This is an interesting development. David Coleman was the architect of the Common Core; Arne Duncan used Race to the Top to push it into almost every public school in the United States, without any prior field testing.
Now Coleman tells the Cardinal Newman Society that Catholic schools should not abandon their own core religious values. Did he ever tell public schools to go slowly?
Catholic is our core
Cardinal Newman Society
Editorial: Catholic Schools Should Proudly Keep ‘Catholic’ as Their Core
December 14, 2015
Common Core co-developer David Coleman says that Catholic schools should have the “moxie” to preserve and celebrate their Catholic identity and emphasis on the liberal arts — and The Cardinal Newman Society wholeheartedly agrees.
Today the Newman Society published two reports from our exclusive interview with Mr. Coleman , who not only helped write the Common Core Standards but also is CEO of The College Board, which is revising its college entrance exam (SAT) to reflect the Common Core. Although Mr. Coleman supports the Common Core, his comments to the Newman Society reinforce our consistent position that Catholic schools must have non-negotiable standards of Catholic identity and emphasis on the liberal arts. They should not compromise those standards for any reason, including conformity to sweeping school reforms.
Moreover, there is no need to rush into the Common Core Standards in Catholic education, even if educators find some value in them. Observe and see what works, reject what doesn’t. Mr. Coleman praises religious liberal arts education and says that students in traditional Catholic schools — even those in the growing number of classical education programs — have no need to worry about getting lower SAT scores on his revised exams. Certainly Catholic educators have no reason to fear falling behind public schools.
Changing curricula, textbooks, testing and literature standards in order to “keep up” with the Common Core is not in the best interest of Catholic schools and the students and families they serve. The Cardinal Newman Society works with wonderful Catholic schools across the country that continue to have great success providing a traditional liberal arts education with a strong Catholic mission.
It’s time for Catholic educators to “be proud of what you have to offer, which is different,” as Mr. Coleman said. Let’s stand in confidence with what we know and believe.
Please join with us in promoting faithful Catholic education by forwarding this email on to a family member or friend.
The Cardinal Newman Society
9720 Capital Court, Suite 201
Manassas, VA 20110
alert@CardinalNewmanSociety.org
Ph: 703-367-0333 Fx: 703-396-8668
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Huh? He’s gone ’round the bend.
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Here’s a great David Coleman video:
… and the infamous one where he tells the audience that all students should learn that, in the real world after you grow up, “people really don’t give a sh%# about what you feel, or what you think”:
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I wonder why he didn’t give his “People don’t give a $%!t what you feel and think” to the Newman Society.
I’m sure that would have gone over well.
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This is perfect, Diane: “Now Coleman tells the Cardinal Newman Society that Catholic schools should not abandon their own core religious values. Did he ever tell public schools to go slowly?”
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Hypocrite. He’s a hypocrite. Rush Common Core into the public schools, but tell the Catholic schools to take it slowly.
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Ed reform is a political alliance as much as it’s an educational alliance. They have to keep private schools on board with the political agenda, and if that means vouchers or exempting them from ed reform policy and mandates, well, that’s what they’ll do.
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Perhaps there are visitors to this blog that think I am over the top when I describe the heavyweights of so-called “education reform” as employing double speak, engaging in double think, and adhering to double standards.
Regarding those who actually know CCSS well and foist it on to others: here’s a blast from the recent past that underscores the searing hypocrisy of cage busting achievement gap rushing 21st century creative disruption aka rheephorm—
This blog, 3-23-2014, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”
[entire posting start]
This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.
[entire posting end]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/23/common-core-for-commoners-not-my-school/
Not to mention the shameful hypocrisy of mandating faux teaching and learning for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN [the vast majority] whilst reserving the genuine article for THEIR OWN CHILDREN. Think Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel and Arne Duncan] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and the list goes on and on.
In theory, CCSS for all. In practice, deeds and words diverge.
That’s the way I see it…
😎
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No, I don’t think that you’re “over the top,” KrazyTA.
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“The Hypocritic Oath”
The Hypocritic Oath
Is taken by the Colemen*
It certifies their growth
To rank “without-a-soul” men
*also know as “school reformers”
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Reading ed reformers, one gets the distinct impression that they don’t assign any value at all to existing public schools, so literally any experiment would be an improvement. Catholic schools have something to lose with the Common Core. Public schools don’t.
I don’t know how it happened that we have a huge group of people who are being paid either in whole or in part by the public, yet those people assign no value to public schools- the schools the vast majority of the public use.
It’s really remarkable, when you think about it. It’s as the whole staff of the Social Security Administration decided to spend most of their time promoting 401-k’s.
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Chiara: that’s because the ed reformers you reference assign as much worth to the public schools as they do to the general public—
Not much, if any.
But when it comes to those public servants that are turning public goods over to the private sector: they’re never paid enough taxpayer money for all their creatively disruptive activity.
Rheeally!
But not really…
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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KrazyTA
December 21, 2015 at 10:53 am
Chiara: that’s because the ed reformers you reference assign as much worth to the public schools as they do to the general public—
I think it would be a great question to ask politicians: “what is it you value about existing public schools, specifically?” There would be the usual deflection- “agnostic”, “I’m for great schools”, “I love teachers” so you would have to really force them to limit the response to existing public schools.
I don’t think they see any value there at all. My sense reading on the ed reform side is that public schools are so bad there is no risk because there’s (literally) nothing of value to lose. A lot of times public schools are only mentioned as a market- purchasing ed tech, purchasing CC materials, purchasing consultant services.
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Chiara: your last paragraph is a sober and realistic reading of the main thrust of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement.
That is why the actual standards of the heavyweights of rheephorm are so very very low: they truly believe that public education is so awful that anything else [e.g., charters & privatization & vouchers], no matter how counterproductive or wasteful or toxic must be, has to be, is certainly better.
Hence when they say “choice” the unspoken caveat is that the “choice of a well-supported & resourced neighborhood public school” is off the table and unacceptable.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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“The Devil’s Salesman”
Evil is the Core
And Devil is details
What is Coleman for?
For closing Devil’s sales
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“The Devil’s Salesman” (take 2)
Evil is the Core
With Devil in details
What is Coleman for
But closing Devil’s sales?
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As in infant, I was baptized as a Catholic, and I started kindergarten in a Catholic Parochial school. It was tough. The nuns did not put up with anything. Even if your handwriting or printing wasn’t perfect, your knuckles were whacked with a ruler and then you had to go to the corner where all the other children could see you, kneel and pray for forgiveness repeatedly.
The reason Catholic schools might reform better than public school is because the parents who put their children in those schools are supportive to the extreme and the Catholic schools are authoritarian to the extreme. If we were to compare the authoritative methods of Eva Moskowitz to most if not all Catholic schools, who would win for being the meanest SOB?
But, this study out of Michigan State University concludes that Catholic Schools are not superior to public schools.
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/study-catholic-schools-not-superior-to-public-schools/
My conclusion: When we compare schools based on test scores, and then proclaim one school better than another, it isn’t the schools that we should be comparing. We should be comparing parents and students.
If the majority or every student in a Catholic and/or private school has supportive parents and the children cooperate with their teachers in classes with smaller class sizes how does that compare to the often overcrowded public school classrooms where there are far too many parents who are not supportive and children who do not cooperate to learn?
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Perhaps Lloyd, Coleman has decided that the traditional parochial school produces better followers than public schools. And these, who were taught to be subservient to the church, will make the best cogs in the oligarchs free market machine and business plans.
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Excellent point, Ellen.
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I like that – “Free Market Machine”
I think it is arguable that a free market machine doesn’t mean more freedom for workers and consumers but an unsafe environment to shop because there will be no way to know if the consumer/workers is getting cheated in some way by a fraud and crook who is free to make money any way possible.
The worship of wealth at any cost will destroy the safety and freedom of most people.
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Hypocrisy in the reform movement? Really?
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If the catholic schools were so great, why did I become the teacher of those who they failed to teach and kicked out?
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“Of those they failed…” (forestalling the super critics of unedited text)
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If one believes in sky-fairies, one is not well educated. Religion is an obsolete operating system based on sacrificing others.
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Can we find a parallel in Gates sending his kids to schools that reject the oligarch’s “reform”?
Like the water in Flint, reform is only for the few remaining children in the middle class and, for the poor.
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Fascinating…Coleman knows full well that Catholic Schools must conform to ALL federal Dept. of Education curriculum requirements of Communist Core since they, including charter schools with unelected school boards, are tax-funded.
The Cardinal Newman Society must be aware of this control mechanism.
Sometimes I wonder what world am I living in? Does the English language, especially text found in federal Dept. of Education grant regulations, no longer have any meaning?
Catholic parents: BEWARE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS. THEY ARE THE TRAP TO DESTROY ANY VESTIGES OF “TRADITIONAL” CHRISTIANITY LEFT IN THIS SAD WORLD OF OURS!
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Off-topic.
Reportedly, the Catholic, University of Dayton, recently claimed it will no longer take Koch money.
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I read it as Coleman triangulating in an attempt to keep SAT market share and credibility among the demographics it’s been most damaged in as a result of his connection to Common Core.
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