Laura Chapman, who lives in Ohio, has written extensively on this blog about the defects of the Common Core standards. She notes here that the state of Ohio is pretending to review the CCSS. But they have made the review so difficult that few parents or educators will be able to make their views known to the state. This cannot be an accident.
Chapman writes:
Common Core is up for review in Ohio, sort of.
The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) only wants comments from the public that will tweak specific standards, not reasoning that might warrant dumping them all. The press (in this case the Newark Advocate) repeats the myth that the standards were developed by a broad coalition and correctly raise the bar for U.S. students, who often lag their international counterparts.”
The ODE only wants to know which standards need to be tweaked and according to a spokesperson, the current review has nothing to do with controversies.
ODE has set up a website for “feedback” relevant to three questions:
1. Are these standards still appropriate for the students in each grade?
2. Do these standards still reflect what is most important in each subject area?
3. Do these standards still reflect what students need to know to be successful after high school?
In order to offer a response you must go to a website where you can enter the feedback system. It is structured with five entry points for 963 Common Core standards: K-8 Math (229), HS Math (156), K-12 ELA (32), K-5 ELA (250), 6-12 ELA Literacy (296).
The number of standards is daunting enough (the system as dropped subordinate parts (e.g., a-f ) attached to many of standards–the parts that steer instruction and complicate judgments. The feedback system is semi-structured. You can search for standards by grade level and major topics, or enter a key word and see what that turns up.
Casual comments are clearly ruled out. When you have identified one standard for a comment, you are asked to follow these steps. (Begin quote)
1. Type of Suggestion Select the type of edit being suggested for the standard above. —Clarity—Grade Level Appropriate—Content Error—Other
2. Claim. Provide a description of your content-focused issue or concern with the standard you identified.
Characters 0/1000
3. Resolution. Provide a description of a possible resolution to the issue that you claimed above.
Characters 0/1000
4. Research/Rationale* Provide research, information or data that supports the claim made above concerning this standard. Characters 0/1000 If you have none, enter “None” into the box. (End Quote.)
So far the state has received over 350 comments. I am trying to find out the ending date for the on-line comments and more about “a committee” that will meet after the on-line comment period is closed.
This on-line comment “opportunity” is inexpensive, limits responses, and demands more time than most people can devote to it. I think the CCSS will not be changed much. It is not just that educators played such a marginal role from the get-go, and that Bill Gates paid for the CCSS, and the rest.
Ohio already has 3,203 standards on the books, an average of 267 per grade level, including the existing Common Core (including parts a-e). There are no caps on standard-setting.
There are also brand new national standards that might be worthy of concurrent review—including National Core Arts Standards (2014) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013). In fact, the NGSS include 410 cross references to the Common Core: 203 in math, 96 in reading, 90 in writing, and 21 in ELA literacy—all before high school.
Apparently Ohio “continues to review the NGSS document for the purpose of identifying related resources and strategies that schools can use to support Ohio’s Learning Standards in Science, which began serving as the foundation for Ohio’s State Tests in Science in 2014-2015.”
It seems doubtful that Ohio ever intended to have a serious and “actionable” review of the CCCS. Why? Ohio has already contracted with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for math and English tests that are supposed to be ready now (Spring 2016) having dumped PARCC. In addition, AIR already has contracts for science and social studies tests. The “feedback form” is at http://www.ohio-k12.help/standards
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for wading through all that, Laura.
I’l be honest with you, though, I have no idea what the Ohio standards “should” be and I think that’s probably true of 95% of Ohio public school parents. This just isn’t my area of expertise – I’m completely willing to leave it up to teachers. I understand your skepticism that teachers wrote the standards based on the past performance of ed reformers in this state, so that’s a problem for me, but I don’t go along with the idea that parents should be directing public schools.
“Parents” have all kinds of objectives and agendas, in my experience. What I think is good for my child might be bad for the other 1,999 kids in the school. I’ve met parents here who think all instruction should be Bible-based, or parents who object to any fiction that is even slightly “controversial”. We have parents who judge whether the teacher is “good” based on whether or not they drill multiplication tables or use flash cards. It’s just all over the map. To me is seems like “parent directed” schools turn into schools directed by the loudest parents, or the parents who have the most time on their hands.
I know Ohio has a POLITICAL problem with the Common Core and most of this “public review” seems like a public relations stunt, but I don’t know that I want parents directing what the standards “should” be. A lot of us aren’t very good at it, and I include myself in that group.
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I wonder if all this is not a guaranteed win for the testing industry. Towards the end of the article we hear about “National Core Arts Standards (2014) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013).” I do not know about them…….but do either of them involve a significantly lower percentage of student and teacher time? Testing industry wins if it is acknowledged that the only alternative to time-wasting flawed tests are other time-wasting flawed tests, which damage the entire processes of public education.
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Joe and Chiara,
Since 2010, national standards have been written in 17 subjects/domains including the common core standards in math, ELA, and ELA literacy.
The grand total for just K-8, excluding high school completely, is 3558 standards, about 445 per grade level (although some are written for several grade spans).
Most of these standards are for traditional subjects. The common core in math and ELA helped to jumpstart the process, but there are also explicit and informal expiration dates for the life span for standards. Some of these are embedded in state regulations or influenced by legislative action (as in Ohio).
Recall that the Goals 2000 project in the late 1990s produced a number of standards. That initiative was spawned by earlier claims that “higher standards are vital to our nation’s economic survival,”vintage 1983 in “A Nation at Risk.”
The Goals 2000 project produced standards in 14 major domains of study, 24 nested branches of study, 259 major standards, and 4100 grade-level K-12 benchmarks. Marzano and Kendall estimated that it could take up to 22 years of schooling to adequately cover all of the content (Marzano, R. J., & Kendall, J. S. (1998). Awash in a sea of standards. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.).
The preoccupation with raising standards and expanding standards to almost all aspects of the practice of education has continued, reaching to proposals to rate teacher education programs by their standards for admitting candidates (SAT or GPA) sometimes including a prestige rating of the program or university, then performance standards for entry into teaching (edPTA test for example), then standards for performance on the job (e.g., Danielson, Marzano, student test scores).
The newest twist is standards for the performance of newly minted teachers as indictors of the merit of the teacher education programs that prepared these teachers–do the new hires exceed the school or district standards for raising test scores and “customer satisfaction” (surveys of employers, students, parent/caregivers)?
Although I have looked at the proliferation of standards without giving concurrent attention to the testing industry, there can be little doubt that a pre-occupation with measurable outcomes tied to standards enables that industry to thrive.
The most recent example is the start-up Panorama Education, specializing in surveys of school climate and social-emotional learning being used in 6,500 schools. Investors include Y Combinator, Google Ventures, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s Startup: Education. The idea is that schools should be graded by their “improvement” in measures of school climate and social-emotional learning , and that disaggregated scores are important in order to recognize strengths and “targets” for intervention, remediation.
Hardly anyone looks at the inconsistencies, overlaps, daunting complexity, and blatant errors in all of these standards. No coherent curriculum can be fashioned from them.
That is one reason why so many teachers rarely refer to standards unless they are compelled to cite them in formal lesson plans or evaluations. At best, standards are well written guides and tools for thinking… and to argue with.
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In an attempt to give the CCSS some credibility, the same scam is taking place in New Jersey. It is just the continuation of the original scam when Coleman brought in a bunch of Teachers to review the Standards and just did whatever the test makers wanted done!
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“Ohio has already contracted with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for math and English tests”
I’m not complaining, but who comes up with these ‘brilliant” acronyms anyway?
“Contracts with AIR”
Contracts with AIR?
There’s nothing there
A plinth of space
Supporting air
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It’s the Medium, not the Message.
None of this misdirection ploy has anything to do with the value of the standards.
It has to do with who controls the evaluation process.
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“. . . the value of the standards.”
Yes, there is value in standards. Standards that are properly developed, disseminated and used (um, that doesn’t include any “educational standards” at all as that concept is a misnomer at best and a con job at worse) are very important in everyday life. Whether it’s a metrological standard-those standards of measurement that have been exactingly described, vetted and whose instruments of measurement have been stringently calibrated with known error of measurement determined (see NIST for further information). Or a democratically determined by the users involved “documentary” standard (see ISO for further information), (and, um again, that doesn’t include the so called CCSS). (and they say he’s parenthetically mad).
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With all due respect, it’s not the Medium. It’s not the Message. It’s the Massage.
¿😳?
Same kind of Massage as that given numbers & stats by the self-aggrandizing bean counters in the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement. A few examples: 100% charter graduation rates; taking one’s students from the 13th to the 90th percentile (courtesy of Michelle Rhee); making a 2% increase in the LAUSD graduation rate a 12% increase (courtesy of John Deasy); and five-weeks of training fits the federal definition of a TFA teacher wannabe who is “highly qualified” (see this blog*).
*Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/12/09/mercedes-schneider-what-essa-says-about-highly-qualified-teachers/
Your last line says it all: “It has to do with who controls the evaluation process.”
CC is good. It’s good because it’s good. It’s good because they say it’s good.
Right out of Lewis Carroll’s THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS:
[start]
‘There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
[end]
And when it comes to the “thought” leaders of corporate education reform, being “master” isn’t the only thing—it’s everything (riffing off of Vince Lombardi).
Thank you both for your comments.
😎
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This is what we get when public education is politicized and monetized. We wind up with “standards” from special interest groups while the real needs of students and their long term goals are ignored. It is unfortunate that the voices of educators that have experience, expertise and understanding of the crises that will follow these bad policies are silenced.
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“We are creating standards … without resources and systems to do this.”
Representative of the Massachusetts Board of Education several weeks ago.
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No, they are not “creating standards”. That’s pure bullshit. They are creating curriculum goals, guidelines, objectives and any other educational jargon word that you can think of but they are not “creating standards”. See above post to help understand why.
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Ohio can change their re-branded Common Core standards from carved-in-stone commandments into mere suggestions – if they choose to de-couple test scores from teacher and school evaluations or ratings. Put your political pressure there citizens of Ohio.
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Utah did pretty much the same thing a couple of years ago. The comment section wanted specific “chapter and verse,” if you will, of the CC in order to comment about what was wrong. Needless to say, the state said that there was a lot of support for CC. Now, it’s the “Utah Core Standards.” We’re supposed to tell parents that we don’t teach the CC.
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Ah, the same old NCLB/R2T game—change programs, change leaders, change personnel, change standards, change the name of state tests: so much deregulated chaos and confusion whirling around that nothing/no one will ever actually be held accountable.
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So Duane, are we no longer allowed to use the term “standards of behavior” or the phrase “measuring up” because some industrial group decided they would be in charge of what a standard is? That’s the way I used to feel frequently when you went into Wilson mode. Except you have added a new category of standard: “Or a democratically determined by the users involved “documentary” standard (see ISO for further information).” I am blanking on what ISO stands for if I ever knew, but I so much like my parents’/community’s use of the term. The rules were not written down but modeled over time with direct or indirect instruction. We knew quite clearly if we didn’t measure up to expectations. There was no written test. CCSS, which is test dependent, reads like a outline for a not yet fully developed curriculum. The creators protest that The Standards are not prescriptive, that the content can be addressed in any manner educators see fit, but the tests make it obvious that those educators will be measured based on how the creators envision instructional content.
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First, 2o2t, the ISO is the International Organization for Standardization (I believe the acronym is based on the French language name, and bad on me for not explicitly stating what ISO stands for as I’m one to constantly badger folks to tell me what a given acronym means).
NIST is the National Institute of Standards and Technology which is in charge of setting truly “measurable” standards and all that goes with a metrological standard.
One can use the terms “standards of behavior” or perhaps a musical standard let’s say a “jazz standard” as one wishes as that meaning of standard is not the same as the meaning of standard as it is used in education. The word standard as used in education is meant to evoke measurable NIST or ISO type standards. Standards that have been developed through time, yes and sometimes with industry’s help, in order to make providing goods and services more efficient and easier. And that type of standard was even evoked by Billy the Gates himself in his reference that CCSS and/or educational standards should be considered like the electric socket standard. But the NIST/ISO type standards do not exist in education discourse.
And yes, one can use the term “measuring up” but that phrase isn’t used in a literal fashion but in a figurative manner. So in essence it-“measuring up” is quite different than when someone declares that we “are measuring student achievement” when in reality we aren’t measuring anything of the sort. We may be assessing, evaluating, counting, and/or judging but those are not the same thing as actually measuring something as in a metrological standard. By using the term “measure” as meaning metrological type measure advocates of “measuring student achievement” are muddying the waters of meaning, I would contend on purpose, to make it appear that they can scientifically/objectively evaluate something when they cannot actually do so. In other words it’s a scam, a lie, a falsehood and error to use measure in that fashion.
Which brings us to “. . . but the tests make it obvious that those educators will be measured based on how the creators envision instructional content.”
No, the educators aren’t “measured”. They are assessed, evaluated, judged and perhaps including counting of behaviors that they exhibit but that is in no way a “measurement” as there are no agreed upon standards that have any agreed upon measuring device that is calibrated against the standard unit of measure. It is one huge error and falsehood, even though the vast majority of educators, parents, folks in general believe in measuring, grading (a type of categorization implying measuring has been done) etc. . . students. To insist that measurement and what should be the accompanying “standards” exist is rationo-logically invalid. Those concepts are invalid as they are used in the teaching and learning process.
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I used the term “measured” for educators deliberately. It doesn’t matter what I think of the whole bogus setup. The terminology has been usurped by those who have the power to say that it means what they say it means. I understand and agree with your argument about educational “measurement.” Measurement implies the ability to quantify a construct that has no standard measure. I can use standardized tests to make an educated guess about where a student is in his/her knowledge of a particular subject and/or what might be impeding learning if I see a pattern of behavior through observation and critiques of other activities/products, but I am not “measuring” anything. I just hate having terminology that has lots of good informal applications bastardized to serve someone’s formal and far reaching attempts to control the process of education. Nothing against you. I just feel an impending rant on my part. 🙂
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For some inexplicable reason over the last few days I’ve been coming across a lot of different cases, articles, chats with people (nothing conscious on my part to do so, mainly others bringing it up) that have to do with the ambiguities involved human communications (and artificial intelligence translators). It is amazing that we can communicate as well as we do.
Now, I’m not a hard core grammarian or dictionary definition guy but without some semblance of common meaning available and used by all, words-the sounds we use and the combinations of those sounds can become meaningless. Sometimes I think that is where we are at with educational jargon. Word meanings have been so abused that it seems up is down, left is right and bad is good.
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The questions asked are weak. Here are seven real questions to ask. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2016/03/six-questions-to-ask-about-common-core.html Agree?
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Temnnsee had a similar on line review of its standards recently. There were some questions centered around each individual statement. I suggested that they throw out most of the statements due to vagueness.
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Tennesse engaged in the same sham.
Offering parents the “opportunity” to dissect and correct each and every standard is a disingenuous “review” at best. It IS a PR move that enables the state to say they gathered “input” from all stakeholders. They know full well that parents are not standards writers.
How about a place to simply say “we want developmentally appropriate, research based, field tested standards vetted by experts with a proven track record. And we do not want them attached to high stakes standardized tests”.
Moves like these “reviews” only serve to further prove none of this reform is about quality education. Which for the life of me I cannot figure out. Are there really so many policy makers willing to sell off education?
Sure it’s profitable. Sure there is greed. Sure there are many many folks who put profit above all else. But isn’t there ANYONE in office willing to stand up for true education? Anyone? Please, reveal yourselves!!!
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