When Arne Duncan was made Secretary of Education, he brought in a group of advisors, largely from the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, to help him design what eventually became the Race to the Top, which was funded by Congress with $5 billion in discretionary money, to reform American education. Duncan asked Joanne Weiss to take charge of Race to the Top.
At the time, Joanne Weiss was CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, a California-based organization dedicated to spurring for-profit entrepreneurs and investing in charter schools, both start-ups and chains. Her previous experience was in educational technology. I can’t find any evidence that she ever worked in a school. She was an entrepreneur. She and her advisers came to the conclusion that the biggest problem in American education was its extreme decentralization (local control). They decided that if there were a national system of standards and assessments, then the businesses making textbooks, technology, and everything else would have a national market and the quality of their products would be far better. It was a rational decision for someone from the business world. She wrote on the blog of the Harvard Business Review, a brief essay that should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the philosophy behind the education policies of the Obama administration:
Technological innovation in education need not stay forever young. And one important change in the market for education technology is likely to accelerate its maturation markedly within the next several years. For the first time, 42 states and the District of Columbia have adopted rigorous common standards, and 44 states are working together in two consortia to create a new generation of assessments that will genuinely assess college and career-readiness.
The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.
In this new market, it will make sense for teachers in different regions to share curriculum materials and formative assessments. It will make sense for researchers to mine data to learn which materials and teaching strategies are effective for which students – and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents.
If we can match highly-effective educators with great entrepreneurs and if we can direct smart capital toward these projects, the market for technological innovation might just spurt from infancy into adolescence. That maturation would finally bring millions of America’s students the much-touted yet much-delayed benefits of the technology revolution in education.
The reason to standardize education across the nation is to create an attractive business climate for entrepreneurs. National standards and tests will encourage them to develop products for this new national market.
This is certainly the first time in American education that the U.S. Department of Education took on the role of creating a national market for entrepreneurs. This was the Obama administration’s idea of “reform.”
It was a risky bet. No effort was made to pilot the Common Core standards, to find out how they would really work in real classrooms with real students and real teachers. The rush to implementation created a backlash. Weiss was correct in assuming that every textbook publisher would revised their texts and online programs to align with the Common Core or claim to have done so. But, some states have dropped the Common Core. Some are reviewing them with the intention of tailoring them to the needs of their states. About half the states that agreed to join one of the two testing consortia have withdrawn, either because of political controversy or because of online testing.
The effort to establish a unified national system, for the benefit of entrepreneurs, was illegal, in my view. The federal law says very clearly that no officer of the federal government may seek to influence, direct, or control curriculum or instruction. Arne Duncan likes to say that he stayed far away from curriculum and instruction. That may explain why he insists that the Common Core is “only” standards, not a curriculum. Of course, he has been a vocal advocate for Common Core, and of course, states were not eligible for any of the Race to the Top funding unless they adopted “college-and-career standards” (aka Common Core). But, please, it is “only standards,” not curriculum. Note that the U.S. Department of Education, as part of its grand plan to re-arrange American education into a standardized national system, funded two testing consortia with $360 million. Is it possible to say with a straight face that the U.S. Department of Education is making no effort to “influence, direct or control” curriculum and instruction when it funds the tests and advocates for a common set of standards? Does anyone believe that tests have no immediate impact on curriculum and instruction?
What lessons are to be drawn from the rocky experience of the Common Core? First, those in charge of the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration did not understand the meaning of federalism and the limits of the federal role; second, programs speedily devised and imposed by bribery tend not to last; third, haste makes waste; fourth, if new programs are devised without the engagement of experienced educators, they are unlikely to meet the needs of practitioners or the classroom. Last, the federal government should not substitute its best ideas for those who know more than they do at the state and local level. Coercion just doesn’t work very well in a democratic society.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
“In this new market, it will make sense for teachers in different regions to share curriculum materials and formative assessments”
Just more evidence that the corporate reforms really do not understand education. We have always shared materials and ideas across grades ,schools, states and even countries!!! And we always have to shape them to fit our particular context of students, school and curriculum. Lessons are not, can not, and should not be, plug and play, even with CC.
They obviously have never attended the many subject area conventions or teacher workshops.
Not only wrong here:
“She and her advisers came to the conclusion that the biggest problem in American education was its extreme decentralization (local control).”
But she also lacks a fundamental understanding of the U.S. Constitution and the purpose of education, local control, BOE’s, etc.
Or else the so-called reformers understood those things very well, rightly saw them (as well as the teacher unions) as obstacles, and have done everything they could to undermine them.
You are right Mark Fiorilla – and let’s always remeber this was starting to happen way before Obama and Arne – they just jumped on the corporate bandwagon and gave it a good dose of education DEFORM steroids.
Having lived in different parts of the U.S. and in foreign countries, I have come to understand that cultures are different from state to state and even within states. And local cultures have a strong effect on students, parents, teachers, and school administrators. “One size does not fit all” in education any more than it does in everything else. That means that standards, text books, tests, length of school year, etc., etc. need to fit the local culture or they will cause the anger and rejection we have seen for the CCSS and the recommended tests.
writerjoney,
Good point.
It is curious that they concluded that local control was one of the biggest problems in American education rather than recognizing it as one of its greatest strengths. It far better represents the diverse nature of American culture than the uniformity of a stultifying centralized system could.
And we shall see what happens in his (Arne’s) retirement. I hope this travesty of hubris, arrogance, over-reach, and just plain criminal behavior and malfeasance is used in ED School case studies for years to come. I can only hope and pray that that is the case.
Any chance we can sue the fools and hold them responsibility for damages. Why not lift the indemnity for Federal officials…just this once. I know a few Dems and Reps who might just hanker for this fight.
It’s like watching one’s and others’ images in a circus tent full of funhouse mirrors.
If the actual CCSS and its actual implementation is taken into account, then there is little (if any) incentive to “share” anything—everyone’s doing the same thing at the same time at the same pace. It’s test-centric, so the drives and rewards and punishments re teaching and learning can be reduced to misleading and false numbers that drive mediocrity & failure while piling up $tudent $ucce$$. *Exactly why CCSS shot callers and enablers shun its use on THEIR OWN CHILDREN; see this blog, 3-23-2014, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”*
Really! And it’s pretty much spelled out, in a rheeally revealing statement with all the most Johnsonally sort of frills, by a charter member of the rheephorm establishment.
[start]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end]
Link: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Unimpeachable testimony.
😎
The political rationale (aside from the the economic benefits accruing from standardization) was correctly, if indiscreetly, revealed by Rick Hess, who in 2011 spoke about how so-called reformers were looking forward to the planned high failure rates – engineered via arbitrary and politically-intended cut scores – on Common Core-based exams, so as to “prove” to skeptical suburban parents that their public schools were “failing,” and which would then presumably be open to the same hostile takeover that has befallen so many urban districts, mainly via mayoral control of the schools (as in NYC) or State receivership (as in Newark, NJ).
At the very least the Obama administration is guilty of federal overreach, and at the most illegality, despite their weak attempts to argue semantics about curricula or standards regarding adoption of the Common Core. They have wasted eight years that were supposed to be full of hope and change; instead, public education got nothing but threats coercion, endless tests and punish. Real change in education does not occur from top down mandates and threats; it evolves from the bottom up from real educators working together to address student needs or to better implement instruction. As we know educators share already ideas and adapt instruction and curricula to meet their local needs. This has nothing to do with standardizing markets for publishers and vendors. It is shameful that Obama and his cronies see our young people as a market for entrepreneurs rather than as how a leader of our country should see our young people, as future voters that need to learn how to live in a democratic society.
The whole conceit of referring to “state standards” was a byproduct of having to thread a needle—a legal needle—that prohibits the federal government from using its funds to mandate, endorse, approve, or require academic content and student achievement standards, curricula, or programs of instruction.
True, there are at least two legal citations,
but what the heck.
Arne threaded legal needles to get the CCSS tests off the ground and I think he clearly violated the law, when the following events transpired:
1. After awarding $300 million to the two testing consortia in September 2010, the genius leaders in the U.S. Department of Education and leaders in the consortia “suddenly“ discovered that tests for the CCSS had to be tied to curriculum.
Wow. Who would have guessed?
2. So, in January 2011, USDE awarded each consortium about $15 million in supplementary funding for curriculum work. That is where the clearest violation happened.
3. PARCC’s request for supplementary funding for the needed but overlooked curriculum materials included an uncertain “could” and firm “will” approach to producing model courses and ancillary materials by the end of 2011.
“Each model unit could include components such as: instructional materials; formative activities that would give teachers information they need about student understanding relative to the CCSS and PARCC assessments; professional development materials for educators; and tools to inform conversations between principals and teachers, teachers and students, and teachers and parents about the results of the through course assessments.
The units developed by PARCC will serve as powerful models for others to develop similar tools for other standards or grades, and will help states and districts evaluate the quality and alignment of similar tools in the market (PARCC, 2010, December, p. 4, Full reference available).”
4. So PARCC received this “after thought” money for curriculum and USDE got much more from PARCC than a pro-forma proposal for that grant. It got a full Monty plan for exemplary curriculum units, including instructional materials and “formative activities,” and more. The braggadocio promises were for curriculum units so great they would be models for states and districts.”
5. So where are the PARCC units initially rationalized as necessary for test development, but then envisioned as exemplary?
If you have seen any of those units, let me know and check to see if those materials have the USDE grant number under which PARCC or some outsourced vendor produced them.
One of the central flaws of Weiss’ idea, beyond her obviously having not talked to any education professionals, is that she couldn’t imagine that there is in fact no free market where the best ideas rise to the top on their merits alone. The entire enterprise was botched and corrupted long before it left the gate as those involved jockeyed for market position by the usual “any means necessary” which meant buying and using politicians and the media among other things. The biggest failure of this was that instead of offering their products to educators for consideration, instead of having the end users be central to their development in the first place, those with the most clout used the politicians they had bought to impose top down mandates for use of their untried, unasked for products so they could gain and lock in market share before the competition. The fact that this meant that a generation of children would now become the guinea pigs for their after-the-fact vetting was of no consequence to them since the money was rolling in. The abject failure of the crony capitalist business model as applied to education has caused stagnation and failure, just like Stack Ranking did to Microsoft by creating a climate of fear where any actual market signals and feedback from within the ranks were excluded from the decisions made about the operating environment. The idea that this way of doing things was a complete mismatch for education never had a chance of being understood amidst the greed, egos and hubris blanketing the reformy landscape. The so called reformers still don’t get it and will never admit that they produced a truly epic fail that has harmed the nation.
“. . . the market for technological innovation might just spurt from infancy into adolescence.”
Appropriately worded considering the mental masturbations that are the educational malpractices of educational standards and standardized testing. And it will be stuck in that adolescence forever due to the immature thought processes involved which will not allow the myelin to grow on the axons. No amount of growth “spurting” will allow for the maturing of those malpractices into rationo-logically developed, ripened policies and practices.
“She was an entrepreneur.”
I don’t know- is that what we’re calling people who go from ed reform groups to government and then back to consulting?
What has she invented, built or created?
I read somewhere a quote from David Coleman (I believe, I know too many uncertains here but the idea is real) that the standards were to make it easier for new charters to open-they wouldn’t have to work hard with their new teaching staff to come up with curriculum etc. They’d just plug into CommonCore. Voila! Instant schools.
It fits really well into a “portfolio” approach to schools. They can just plug in various school operators, provide the template, and then measure effectiveness with one standardized test.
It’s a great way to privatize systems, because it allows lawmakers to provide funding, check in once a year on test scores and hand the rest off to contractors.
The health insurance exchanges are a great example of this approach. It’s a publicly-subsided private system. If you look at the online school “marketplaces” they set up it’s the same idea as the health insurance exchange. Arguably they could set up a “school mandate” where people would purchase “school services” on an exchange. Republicans in states are already exploring this- it’s Rick Snyder’s approach in MI. Parents would have a set amount of public funding to purchase a bundle of edu-services from various contractors. It’s really radical, which is why I think politicians don’t run on it.
Let’s also not forget how the very terminology of the portfolio model derives from the world of Finance. The schools are investment vehicles, assets, and essentially fungible (as teachers most certainly are, in their eyes). Thus, the cavalier attitude Duncan and the rest have toward grossly failing charter schools: why, we’ll just close them down, easy as that, and open new ones.
No consideration whatsoever about the effects of this disruptiveness on children and families, on communities. It’s as if they’re running a private equity firm, buying businesses strategically, cultivating some, more often burdening others with debt/austerity and unattainable demands, cheapening labor standards and busting unions.
And all for the children, of course.
I love that Joanne Weiss uses a developmental metaphor for the capitalistic hopes of spurting from childhood to adolescence! That’s the closest any of these fools get to developmentally appropriate approaches! I am 36 yrs in social work 24 of those in public school (LCSW/PPS/k-8 teaching credential). I am horrified by how abusive and developmentally inappropriate we are asking teachers to treat our students now.#educraticoath
The Common Core standards are clearly, “prescriptive” – they cross from the simple “what” (goals or targets for learning) into the realm of “how”- i.e. curriculum.
Absolutely illegal. However Arne new that it would take a lot of time to sort this out, so now three years in and simple inertia keeps it going. Not to mention the Common Core SAT tests that Coleman has initiated in his attempt to seal the deal regardless of the law.
This will be semi-moot under the new ESEA re-write where standards will be determined at the state level. Yet with so much time and money invested, which states will have the incentive to drop CC standards for real?
What a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
“It riles them to believe that we perceive the web they weave”.
Massachusetts drops PARCC
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/17/456404304/massachusetts-opts-out-of-federal-common-core-test-aiming-at-its-own
Looks like MA decided to go for an MCAS/PARCC “hybrid” test.
PARCC gets PARKED again. 20/26 states have now dropped out so that they can run their Common Core exams in a stealth mode.
Doesn’t anyone listen to SomeDAMPoet?
“If it ain’t deformed, don’t reform it”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/17/new-yorks-costly-experiment-in-test-based-educator-evaluation-is-crashing/
Chester…want to remind the board there was a lot of talk before testing…if you turn
the hands of time back not much more than two decades there were incredible gaps around funding and student achievement…we’ve gone a long way toward diminishing inequities…we no longer have school houses that have sixty students with broken toilets….’grand bargain’ more money, measuring ourselves against strong learning outcomes… have made tremendous progress…good old days were not very good for a lot of kids in the Commonwealth…MCAS has reached a point of diminishing returns…PARCC much more aspirational, linking writing and reading, application of learning progressions in mathematics….can do a lot more neat thing that are engaging for kinds.
Say HUH, John???
Duane – I think John’s quoting Mitchell Chester, chairman of PARCC, also MA’s commish of ed. (Nah, no conflict of interest there, move along.)
She certainly has the stock ed reform resume:
“Joanne currently sits on the boards of Learn Zillion and BloomBoard. She is an Expert in Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-Lab), a Distinguished Senior Fellow for the Education Commission of the States, and a visiting lecturer in education policy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Joanne was a member of many boards, including Aspire Public Schools, Rocketship Education, Green Dot Public Schools, Leadership Public Schools, New Leaders for New Schools, Revolution Foods, Carnegie Learning, and Teachscape. She was also a member of the School Finance Redesign Project (a project of the University of Washington’s Center for Reinventing Public Education) and the Digital Media & Learning Project (a project of the MacArthur Foundation). She is Fellow in the inaugural cohort of the Aspen/Pahara Education Leadership Fellowship. Joanne holds a degree in biochemistry from Princeton University.”
Did the Obama Administration hire anyone with any experience in public schools when they set out to unilaterally “transform” public schools? You get the sense a public school background is almost a bar to employment in elite ed reform circles- like don’t even bother applying.
Exactly. Public school employment is a blemish on the resume. Teaching has traditionally been a sub-elite caste. TFA started to change that by creating a new caste that gives Ivy grads a respectable way of entering the education field without tarnishing themselves as untouchables. Since then Gates’ billions have built a constellation of new outfits like the Education Trust and NCTQ filled with TFA-ers and other non-teachers, expanding this new caste. This is a new phenomenon in America: a caste of education managers who will do the higher-level thinking for the teachers. This leads to the deprofessionalization of teachers. Dim, State-U-educated teachers are reduced to cogs akin to Walmart workers. Just as the thinking for Walmart gets done in Bentonville, the thinking for teachers will now be done by upper caste education-eers at Gates-funded outfits in DC, NYC and Palo Alto. Joanne Weiss is in the vanguard of this new caste.
Disruption of existing economic arrangements is a basic feature of capitalism. That’s the way bringing in new products to replace old goes on: the model T replaces the horse and buggy (and those, like blacksmiths and farriers, who served the horse and buggy economy change or disappear). One can argue about the virtues and defects of this process—who profits, who gets screwed. But where the problem really comes in is when this model of change is applied to social and political arrangements—say, in Iraq. When confronted with arguments that they did not understand the conditions on the ground, one of the Bushies (perhaps Cheney or Rumsfeld) insisted not to worry, since American actions basically changed the conditions on the ground. That worked well in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere in the region, didn’t it?
The same model has been applied to education. Local schools are horse and buggy operations, ‘tis said. They need to be shaken up, their old blacksmiths replaced by space-age kids armed with instructions manuals and “teacher-proof” curricula. And, oh yes, there’s revenue to be had in all the turnover. Besides, we’re all for private profit, aren’t we, and suspicious of “guvmint” monopolies.
Isn’t it about time that we started to question the fundamental ideology underlying such destructive attacks on public institutions like schools, the post office, the local water board, and the like?
Five billion dollars!!! Oh, the places we could’ve gone!
It was illegal: “…radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development…” is what Weiss wrote, specifically regarding the development of Common Core. She was part of the White House administration, pushing for national curriculum development. That is certainly in violation of the United States Constitution.
Not of the US Constitution but of the mandate for the Department of Ed.
Left Coast Teacher,
Weiss did not violate the US Constitution. But she certainly violated federal law by seeking to influence curriculum and instruction.
Thank you both. I stand partly corrected.
I like certain but not most aspects of Common Core. It would have been a contender if it had been written by the right people, rolled out appropriately with a real timeline, and not tied to high stakes testing and evaluations.
It was a great idea that became perverted and disfigured.
But, hey, that’s American culture for you . . ..
So, are you saying that if everything had been different except the name, Common Core might have had a chance of being good?
Essentially, yes, Mr. Poet.
How I would have done it:
1) Invite mostly all real teachers and administrators in the trenches and cognitive scientists to write it. Have mostly superintendents and experienced principals (who themselves taught for at least 15 years) hand pick the teachers to be on the writing team. 90% of the writers and 90% of the selectors should come from these pools. 90% of the cognitive researchers should be picked by their teaching peers at the university. The rest should be picked by the federal and state departments of education.
While it’s true that not every issue could have ben solved with research knowledge, as not every issue has been researched, having cognitive scientists’ major input would have been critical, including those who research how children learn the content areas as well as pediatric neurologists. No pun intended, but this was a no-brainer.
2) Change the timeline of the CCSS. Far too many skills are demanded at earlier an earlier ages. Push them up by two grades. Kindergarten, for example, should not have to master reading long vs. short vowels, for instance.
3) De-emphasize non-fiction in grades pre-K through 3rd. Literature should be about human stories with human faces, allowing children to see themselves in it, and teaching them about how characters in stories nearly always face problems and find ways to solve those problems. Start to weave in non-fiction with equalizing weight starting in fourth grade.
4) Pilot the standards in various grades in various states and keep track of the data according to each type of population you teach and test.
5) Do not under any circumstances tie the standards to testing that evaluates teachers and administrators and vice versa. Decouple standardized tests from teacher evaluation immediately, irrevocably, and permanently. Tests are meant to drive practices and polices, not evaluate the quality of pedagogy.
6) Leave the issues of evaluating pedagogy to internal administrators who have had experience teaching and who are trained in how to evaluate a lesson. Factor in the incredibly small sample size of lessons an observer sees, and develop a professional culture of “relentless expectation, support and build” rather than “gotcha and punish.” Hold people accountable for that ONE thing you want to see happen in their next lesson because they will always learn dramatically and deeply from something that they had to shift in their instruction.
7) Develop sustainable models of peer review to supplement administrative review of pedagogy.
8) Implement steps 1 through 7 all in the context of strong funding for schools so that class sizes and adult/child ratio are maintained at optimum levels, deferring to but not quite reaching private school populations.
I have my own specific ideas as to the qualifications administrators (on nearly all levels) must have in order to evaluate teachers. And it should involve a change in legislative language in every state. That’s another posting . . . .
Robert Rendo, what would be the purpose of this big central organization?
Isn’t it simpler to experiment and implement something small scale, and then it’ll spread if people see its value?
The application of cognitive science to education seems to be on shaky grounds, to say the least.
Mate, from an applicative POV, I concur completely with you. Because this would be affecting the masses, smaller pilot studies that are not policy might be better.
Seeing and doing are believing and learning.
Ultimately, my concern is that under the old paradigm, children from Mississippi were not as equal in their knowledge base as children from NY. Maybe an evening out of both (and all) states would be a good thing in terms of some with too rigorous a set have standards would have to be relaxed while those with too simplistic a set would have to be up for review.
Some might consider this approach to be cookie cutter or homogenization.
But are we not supposed to be a “United” States?
I do not agree with your statement about cognitive studies because so many of the real ones, which are not paid shills, stand up only for empiricism and successfully ignore politics, which is the way it should be. All real studies do discuss their caveats and limitations, and one of the biggest gripes that studies have is that intervention treatments used to successfully teach children are only administred for non-longitudinal periods. Therefore generalization and/or maintenance from a treatment get compromised and subject the study to doubt or further scrutiny. If this is what you mean by “shaky at best”, then I don’t agree with you, but I have a very open mind to your statement.
A few people who wrote the CCSS refused to sign off on it. They had integrity.
The CCSS as it stands is a vicious disaster and has been used to mask the corruptions of profiteering, union busting, and revolving door educator employment. Make no mistake about that. And when those elements grow fast and large enough, it paves a smooth road for privatization, which this bastard president and his cronies want . . . .
I theorize that the reform movement will continue to implode, but I carry on in my political activism as though it will not. One has to fight evil with tenacity to protect democracy.
I hate Obama. He is such a bloody effective deceiver. Either that, or the American people are a bunch of simpletons.
The reason we became “United States” is that we are easier to control: Zinn writes
“The Federalists published papers explaining the advantages of a central government. One advantage, said James Madison, was that riots, revolts, and civil disorder would be less likely to arise in “a large nation ranging over thirteen states” than in a single state. People’s desire for such “wicked” things as “an equal division of property” might overcome a state government, but not a federal one.”
The story of CC is exactly this federal control. While being “united states” has advantages for its citizens, for the World out there, it’s just a way too powerful and influential country.
Here is a cognitive science article (which happens to be cited in a book against CC), which, in fact, is seriously problematic
Click to access Clark.pdf
As soon as you try to use science for something which is not science, the alarm goes (or should go) off. Education is not science.
New Coke, K-cars, and Microsoft Bob will now have company.
MathVale –
to which I would add the Crash-and-Burn Ford Pinto and the Crash-and-Crush Chevy Corvair – both of which harmed the very occupants who, lacking sufficient knowledge of their short-comings and hazards, had been convinced that they were wise purchases.
Microsoft Bill and Microsoft Dave (Coleman, who is an (dis)honorary Microsoftian) will now join Microsoft Bob in the rubber room.
And does this mean we can look forward to New Common Corek (sp?) somewhere down the road to replace Common Corek Classic?
don’t forget the XFL
IM,
Is the XFL the women’s lingerie league?
This is WHY I have been and still am OPPOSED to the DEFORMS coming from war monger GW, the Billaries (standards and testing, which Hillary oversaw), Obama and those he has appointed.
Just turn their marketing words around 180 degrees and the truth is there. You know: NCLB, RTTT, CCSS, and the rest of the ridiculous nonsense.
Reblogged this on A Chef, a Prof, & a Bub and commented:
Leadership is not coercion.
During the 1990s most elementary school/district committees asked textbook publishers for a correlation to Terra Nova, CTBS, or Iowa Tests when selecting a new program. As a result, the instructional materials were quite consistent BEFORE No Child Left Behind. Each publisher strove to offer a unique feature–but competitors quickly copied or outdid good ideas. (Some series were more demanding than others but the market was not as scattered as the Core promoters would have people think.)
For high school subjects, publishers couldn’t afford to have scant coverage–there were savvy teachers in 50 states plus Dept of Defense schools who would be reviewing/selecting books for math, history, science, world languages. Choice of publishers was often for honors/college prep/basic level courses.
So the argument that CCSS would generate consistent national market possibilities was MALARKEY. The national market already existed. I think Bob Shepherd would concur, and I’d like to learn his view.
“The Crumbling Core”
The Common Core’s imploding
And won’t be worth a dime
The main support’s eroding
And will collapse in time
The House of cards is leaning
The Queen of spades is gripped
The King of clubs is screaming
As Crumbling Core is tipped
I concur. I reviewed Many, many textbooks and ancillaries of that era, also state and district curricula in math, science, social studies, reading, and the arts. There were and still are idiosyncrasies in the adoption process that make textbook publishers crazy, especially in Texas and California. Even so, there is so much conventional content in every “school” subject that much of the variation is at the margins. Of course, some subjects are more dependent on this-before-that arrangements of content and skills for teaching and ease of learning. Far out experiments in curriculum design are not well tolerated in public schools. Jerome Bruner’s “Man: a Course of Study” was one of the most infamous cases of a crash and burn program. Another was the 12 year Aesthetic Education Program.
Excellent piece.
“In The New Market” is a chilling phrase.
And remember, they understood everything at DOE.
Federalism, Education, Democracy, Equality.
They get it all but they don’t care because they are beholden to a radically different value set.
Reblogged this on patthaleblog and commented:
This is such an important essay. Ed policy has been on the wrong course for a generation of students. But it’s been a bonanza for educational products and the entrepreneurs behind them.
Just so we are all clear here:
Common Core, as policy, and more importantly as an agenda to de professionalize and union-bust, IS NOT DEAD!!!
ALOT of folks here are talking like we have somehow achieved victory over CC! In no way is that true! There is a certain rebranding going on, for sure, but the rebranding and reshaping we are seeing is all IN THE SERVICE OF PROPPING UP AND FURTHERING the central agenda of CC all along: to disorganize organized teachers and de professionalize the profession of teaching. That agenda is very much alive and well…..and some would argue, thriving.
Common Core always was and is a political agenda. It’s not an educational model. It is a tool in service of a broader goal. Few care if a hammer is blemished in the building of a house. Lets not think that the rebranding of CC is somehow a deep victory.
Lets learn from our shameful union leadership: declaring victory too soon is at best embarrassing and at worst evidence of larger complicity. The goal of CC is still very much alive as a political agenda.
100%
The re-branding of the Common Core standards is an effective ploy because the vast majority of people get their working knowledge of such issues through 15 second sound bites.
Common Core – the “weapon”, has just been shifted into stealth mode. As long as test scores are used to threaten, punish, and stigmatize students, teachers, and schools – nothing will have changed. As long as David Coleman’s new SAT exam is based on Common Core math and evidence based reading and writing, the stealth weapon will be used to privatize public schools and enhance the ROI of the billionaires behind it.
The ESEA re-write may be a game changer, but will take a new federal administration and great political pressure on gubernatorial races to eventually bury it for good.
There is so much more to this issue than the failure of common core. How ’bout failure of the culture? It might be that students in other countries do so well in mathematics and writing because they live in a culture where education and learning is revered and looked up to, rather than despised as “brainy” here in America. Who started the myth of “brainy” and “nerdy” anyway? Could it be Hollywood? Did it start with Grease? Happy Days? No one talks about this stuff, but it must be addressed if we are to get to the bottom of the issue.
We are not talking about the fact that many students just do not give a flip about learning and school. I got a 1.7 GPA in high school, yet then I got a 3.2 in college, and a 3.76 in grad school. I received a 1.7 GPA because I didn’t give a rip about school, and I didn’t have parents who disciplined me for getting bad grades, yet if I forgot to feed the cows I got in big trouble.
The reality is that in schools there is a percentage of students who will try to get good grades, and there are those who will not try at all, unless they are disciplined. That’s the bottom line. There must be discipline or Common Core will not work. I know that I would have gotten a 4.0 GPA in high school if my parents had grounded me for getting bad grades. There were friends of mine who were disciplined for getting anything less than a B. Guess what; they never got a C.
Dear EDUA 517 students: Here is the blog entry we will use for the blog-a-thon which will go until Friday, December 4th. Blog-a-thon Participation and response to other responses- You will be expected to make 2 entries – 1 in response to the article and your readings and 1 in response to another entry posted on the blog.
The key points made in this blog are truly disturbing to me because I have spent the last three years implementing components of Common Core and truly appreciate the depth and rigor the standards require. I really want to embrace Common Core Reform with a whole heart. Having spent time evaluating Finland’s educational system, the foundations of Common Core instruction are directly in line with Finland’s successful educational system. Both include student-centered classrooms, where children learn how to think while participating in collaborative real world projects. The learning is rigorous and begins at an early age with a focus on understanding and application. Technology is used by students to learn and not just by teachers to engage. While I understand that the U.S. is very different than Finland, the Common Core Standards seem to embrace many of the successful components that can be learned from Finland. Before Common Core Reform, I was teaching to a basic skills test (CST) because of the high stakes attached to it. The PISA requires deeper understanding and application of learning. Ms. Ravitch makes the point, “Does anyone believe that tests have no immediate impact on curriculum and instruction?” My answer is obviously no, however, if I’m going to teach to a high stakes test, I’d feel a lot less guilty teaching to a rigorous test. My simple point of view is that no matter who funded these standards or whether they were piloted or not, these standards are simply better than what we had before. Finland started their major reform movement in the 1970’s and is still looking for ways to improve. Our reform movements keep failing because we take successful models and try the “one size fits all” approach. The rush to implement Common Core has indeed created a lot of backlash. I’ll let my local LEA fight that battle. At my level, the teacher/student level, the Common Core Reform Movement is a positive reform. I love the rigor, depth, and complexity it provides my students. I feel like there is some actual learning taking place. This is a feeling I haven’t felt since the implementation of NCLB!
Heather,
Common Core standards without Common Core tests might be tolerable, although not for children in grades K-3.
Did you know that Finland has no standardized tests until the end of high school?
Is that what you are recommending? If so, I’m for that.
Dear Diane,
I am honored to be engaged in this discussion with you. As a 2/3 combination class teacher, I absolutely disagree with the assessments. I am giving both the interim and summative assessment to my third graders this year. At this time, the assessments are a test of their computer skills. I firmly believe in the use of formative assessments and believe that our assessment system serves educators no purpose. Heather Whitten
Heather, my view is that teachers who like the standards should use them, with the freedom to tailor them to the needs of their students. But those who don’t like them should not be compelled to use them.
Diane, I really want to agree with the idea of not being compelled to use them. My concern is that without being compelled to do so, mediocre and/or ineffective teachers will have a free pass to continue being ineffective. Heather
Why do you think testing CCSS compliance is an effective way of getting rid off ineffective teaching?
Is it the DOE’s job to find ineffective teachers?
What’s effective teaching, anyways?
Mate,
I do not believe that CCSS compliance is an effective way of getting rid of ineffective teaching, but I think it’s a start. As we are all well aware, local administrators and LEA’s are almost powerless over teacher quality once tenure has been obtained. Maybe using common, rigorous standards in teacher preparation programs is a start? The definitions of “effective” teaching are numerous and varied. As a twenty-year veteran, working with our youngest learners, I believe I can speak to what it is not. Textbooks and worksheets, homework packets given year after year with only the date changed, teacher lecturing, etc… My view of effective teaching is very narrow because I only have experience at the lowest level, the teacher/student level. I know that student-centered classrooms with rich, meaningful discourse are not the norm. I have only just begun to look at our educational system through the lens of an administrator. I go back to my simple point of view that the Common Core Standards are simply better than what we had before. My simple opinion is that being held accountable to them can’t hurt.
Heather,
You seem to agree that the definition of effective teaching is pretty elusive. Some people wouldn’t even use the word “effective” to describe the main goal of education—especially not for early years.
Now, we don’t know what effective teaching really is, we don’t know if the goal of teaching can be described by such an industrial word, still, teachers are evaluated on their effectiveness.
Why? Because CCSS with its accompanying tests promises more effective teaching.
You ask the question “Maybe using common, rigorous standards in teacher preparation programs is a start?” Well, the CCSS authors asked a similar question. But instead of conducting a small scale experiment for years to test their hypothesis, they decided to run their experiment nationwide.
Would you run your experiment to test your idea about standardizing teacher training programs nationwide?
Mate,
Everything we know about “effective” Professional Learning Communities involves collaboration and consensus about what students should be able to do and what mastery looks like. We know that teaching in isolation is problematic. Teachers by nature are captains of their own ship. Without some kind of common ground, we have no fleet. We have ships sailing with no direction or goals. Do you not agree that teacher preparation programs should be based in some sort of common ground? Should teacher preparation programs be designed in isolation? Don’t we tell teachers that designing curriculum in isolation is not an effective practice? Do we have time to keep experimenting? Putting the standardized testing aside, the standards themselves are not terrible. As a mother of three school-age girls, I speak mostly from my heart. They don’t have time for the U.S. to get it right. They need rigorous, thought-provoking instruction now. Heather
The Common Core is touted as a road map for teachers to design learning for students to achieve certain skills at each grade level. But students don’t develop at the same pace as one another or begin on that road map in the same place, as any mother with two or more children will attest. My school, for example serves a majority of students who are low SES, LTELs, and a 20% SPED population, yet they will all be tested, all be labeled and none will have a true assessment of what they have learned.
As a part of the CCSS, the SBAC system calls for a “balanced assessment”: that is to embed formative and interim assessments into instruction prior to the summative assessment. SBAC encourages schools to measure student progress throughout the year so, “teachers [can] check student progress throughout the year, giving them actionable information to inform instruction and help students meet the challenge of college- and career-ready standards.” Even a balanced system of assessments doesn’t get at the individual student needs or the whole child. Quaglia and Corso, in their book Student Voice, claim that school must serve at its foundation the student’s “innate desire to experience, understand, know, and decide more and more” (2014). Are schools serving their clients, the individual child—or are they serving an accountability system, paid for by our tax dollars?
That accountability system should be the teacher’s internal accountability to each child. But, somewhere in the schooling system the desire to know more and “aspire” towards individual internal goals has been replaced with creating better test scores. Better test scores are achieved through test prep, effective testing strategies, and direct practice with the exam (thus the system offered through SBAC). Instructional minutes are usurped in favor of preparation for an annual judgment of the school in the form of two scores: how well the students achieve in math and English.
Rick Stiggins, an advocate for a more perfect assessment system, quipped that a dieter would not place all of their efforts to lose weight in finding the very best scale and then weighing themselves once a year. Similarly, we should not measure student success only annually and with ONE scale, the SBAC. As teachers and schools, we should know our student’s individual aspirations, their curiosities, their level of skills and where to work at bettering them. We should also know their needs—academic, social and emotional or we cannot serve students well.
Will Common Core standards prepare our students effectively as supporters claim they will? I agree with Diane Ravitch, we simply don’t know yet. Personally I think that if most of our nation has adopted the standards we should do our best to make them work. Opting out as a school district or as a state is just not an option we have at this point. What standards or curriculum will we be falling back on if we had the choice to opt out? Many school districts have embraced Common Core rushing to get their hands on anything that is labeled as being Common Core aligned. There are also many school districts that do not approve of the Common Core reform. Unfortunately, such districts will be forced to adopt Common Core materials or scramble to create their own. Some school districts have held back on adopting Common Core curriculum as they wait to see what other districts do. I do believe that having common standards and common assessments will dictate what we will be teaching. Many of our students were scoring in the Far Below Basic level before the Common Core Standards and the SBAC testing. As educators, we knew that as the standards became more rigorous more students would fail. It is a shame that any group of entrepreneurs let alone politicians can reform a whole country’s educational system without testing it extensively (Ravitch, 2015).
Obviously I’m not in full support of how this reform has come about or happy about the confusion and extremely poor test results we are seeing. The question now that we are in deep water is how will we manage to move safely and in the best direction possible for the sake of most of the stakeholders? I truly believe that we need to have the flexibility as a district to use our teachers’ abilities to deliver the rigorous standards that Common Core calls for. At the same time, we should be able to address the needs of those students who we know are just not ready to meet the Common Core expectations. We must be realistic about what we, as educators will do regardless of any shifts in education. A great educator will always do everything in his or her power to help all students. According to Diane Ravitch in her educational blog titled “Why I Cannot Support The Common Core Standards” The new standards will cause a decline in test scores, based on arbitrary cut scores. This will negatively impact English language learners, students with disabilities and students that are poor and low-performing (Ravitch, 2013).
Growing up around educators my entire life, and spending years as an educator myself, the pendulum swing in education reform is certainly a force to be reckoned with. When I was in the credential program, the 97’ State Standards were enforced, and skills were taught in isolation. When I began my student teaching in 2010, the shift to Common Core was taking place, and a whole new set of skills were expected to be taught in a very unique way. Unlike the 97’ standards where standards could be checked off as the teacher progressed throughout the lesson/year, multiple standards in the CCSS model can be achieved throughout one lesson, as they are integrated into a unit. The amount of rigor demanded in the CCSS can be overwhelming as a teacher, yet I do agree with Heather that it is allowing for students to think differently and in a way they haven’t thought or haven’t been given the opportunity to think before.
I agree with Ravitch that there are some inherent flaws in the assessment system with the new CCSS. Also, it is absolutely absurd that the CCSS weren’t tested in a classroom before implementation; the politics behind education always seem to baffle me. I also agree that as soon as the Smarter Balanced Test came to our attention, we immediately started to teach using technology in the same way that students would be using technology in the SBAC. (It was alarming how long it took and still takes students at the intermediate level to type a paragraph.) All that being said, I do not think the CCSS in the classroom are being a disservice to our students. Looking at our Math scores across the district and within our school, was certainly not the most pleasant experience, but we learn from results and move forward towards improvement. The high-level questioning, skill development, and use of technology within the classroom are being amplified more now than ever before, to ensure that our students are college and career-ready.
There will always be room for improvement and change when it comes to education; yet, it’s our duty as educators to not only voice our concerns, but to be able to move with the pendulum swing, or stop the swing from going in the wrong direction.
I completely agree with you Heather. It’s important to be able to understand that no matter who is charge of funding the Standards, or the hidden agendas involved in these standards, they ARE simply better than what we had before. I am a better teacher than I was before due to these standards.
Yes, it’s true that we are much different than Finland, but Finland’s model of education is certainly replicated in the rigorous demand of the Common Core State Standards. The skills I am implementing in my class now, and enforcing my students to not ask “What?” but to ask “Why?” has made an impact in their learning. I am constantly explaining the reasoning behind the lessons we do in class, and skill set behind the lesson which will help them in the future. I find that is also extremely valuable, and from what my students express, it helps them realize the objective behind the lesson better as well.
With new reforms, comes new controversies. Of course, we are going to be having our thoughts and feelings about the Common Core State Standards. I am sure when No Child Left Behind came around, many educators or stakeholders thought it was going to be the best system to have. When I first heard about Common Core (CC), I thought it was going to be, “the one.” It was going to be that magical pill that is going to solve our problems with our school’s education. In doing more research and collaborating with other educators, I believe CC has the right intentions, but it is not the solution, or maybe it is not quite there yet. First of all, the way the reform was mandated and not tested out should be a red flag. I agree with Diane Ravitch when she says, “They should be thoroughly tested to see how they work in real classrooms…(Why I Cannot Support the Common Core Standards Ravitch, 2013).”
CC also brings the practice of the 4C’s: Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, and Communication. Again, it has a good intention, but with some flaws. Why would you not want to have a reform that is going to be challenging for our students? I agreed with this, but cognitively speaking, it does not work for ALL grade levels. For instance, critical thinking. A student who is the first grade is will not have the ability to think critically when asked a certain question.
Another thing that I disagree with in our new reform are the assessments. I am aware that assessments are everybody’s concern, but we were all aware that grades were going to be low when CC was going to be coming around (Raviatch 2015). Even then, how can we expect to have students who are below basic and far below basic do so much better on a test that is so rigorous? Or better yet, having a child who is an EL do so well on a rigorous test. We cannot set up our students to fail!
All in all, I am guessing we are all going to have to wait and see how things turn out. We, as educators, concerned parents, stakeholders, etc. have to remember what our number one priority is when it comes to education, and that is the children. Rather another reform comes out in another five years from now, or 20 years from now, I am still going to want to do what is best for the children.
Thanks, Mr. UC, for your thoughts. CCSS is being killed not by politics, but by the absurd testing tied to it. As I have said repeatedly, it should have been thoroughly field-tested before it was imposed. The FDA would never approve a drug for use that had not been put through field trials.
This debate over CCSS has created such uproar among us. However, I see this debate no differently than other reform debates, like those of NCLB or any of the others before them. Whenever any reform occurs, controversy follows; each side finding fault with the opposition’s side. Being a teacher, myself, for over 20 years, I have never participated in the debates, controversies or politics that come with the change of tides.
Why? Well, I believe that as educators, our top priority is to TEACH. Whether we are teaching CCSS or our old standards, we simply need to teach our children. Before moving forward, I want to make clear that I believe the CCSS are far better than any past standards. The CCSS focuses on fewer concepts per grade level so that there is time to delve deeply into the understanding of the concepts. There is less of a focus on the “how” and more focus on the “why”. And, students are asked to think critically about real-world problems and concepts, rather than mimic procedures. The shift from recall and reproduction to deeper conceptual understanding is very empowering for our students. It allows them to learn HOW to think, rather than WHAT to think. That should be an educator’s top priority.
With that being said, I do believe the implementation of the CCSS was and is completely flawed. As Ravitch mentioned above, there was a rush to implement the standards without field-testing in classrooms. Who does that? Additionally, Ravitch pointed out that there are inherent flaws in the assessment system with the new CCSS. Personally, I see nothing but flaws with any state or nationwide testing, such as SBAC. I have never believed in testing children in this manner. Even as a young child, myself, I didn’t believe in them.
I was the child who froze when I knew that a test was coming. I put so much pressure on myself to do my best that I ultimately ended up doing my worse. I remember the feeling of stupidity and being “less than” when the test results came back, yet I graduated at the top of my class my entire school career. Those tests told my teachers, my parents and me absolutely nothing, other than I couldn’t take tests. On the other hand, my best friend would always score highly on them. She was a smart child, for sure, but put very little emphasis on education and learning. For her, the test was a joke. And honestly, I feel the same way about any formal testing of our children. The issue does not lie in the fact that we see more failures or below standards on the SBAC because of the rigor it possesses, but rather an issue lies in testing, itself. Finland, in my opinion, has the right idea. Testing is done once, at the end of their schooling.
In short, can the process of the educational reform to CCSS be better implemented? Without a doubt! Improvements can always be made and should be made; especially when it comes to testing and further implementation of the CCSS. However, as educators it is our job to provide our students with an education that is rigorous and cognitively demanding; one that allows them to develop the skills necessary to think through problems they will face on a daily basis. Children need these skills, so they can and will be productive members of society, regardless of their chosen career path. The CCSS, although not perfect, aid educators in doing so.
Maria writes “I believe that as educators, our top priority is to TEACH. Whether we are teaching CCSS or our old standards, we simply need to teach our children. ”
The primary problem is that concrete implementations of CCSS don’t allow teachers to teach. Teachers feel they are soldiers executing orders.
As for the usefullness of CCSS: What’s the advantage of prescribing concrete educational standards at the federal level?
Megan: Love the Rick Stiggins analogy! I think that most teachers are frustrated by tests forcing all students into the same peg shape. NCLB wanted every child “proficient” and CCSS isn’t any different–asking for “achievement” that cannot always be “achieved” due to so many variables.
I think back to when I was in school. I did take state tests here and there, but I don’t remember ever being groomed for test taking; I was never “taught” how to take a test. With CCSS, if we don’t teach our students how to take a test, well, we know what the results will be.
Education has become an industry. With every initiative comes more opportunity for profit. Common Core seems to be the biggest money maker yet for industry.
As an educator, I can name the myriad issues that Common Core presents in the classroom and out, as well as a few benefits; however, I’d like to shift the focus to something far more disturbing to me, and more harmful in the long run, and that is the “industry” that education has become.
Every time the government, Federal or State, shifts around educational pedagogy that means more money for the companies selling educational goods and services: textbooks, programmers, tutoring companies, etc. But, Common Core is more far-reaching. When business leaders get together to determine the type of education they think American children need so that our schools can better produce future workers, we see who is profiting in the end.
Many of these leaders are part of the funding mechanism for privatized public education–education in which none of them would enroll their own children, education that their kids’ private schools aren’t embracing. Suddenly, business leaders know more about education than educators.
I highly doubt any of them would be ok with me entering their workplace and restructuring how their company is organized and run, but the intrusion of non-educators into education proves just how contemptible the general public finds education and, sadly, educators. We see this daily–educators vilified through social media, news, television, movies. It’s no wonder outsiders think they have all the answers when educators are not trusted as authorities in their own field.
” Suddenly, business leaders know more about education than educators.”
Our interim president at the university two years ago declared exactly that: “leading a university is just leading a corporation, and I guess the governor trusts me that I can lead a corporation.”
With the lack of expected achievement in the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act, America sought for a new reform that would improve education and better prepare its students for the future. The decline in America’s education caused educators and politicians to rethink the expectations and goals needed to meet the challenging demands of the ‘real world’. Seeing a need for change, CCSS unleashed adopted nationwide educational standards that would uniformly bring the required teaching expectations together. At the present time, nearly every state had designed and adopted their own perspective standards and created their own idea of ‘proficiency’. I truly believed that all children have them ability to academically achieve. But, at the same time, I did not think that all children would be proficient in the given content area, especially when students learn and develop at different levels. So, like other educators, I was disappointed with NCLB and wanted a change that would properly serve my students.
For years, the academic progress of our nation’s education has been stagnant, and we lost ground to many of our international counterparts. Across America, academic achievement has continued to plunge, leaving parents, teachers, stakeholders and educators curious, doubtful and disorganized in their thoughts and actions. One root cause was the uneven patchwork of academic standards that showed no uniformity, varied from state to state and did not agree on what students should know or be able to do at each grade. The CCSS brought all adopted states together. CCSS has good intent to help develop students, create divergent thinkers and build intrinsic motivators that will take self-interest in their own education. Many assumed that the mystifying puzzle to education was finally being properly put together with the implementation of CCSS. However, there were many missing pieces to this fascinating puzzle.
Why are so many educators confused by CCSS? The lack of clarity has left many educators lost in their approach. Across the board, many teachers are questioning themselves, uncertain if they are doing things correctly. I believe that an educator’s lack of knowledge will hinder his or her ability to effectively teach. More so, it will negate teaching or developing the ‘whole-child.’ Teachers need more than just a simple workshops or conference. Applying a new approach requires proper guidance and assurance that many teachers are not receiving. At the same time, many Administrators are unsure as to what is required, what to properly evaluate or give feedback on.
Will SBAC truly test the growth and achievement of our students? At the present time, the answer is NO! Testing our students with questions they are not prepared for or familiar with is simply setting then up for failure. The design of the SBAC questions must be implemented into our everyday curriculum. Simple steps must be applied for teachers and students to effectively transition into what is to be expected. Simply put, CCSS was dropped in the hands of many Districts and or States who developed their own interpretation of the standards. SBAC was even harsher, with no real data supporting its implementation. Initially, I was excited about the implementation of CCSS, but over the pass year, I’ve seen an array of misguidance that has declined student achievement. Its clear that Common Core is student centered, and it wants students to ‘think outside the box’ to increase their level of thinking. But we must keep in mind that guided instructions must remain in order for students to transition to where we want them to be. Giving low-performing students or ‘At Risk’ students a handout or an assignment and saying, “This is Common Core…Let them figure it out!” is not the true meaning of CCSS, but the meaning of disaster. With CCSS, the achievement gap is expected to lessen, not expand.
What will it take to see a positive impact of CCSS? Time, proper training, collaboration, adjustments and clarity must all come into paly with CCSS and testing. Teachers must become more knowledgeable and aware of the expectations of CCSS in order to help facilitate student achievement. If not, the pendulum will shift faster than we think as our students plunge even further.
Tracy, our students and schools are not declining. This is a myth. Scores on NAEP are at their highest point in history for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. The 40-year gains came to a halt in 2015. Is CC the answer or the problem?
“She and her advisers came to the conclusion that the biggest problem in American education was its extreme decentralization (local control). ”
Interestingly, Howard Zinn says that this was the same reasoning of the forefathers to establish the United States:
“The Federalists published papers explaining the advantages of a central government. One advantage, said James Madison, was that riots, revolts, and civil disorder would be less likely to arise in “a large nation ranging over thirteen states” than in a single state. People’s desire for such “wicked” things as “an equal division of property” might overcome a state government, but not a federal one.”
Zinn actually quotes Hamilton:
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people.… The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government.… Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.…”
RACE TO DECEIT: We need to look back at what Obama specifically promised RTTT was about at the time. In his own words, he promised it would *end* the NCLB practices of narrowing curriculum, penalizing failure, blaming teachers and promoting a culture of testing and measuring. I think we can all agree that he failed every one of those goals:
The question is why – with these noble intentions announced at the outset, was it that he was intentionally lying or was he so out-of-touch on education that he turned everything over to privatizers like Joanne Weiss and wasn’t even noticing as they doubled down on all these things and made him a huge deceiver?
Note: I taught High School Science for 33 years. Outstanding Young Educator award in 1967 from Vermont JC’s. This little propaganda film is a good example of hogwash done by people who have never been in a classroom. Besides, since when did the Constitution give Congress (The Federal Government) any authority over education?
I like Common Core for educational reasons :
http://teaching-abc.blogspot.cl/2014/06/common-core-is-not-curriculum.html
and
http://teaching-abc.blogspot.cl/2014/06/common-core-introducing-standards-based.html
T_H writes “I like Common Core for educational reasons :
http://teaching-abc.blogspot.cl/2014/06/common-core-is-not-curriculum.html”
In the above you claim that CC doesn’t prescribe how to teach, only what to teach. But the standards *have been* tied to tests and assessment. These two determine how the standards are taught: teach to the test. Another problem: the standards are crazy for the low grades. 5 year old kids can be forcefed the standards, but they won’t likely to digest them let alone enjoy them.
In the other link
http://teaching-abc.blogspot.cl/2014/06/common-core-introducing-standards-based.html
you claim, along with CC’s authors, that skills-based education is possible. But teachers know that “skills-based education” is a just a buzz word. You cannot develop skills without content. And, as has been discussed here before, the skills CC wishes to develop in the various grades do not correspond to the age they are prescribed to.
Another claim you make in the above link is that contents change from time to time, and place to place. Sounds good, but false when it comes to math.
The main difficulty of math education is to teach the necessary content without boring or scaring the kids to death and, in fact, make them excited about the subject.
It seems that you can start arguing over every claim or suggestion made in the CC—a telling sign of lack of research.
Implementing unresearched standards nationwide is nothing less than criminal.
“As we are all well aware, local administrators and LEA’s are almost powerless over teacher quality once tenure has been obtained.”
I don’t think we know this at all. If this claim about the Godly protection of tenure was true, why are teachers terrified for their jobs? How come (all) 3 thousand public school teachers in New Orleans could be fired 10 years ago? How come hundreds of teachers got fired in Memphis in recent years as a result of school take overs?
Where was Almighty Tenure Protection while these things happened?
The Common Core serves as a road map for teachers to design learning for students to achieve certain skills at each grade level. But students don’t develop at the same pace as one another or begin at the same spot on the map, as any mother with two or more children will attest. My school for example serves a majority of students who are low SES, LTELS, and a 20% SPED population, yet they will all be tested, all be labeled and none will have a true assessment of what they have learned.
As a part of the CCSS, the SBAC system calls for a “balanced assessment”: that is to embed formative and interim assessments into instruction prior to the summative assessment. SBAC encourages schools to measure student progress throughout the year so, “teachers [can] check student progress throughout the year, giving them actionable information to inform instruction and help students meet the challenge of college- and career-ready standards.” Even a balanced system of assessments doesn’t get at the individual student needs or the whole child. Quaglia and Corso, in their book Student Voice, claim that school must serve at its foundation the student’s “innate desire to experience, understand, know, and decide more and more” (2014). Are schools serving their clients, the individual child—or are they serving an accountability system, paid for by our tax dollars?
That accountability system should be the teacher’s internal accountability to each child. But, somewhere in the schooling system the desire to know more and “aspire” towards individual internal goals has been replaced with creating better test scores. Better test scores are achieved through test prep, effective testing strategies, and direct practice with the exam (thus the system offered through SBAC). Instructional minutes are usurped in favor of preparation for an annual judgment of the school in the form of two scores: how well the students achieve in math and English.
Rick Stiggins, an advocate for a more perfect assessment system, quipped that a dieter would not place all of their efforts to lose weight in finding the very best scale and then weighing themselves once a year. Similarly, we should not measure student success only annually and with ONE scale, the SBAC. As teachers and schools, we should know our student’s individual aspirations, their curiosities, their level of skills and where to work at bettering them. We should also know their needs—academic, social and emotional or we cannot serve students well.
Megan, you bring up some good points when you write that Common Core is a road map for teachers to design lessons. I agree with you in that not all students learn or develop at the same pace. The problem is that if they are in the same grade they are expected to have aquired a specific set of skills (standards). We are promoting students from one grade to another even though they are officially failing. We rarely retain any students now. Even when we recommend retention, most parents will exercise their right to move them on. It’s been difficult finding a good balance that allows us to meet the needs of stuggling students while complying with the Common Core initiatives.
Megan, I liked your Rick Stiggins dieter example. It is so very true. With the assessmens it seems as if we are having the students putting all of their eggs in one basket. We should test the students more than once a year. In fact, it would be good practice to test the students in the beginning of the year and test to see what the students know and do not know. This way we can see improvement in the student’s learning. I know a (private) school that already does this,but only tests their students in the beginning of the year and that’s all. I know there are programs that students can take exams and it actually tells them what their strengths are and gives students suggestions on how to improve. I wish the SBAC can offer this as well.
Megan,
I completely agree with the points you’ve made in your post in that, students do not start on the roadmap in the same place, nor do they move along at the same pace. However, with CCSS, their ability to gain the knowledge necessary to move from where they are to where they need to be is made more accessible to them. With the CCSS, students are encouraged to think for themselves and to support their beliefs with evidence. Yes, this is a difficult skill for many students, especially ELL and SPED students. However, it is an important life skill for all children to develop, and it is possible for them to do so at whatever entry point they begin.
The unfortunate part of this reform is the testing. As you stated, these students and all students will be tested. They will more than likely score below proficient and it will not show the gains they truly made. It is my hope that as the move to implement CCSS continues, more focus is placed on formative assessment and the focus on testing, such as in the form of the SBAC, is diminished. As you said, it’s time to place our focus on students’ curiosities and aspirations. Let’s teach the whole child…academically, socially, and emotionally.
Heather writes “Should teacher preparation programs be designed in isolation?”
No. But I wouldn’t start describing how they should be designed, because I then suddenly would find myself pretending that I know the basic educational needs and principles of each school district in the nation.
I don’t understand your question “Do we have time to keep experimenting?”. So if we don’t have time, we just implement something nationwide?
But why don’t we have time to experiment? Do we have some kind of emergency?
Anyways, we can go back and forth in this topic. Instead, I offer this concrete perspective which I haven’t seen before, and which makes it clear for me that CC math even without the tests is a stillborn project.
The common core math descriptions have been understood by most states that they need to abandon teaching many of the well known algorithms in math such as long division. Instead, teachers teach more awkward versions that seem to ensure that students understand what’s going on.
This is a fundamental error: one of the aims of mathematics is to develop efficient algorithms, formulas which allow a faster, almost mechanical way of solving certain problems.
Yes, kids should understand the algorithm to some level, but then allow them to use the algorithm without thinking about what’s going on behind the scenes. This is how mathematicians, scientists, engineers work, why should kids have to follow a more artificial path invented by a few people a few years ago in Washington?
Standardized tests, on the other hand, try to test how well kids understand the algorithms. Which makes no sense from a mathematical point of view.
In theory, it may make sense to figure out how well kids understand math, but tests cannot do that, only teachers can do that through personal interaction.
I also have two kids: one just finished high school, and the other one is a sophomore in high school. Both are gifted in math in my evaluation, but both learnt to hate math because of the endless testing and mindless test prepping which allow no individual thought and discovery.
I am a teacher of 20 years. Even though I have been researching CCSS I am by no means an expert. I do have some thoughts. NCLB was a no win policy. No one was ever going to be successfull at achieving 100% proficiency. The fact is we needed a change in out educational system. The previous one had teachers teaching for high stakes tests and students using memorization strategies.
Fast forward to CC. Seems like the odds are against us still. However, I see more light at the end of this tunnel. Although the standards do seem to more challenging and have a hidden agenda, I feel that there may be at least a chance for more students to be more successful. I feel that now we, as teachers, should view this as an oppurtunity. We can and should move out of our comfort zones and begin teaching again. Surely teaching critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and valuing creativity can’t be that bad?
Are there problems with CC? Of course! But it is what we have to work with. I hope that changes are coming soon so we continue to refine it. Not all students are equal and they may not all be able to achieve proficiency, but I feel that by teaching more in depth they might have a better shot.
I hope you are right Irma. I hope we do see changes that are going to be for the better and not the worst. As I said it in my post, Commo Core has the right intentions, but there are still some bugs that need fixing. For instance, even though we have moved away from NCLB and putting a lot of emphasis on scores, I still see that with this reform. At the beginning of this school year, we were shown our district’s scores on the SBAC, and they were not the greatest, but why should that matter? If we knew scores were already going to poor, why make it sound as if we failed as teachers? Last year was the first time the students took the SBAC on their iPads. There were so many flaws in doing so. Flaws such as login problems, functions not working properly, etc. I am not an expert in technology, but shouldn’t that have been tested out, before pushing it out tests on the iPads?
Irma, I agree with you when you say, “We should move out of our comfort zones and begin teaching again.” As teachers and future leaders, we need to remember that we need to do what is best for the children!
Hi Irma,
I have been teaching for 18 years and like you have seen the pendulum swing. When I came out of my program we were working with ways to have students think more critically and show their creative side. Then came NCLB which changed the game completely. As you say, the notion of everyone being 100% proficient is not realistic. Giving money to schools and teachers who were high performing only created animosity and resentment in my district. Who is to say one school is more deserving than another based on a test.
Now we have CCSS. Yes, teaching students to think more critically, learn to collaborate, communicate effectively, and yes, putting a value on creativity are all important. However, this all takes time. For most of our students this is new, and the idea of our students suddenly showing proficiency in these areas on the SBAC does not seem realistic. It would be great if the state would let us focus on giving on our students high quality instruction and meeting the needs of all our learners without the weight of the SBAC hanging over our heads. Maybe we will see a shift within the shift of CCSS.
Hector, I completely agree with you. My district did not opt out of using the CC and that has created confusion and frustration on our part. But it is what we have to work with. My greatest concern is for the students. My school’s student population is about 80% EL. They are not prepared for this new instruction and assessment. As an educator this causes me the most stress. I know my students are making progress but the testing results will not reflect that. I hope that the students don’t take their SBAC results and see them as their true performance. And, because they are EL students this is perhaps in their future for the upcoming years.
The Common Core has taken center stage and is the discussion of most staff rooms and staff meetings these days. Newer teachers seem to embrace it because it’s all they know, older teachers seem to be afraid of it because they think it is going to force them to change their way of delivering instruction or possibly getting rid of a unit they truly loved. Then there are the teachers like me, in the middle of my career, who see it as a balance brought back to the classroom after years of NCLB.
Are there problems with the Common Core, yes. As Ms. Ravitch states, we are using a new set of standards that have not been properly piloted. She refers to the FDA and how new drugs are not allowed on the market without thorough testing to be sure there won’t be disastrous effects. Shouldn’t the same be said of the Common Core? Well, the Common Core is here, and I don’t believe it is going to be going away anytime soon.
The biggest piece I see now as an educator is how to help the families of my students understand the new standards and how they can work with children at home to develop the skills we are working on in the classroom. In addition to educating parents around the new standards, I also feel they need to understand the new testing system. Once again we are being tied to success based on a test. A test which is simply a snapshot in the day of a child and should not be the end all be all. As Ms. Ravitch points out, tests impact curriculum and instruction, but this shouldn’t be what drives the instruction in the classroom.
The new standards have brought a surge in the need for technology and preparing our students for the 21st century. I like the new standards and appreciate the fact I am able to work with my students in the areas of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and developing their creative side. I also appreciate the fact I am not checking a box and trying to rush to some imaginary finish line as in the past. I know there is a test lurking out there for my students to take. But, I see my job first and foremost as educating the whole child, not just the part of the child that will take the SBAC. I will measure my success based on how well my students are prepared when they leave my classroom, and when I see them years down the road on their way to college or whatever career they choose. The Common Core standards are by no means a perfect fit, but I do believe they can be a guide for deeper instruction in the classroom and more purposeful learning for our students.
Máté,
You’ve raised some great points, and I’d like to address them from my viewpoint.
You mentioned, “…CCSS don’t allow teachers to teach. Teachers feel they are soldiers executing orders.”
I have found the opposite to be true. The prior standards were more like executing orders. We taught and asked students to recall and reproduce exactly what we said. The CCSS, however, allow students to think critically and support their views, methods, and understandings with evidence. Teaching students the HOW, rather than WHAT is the true meaning of teaching. In fact, the dictionary defines the word teach as “Teach can refer to almost any practice that causes others to develop skill or knowledge.” Recall and reproduction do not develop knowledge.
Additionally, the federal level did not prescribe the CCSS. They developed them, or rather, put together a group of people to write them. Should that group have been made up of educators? I strongly believe so. Nevertheless, the federal government had them developed. States were given the option to adopt them or not, as well as the ability to add a certain percentage of their own standards. Was federal money given to states that adopted? Yes. Was that the best way to have the CC standards implemented? I’m not so sure. However, as to the actual standards themselves, I believe they are more aligned to what teaching and education should be than any others before them. Also, having concrete educational standards that are nationwide can have some advantages. For example, we have never had educational consistency across the country. This can only be an advantage. Students in the US should be exposed to and learn the same thing. It shouldn’t matter where you live in the country. If a student relocates, he/she should be able to pick up where he/she left off and be familiar with what is being taught. The goal is to have consistent, shared, and rigorous learning goals across the states, in addition to coherent progression from grade level to grade level.
Maria,
The way CC is implemented in most states forces teachers to teach to the test. This is the reality. We can try to separate the prescriptions in CC from the accompanying tests, but many people think, it makes no sense to talk about standards without making sure students meet the standards.
What the theory behind CC is, well, a theory. There are many other theories, and it’s not clear why this one is better than the others, since there’s no research behind it.
My feeling is, no matter how much research you do, you won’t be able to find out which educational theory is correct. This is because education is not a science—not even when we teach science.
I understand that you like the idea behind CC, but many people don’t, and the fact that this second group’s opinion has been ignored is unacceptable.
Some of the ideas behind CC are questionable: skills cannot be taught without content. (t’s also true that learning only content is passive and boring). In my opinion, the skills promoted for early grades are unrealistic, even cruel to me.
To me, talking about college and career readiness in grade school is spooky. Is that what my kids should get out of K-8 education: survival skills in the economy?
I have no idea what rigorous education means. I don’t understand this frequently used buzzadjective even in case of math? How do I teach math rigorously vs nonrigorously?
Máté,
I can tell that you are truly passionate about your beliefs and make valid points to support them. I appreciate them and respect your opinions.
I am in complete agreement with your thoughts regarding education not being a science. You are right on when you say that no matter how much research you do, you won’t be able to find out which educational theory is correct. It is my belief, that the correct educational theory is the one that most aligns with what is best for children.
I also understand that there are many who do not agree with CC, all for similar or different reasons. However, I’m not in agreement that they have been ignored. For a policy or reform to be changed simply because there are those who do not agree with it, would be counterproductive. The policy or reform should be given the opportunity to succeed; it should be under constant review and revised when needed. But to simply do away with it, before it has been given the opportunity to prove to be successful is not acceptable.
As for some of the ideas behind CC being questionable…I would agree as well. In my opinion, many ideas behind any reform are questionable. Without a doubt, kids should be allowed to be kids. However, I also strongly believe that we, especially educators, should never underestimate the abilities of any child. Teaching a child, at an early age, to have an opinion and be able to feel confident about that opinion because he/she can justify it is invaluable. Teaching a child to perserve through obstacles that he or she may face in life is also a needed skill, regardless of age. The challenge, as I see it, is in finding the “happy middle ground”.
A common fund of knowledge for Americans was envisioned by E. D. Hirsch in order to create bonds among people of dissimilar cultures in the United States. In his book “Cultural Literacy” he gives examples of history , literature, etc. that we ought to share in common in order to understand each other. In other words, cultural enrichment. I don’t think he imagined children would be tested on it! It means that we all know about George Wahington, Winnie the Pooh, and Sojourner Truth.