New York State just released a draft of its revision of the Common Core standards.
There are different interpretations of how much has changed. Some say more than half of the standards were tweaked. Defenders of the standards insist they were barely changed at all.
We will have to wait until teachers have seen the revisions and offered their comments.
In New York, the Common Core standards have also became part of a larger discussion about other policy reforms, such as the use of state standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. Replacing the standards is the first step in redefining what it means to get an education in New York state, which will include revising assessments, teacher evaluations and how the state rates schools.
The standards will now go out for public comment, which will be open until Nov. 4. The Board of Regents are expected to consider the standards in early 2017 and roll out new assessments based on the standards by the 2018-19 school year.
The standards were revised in response to the success of the Opt Out movement; 20% of children eligible to take the tests–about 200,000–did not take them in 2015. The number rose slightly this past year. Governor Cuomo formed a commission that recommended a thorough review of the standards and the tests.
Here are the draft standards:
http://www.nysed.gov/draft-standards-english-language-arts
and here:
http://www.nysed.gov/draft-standards-mathematics
The crucial question will be whether the standards are age-appropriate, especially in the early grades, where complaints have been most intense. Early reviews from teachers suggest that very little if anything has changed in the K-2 grades, where the standards are the worst.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I continue to beat my head against the bureaucracy with a simple suggestion:
If you want to evaluate teachers, why don’t you just test the teachers directly? They do it for national registration. They do it to graduate from teacher’s college. How difficult would it be to combine classroom observations with a portfolio assessment showing growth every couple of years? Every academic appears to agree that using a second-order measure through student exams is inappropriate.
My second suggestion is to require INDEPENDENT classroom observations. Certify such an occupation through a separate credential . Contract directly with the State to bring objectivity. Collect that information and analyze it confidentially to provide feedback to school district leaders to improve teacher development.
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“. . . why don’t you just test the teachers directly?”
Because those “tests” would still have all the onto-epistemological errors and falsehoods and psychometric fudges that render any conclusions “vain and illusory” or in other words COMPLETELY INVALID (see below).
“How difficult would it be to combine classroom observations with a portfolio assessment showing growth every couple of years?”
Extremely difficult, well actually impossibly difficult as what is meant by the term “growth”. Who says that a teacher has to “grow” every year?? Hell, as a teacher I “grew” every year to over 300 lbs. The whole “teacher growth” meme is bogus, without onto-epistemological foundation.
“My second suggestion is to require INDEPENDENT classroom observations.”
And who would that INDEPENDENT classroom observer be? What qualifications would that supposedly INDEPENDENT observer have? Who would pay for it?
Allow me to guess, InsideOut, you’ve not taught K-12 for more than a few years?? Your proposals reek of smug non-K-12 experienced folks who think they know what’s best for someone else’s classroom.
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Putting your presumptions and aggressive language aside, you come across as one of the”problem” teachers our enemies always paint all teachers with- Against ANY evaluation? Against having continual professional growth? Afraid of a certified, independent evaluator observing your work? What do you propose we should do to help eliminate bad teachers? Or, do you there aren’t any? Or, we’re doing a great job now getting rid of them?
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Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> a:hover { color: red; } a { text-decoration: none; color: #0088cc; } a.primaryactionlink:link, a.primaryactionlink:visited { background-color: #2585B2; color: #fff; } a.primaryactionlink:hover, a.primaryactionlink:active { background-color: #11729E !important; color: #fff !important; } /* @media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) { .post { min-width: 700px !important; } } */ WordPress.com Duane Swacker commented: “”. . . why don’t you just test the teachers directly?” Because those “tests” would still have all the onto-epistemological errors and falsehoods and psychometric fudges that render any conclusions “vain and illusory” or in other words COMPLETELY INVALI”
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Yes, Stehpen, my language is strident and aggressive on purpose. I choose my words carefully and I mean what I write. Because as I’ve seen it, playing nice when the edudeformers and privateers are trying to destroy a major societal good-the community public schools does nothing to ameliorate the insane educational malpractices they shove down our throats through their bought and paid for minions, the politicians.
What “presumptions” have I made?
And you are correct, I very much was a problem teacher for 21 years, notwithstanding every single evaluation, sometimes at least two a year, being outstanding for my work in the classroom. That outstanding work was because I didn’t institute what I knew to be time consuming malpractices and focused on the subject matter at hand.
Please show me in my responses here where I have stated that “Against ANY evaluation? Against having continual professional growth?” Wait, don’t bother because I haven’t. I was evaluated for 21 years and saw the process go down hill in each ensuing year as the process went from one of collegial professional discussions to “drive by” punch some numbers in a computer program that then spits out some hogwash about my teaching and class management. I know which was far more effective and that wasn’t any kind of supposed metrics-based evaluation.
And much as the same for that vaunted “being professionally developed”. When I started there actually was the opportunity to develop professionally by choosing my course of development. In contrast to the tripe that has been PD for the last 15 years or so.
“Afraid of a certified, independent evaluator observing your work? ”
Never have seen one, so why would I be afraid. I don’t live my life in fear of the unknown.
“What do you propose we should do to help eliminate bad teachers? Or, do you there aren’t any? Or, we’re doing a great job now getting rid of them?
Considering that around 50% of new teachers leave by the fifth year with the majority of those coming in the first few years, I’d say that we have been effective in weeding out those boogeyman/woman “bad teachers”. Not to mention that it is the admins job to ensure that a teacher is up to snuff so put any blame (and there really isn’t much in that regared) where it should be.
Stephen, your ability to not see the forest for the trees, to see boogeyman bad teachers lurking behind those trees and to insist on evaluation systems that supposedly use “objective metrics” can only place you in one camp-the edudeformer and privateer camp. Either that or you’re just a GAGA Good German who puts personal expediency over justice.
Are you a public school teacher, Stephen? How long, what subject/grade level?
I very much doubt I’ll get an answer, privateer trolls don’t like questions just like the Martians in “Mars Attack” don’t like the music of Slim Whitman.
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Yes, Stehpen, my language is strident and aggressive on purpose. I choose my words carefully and I mean what I write. Because as I’ve seen it, playing nice when the edudeformers and privateers are trying to destroy a major societal good-the community public schools does nothing to ameliorate the insane educational malpractices they shove down our throats through their bought and paid for minions, the politicians.
What “presumptions” have I made?
And you are correct, I very much was a problem teacher for 21 years, notwithstanding every single evaluation, sometimes at least two a year, being outstanding for my work in the classroom. That outstanding work was because I didn’t institute what I knew to be time consuming malpractices and focused on the subject matter at hand.
Please show me in my responses here where I have stated that “Against ANY evaluation? Against having continual professional growth?” Wait, don’t bother because I haven’t. I was evaluated for 21 years and saw the process go down hill in each ensuing year as the process went from one of collegial professional discussions to “drive by” punch some numbers in a computer program that then spits out some hogwash about my teaching and class management. I know which was far more effective and that wasn’t any kind of supposed metrics-based evaluation.
And much as the same for that vaunted “being professionally developed”. When I started there actually was the opportunity to develop professionally by choosing my course of development. In contrast to the tripe that has been PD for the last 15 years or so.
“Afraid of a certified, independent evaluator observing your work? ”
Never have seen one, so why would I be afraid. I don’t live my life in fear of the unknown.
“What do you propose we should do to help eliminate bad teachers? Or, do you there aren’t any? Or, we’re doing a great job now getting rid of them?
Considering that around 50% of new teachers leave by the fifth year with the majority of those coming in the first few years, I’d say that we have been effective in weeding out those boogeyman/woman “bad teachers”. Not to mention that it is the admins job to ensure that a teacher is up to snuff so put any blame (and there really isn’t much in that regared) where it should be.
Stephen, your ability to not see the forest for the trees, to see boogeyman bad teachers lurking behind those trees and to insist on evaluation systems that supposedly use “objective metrics” can only place you in one camp-the edudeformer and privateer camp. Either that or you’re just a GAGA Good German who puts personal expediency over justice.
Are you a public school teacher, Stephen? How long, what subject/grade level?
I very much doubt I’ll get an answer, privateer trolls don’t like questions just like the Martians in “Mars Attack” don’t like the music of Slim Whitman.
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Man, you are one angry teacher. You can’t see that I am completely on your side regarding the lunacy of the current proposed evaluation and student assessment “reforms”. But, the profession must improve the long standing practice of evaluating itself and claiming 95% or more are outstanding. No one would accept that for students or in any other professional practice. And, I am trying to make positive proposals on the side of educators to address the real and the mistaken problems. I said absolutely nothing about metrics or privatization, I am diametrically opposed to both. And, you still haven’t answered whether we should have an independent evaluation process like most professions or how we can improve on the current problems you rightly identified.
One last thing, saying the 50% attrition rate proves that the profession is policing itself is bunk and I think you know it. It’s mostly a result of new teachers’ own decisions that it’s not for them or financial or personal reasons. School districts tenure the vast majority. And, yes, union protection keeps some unknown number of teachers in the business that shouldn’t be.
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We aren’t going to have to worry about whether a teacher is good or bad since educators will all be TFA or other temps when those who would have been great in the profession choose to look elsewhere for a career (unless they are masochists),
Right now schools are hiring subs with some college (not even a degree is necessary). And in some states knowledge in a specific subject area is enough – who needs a college background just to make students college ready – a GED will do.
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If I may repeat my last thoughts of the post to which you are responding:
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If I may repeat my last thoughts of the comment to which you are referring:
Are you a public school teacher, Stephen? How long, what subject/grade level?
I very much doubt I’ll get an answer, privateer trolls don’t like questions just like the Martians in “Mars Attack” don’t like the music of Slim Whitman.
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Stephen, is the moniker Inside Out you?
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Ellen,
You seem to be missing NCLB now that your profession was granted what they said they wanted, the end of NCLB!
This resulted in ESSA, which lowered the requirements that schools had been held up to!
Apparently your profession repeated a mantra that NCLB needed to go and you all wanted less stringent standards and mandates, so you all got what you were asking for in ESSA; yet now many of you seem to be in a tizzy apparently because they gave you more freedom and options and less stringent standards, which is what the majority of this profession clamored for decades about!!!
I guess now you can start protesting ESSA next, as I know many literacy advocates saw the writing on the wall way before you all apparently did! 😦
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NCLB evolved and not in a good way. When it was simply a check point for grades 4 and 8 in English, Math, and Science, with a Social Studies essay in Grades 5 and 8, it was livesble. Even when it went to a yearly exam, we all could handle it. Teachers even got notated results which they could use to individualize instruction.
Then things got crazy. We were working so hard to help the students improve their scores and they actually started doing better. Unfortunately, that was not the result the state was looking for so they made the exam more difficult and changed the cut scores. The test became ridiculous, including items not in the curriculum with flawed questions that even the teachers couldn’t figure out how to answer. Then the exam was Moved up to April, expecting a year’s growth in less than a year.
I promoted those exams and saw many children break down and cry. This is not normal.
Then the results were an indication of the quality of instruction and used to judge the teachers. This meant those in the suburban schools were “good” while those in the inner city were “bad” simply based on a test score. When Pearsin took over, you couldn’t even use the results to guide instruction. The scores were simply numbers with no indication of the concepts behind the question.
I don’t know anything about ESSA, but up to this point, it look like too much has changed here in NYS. We will see.
Let me end with a personal anecdote I have told before which reflects these changes. In third grade my grand daughter took the NCLB exams and got solid 3s. With the new cut scores she was a high 2 in fourth grade and then dropped to a one in fifth. By sixth she opted out since the results would have been irrrelevant, so I guess that would be a zero.
After four years of schooling, she got stupider according to the test scores,
At least that’s what she thinks. She doesn’t even believe she is smart enough to go to college and her effort reflects this (although she is doing better in her first year of high school – early days yet). Her example supports some of Duane’s points.
As a former educator who spent over thirty years in various school systems, and as a parent of four and grand parent of three, I feel
I have a good grasp of the situation. Your child fell through the cracks and that is unfortunate. Luckily you were able to help him get a foothold on life and he had the determination to be successful. Other kids have found a charm too wide to cross – and the policies imposed upon teachers makes it widen each year so that they are unable to bridge the gap for all their students to successfully climb.
You sound very bitter, but your anger is misplaced. I hope my explanations make some sense out of a inane situation.
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DUH….. Because the problem may not reside in what the teachers know on a test of subject matter regarding educational material in different elementary and secondary classes as much as how the credentialed life fed educational professionals commonly known as teachers are able to actually provide appropriate instruction to their students in the classrooms!!!!
When greater than 20% of the students in each and every classroom are statistically on the Dyslexia spectrum and the majority of credentialed educational professionals are totally clueless regarding how to appropriately instruct them so that they will learn how to read and write and do math – versus continue to struggle with illiteracy, writing and numeracy deficits well into adulthood, that is where the accountability factors in, and is the big white elephant sitting in practically each and every classroom across this nation!!!!
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Have to love Apple’s predictive spelling
….as much as how the supposedly credentialed ***licensed …..?educational professionals …
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M,
Would you please provide a source for that 20% stat? If that stat is true then we need to dedicate that much more $$ to schools to address the issue.
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I find it interesting that you jumped to the conclusion I was saying testing teachers on their content knowledge. While I think that is also a good idea because of how many teachers are forced to work outside their certified area, I am mostly suggesting they be “tested” on their teaching skills, per se. And, yes, that can be evaluated professionally AND it can be taught AND it should be exactly what is evaluated, not on the year to year”growth” of their students.
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The difficult tasks of teaching that you list are exactly what teachers need to be taught/developed and have their progress measured against.
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Is there a test for how a teacher handles a child banging on the table? May I submit a portfolio on coversations with children whose parents are separating, or divorcing? Yesterday, I had a kid with a nose gushing blood. Contact Pearson immediately to develop a new battery of standardized assessments.
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Yes Duane I can support that statistic with links you can peruse, which I hope you will feel so inclined to take the effort to click and read them after they’re posted….
But first I will share this article with you :
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-funded-study-finds-dyslexia-not-tied-iq
and another informative video:
Along with this link with lots of data sheets:
https://dyslexiaida.org/fact-sheets/
:
some of which follow:
https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-basics/ ;
https://dyslexiaida.org/gifted-and-dyslexic-identifying-and-instructing-the-twice-exceptional-student-fact-sheet/ ;
https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-and-the-brain-fact-sheet/ ;
https://dyslexiaida.org/effective-reading-instruction/ ;
And then there is this link too:
http://www.saydyslexia.org
And please watch this PSA:
And this link to a very powerful and informative video [Ben Foss has a very severe form of Dyslexia, and falls into the ~5% of students that will always struggle and probably never become proficient readers]:
and
And here are some links to the 1 in 5 or 20% statistic:
http://www.dyslexia.yale.edu/DYS_news.html ;
http://www.dyslexia.yale.edu/book_Overcoming.html
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/shaywitz.htm#DyslexiaNumbers ;
http://www.fordyslexia.com/2013/05/1-in-5/ ;
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/dyslexia-in-general-ed-classroom-kelli-sandman-hurley ;
And I say “greater” than 20% because there are those classified with the other “Dys” diagnosis (Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia and Dyspraxia) as well because they are all on a similar spectrum.
Miscellaneous Dyslexia info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4soXIf6zbc ;
http://www.dys-add.com/dyslexia.html#anchorResearch ;
http://childrensdyslexiacenters.org/About/OurSuccess.aspx
Click to access Orthographic-Dyslexia-Is-it-Always-Phonological-Awareness.pdf
http://www.nrrf.org/century-miseducation-americas-teachers/
And I can post more links until you are blue in the face, but you probably already are….
But if any of this information makes a difference in the life of helping even one student, the frustration I have from some of these posts over the years, will have been worth it; and if it helps educate and inform any of the current educational professionals to start speaking up and pushing for a change in instructional methods in their schools, again all of the struggles of the prior generations of students that were left behind, it will not have been in vain!
It won’t help those that were left behind, but it might help their child or grandchild!
Please, please, please, start supporting these students by teaching them using more effective methodologies!!! And also providing them the accommodations and AT to help them continue to progress with their grade level peers and at their levels of academic ability versus at their level of academic disability!!!!
Thank you!
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RE:Abigail Shure, September 23, 2016 at 7:23 am:
Is there a test for how a teacher handles a child banging on the table?
May I submit a portfolio on coversations with children whose parents are separating, or divorcing?
—I would not know, but maybe you could research it and find out 🙂
But seriously….There hopefully are trained school psychologists and social workers that can help those students, if you cannot do so.
I had a kid with a nose gushing blood. Contact Pearson immediately to develop a new battery of standardized assessments.
— Hopefully you contacted the school nurse in that situation!
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Duane, I had students who witnessed the violent murder of a family member. What about families who are continually evicted and must move from place to place, sometimes ending up homeless? Or students who don’t have clean clothes or hats, coats, and gloves in cold weather? Then there are those who only eat what the school provides for free, especially at the end of the month when the food stamps run out. Plush those who need glasses or dental work or medical attention. And we can’t forget the children who are damaged due to lead poisoning or were born hooked on cocaine (crack babies). Hopefully they are not being abused at home by a family friend or, heaven forbid, their own parents/guardians. Don’t forget the influence of gangs and/or drugs – buying or selling.
Pregnancies, suspensions, truancy, etc.
And we haven’t even touched on ESL, especially the refugees who come with nothing from a violent life to a strange world with the view that they will assimilate in a short period of time.
On top of that there are those with documented learning issues, the physically challenged, and those with emotional problems, including anxiety and depression, who are expected to keep up.
No excuses. No explanations. Just results.
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http://www.nrrf.org/learning/when-a-child-is-labeled-dyslexic/
http://www.nrrf.org/learning/illiteracy-incurable-disease-education-malpractice/
And for those educators that are truly interested in helping to level the playing field for students that struggle academically, the following might be of interest, if for no other reason, to give to the parents of these struggling students, in order for them to know what they are supposed to be provided with at school to obtain FAPE in the general ed classroom by using 504 plans:
http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/sites/default/files/library/section_504_guide.pdf?pt=1
or IEP’s:
http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/sites/default/files/library/special_ed_guide.pdf?pt=1
General information:
http://www.nrrf.org/reading-right/
http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/get_help/guides_and_resources
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M,
Thanks for the links. Will be perusing them over the next few days.
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Inside Out, the exchange among you, Stephen, Duane and M is thought-provoking. You got me (more or less a layman) reading lots of studies. My two cents: the subject of “teacher evaluation” is very young. Those who are impatiently exhorting teacher training & evaluation should consider that the info developed so far is insufficient to support sweeping (or any!) policy change.
The research seems to reflect consensus on little other than that student scores on stdzd tests are a poor measure of student learning (as Duane says, little agreement on how to measure learning) and that teachers need to be evaluated on multiple measures.
There’s also fairly high agreement among teachers & admins on the set of in-class skills to look for when observing teachers. Nevertheless, studies cannot accurately connect individual teaching skills to ‘student gains’. Significant connections are made only when you combine ratings on all 10 or so skills to overall class performance, and even there, only when you look at top quartile- & bottom quartile-rated teachers. And even there, researchers point out that those results are skewed when certain teachers are usually assigned higher- (or lower-) performing students. And all studies have a bunch of caveats about out-of-school factors’ effect on student performance, plus a list of important in-class features that can be credited to teacher skill but cannot be measured accurately.
What I also learned was that all the above stuff is based on Danielson-type skill breakouts, and that studies show structured observations by principals/ peer mentors get the same overall results. One study pointed out the dangers of the ‘everything looks like a nail’ factor, where edumetric evaluations drive things simply because edumetrics is the new tool [hammer]. And that such evaluations are ‘easier’ because data-crunching is cheaper than observations.
That last bit made me laugh… Danielson/ Marzano etc place a huge unpaid! ppwk burden on teachers, often require the hiring of data-clerks, & further restrict curriculum time already narrowed by stdzd tests. And at the other end of the spectrum — anecdotal only — I know of a district that went the ‘structured observation’ (4/yr/teacher) route & lost an excellent new hs principal after 2 yrs because it impossible to do all that plus the rest of his job…
As to dyslexia, not really 20% of kids, tho probably 10-15% (20% is all reading difficulty, but hi proportion of that is dyslexia). Seems significant enough that all teachers should know the signs to look for, so as to recommend reading specialist. And those reading specialists should be working with anyone lagging in reading skills not just those put thro IEP hoops,
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For the fundamental onto-epistemological problems with these supposed standards see: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
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i.e.: How early in a child’s life can the “test-score” school-suspension game teach that child to stay in her/his place. (What if, for example, one facet of the computer-daily testing has programs which might shunt children “back to kindergarten” status if they choose answers incorrectly?)
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Real standards are simple and verifiable. The length of a foot. The volume measurement at the gas pumps. Even the average temperature of classrooms in a building tells you nothing. You would need to know the variance in the data set to a certain whether the classrooms are being heated or cooled properly.
Statements of what ideas you want to cover are more correctly discussed as generalities. They are useful. Still, they are not strictly standards. We must not accept this metaphor. It serves a big lie.
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“We must not accept this metaphor. It serves a big lie.”
Exactly, Roy!
The standards meme implies measurement as you hint at in your response. The underlying (onto-epistemological) issues with the standards and measurement meme can perhaps be better explained with the help of what a strong standards and testing proponent has stated:
Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement (notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”):
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Now since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable” which is what all this standardized testing insanity, truly insanity if you think about it, is about???
So much harm to so many students is caused by the educational malpractices that are standards and testing or as Phelps contends in “measuring the nonobservable”.
Whatever happened to having a curriculum to guide class instruction?
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Hello? The CC Standards are copyrighted and you cannot merely edit them. Expect NY to get hit with a lawsuit shortly claiming copyright violation.
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Alternatively, if NY does not get hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit, perhaps it signifies that claims that the standards cannot be modified because they are copyrighted were incorrect.
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FLERP, the standards are copyrighted, but the copyright may be impossible to enforce. Not sure what the precedent is, but how can you tell 50 states plus DC and PR that the CC is take it or leave it?
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You conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow your first assertion. There might be many other reasons why a lawsuit might not occur other than “the standards cannot be modified because they are copyrighted were incorrect.” (and yes I see the qualifier “perhaps”). Do you have information stating to back your qualified conclusion?
Just saying. . . .
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I simply meant that if you’re told there is something that prevents you from doing X, and then you do X, and nothing prevents you from doing it, then you were told wrong.
As Diane notes, this is a peculiar situation that may have no precedent. I don’t know copyright law, and I’ve forgotten most of the history, but it seems unlikely to me that the copyrighting was done to prevent states from modifying the standards. I understand the logic that could lead to that conclusion, but it seems more likely to me that the goal was to have some control over the commercial marketplace. Filing a copyright infringement action against a state because it modified the standards too much seems politically impossible, even back before CCSS lost its luster.
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Thanks for the response. Makes sense what you say.
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To Diane’s point.
If NY were hit by a lawsuit in my humble opinion that would be the end of CC. The public outrage might force the the political class to drop the Core altogether a state that large dropping the Core could signal the end. Especially when over 200,000 VOTERS have already opted out. Children opt out of nothing, their voting parents do.
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In Tennessee , in Geometry at least, the CC standards were adopted, then eventually reviewed and labeled with another name. The claim was made that the review process that considered these standards gave us unique standards, not CC. If you look at them, they are about the same with a couple of sentences edited here and there.
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I noticed the comment at the end focusing on whether or not the standards are age appropriate, especially for the younger grades.
The Algebra 2 PARCC assessment, which is the last one students take, is not developmentally appropriate. I think the dialogue should include a thorough discussion of Algebra 2 PARCC problems, which are so challenging that they are not at all reasonable. In fact, some of the questions could be used to totally skewer the fanatical zealots who wrote, approved, and administered the test.
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Reblogged this on DelawareFirstState and commented:
Many opinions on Common Core Standards.
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Doesn’t matter what the standards are as far as I see it. They just provide a pretext for a test designed to fail districts so a case for destroying public education can be made. Meaningless.
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That’s right. People are Opting Out of the tests, not the standards. There is no such thing as an acceptable high stakes standardized test.
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Dr. Ravtich, my teacher friends and administrators from NYC tell me that there are objections made by some within the 130 person committee who reviewed the standards, but that these objections are unavailable for publication and access to the public. Only what WAS decided upon is what is being released.
It would be interesting to see the objections and the rationales behind them.
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I heard that they were making math more intense for the early grades to free up time in the upper elementary years to introduce concepts related to algebra.
My six year old grandson who just started first grade is now wetting the bed.
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And what is happening with your grandson is pure child abuse. Sorting, ranking and labeling students are one of the most nefarious malpractices occurring. And those malpractices are based upon false standards and the false concept of “measuring” what a student has learned, knows, can or cannot do. See my posts at 9/22 @ 1:20 and 2:41 for further explication.
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Just curious Duane… if children are sitting in public school classrooms year after year, struggling to stay afloat academically, while their teachers know they are struggling and those teachers see that these children are not making progress using the methods that they are using, isn’t is also abusive for these kids to sit in your classrooms, feeling like they are drowning; feeling like they are stupid (yet they are not stupid, and they can learn if the material is presented to them using a different method while also leveling the playing field for them)???!!! Feeling like nobody cares enough to help them and to provide them with official accommodations and AT and proper methodologies?
Isn’t it abusive to make children show up each day only to fail and to fall farther and farther behind their peers???!!!!
Isn’t it abusive for them to have to struggle like this for 13+ school years or however long it takes before they choose to drop out because those that got paid to teach them how to read and write and perform math, did not do so?
(And please, don’t give me the line that their origin of living in poverty is the reason that they could not learn how to read and write and do math. Since all too often that theory goes out the window when you take on the project of educating these kids.)
Very few students (~ 5%) will never be able to learn how to read and write and perform math. And for those that won’t be able to, fMRI scans would provide that information; and AT and accommodations can still help them to keep up with their peers in the gen ed classrooms.
Isn’t it abusive when students are mandated to attend your schools and required to show up each day for 6 hours or more and struggle needlessly for that entire time while losing hope with every passing day and school year!?!?
As a parent of a child that had learning differences, it was amazing the progress that this child made in 2.5 school years with private OG tutors implementing reading and writing programs with fidelity, yet for the prior 10 school years, little progress was made and the gaps widened and never narrowed with each passing year.
And because of the fact that the remedial instruction was provided so late, there are neuro pathways ingrained that will interfere with him being able to entirely close those literacy and numeracy gaps. Guessing at words was something ingrained early on in the LLI programs that were used in his schools, so he learned to guess at words from pictures and context cues, versus actually learning how to decode the letters accurately. Instead LLI taught him to guess at the word by using clues, such as the beginning letters and the shape of the word. And allowed guessing to become ingrained.
And, then because SpecEd lowers the bar for all of the IEP kids, even those with the cognitive ability to benefit and achieve, they are grouped with the trouble makers, or the troubled ED children or the children that may not have as high of a cognitive aptitude, which results all too often in them being taught down to their level of disability; versus instructed to their ability level and raised up and out of SpecEd.
But as a parent of a child with learning differences in reading and writing and to a lesser extent in math too, watching how much time they lose to trying to stay afloat; how it negatively affects their self-esteem; and their social circles; and how it negatively affects their futures; and as a parent that was actively involved in trying to keep the student afloat and begging for the proper instructional methods, which were available at the school, and repeatedly denied access to such, is educational neglect and abuse at the hands of the public education system IMHO!
But apparently, such educational neglect & educational abuse is accepted routinely in the public schools across this nation, since it’s been allowed to repeat itself year after year after year; despite the neuro-psychologist attending CSE meetings and providing evidence that also paralleled the school’s own testing I might add!
But our foster/adopted son succeeded DESPITE the failures he endured in the public schools he attended under the umbrella of Special Ed for 12+ school years! And he did so, with the help of mostly unlicensed, uncredentialed but caring and supportive adults who worked with him to overcome those academic areas of deficit; and he rose to the challenge and has succeeded and surpassed his general ed class cohorts! He left them in the dust and skipped ahead 2 full school years! So hence my disbelief that teachers blame the students for their struggles- versus their own ability to provide effective instructional programs for them that will help them advance and close the academic gaps they initially presented with, year, after year after year! 🙂
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M / So sorry for your bad experience with your child.
My son also had difficulties and ended up with a GED, but I did not blame the school district. He had incredible teachers who did everything they could to support my child and I was able to keep him out of the special Ed class (which was not the right place for him for due to the reasons you expressed) because the district gave him a personal aide who kept him on task. His resource teacher was incredible and, along with the speech teacher, was able to teach him how to read enough to get through life. Yes, he had a couple of teachers I felt were not a “good fit”, but the majority were loving, caring individuals who had a positive impact on his life, many going above and beyond the classroom.
My grandson is in the same district and they are doing everything they can – a special one-on-one reading program prior to the start of the school day, a classroom resource teacher for all the kids who need extra help, PT, OT, and support from the school nurse. His kindergarten teacher was amazing and she was also his summer school teacher in a special program for those who needed some extra instruction before starting first grade.
It’s no accident that this school district is one of the best in the area (but it helps that many of the parents are professionals and there is limited poverty and not many people of color). Yet money doesn’t mean your child is instantly bright. Many kids struggle for a variety of reasons and rarely due to their teachers.
The teachers have no control over this curriculum. They do what they can to meet the needs of the child. As a parent I didn’t rely solely on the school to educate my children. I provided numerous enrichment activities to expand their experiences and peak their interests. Many were free or inexpensive. I tried all sorts of experimental programs for my son – Fast Forward, Irlen Glasses, various computer programs, hearing and speech instruction, tutoring, etc. Sometimes an individual child needs more than the local school can provide. I never blamed the teachers, I just supplemented what he learned in school with some extras.
Obviously you did the same with your child,
Unfortunately, schools full of students living in poverty tend to have large class sizes and not enough money to fund the services that suburban schools provide. In addition, their parents aren’t able to provide the enrichment all children deserve. Some of them are just trying to survive – the “frills”are not in the picture.
There is a difference. The majority of the teachers working in the inner city are dedicated individuals doing their best. They really care about their students and go above and beyond the Common Core expectations. Those so called sub par teachers don’t last.
Student test scores do not accurately reflect the ability of a teacher nor what is in their heart. Sometimes we forget the humanity of education and treat both teacher and pupil as objects instead of people with wants and needs and emotions.
That is not the type of world I want to live in.
Ultimately, II will do what I can to help my grandson have a decent life beyond his school day. He is fascinated by the solar system and I plan to take him to the Planetarium the end of the month for a special show for kids. (By the way, this planetarium is part of one of the high schools in the district which offers programs to the community as well as providing a science unit for all the third grades in the district’s elementary schools.)
I can do this because I have a car, the funds, the time, and the wherewithal to devote to my family. Others might not be as fortunate.
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Flos56,
Were ANY of your children and grandchildren adopted or in foster care?
If not , then you’re missing the boat entirely in regards to my frustration about how the public education is so broken and failing so many students; and multiple generations of students at that!!!
So you just let the kids with no parental supports fall through the cracks routinely then? That’s what you and Duane are saying, isn’t it?
(No need to answer because I’ve seen that’s the case first hand as well as read enough of the regulars posts in regards to mine to know that’s the reality for too many kids! )
Heck, the upper middle class and working class kids get lost and left behind so of course these poverty demographic kids should too then correct? Because they don’t have informed or educated parents and adults advocating for them, and in the rare case that they do, you’ll just ignore the issues, and if they learn great and if not, oh well, you’ll still collect your pay checks…
Reality check educators —- if parents are MANDATED to send their children to school for a public education, then you better be providing them effective instruction!!!! Else it’s educational neglect plain and simple. As well as abusive to watch them struggle needlessly and never help them close the academic gaps they have, because another reality check, parents are not licensed professional educators, you all are and you get paid to educate them and we parents and every property owner in the district are paying you to PROVIDE EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION TO EACH AND EVERY CHILD WITH THE COGNITIVE ABILITY TO BENEFIT FROM THE METHODS BEING USED TO INSTRUCT THEM; if you are FAILING TO DO SO THAT ITS YOUR JOB TO FIGURE OUT WHAT ALTERNATIVE METHODS WILL WORK!!!!
But keep it up because every day I talk with more parents who are pulling their children from public school and using alternative options (online schools, private schools, homeschooling and I’ve even heard from families that are in schooling too. Because really, why bother sending them to school when you’re not helping them and they are falling farther and farther behind each year??? Why subject them to repeated anxiety and stress when you’re doing nothing to close the academic gaps thy have had for multiple school years? Why have them grouped with other kids with more serious needs and have them follow them down a dead end path to dropping out. Most parents I know are seeing the light and if schools are going to keep denying there’s problems and schools refuse to offer to help close the gaps, then they don’t need public schools and they will choose these other options.
But go on, keep ignoring the white elephant in the room!!!
But obviously nobody in the school districts are worried because doesn’t matter right, since nobody is accountable!??? Since rarely will anything ever happen to anyone that’s responsible for ensuring that each student is learning to become a proficient in reading, writing or math!!!
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M –
I also want to tell you a story about my children’s experiences in 7th grade.
My daughter (who had her own issues) had terrible teachers. They were uncooperative, unsupportive, didn’t understand my daughter, and she did not have a good year.
My son, however, had fantastic teachers. They worked with me, supported my son, providing him with excellent guidance, and he had a fantastic year.
They were the same teachers.
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A child not learning a certain aspect of the curriculum is not always “child abuse” as you imply. The sorting, separating, ranking and labeling is what is the child abuse because the students internalize those labels. The phenomena of subjectivization, internalization or what Hacking calls the “looping effect” is well known. Beat a dog often enough and it will cower in front of you. Telling a student that they are stupid, which is how the students interpret the labeling, is the child abuse.
For each student it is the student’s responsibility to learn, whether in an unknowing, or perhaps better said unconscious fashion as when we are young or as a person grows and develops metacognitive skills. Now when younger that may mean a lot of parental involvement on a day to day interaction level along with the school being able to provide the proper level of funding to be able to provide the proper education for all, which by golly gee seems to happen in the middle to upper end of the socio-economic schools while the lower end SES don’t have all the resources they need. Yes, socio-economic levels do come into play on the school side of the teaching and learning process.
I’m happy for your son and yourselves for being able to work with and beyond those special ed needs. But note that you as the parent had to be heavily involved. And that is the way it should be because the family is the first “teacher” in a person’s life.
While it would be ideal for society to provide all that is needed to allow all children to learn as much as they and their parents/guardians desire, we haven’t gotten to that point in providing the resources needed to do so. To do so would be the ideal to keep in mind when discussing funding for public education.
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Ditto
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“flos56
September 23, 2016, at 1:14 am
I heard that they were making math more intense for the early grades to free up time in the upper elementary years to introduce concepts related to algebra.
My six-year-old grandson who just started first grade is now wetting the bed.
Reply
Duane Swacker
September 23, 2016, at 9:32 am
And what is happening with your grandson is pure child abuse. Sorting, ranking, and labeling students are one of the most nefarious malpractices occurring. And those malpractices are based upon false standards and the false concept of “measuring” what a student has learned, knows, can or cannot do. See my posts at 9/22 @ 1:20 and 2:41 for further explication.Duane Swacker
September 26, 2016, at 9:11 am
A child not learning a certain aspect of the curriculum is not always “child abuse” as you imply. The sorting, separating, ranking and labeling is what is the child abuse because the students internalize those labels. The phenomena of subjectivization, internalization or what Hacking calls the “looping effect” is well known. Beat a dog often enough and it will cower in front of you. Telling a student that they are stupid, which is how the students interpret the labeling, is the child abuse.
For each student, it is the student’s responsibility to learn, whether in an unknowing, or perhaps better said unconscious fashion as when we are young or as a person grows and develops metacognitive skills. Now when younger that may mean a lot of parental involvement on a day to day interaction level along with the school being able to provide the proper level of funding to be able to provide the proper education for all, which by golly gee seems to happen in the middle to upper end of the socio-economic schools while the lower end SES don’t have all the resources they need. Yes, socio-economic levels do come into play on the school side of the teaching and learning process.
I’m happy for your son and yourselves for being able to work with and beyond those special ed needs. But note that you as the parent had to be heavily involved. And that is the way it should be because the family is the first “teacher” in a person’s life.
While it would be ideal for society to provide all that is needed to allow all children to learn as much as they and their parents/guardians desire, we haven’t gotten to that point in providing the resources needed to do so. To do so would be the ideal to keep in mind when discussing funding for public education.
flos56
September 26, 2016, at 9:23 am
Ditto”
So it’s not educational abuse and neglect for children to sit in school classrooms day in & day out, under the umbrella of SpecEd getting left behind, feeling stupid and stressing out because the adults in their life at school are not ensuring they are properly instructed?
But it is abuse in the example flos56 describes @ 1:14 am on
September 23, 2016, noted above?
Duane and flos56:
Why is it educational abuse in that situation flos56 illustrated and not the other? Is it not educational neglect & abuse because it is an impoverished foster child that’s being left behind by the instruction year after year after year??? And is it not educational abuse and neglect when the child is being denied the proper instruction that will help the child, and which a private neuro-psychologist reiterated to the PPD, CSE chair, school psychologist, SpecEd Resource Manager, and reading instructor???? You’re speaking out of both sides of your mouth now, IMHO….
What about the children that need the additional supports from school BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS DO NOT HAVE THE METACOGNITIVE SKILLS EITHER, BECAUSE THEY WERE LEFT BEHIND TOO!!!
AND, WHAT ABOUT CHILDREN THAT DO NOT HAVE INVOLVED BIO OR FOSTER PARENTS IN THEIR LIFES????!!!
DO YOU JUST THROW THEM OUT WITH THE DIRTY DISHWATER EACH DAY?!?!?!
THE LAW -UP UNTIL AT LEAST UNTIL THE RECENT ENACTMENT
OF ESSA- WAS THAT ALL CHILDREN WERE SUPPOSED TO BE
INSTRUCTED TO BE PROFICIENT IN READING, WRITING &
MATH!!!
SO YOU”RE WRONG ABOUT SAYING THAT IT WAS NOT
THE TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE
STUDENTS BECAME PROFICIENT IN SUCH AREAS WHEN
THEY HAD THE COGNITIVE ABILITY TO LEARN THOSE SKILLS UNDER
THE PROPER INSTRUCTION!!!
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