My Interview about Common Core on WNYC

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1. m4potw says:

   September 8, 2016 at 10:35 pm

   It seems to me that some callers, who were veteran teachers and called in, did not present their views of common core clear enough to public. Also, there is a spoke-person who said that common core is not curriculum, but a strategy. Why does federal government enforces CC with threat and a condition to cut funding to Public School if students and parents opt out CC invalid tests?

   To be clear about the invalid CC, public should know;

   1) CC testing materials above the learners’ learning level. For example: students at third grade are being asked to answer 4th or 5th grade material

   2) CC testing materials have confused, missing and misleading wordings.

   3) CC testing materials intend to fail 70% students so that corporate can privatize and control public assets through charter chains that are owned by foreigners like Gluen movement; or charter chains that are owned by UNQUALIFIED ADMINISTRATORS AND ITS TEACHING STAFF.

   There are more than three above reasons, like destroying the established American Democracy by disruption of K-12 system. Back2basic

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2. Catherine Blanche King says:

   September 9, 2016 at 6:18 am

   FWIW: Four points I took from the program:

   First, I think caller Mike, a long-term high school teacher from G. Village NY (and Diane), was right to point to the fundamental link between poverty and children’s performance at school. Mike said (paraphrasing) there are no “failing schools;” rather, students who live in poverty didn’t (couldn’t) do well in school, and those who came from a higher-income situation did better. Diane agreed saying that studies confirm this insight and pointed to the disparity between teacher and school resources in low and higher income areas.

   Second, Diane said that President Johnson, who initiated the Head Start programming in the 60’s, had it right about education and, again, its link to children’s family situation and, particularly, their income level. Diane said Johnson probably understood because he was the only president who had been a teacher. It is my understanding that he also knew what rural Texas poverty looked like, both for black and white kids.

   Third, if the above is true, then the arguments about NCLB, common core, or testing in any case, are important in their own right, but do-or-don’t-or-how become peripheral or even gross abstractions from the comprehensive reality when looked to as a “cure” for what’s wrong with education.

   Finally, if both Diane and M4potW (in above note) are correct, then there is (a) common core, which, as Diane suggested, has some qualities; and teachers should use it if it works for them (how refreshing is that); and there is, again, (b) the background motivations of some with long-term ambitions and power who are not interested at all in “raising all boats” and who want to destroy public education, not directly, but a little at a time by “starving the beast” so it looks and performs so badly that everyone, including parents who don’t know the background, want to kill it, or at least let it die. THAT makes we wonder about what Hilary said early in the program, not about how bad or good Common Core was, but how bad its roll-out was.

   Anything good can be made to look or even be bad in a systematically sabotaged presentation.

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   • Duane Swacker says:

     September 9, 2016 at 3:51 pm

     “Common Core” = Common Core State Standards = CCSS with the usage of the term standards being the key to this educational abomination/malpractice. From Ch. 6 “On Standards and Measurement” of the soon to be released “Infidelity to Truth: Educational Malpractice in American Public Education”:

     Standard
     1: a conspicuous object (as in a banner) formerly carried at the top of a pole and used to mark a rallying point especially in battle or to serve as an emblem
     2a: a long narrow tapering flag that is personal to an individual or corporation and bears heraldic devices b: the personal flag of the head of state or of a member of a royal family c: an organization flag carried by a mounted or motorized military unit d: banner
     3: something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example: criterion <quite slow by today’s standards>
     4: something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of a quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality
     5a: the fineness and legally fixed weight of the metal used in coins b: the basis of value in a monetary system
     6: a structure built for or serving as a base of support
     7a: a shrub or herb grown with an erect main stem so that it forms or resembles a tree b: a fruit tree grafted on the stock that does not induce dwarfing
     8a: the large odd upper petal of a papilionaceous flower (as of the pea) b. one of the three inner usually erect and incurved petals of an iris
     9: a musical composition (as a song) that has become a part of the standard repertoire
     For the purposes of this discussion, obviously definitions 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 do not concern us. It is the somewhat similar and perhaps inter-confusing definitions of 3 and 4 that interest us.

     Before NCLB the definition of standard as used in the individual state's curriculum standards and even today in curriculum standards promulgated and promoted by subject area organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics or the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages fell under definition three.  They were never meant to be used as "a rule for the measure of a quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality" as in definition four but as a model for teachers to use as in definition three.  Confusing indeed!
     
      Another way to look at the concept of standards is that there are two accepted types of standards, metrological and documentary.
     
     Metrology is the science of measurement and a metrological standard "is an object, system, or experiment that bears a defined relationship to a unit of measurement of a physical quantity.  Standards are the fundamental reference for a system of weights and measures, against which all other measuring devices are compared. Measurements are defined in relationship to internationally-standardized reference objects, which are used under carefully controlled laboratory conditions to define the units of length, mass, electrical potential, and other physical quantities.” 
     
     A documentary standard "is a document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.” 
     
     Many governmental departments, for example the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA). promulgate documentary standards and/or regulations.  The EPA's guidelines for promulgating a regulation (similar to developing a documentary standard) follow:
     

     “When developing regulations, the first thing we do is ask if a regulation is needed at all. Every regulation is developed under slightly different circumstances but this is the general process:

     Step 1: EPA Proposes a Regulation
     The agency researches the issues and, if necessary, proposes a regulation, also known as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). The proposal is listed in the Federal Register (FR) so that members of the public can consider it and send their comments to us. The proposed rule and supporting documents are also filed in EPA’s official docket on Regulations.gov

     Step 2: EPA Considers Your Comments and Issues a Final Rule
     Generally, once we consider the comments received when the proposed regulation was issued, we revise the regulations accordingly and issue a final rule. This final rule is also published in the FR and in EPA’s official docket on Regulations.gov.

     Step 3: The Regulation is Codified in the Code of Federal Regulations
     Once a regulation is completed and has been printed in the FR as a final rule, it is codified when it is added to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The CFR is the official record of all regulations created by the federal government. . . . ”

     In the case of the EPA, the agency not only promulgates the regulation but is also the enforcement agent to ensure that the regulations are followed

     The ISO  promulgates international standards but is not the certifying agency, other agencies do the certifying of a company's compliance with the standards.  The ISO has strict rules for making and issuing standards.  The key principles in standard(s) development:
     

     ISO standards respond to a need in the market.
     ISO does not decide when to develop a new standard, but responds to a request from industry or other stakeholders such as consumer groups. Typically, an industry sector or group communicates the need for a standard to its national member who then contacts ISO.
     ISO standards are based on global expert opinion.
     ISO standards are developed by groups of experts from all over the world that are part of larger groups called technical committees. These experts negotiate all aspects of the standard, including its scope, key definitions and content.
     ISO standards are developed through a multi-stakeholder process.
     The technical committees are made up of experts from the relevant industry, but also from consumer associations, academia, NGOs and government.
     ISO standards are based on a consensus
     Developing ISO standards is a consensus-based approach and comments from all stakeholders are taken into account.

     The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and all other state educational standards are documentary standards but none of processes used in the development of the standards have followed the formal protocol and processes as outlined by the OSI or for regulations by government agencies.

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3. gitapik says:

   September 9, 2016 at 8:58 am

   Nice job, Diane. Wonderful that the interview took place on the first day of school. Very significant, to my way of thinking.

   I wish Brian had given you more airtime, personally…but I guess he felt a need to establish the timeline that created this “set of standards”. The show could have been more about what’s happening NOW, with more callers .

   Though he might have been sincere, “Daniel” sounded like a shill. His claim that teachers and parents don’t like CC because “It’s not the way we learned” was false and misleading. That’s not why so many people are concerned. I liked your response.

   Thank you so much, Diane. Can’t even begin to tell you how much we appreciate your work and advocacy. I don’t know where we’d be without you. Actually: I shudder to think where we’d be without you.

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   • Duane Swacker says:

     September 9, 2016 at 3:53 pm

     “Wonderful that the interview took place on the first day of school.”

     School has been in session in this neck of the woods for almost a month now.

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     • gitapik says:

       September 9, 2016 at 4:48 pm

       You backwoods folks always git a jump on us city slickers.

       😉

       First day in NYC, Dwayne…where the interview took place.

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     • gitapik says:

       September 10, 2016 at 9:03 pm

       Still don’t know what that reply means, Duane…

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     • gitapik says:

       September 10, 2016 at 9:45 pm

       (The one that I get in my email but doesn’t show up here)

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4. Linda says:

   September 9, 2016 at 9:36 am

   The Carly Fiorini snippet, at the beginning, gave me a chuckle. She thinks Common Core standards are related to developing skills to speak before an audience.

   The leap of faith that makes a person connect, authority-imposed high standards (distant) with achievement by others (local), while ignoring all other variables, situational, personal, etc. is the antithesis of critical thinking. Wells Fargo learned something about the fallacy, recently.

   Thanks to Diane for a superb analysis.

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   • Duane Swacker says:

     September 9, 2016 at 3:54 pm

     “. . . authority-imposed high standards. . . ”

     Yeah those CCSS are high. High from some serious bud. Hell probably more like high from some LSD.

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