Massachusetts has 50% of students reached the “proficient” level on NAEP. This kind of blue-sky goal makes as much sense as NCLB’s requirement that all students must be “proficient” by the year 2014. This is failure by design.
When it comes to Common Core, we should ask the experts: the teachers who are expected to implement it every day in the classroom. As the Education Next poll shows, they started off liking it, and their like has turned to rejection.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My pith comment. And you can contact her via email by clicking on her name under the headline.
Appalled by TP’s support of Common Core. How out of it are you and TP? This is an issue that the progressive left and hard right agree upon – yet. Oh well. A quick perusal will disabuse you of those notions you hold.
See: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/08/24/anthony-cody-think-progress-tries-to-rewrite-the-history-of-common-core/
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should be pithy
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Her reply to me:
The story indicates one of the polls said that, not both of the polls. The PPP poll said that people supported notions of CC and the EdNext poll showed people found CC unpopular. The EdNext poll and PPP polls asked the question about national standards in very different ways. I do not either support or oppose CC, a point I thought was apparent in my referencing the poor implementation of CC.
I wish there would be a more nuanced conversation CC that explores the problems progressives have, many of which are real and not to be ignored, and also doesn’t misrepresent what CC is. Clearly, no one wants to have that conversation. In education policy discussions, you’re either pro or anti in discussion of CC – not anywhere in between.
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“Progressives”? Who is being labeled “progressive”?
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The only folks who “misrepresent what the Common is” are the pseudo-progressive shills who try and defend the indefensible.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Not surprising. Fordham’s posted tax documents show $45,000 to Center for American Progress, in 2013, Arnold Foundation gave $2 million to Third Way, in 2015 (Glasspockets, Foundation Inc.) Waltons and Gates fund Education Trust….
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Yeah, not sure I’d be bragging about John Kasich supporting Common Core as a selling point.
“Kasich said the “idea” of Common Core was for “students in every state to be given the opportunity to compete with every other student.”
“I want kids to jump higher,” Kasich said.
He and his team have been terrible for public schools. Every year there’s a new unfunded gimmick or fad. They seem to be incapable of saying “no” to whatever scheme comes out of the national ed reform “movement” and they just pile this incoherent, ill-considered mess on top of the unfashionable “public sector” schools while cutting funding.
“In the four years that Kasich has been in office, funding for traditional public schools has declined by almost half a billion dollars, while charter schools have seen a funding increase of more than 25 percent. Much of that funding appears to have been misspent.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/ohio-charter-schools-john-kasich-imagine
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TP author: Casey Quinlan
Her reply to me:
The story indicates one of the polls said that, not both of the polls. The PPP poll said that people supported notions of CC and the EdNext poll showed people found CC unpopular. The EdNext poll and PPP polls asked the question about national standards in very different ways. I do not either support or oppose CC, a point I thought was apparent in my referencing the poor implementation of CC.
I wish there would be a more nuanced conversation CC that explores the problems progressives have, many of which are real and not to be ignored, and also doesn’t misrepresent what CC is. Clearly, no one wants to have that conversation. In education policy discussions, you’re either pro or anti in discussion of CC – not anywhere in between.
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Yeah, I’m not that sympathetic that “no one” wants to debate Common Core after they put Common Core in.
Maybe they should have debated it publicly prior to putting it in every school in the country? They could have done this differently. They made a conscious and careful decision to exclude the public on a national public school program. There are consequences for that decision.
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My sense is that most Common Core supporters have only a hazy, airbrushed notion of it –and just vague grasp of what CC looks like down here on the ground. I wonder if Quinlan has taken the SBAC/PARCC practice tests. Or if she has read through a single EngageNY/ CC-aligned ELA lesson and liked it. I’d love to see a poll that asked people who’ve taken the SBAC/PARCC sample tests if they liked them, and if taking them increased or diminished their support for the Common Core project. To anyone who’s had a real liberal arts education, as I have, Common Core ELA looks like innovation gone terribly wrong–an ugly, stultifying, travesty of education.
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The PR campaign to “save” the Common Core is in full swing along with disinformation readily available to lazy reporters who recycle boilerplate
Bill Gates, in particular, wants to control messaging abut the Common Core because it is among his major investments and because this initiative is so draconian in the intended consequences that it would increase and accelerate the failure rate in public schools. That failure would enlarge the market for “alternatives” which his foundation (and others) also funds—especially charters and anything bearing on technology and data gathering on education. Gates supports the “common core” editorial content in EdWeek, he sent funds to the Education Writers group, he is trying to get control of the messaging and muster “public will” to save this misguided concept of standardized education once diligently called the Common Core State Standards, now truncated to the Common COre.
Since 2013, the equivalent of a super-pac has been created through back scratching relationships among members of the Common Core Funders Working Group (CCFWG) and a large network of “education-friendly” foundations. These foundations are being enlisted to frame “positive” messaging for the Common Core, including a revisionist history for the CC and other misrepresentations.
The super-pac messaging campaign has several aims. One of the first is is to “nudge” grant-making foundations working in education to shore up ”good will” for the CC and keep testing in place. The second aim is suggest that these non-profits use their wealth to audit CC implementation in schools, districts, and states. In the PR campaign materials, the talent in foundations, and (the talent they can muster) is portrayed as far better and greater than can be found in public schools where hapless educators are “confused” and “worried” about implementing the CC in addition to being gullible–victims of vendors selling 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 a weirdly apt name for the philanthropists organizing the PR campaign. It betrays the truth without intending to. Key members of CCFWG actually paid for launching this whole CC initiative. It is 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 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.” That 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.” Money talks.
By December 2012, 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 reordering of instructional priorities in the key subject areas—represents a fundamental shift in American public education. States and local school systems are working overtime to implement the new standards. 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 workforce. They emphasize problem solving, analysis, writing, and critical thinking. They are internationally benchmarked and address what employers and universities say high school graduates need for success. Thousands of educators contributed to their development, and they represent a mainstream consensus for student learning in the 21st century.“ These fabrications should be embarrassing. They are not. Here is more spin.
“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 outcomes 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. 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.“
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.
Among others engaged in the same messaging campaign are 25 philanthropies and groups known as “Fordham Institute Partners;” 35 philanthropies in the of 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.)
The Common Core Funders Working Group continues to work on dominating media reports about the Common Core while steering grant-makers to publications, webinars, conferences, power points, testimonials, and the whole nine yards of spin from Achieve, Students First, the CCSSO, and so on.
So, as Obama and Duncan exit the stage, with Congress and candidates not yet ready to do much except to reduce attention to the the Common Core, the pushers of those standards seem to be looking toward the super-rich to function as the self-anointed overseers of the initiative–paying for audits of the implementation process and for even more misleading press.
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
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/…/a-funders-guide-to-the-common-core- state-standards/
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Never before have I witnessed such an alliance of politicians and billionaires inserting themselves into education. Never before have I witnessed so many decisions being made concerning students that have had so little input from educators and parents. Rather than coming from educational leaders or teachers , all the decisions are top down. The whole process has been completed in a mad rush and is very suspect. Concerned parents should continue to urge their children to refuse the testing. This test has never been validated, and it is another example of test and punish which seems to be the underlying theme of the testing associated with the CCSS. Refusing the tests is the only way to send a message that the current situation is unacceptable.
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Wasn’t Education Next also one of the lead “rank the states based on their schools” outfits after the clarion call for reform? I remember the A, B, C…(with pluses and minuses) grades with one of the essentials being the speed at which schools were adopting RTTT reforms. That was one of my first clues that I could expect a wave of “We’re all about the children and schools” made up organizations with carefully crafted names.
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American Association of University Women, possible insights about their support for Common Core.
Margot Rogers, former Senior Program Officer for the AAUW Education Foundation, former Deputy Director of Education at the Gates Foundation, former Chief of Staff for Arne Duncan, current Vice Chair of the Education Center of Excellence, at Parthenon Group, which was founded by Bain and Co. and, recently became part of Ernst and Young.
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Ms. Rogers is also on the Review Board for the Broad Prize.
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Ms. Rogers is a Director of the Joyce Foundation. MintPressNews.com, in an article titled,
“Chicago School Closings and the Joyce Foundation: The Obama Connection” quotes Kenneth Saltman, “The activity of Joyce in the sphere of education reform, is venture philanthropy-transforming a once-public education system into a for-profit market.”
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It’s not just Think Progress.
CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS AND THE COMMON CORE, PROGRESSIVE OR PRO-CORPORATE?
Over 3 ½ years ago, the Center For American progress hosted a frank discussion of the Citizens United decision. The obvious toxicity of the various factors established by legitimizing the influence of corporate money and corporations as people on elections was not in question, both from the candidate and the Super Pac point of view. I suspect that The CAP has a similar dismal view of the McCutcheon decision which allowed hyper wealthy individuals to have a similarly disproportionate influence. Both decisions enabled the power of money to have virtually the only say in the pre-selection of the candidates that would then be made available to the voters in addition to allowing far reaching influence on messaging surrounding the elections themselves. The abject lack of transparency established by both decisions was also discussed and was not in question.
How is it then, that The CAP can so correctly oppose the influence of money as exercised by a scant handful of individuals and corporations on our political process and yet lovingly embrace the exact same influence by a scant handful of so called “education reformers”, both individual and corporate, on the issues of the Common Core State Standards, school turn arounds, and merit pay schemes / teacher evaluations based in significant part on Value Added Modeling? The inability of these “reforms” to make their claimed improvements in educational outcomes, particularly for children of color is at this point beyond question, there is simply too much data that shows this to be the case. In particular, all claims for the utility of VAM based teacher evaluations have been completely refuted to the point that VAM should have been relegated to the dustbin of history.
All the more surprising is that The CAP combines their support for these bad in school policies with support for other very sound ones that address the many actual problems facing education, problems that exist predominantly outside of the schools. This seems to be one of the things at the root of their misunderstanding, by mixing bad policy with good, they erroneously assume that any improvement in outcomes accrues equally to all. While their goals and intentions are quite fine, The CAP, like so many other institutions in this nation appear to have been infiltrated at least in part by ideas and influences that are in complete contradiction to their core ideals and values.
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