Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University in New York, published an essay about national standards in the peer-reviewed “Journal of Politics,” one of the top journals in the field. It should be part of our national discussion about the dominant policy paradigm of the past 35 years: policy makers assumed without question that the way to improve education is to set standards, train teachers to teach the standards, teach the standards, test the standards, then start over?
Tampio says this paradigm is wrong.
He writes:
“This article intervenes in the debate about whether democracies should adopt national education standards. For many democrats, national education standards may promote economic growth, social justice, and a common set of interests. In this article, I reconstruct John Dewey’s warning against oligarchs using standardization to control the schools as well as his argument that democracy requires student, teacher, and community autonomy. The article argues that the Common Core State Standards Initiative has been a top-down policy that aims to prepare children for the economy rather than democracy, and for the foreseeable future, economic elites will tend to dominate efforts to create national education standards. In the conclusion, I make a pragmatic argument for local education control and address objections such as that democracies need national educational standards to ensure racial equity.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for sharing, Diane. Here’s the ungated version: http://faculty.fordham.edu/tampio/Tampio_JOP_%20article_on%20Common_Core.pdf
How ironic that this article ends with an illustration of etymology, which is an example of what is currently lacking in the methods most schools use to teach reading and writing skills to students in the US :
“In her classic study on National Standards in American Education, Diane Ravitch explains that the etymology of standards is from the Middle English, Old French, and Germanic words for “a conspicuous object (as a banner) formerly carried at the top of a pole and used to mark a rallying point, especially in battle” (1995, 7).”
I’m ambivalent about standards.
Without them conservative districts won’t teach evolution or global warming.
On the other hand, even having the standards doesn’t guarantee they’ll really be taught in such places.
Without standards, some schools will teach tripe. On the other hand, the current standards have led to the inadvertent teaching of tripe. The current ELA standards are the main culprit because they’re given paramount importance (along with math) and they’re premised on a erroneous conception of how reading and writing competency develops. Not only do they fail to make good readers or writers, but they substitute near-worthless skill drills for the transmission of knowledge that simultaneously builds literacy and prevents citizens from being ignorant idiots.
In the end the most important question is not whether or not we have standards, but whether the fundamental ideas about education are sound. The dominant ideas in practice now are not sound, and the standards lock in this error.
There may be a limit to how sound the fundamental ideas about education can be in a country where so many people don’t want their children to be taught about evolution or climate change.
“the standards lock in this error”
No, punitive testing locked in this error. Without the threats imposed by required tests, the many flaws in the ELA and math standards would have been largely ignored.
We have always had educational standards. By and large, the importance of standards and curriculum is over rated. What is far more important is the skill of the classroom teacher in prioritizing them, and in making them interesting and understandable.
Standards have been officially manifested in two different ways:
Pre-NCLB standards came in the form of textbooks.
NCLB/CCSS standards came in the form of tests.
However the best version of any standards are manifested the program of an experienced, knowledgeable, creative, and skilled teacher. They don’t want overly busy textbooks or punitive tests.
Standards and standardized testing are different sides of the same coin!
This is an excellent and thoughtful article and I encourage all of you to read it!
Thank you. Diane Ravitch literally wrote the book on National Standards in American Education (Brookings 1995), and I am honored that she shared my article on her blog.
I’m sorry, but I disagree that there is NEVER any need for standards in the world of public education.
It is supported by public funds and therefore there should be accountability.
Illiteracy is an issue that has been swept under the rug for generations.
Too many generations of children have not reached their potential and have been left behind.
Too many generations of students have ended up on welfare or in jail as a result of it.
It’s time to admit that there is a problem with our education system in it’s foundation.
The US Department of Education and most of the state education departments have failed to do anything about it.
Local schools nationwide have failed to do anything about it.
Instead, they BLAME a child’s DEMOGRAPHICS of poverty and their parents as the reason for their own failure to help students to excel.
When the majority of students are being left behind, not just those that come from poverty, the argument fails to hold up.
What is the reason for the middle and upper middle-class students that have involved parents that do everything that they are supposed to do yet experience similar struggles?
Why do so many families have to battle with their schools to help their children to close these gaps in learning to read, write and do math?
Why do CSE chairs and Directors of Pupil Services/Personnel hire lawyers to battle parents who are begging for them to help them help their children with foundational skills in reading, writing, and math?
Why should taxpayers have to fund paying for schools and teachers and methodologies that are failing to teach students the FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL READERS WRITERS and ANSWER BASIC MATH PROBLEMS?
I used to be a strong supporter of public education. But after my experience with trying to get my foster children and adopted child the proper help from the public schools we were forced to send students to, I’m sorry but I can no longer support a system that fails to help so many students reach their potential to overcome their origin of poverty, while teachers and schools refuse to help them soar, and instead let them fall through the academic cracks of the public education system.
Families also cannot support a public funded education system that makes families go into debt to hire lawyers and advocates to try to get their local schools to provide their children the proper instructional methods and other accommodations and supports that they need to reach their academic potential.
When children are left behind and fall through the cracks of the public education system, statistics show that instead of becoming productive members of society, statistics show they become a proverbial drain on society by using limited funds to support public support systems (welfare and prison.) Instead of working and paying taxes, they become dependent on tax funded systems of welfare or end up in the criminal justice system, using limited funds to support themselves and their families, using public defendants or ending up in jail, again supported by taxpayers.
How about we invest in the proper methodologies early on to teach these children to read and write and perform math; and actually try to help the children from a demographic of poverty learn how to read and write and do math instead of just saying that it is impossible to help them achieve to a higher potential than their demographic of origin?
And you can do the same for the children from middle and upper middle-class families who also struggle to learn how to read and write and do math with fluency and proficiency.
You all make it seem that it is only the children from poverty that are being left behind in your public school classrooms, but you know that is just not the truth, because so many other children from middle and upper middle-class families, with involved parents, struggle just as much as those from Title 1 families!!!
So please stop making up excuses and actually work on solving the problems that children are being forced to confront each and every day in your public school classrooms!
Stop blaming the children and their demographics and for once be accountable for the role the schools and teachers are playing in their daily school life and their lack of success academically. Schools and teachers exist solely to help them learn how to read, write and do math problems. If students are not learning these skills schools and teachers are failing these children.
You need to realize that not all children have a family where there is at least one adult that knows how to read fluently and proficiently; not all children come from families where there is a family member that can help them with their school work; you need to realize that the smoke and mirrors deflection show that the struggling learner is solely due to demographics of poverty, because that argument really doesn’t hold water. Struggling learners come from all demographics (poverty, middle class, upper middle class, and the wealthy 1%.)
You need to admit that the current system is failing more children than helping them. (It’s failing exceptional children, honor students, average students, and struggling students. Few of the students are getting what they need to achieve to their potential in the current public education system.)
But the student’s that struggle the most are also losing the most. Instead of using the public education system to raise these students up and out of a future of poverty, instead they are reinforcing their future to be nothing but one of continued struggle and highly unlikely that they will ever remediate their academic weaknesses and instead continue to become a statistic where they will remain behind and end up in poverty themselves as well.
And for the middle-class students that struggle, too many times they too will end up in worse off demographically as an adult, than from where they originated as a child, setting their children up for a life of struggle as well, and beginning another cycle of struggle if nothing is done to help them early on.
So please stop blaming children and uninvolved families as the reason for children struggling to learn how to read and writing and do math proficiently and fluently, because you are also leaving middle and upper middle class and wealthy students behind too, in addition to those from poverty, so the argument that you cannot help these struggling learners because of their demographics is nothing more than an excuse not to change failing instructional methodologies!
October is National Dyslexia month. You might want to take the initiative to learn about the most prevalent learning disability and do something to change this broken public education system and work towards ending the illiteracy problem that has persisted over multiple generations.
Literacy is our best chance to end poverty. Please help all students become proficient in the foundational skills of reading and writing (and math too!)
M,
I like cats.
LeftCoastTeacher,
That’s nice. Good to know.
But what are you doing to end illiteracy and help those students that do not have a voice?
M,
can u plz help make standards for cats? they r illiterate
Wow, I’m very impressed in regards to how your response is in line with the level of Donald Trump’s 3 AM tweets LCT.
M,
Do you like cheeseburgers?
http://www.explore1in5.org
http://www.explore1in5.org/About-1in5
I like cheeseburgers. The weather here’s perfect for a kosher pickle and a mom and pop cheeseburger. It’s a lovely day. You see, I figure I might as well just make polite if meaningless conversation with you, since whatever I write, you’re sure to respond with repetition of your idea that diagnosing and curing dyslexia is the sole responsibility and capability of high stakes testing, TFA, and charter scams. So, how’s the weather where you live? Do you like cats? How about cats wearing large, men’s socks? Have a nice day!
M
There are always two sides to a story. You have stated one side with eloquence and I agree with most of it. Thanks.
Actually three sides – your truth, my truth, and reality.
M has vomited up a massive propagandistic screed that reeks of the usual reformer talking points: our failing schools blah, blah, blah. Of course there is always room for improvement but pointing out that poverty and social ills are serious problems is not making excuses, it’s just a fact. How about smaller class sizes for a starter and more wrap around services for kids at risk? How about we stop wasting money with this phony baloney school choice nonsense?
Joe,
Please, give me a break. Demographics is an excuse and you know it!
Then what excuse do you use for the middle class and upper middle class (or the well to do students that might occasionally show up in your classrooms) and who struggle to learn how to read and write and do math fluently and with proficiency? These are students with involved parents who did everything that they were told to do, yet their children are struggling.
So what is the excuse you give those parents?
Schools perpetuate the culture they want as their model.
And in more cases than not, bad practices are passed along based on accepting historically low standards and poor achievement and it’s been proven.
The school my foster/adopted child attended as per the zip code we resided in, had small classes and supposedly highly qualified teachers as per the standards in place defining such. The teacher to student ratio was typically less than a dozen students to a teacher.
And, they were independently audited and found to be failing to provide those in the high-risk demographics with the appropriate education they needed to make progress, yet nothing was done and they were never held accountable by the local school district, the state or the federal education department!
How does a school, solely because of the class cohort sizes,get away with not being held accountable?!
What excuse do you give to parents like me, a foster adoptive parent that was given only 5 school years to close gaps in reading, writing and math?!
What excuses do you give to parents, with bio-children, who show up in your classrooms and at CSE and 504 meetings BEGGING for proper remedial instructional methods and classroom supports (Assistive Technology and accommodations, etc) so that their children can continue to learn and achieve at grade level with their peers?
Why are there so many families venting and complaining about the hassles they are having to go through to get their children the proper instruction and supports on hundreds of blogs and web pages about the insurmountable hurdles they are forced to jump and blockades that they run into each and every school year, in trying to get their children the proper instruction so that they become literate in more times than not, their primary language of English?!?!?!
Statistically, it is a very small percentage of students that will never be able to learn how to read and write proficiently if given the instruction early and with the intensity needed. So why then are so many graduating without being proficient readers and writers and unable to figure out basic math problems?!?!?!
So please Joe, parents don’t want to hear excuses!
They want and expect that schools and TEACHERS are going to be accountable to ensure that their children are learning how to read, and write and do math problems!
We are done listening to excuses!
We are done with the smoke & mirrors & deflections of blaming standardized testing!
We are done with the excuses that we are too involved or not involved enough, because obviously, parents are never involved to the degree that is needed as per the schools and teachers.
When students are sitting in the public school classrooms as they are expected, and showing up, and sometimes even classified, and they have the cognitive ability to benefit, at some point, it IS THE SCHOOLS RESPONSIBILITY TOO also help these children close any academic weaknesses they have demonstrated!
It is neglectful and abusive to allow them to needlessly struggle day after day and year after year for no fault of their own!
M has shown up here before with nothing but excuses for failing to take responsibility and wanting to blame teachers for M’s self-inflicted failings. Parents need to step up and take responsibility including this troll. If the school does not have the resources, then go out and get them yourself. Use the gray matter and figure out a solution. Work a second job, spend more time at home, sacrifice. We did and didn’t just sit around ranting about teachers or the latest pet peeve about miracle cures or magical solutions not adopted without question by the school. Instead, how many teachers have to suffer these self-centered people who think they are the only ones with problems and deserve full allocation of every school resource for THEIR child. Life is tough. Life isn’t fair. If you birth or adopt a child, it is ultimately YOUR responsibility. It is a lifetime commitment. The struggles many of us face are not the teachers’ fault, not caused by the schools, not the government’s, not the doctors. Enough teacher blaming. I don’t buy into this nonsense about blaming the teachers for every failing and issue in parenting and society. Step up to parenting and take personal responsibility for your life. Be a big girl or boy.
rockhound2:
I disagree. The statistics show that over half and up to 3/4 of the students are not proficient in reading, writing or math or some combination of those 3 skill sets/areas. (I can provide additional sources if this is still not enough….)
http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/gap.shtml
“In two-year colleges, eligibility for enrollment typically requires only a high school diploma or equivalency.
About one-quarter of incoming students to these institutions are fully prepared for college-level studies.
The remaining 75% need remedial work in English, mathematics, or both.
Eligibility for enrollment in less-selective four-year institutions (often the “state colleges”) typically includes a high school diploma and additional college-preparatory coursework. Experience shows that these additional eligibility requirements still leave about half of incoming freshmen under-prepared for college. Firm data on the portions of entering college students who need remediation in English and/or math are not available, but the proportions shown in figure 1 reflect national estimates.1 All told, as many as 60% of incoming freshmen require some remedial instruction.
These national estimates may be conservative, since not all students who are underprepared for college are tested and placed in remedial courses. The California State University (CSU), a large public university system, for many years has applied placement or readiness standards in reading, writing, and mathematics that are linked to first-year college coursework. All first-time students at all 23 CSU campuses must meet these standards, principally through performance on a common statewide placement examination. Despite systemwide admissions policy that requires a college-preparatory curriculum and a grade point average in high school of B or higher, 68% of the 50,000 entering freshmen at CSU campuses require remediation in English language arts, or math, or both. Should the same standards be applied by the California Community Colleges with their open admissions policies, their remediation rates would exceed 80%. There is every reason to believe that most states would have similar remediation rates if they employed similar college readiness standards and placement tests across all public colleges and universities.
This huge readiness gap is costly to students, families, institutions, and taxpayers, and is a tremendous obstacle to increasing the nation’s college attainment levels.”
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/public-high-school-graduation-and-college-readiness-rates-united-states-5906.html
“REPORT
Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States
Jay P. Greene Greg Forster
September 1, 2003
EducationPre K-12
Students who fail to graduate high school prepared to attend a four-year college are much less likely to gain full access to our country’s economic, political, and social opportunities. In this study we estimate the percentage of students in the public high school class of 2001 who actually possess the minimum qualifications for applying to four-year colleges. To be “college ready” students must pass three crucial hurdles: they must graduate from high school, they must have taken certain courses in high school that colleges require for the acquisition of necessary skills, and they must demonstrate basic literacy skills.
Using data from the U.S. Department of Education we are able to estimate the percentage of students who graduate high school as well as the percentage that finish high school ready to attend a four-year college. We are also able to produce these estimates by racial/ethnic group as well as by region and state.
Specifically, the study’s findings include the following:
Only 70% of all students in public high schools graduate, and only 32% of all students leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges.
Only 51% of all black students and 52% of all Hispanic students graduate, and only 20% of all black students and 16% of all Hispanic students leave high school college-ready.
The graduation rate for white students was 72%; for Asian students, 79%; and for American Indian students, 54%. The college readiness rate for white students was 37%; for Asian students, 38%; for American Indian students, 14%.
Graduation rates in the Northeast (73%) and Midwest (77%) were higher than the overall national figure, while graduation rates in the South (65%) and West (69%) were lower than the national figure. The Northeast and the Midwest had the same college readiness rate as the nation overall (32%) while the South had a higher rate (38%) and the West had a lower rate (25%).
The state with the highest graduation rate in the nation was North Dakota (89%); the state with the lowest graduation rate in the nation was Florida (56%).
Due to their lower college readiness rates, black and Hispanic students are seriously underrepresented in the pool of minimally qualified college applicants. Only 9% of all college-ready graduates are black and another 9% are Hispanic, compared to a total population of 18-year-olds that is 14% black and 17% Hispanic.
We estimate that there were about 1,299,000 college-ready 18-year-olds in 2000, and the actual number of persons entering college for the first time in that year was about 1,341,000. This indicates that there is not a large population of college-ready graduates who are prevented from actually attending college.
The portion of all college freshmen that is black (11%) or Hispanic (7%) is very similar to their shares of the college-ready population (9% for both). This suggests that the main reason these groups are underrepresented in college admissions is that these students are not acquiring college-ready skills in the K-12 system, rather than inadequate financial aid or affirmative action policies.”
“Heightening concerns about the value of many of its high school diplomas, the New York State Education Department released new data on Tuesday showing that only 37 percent of students who entered high school in 2006 left four years later adequately prepared for college, with even smaller percentages of minority graduates and those in the largest cities meeting that standard.
…
There were also wide variations among individual schools within districts. In New York, more than half the college-ready graduates came from 20 of the 360 high schools for which information was provided.
For many years, officials at the City University of New York and at community colleges across the state have raised questions about why so many students from public high schools seem to lack basic skills when they arrive on campuses, requiring extensive remediation. But Tuesday was the first time the state attempted to say how many seniors at each school were prepared to move on.
“This is talking about useful truths,” said Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the Board of Regents. “We are all aware that this is very challenging, and that the tenacity of the achievement gap is undeniable. But the only way to correct the problem is to find something that allows you to state clearly where you are, and that’s what this is.”
The college-ready statistics, which the state formally called “aspirational performance measures,” were released alongside general graduation rates, which have been on the rise for about a decade and continued to inch up last year in the city and state.”
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/08/21/high-school-graduates-still-struggle-with-college-readiness
“Nearly one in three high school graduates who took the ACT tests are not ready for entry-level college courses in English, reading, math or science, according to new data released by the testing organization Wednesday.
Of the 1.8 million high school graduates who took the ACT in 2013, only 26 percent reached the college readiness benchmarks in all four subjects. Another 27 percent met two or three of the benchmarks, and 16 percent met just one.”
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/08/176570802/even-highly-motivated-students-arent-ready-for-college
“Low-performing high school students are often unprepared for college. But some analysts say even gifted students are falling behind. Host Michel Martin discusses why many students, across the board, aren’t hitting the mark.”
M,
I think you are a corporate reform troll.
From what you wrote here, I conclude you think you are living in a third world coutry, not the most powerful nation in the world.
Stop insulting America!
Our public schools made us a great nation.
Response to Vale Math
October 2, 2016 at 4:04 pm
M has shown up here before with nothing but excuses for failing to take responsibility and wanting to blame teachers for M’s self-inflicted failings.
—–Really, what would those “self-inflicted failings be?”
*Finding the proper people that helped to propel him academically on our own time and dimes?
*Advocating relentlessly for the school to provide FAPE for a student already under the umbrella of SpecEd, yet was still being allowed to fall through the cracks and left behind needlessly?
*Spending thousands of dollars on lawyers and advocates yet still never seeing any results where they provided the specialized reading they advertised and offered to other, yet denied it to a foster child in their district, while using the placement as a cash cow for their district?
Parents need to step up and take responsibility including this troll. If the school does not have the resources, then go out and get them yourself.
——The school had the resources! Yet hey repeatedly denied and refused to provide them to the student!
—— Why should any parent have to go out and pay for educational services the school is supposed to be providing to students during their school days!!!
Use the gray matter and figure out a solution. Work a second job, spend more time at home, sacrifice. We did and didn’t just sit around ranting about teachers or the latest pet peeve about miracle cures or magical solutions not adopted without question by the school.
—-Really? That’s your answer? Blame the parents? Why doesn’t the school who we pay multiple thousands of dollars in taxes to use their gray matter instead? Especially since they were also being reimbursed SpecEd tuition at the rate of ~$27,000/yr, + $1800 for having a Title 1 student in foster care enrolled in their district, plus whatever transportation fees were reimbursed from the students district of origin?
—–By the way, the entire 3 years we after-schooled, we found specialized Orton-Gillingham tutors, and we invested in the assistive technology our foster-child was repeatedly denied from the public schools!
—- By the way, we gave up on the school district ever providing FAPE for this child and with the help of the OG tutors and our own efforts he achieved higher than anyone else would have thought possible.
BUT, HE STILL STRUGGLES BECAUSE HIS REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION CAME SO LATE FOR HIM!!!
—- But he graduated at 16 from HS with 33 college credits! Followed by graduation from community college the next year with an Associate in Science degree at 17 yrs old, a full month ahead of his HS cohort class!
Instead, how many teachers have to suffer these self-centered people who think they are the only ones with problems and deserve full allocation of every school resource for THEIR child. Life is tough. Life isn’t fair. If you birth or adopt a child, it is ultimately YOUR responsibility. It is a lifetime commitment. The struggles many of us face are not the teachers’ fault, not caused by the schools, not the government’s, not the doctors. Enough teacher blaming. I don’t buy into this nonsense about blaming the teachers for every failing and issue in parenting and society. Step up to parenting and take personal responsibility for your life. Be a big girl or boy.
—– Well that is your prerogative, but when taxpayers are mandated to pay taxes to support schools that district students are forced to attend, there better be some sort of accountability for the investment people are making into these public schools!
—– We did step up and that is why I can come here and say that SCHOOLS & TEACHERS ARE FAILING AND NOT PREPARED TO EFFECTIVELY TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO READ WRITE IN THEIR NATIVE LANGUAGE OF ENGLISH!!!
We did what the credentialed and supposedly highly qualified teachers could never seem to do!!!
We helped a child reach their potential in school, using OUR OWN TIME & RESOURCES!
THIS CHILD SPENT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF THEIR LIMITED TIME GOING TO TUTORING FOR ALMOST AN ENTIRE SCHOOL DAY ON TOP OF THEIR SCHOOL WEEK! 6 HOURS A WEEK WAS SPENT ON GETTING TO & FROM TUTORING AND THE HOUR SPENT WITH THE TUTORS TWICE A WEEK!
This was in addition to the triple or greater time they spent on their assignments in comparison to general ed peers!
So please, give me a break!
You don’t have a clue as to what parents do to help their kids stay afloat!!!
I don’t agree with M, but…
Power does not make one great.
How can we say education is not responsible for economic health, in one breath, and then credit our school system to our national power and greatness, in another?
Just one of those places we seem to disagree, Diane…
I would say that the economy has little bearing on the “quality” of our education system, if education were more about human potential and virtue than productivity. Neither does military power and influence tell much about how good or bad our public schools are, unless the purpose of education were engineering, technology, and physical domination.
M, you quote without critique and at length various stats which ‘prove’ the terrible and increasing unreadiness for college of huge majorities of incoming US college freshman– clear proof to you, apparently, that our entire ed system is in the toilet. Are you aware that, altho hs grad rate is as high as it was in ’70’s (i.e., highest in history), only 30% of hs grads in ’70’s (or ’60’s & before, i.e. in the decades our economy thrived) enrolled in college? Today, 66% attempt college. 33% hs grads didn’t become smarter or more academically inclined. Decent jobs for hs diploma dried up.
Such stats show mainly that non-selective 2-yr colleges (which have proliferated in those 40 yrs & account for 60% of the claimed 60-70% ‘unready’) enroll everyone from mediocre students to folks long out of school attempting to re-tool.
M: it is precisely the crusade to force schools to teach literacy better that has led to the current, locked-in misguided approach to teaching literacy (it’s not working: since NCLB, 17 year olds’ reading scores have flatlined). After the initial instruction in decoding, trying to teach reading comprehension directly doesn’t work. Reading comprehension is not a skill; it is the fruit of having broad knowledge in one’s brain. Yet the current ELA standards talk about reading comprehension as if it’s a skill, and so schools try to teaching reading comprehension skills, even though they don’t really exist. It’s a fiasco. The standards have an aura of authority (spurious authority, in my view) that few teachers are willing to gainsay. If the standards imply reading comprehension is a skill, it must be a skill. Public schools weren’t perfect, but politicians’ efforts to “hold them accountable” is making them worse. I agree that the public has a right to have a say in what and how schools teach; however, the current micromanaging is backfiring. Perhaps it would be wiser to enact policies that ensure that every classroom has a smart, educated teacher, as Finland does, and then give those teachers some latitude to teach as they see fit.
Ponderosa:
If children cannot decode and encode with fluency, it negatively impacts their ability for comprehension!
If all of their limited processing power (think RAM in a computer) is being tied up to decode or encode, they have nothing left to use for comprehending the material they are attempting to decode!
Hence why the use of Assistive Technology (alternatively formatted texts, Text to speech, audio books and Speech to Text) is ESSENTIAL in helping these students remain at grade level with their peers!
BookShare has been provided free for years to all schools for children with a print or physical disability that affects their ability for print, yet how many of you are using it in your classrooms with any sort of regularity?!
How many of you even support the use of any assistive technology in your classrooms?!
Stop with the excuses!!!
Start being accountable for the role that the schools have in helping to provide a reall appropriate education to all students with the cognitive ability to benefit from proper instruction!!!
So you indict an entire approach to education, disparage en masse public school teachers, and condemn every public school because of your limited, anecdotal experience? Sounds like you are more of the problem and lacking personal responsibility..
Vale Math,
Yes- When the shoe fits I will disparage a broken and failing bureaucratic public education system!
And I will repeat, when parents have done what they were told to do and yet their children are still struggling to learn how to fluently and proficiently decipher their native language to read and write on grade level and there are methodologies available in the district that are proven to be the methodologies the student needs as identified by an independent NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST who is licensed able to identify a methodology that will work to close the gaps of the identified skill sets (which mirror the deficit areas identified by the schools testing) yet repeatedly refuses to offer and provide it to the student, that’s OK to do?
When a child arrives in my home in 8th grade and identified with reading, writing and math struggles, and allowed to continue to struggle with these same areas when they sat in public school classrooms with an IEP for the entire time they attended and also has been identified to be able to benefit from APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTION and the neuropsychologist comes to two separate CSE meetings and informs them of the type of instruction the student needs and they continue to deny the student the proper instruction and methodologies yes I will call out the entire system!
When schools REPEATEDLY turn a blind eye to a students struggles and the pleas of their advocates to help them, I will definitely call them out on their failures!
When they push families to the private sector to obtain he appropriate services then why should we even bother to continue to send our children to your schools, other than for the tax funded day care it might provide!
It’s not rocket science although it would be easier to find qualified rocket scientists apparently than it is to find qualified elementary and secondary teachers experienced and willing to provide proper instructional methodologies for those on the Dyslexia/Reading disabled spectrum which is what is needed to ensure that students graduate more than functionally illiterate today!
No, it is not an attack. It is an honest question. When children are allowed to struggle needlessly because they are never provided with the proper instruction and services to learn how to decode and encode proficiently in their NATIVE language of English, it is not an attack.
I don’t understand how teachers and administrators can have parents show up at their school begging for them to help their child(ren) to learn how to read and write and do math using proper instructional methods and supports, yet their pleas and advocacy is repeatedly ignored and denied and stonewalled.
It is the reality for my family and millions of other families that are advocating just as fiercely for their struggling learners.
You never answered me regarding what do you and the teachers and admins at your LEA tell the middle-class families or the upper-middle-class parents that show up at your school begging for help for their struggling learners. (These are the parents that read to their children every day, that have helped them with their homework every day, that makes sure they show up in class each day, that sends them to school well nourished, well dressed, etc, etc.) Do you tell them they need to go and find the tutors outside of school and make their children spend what limited free time they have outside of school, doing more schoolwork? These are the same kids struggling to stay afloat in your classrooms and that work extra hard to stay afloat. So you “reward” them for their valiant efforts by making them spend more time OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL, getting re-schooled or properly instructed, because the school chooses not to do their job during the 5 days a week they spend there, funded by their parent’s hard-earned tax dollars, yet they never close the gaps they have, even though they are and their families are going above and beyond to try to help them stay afloat.
Because pushing parents and children out to the private sector to get them the appropriate educational instruction and supports aren’t an effective model if you want to keep your number of students up when your district is hemorrhaging students left and right and barely able to stay afloat based on your dwindling student census numbers.
M,
C’mon, the article didn’t assert the removal of all standards, it simply focused on there not being a need for national standards in a democracy.
But once you set up that straw man you decided to pummel and smash it until there was nothing but you and straw left, lazily drifting down to the floor while you were wiping your brow.
Well done.
Here is another straw man you pieced together and then ripped apart…
The majority of US students are not being left behind. In urban areas you can make that assertion and probably be accurate based on BS test grades, but taking our nation as a whole?…nah.
Your passion for helping those students who need help is commendable, and putting that energy into concrete action rather than attacking others who have the same passion but advocate for different policies is probably the best path to accomplishing your goals.
You are taking swings at false opponents. Save your energy for the real fights against the privatizers, the defenders of the status quo that call themselves reformers.
They are our enemies. They are our opponents, not Diane and many of the commenters here. There is a difference, and you can perceive it.
Let that be your guide.
rockhound2:
1) — I wasn’t the one that titled the article as:
National Standards Are Not Necessary in a Democracy
2) — I’m not taking swings at false opponents. I’m taking swings at the current system that is failing too many students and leaving them behind year after year! If it hits too close to home for some teachers and admins, that is not my fault. I’m just one of thousands of moms/parents that’s been forced to watch schools fail to provide FAPE to students and families who have been involved in their childrens life’s and education. But to blame the children for their demographics is nothing other than an excuse for the schools and teachers to step up and fill in the cracks before the students fall through and get left behind.
Any educational bureacracy is fair game, and I will give them a chance to prove themselves, but at the first scent of hippocracy I will call them out on it.
I can show you there are too many students that are being left behind by the amount of effort it is taking them to try to decode and encode and to write in their native birth language.
I can show you by samples of their work versus their ability to tell you verbally about a topic in person.
I can show you by the amount of children not being provided with assistive technology or accommodations or remedial isntruction.
I can show you by the reality that there are millions of student that are not being taught to learn how to study, or to take notes, or to manage their time, or a multitude of other skills in addition to academics that they are not learning in school, yet should be- which is the student’s only “job”- to attend school and to learn the skills to productively contribute to society and to learn how to interact with peers and adults and to be an active participant in their own education, and being attentive and prepared and putting in the effort and time required to stay afloat.
3) — How many sources do I need to provide on the statistics surrounding the stats on the number of children being left behind?
4) My foster child never resided in an urban school district for more than 2 of the 12 yrs they were in public school. (We resdided in an rural SD for 3 of those yrs and then moved to a suburban SD for the final school year.)
5) My efforts are spent on helping my ds stay on track with college classes, transitioning from a dependent youth to an independent young adult, while working close to full-time and helping other parents advocate for their Dyslexic and sometimes other special needs children.
6) When primary and secondary teachers take the initiative to learn about Dylexia and the methods that work versus the methods that do not; when they can identify and provide the students with the proper instruction AND in- class supports to level the playing field in the classroom; when they become part of the solution rather than deny any accountability for letting the 1 in 5 students in their classrooms fall farther behind or fall through the cracks – that is when I can sit back and be silent – but until them I will be a vocal critic of the failing status quo that allowed a child to struggle needlessly for 12 years with an IEP in place, never closing the gaps, and now destined for a life of continued struggle as an adult in college. Thank God for the fact that most colleges have put the appropriate accommodations and supports in place so that these students can disclose their disability and take advantage of what typically was rarely offered to them in P/K-12 public schools.
Thank you for a your response. I appreciate that it was professional, unlike some of the responses that have been written here today.
Apparently anyone that disputes others here is typically attacked for expressing a differing opinion.
Obviously some people do not seem to like that not all parents and tax payers feel the same as those that typically comment on the topics of this forum. I’m sorry if my personal experiences and opinions differ from the picture that is usually painted here on this forum. But for many parents, the reality painted here is not our reality. It is not one where students and families are being supported, and until schools and teachers become enlightened, I will continue to shine a light on the issues of Dylexia and other literacy issues in the classrooms of the public schools which are children are confronted with on a daily basis.
Because if uncredentialed but caring volunteers could teach a child how to decode and encode and close the large gaps, then I would hope that highly credentialed teachers could do the same, and close the gaps for these kids sooner and more expeditiously than what it took to help my foster son, who will continue to struggle because his remediation came so late; and it will probably never fully close the gaps due to all of the ingrained neural pathways that are so hard to un-wire/re-wire do to more than a decade of poorly thought-out and unfortunately less than helpful and deeply ingrained, workarounds.
M, for me it is a problem that you extrapolate from your experience to all US public schools.
My experience in a metro-NY/NJ suburb 1992-2010: Two of my 3 sons were LD. I had to advocate; the town would prefer not to pay top $ but they did, & both sons did well, continuing to succeed at med-selective colleges. My guru was my upstate-NY sis, then her midsch’s SpEd supv– & union rep– an active advocate for her rural students. She went over each stage of testing w/me to make sure we were getting best services.
My siblings’ experience in a small upstate city district in the ’70’s: Sis & one brother inherited Dad’s severe dyslexia. Older brother came thro sys pre-IDEA; his sch exp was terrible. Sis 7 yrs younger was dg & got much assistance in hi sch late ’70’s, went on to major in SpEd at a med-selective college. Today a highly-respected asst princ at that small-city hs that helped her achieve.
I hope there are as many good stories like those of my 4 affected as bad stories like your foster son’s. But I expect things are far worse since fin collapse of ’08. Your story seems one of rigid, perhaps sub-par SpEd personnel. Most stories I hear reflect the wealth or poverty of school population. Funding seems to me to be the issue impacting most SpEd kids. The knowledge & training is out there. I wouldn’t expect any improvement from stds. In fact since the initiation of the stds/accountability era SpEd kids have been getting the shaft.
“Instead, they BLAME a child’s DEMOGRAPHICS of poverty and their parents as the reason for their own failure to help students to excel.”
Diane never said NO standards, only lets not standardize at the cost of differentiation. Let’s not punish communities that have a sudden influx of ELLs who have to plow through the standards even if it’s not linguistically appropriate. Let’s not punish low-income schools where kids just need better funding. It’s simply a fact; there is a direct correlation between poverty and poor achievement. To improve education, don’t “hold them accountable” by using tests to cut funding for lower achieving (statistically low income) schools. To close the gap, Stephen Krashen says fund libraries.
Just curious? What do you tell the middle to upper-income class parents that have struggling learners? Are those parents not involved enough in their children’s education? Or are they too involved? Is it the child’s fault that they are struggling because they have not been instructed in a manner that is effective? Or is it the child’s fault because their parents have begged for them to be instructed with a method that works for kids that struggle with decoding and encoding and reading & writing in their PRIMARY & NATIVE language of English? Again, these are not children of Title 1 demographics or ELL students. These are struggling learners from families where they did everything right and their children still are struggling to learn how to read & write. So what do you tell their parents? These are the same parents that are after schooling and getting them tutored. Yet they still are not closing the gaps and still spending inordinate amounts of time trying to stay afloat academically. What do you tell those parents? The same ones begging you to provide them with the proper remedial help to help them so they won’t have to continue to struggle needlessly?
I held the teachers and schools accountable for the outcomes of the students that gave their all in class, showed up to class every day, did their homework and still struggled to stay afloat!!!
I watched my foster-son struggle needlessly year after year while the teachers and the school admins ignored his struggles, his weaknesses, and denied my foster child AIS and research-based methods instructional methods that the neuro-psychologist urged them to use and which they advertised as offering on their school web page! But they repeatedly denied such instruction to him, repeatedly for the entire 3 years he attended school in that district!
I watched another upper-middle-class mother in a different district battle for her Dyslexic child with her school district to provide a 504 plan for their child with an extended time accommodation, which doesn’t cost a dime to offer! Yet she had to hire a lawyer and file a complaint to get them to even consider it! Then it took another 2 marking periods for them to make it official in a 504 plan!
But whatever… Just keep blaming the students, their families, and their demographics! It’s much easier that way than to admit the role the school plays in educating these kids and providing them with the accommodations and appropriate instruction they are entitled to under IDEA, 504 & the ADA & Child Find!
Teachers and schools are never part of the problem. It’s just the students and their families that are the problem, right? It’s the families that have to hire attornies and advocates and tutors that are the problem.
Keep repeating this stuff. If it helps you all sleep better at night. Keep dreaming.
Keep pushing parents out to the private sector on their own time and dimes to ensure their children get the APPROPRIATE EDUCATION that they are supposed to be provided free of charge from their local school districts during their school days!
It is this sort of rhetoric that is driving families from the public school systems. At this rate shortly all that schools will be is some sort of tax-funded day care or rec centers… and if there is any educational benefit that happens along the way, we should celebrate it I guess as a success story.
I keep repeating “fund libraries”. .. Why attack me? I sleep great at night except for lots of writing, tweeting, and advocating for the language minority ELL students in my class whose parents aren’t “too involved” or “not involved enough” … They just want differentiation not standardization. Why the hate at me specifically and why the war on teachers.
Why is it “hating and attacking” when people question teachers or school admins for their excuses and lack of acknowledging when schools are failing to provide FAPE to ALL students they are tasked to educate?
You were the one providing excuses and not wanting to hold schools and teachers accountable.
You can fund libraries until the cows come home, but if the people cannot read, it does little good to fund libraries to offer books that they cannot read!!!!
Maybe you should instead say, fund effective literacy projects that have repeatedly provided proven success stories in teaching children and adults how to read!!!
How do you sleep at night? is an attack.
For what it’s worth, Claire, I can’t sleep at night.
I’ve taken to sleeping with the wolindows open even in the coldest weather. So far so good.
I’m sorry that you’ve had such a bad experience with your children’s education, M.
I think it’s a safe bet to say that you’ve never had any long or medium term experience, teaching in a classroom. I have. My entire 23 years have been spent trying to and very often succeeding in finding ways to meet the diverse and common needs of the children I teach.
I am not an anomaly. The vast majority of the people I’ve worked with (and I’ve worked with many) are just as committed and hard working as I am.
Saying that the teachers are simplifying the problem by casting the blame on poverty and uninvolved parents is really a simplification in itself. Nobody is saying that’s all that’s involved, but it is a major contributor and it always surprises me when intelligent people wave this off as a deflection.
If anything, the imposition of a set of hastily written up national standards (with minimal input from respected K-12 educators and psychologists), curriculum written specifically to align with those standards, and poorly designed high stakes tests which place even the most talented teacher’s careers at risk is the true oversimplification of the problem and a “solution”.
Ours is and always has been a nation of innovation and creativity. We encourage thinking outside of the box. The idea that we are a “nation at risk” is an over simplification and highly debatable.
Again: you’ve obviously had a tough road in this area. But your experience does not trump all. If you could only see how our work is hampered by the “reforms” that keep getting hammered on us, you might get an idea of where we’re coming from.
M, as you’ll see in my above post, there are indeed public school districts which provide full services to non-ELL, non-Title I mid-& upper-class LD students, & do it well.
My particular NJ district is well-endowed w/hi RE taxes. Tho we as parents struggled daily to help our kids, & it was a very long haul, so did the district, eventually (w/strong advocacy on our part) providing self-contained classes in key subjects for my (2 out of 3) LD sons. In the last decade they’ve added a ‘bridge program’ for the devptlly delayed, & have brought specialized schooling for the autistic in-house.
The other districts I mentioned above (a small mid-to-upper-mid upstate-NY city & a neighboring poor rural area) serve their SpEd students incl dyslexics well. They are not wealthy districts, but have progressive ed goals due to long influence of local Ivy University.
Standards or no standards literacy may be a good thing but literacy will not end poverty . “its the economy stupid ” Or as Lawrence Summers says “I am afraid that we could educate a whole lot of people to take the jobs of those that already have them’ . Don’t like Larry here’s Paul and if you have to ask Paul who then you are not as literate as you claim. “I am not sure that education is now nor ever was the answer to economic inequality” “SYMPATHY FOR THE LUDDITES ” Krugman . There are no free markets, the economy is now and always has been a series of political decisions that picks winners and losers. Inequality is soaring because of these decisions not because of education or lack there of . The fact that those who benefit most by these decisions seek to blame education rather than the political actions that have created their obscene wealth is understandable.
M. Your attack on public schools is misguided. You should be focusing your efforts on getting the law fully funded. The reason students receive services today is because in 1975 parents demanded their children receive FAPE. Hence PL-142. The spirit of the law never matched the funding. Now we have the introduction of personalized learning. Give every student an IEP and do away with Special Education altogether. There are plenty of postings on this blog about special education disappearing. Everyone needs to understand the far reaching implications of personalized learning.
There is great strength in diversity. The pursuit of uniformity is rife with obvious drawbacks and unintended side effects. I need to be able to teach to the needs and interests of individual students, not those of governments or companies. Therefore, I greatly appreciate the erudite basis of this well written composition, Professor Tampio.
Thanks for the link to the ungated version.
“democracy requires student, teacher, and community autonomy”
These words mean so much to us teachers in U.S. classrooms!
Thanks, Claire. I’m fighting for my kids, but also on behalf of the wonderful teachers I had as a student. So many education reforms–including the New York State Common Core Curriculum–do not treat teachers as professionals. That’s bad for teachers, students, and community members. Let’s turn the tide!
TRUMPINESS —
I think we are all Trumped-out about Trump’s distractible comments about a beauty queen’s supposed weight issues, while, in the meantime, relatively little gets talked about, nationally, concerning educational issues, and the lack of required history and/or political science classes at the HS & community college level, and in many American universities. Trumpiness (modeled on Colbert’s “truthiness,”) I define as pandering to a distracted audience’s attention to trivia while ignoring real debate. Real debate includes such pressing national problems such as decaying infrastructure and school re-segregation along both racial and economic lines, as well as ignoring international issues concerning the horrible slaughter in Syria, the bombing of the Sudan, and the shocking treatment of refugees from all of these places and beyond.
How did one overweight, boorish, and fundamentally silly man so dominate this election? He did start with some real issues — the job losses of the underclass — but then pumped by CBS, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and their concerns for their own financial rewards at the expense of democracy — he was handed the airwaves as the free gift that just kept on giving. The Hilary campaign (she has her own problems, but that’s for another note) had to pay costs while Trumpiness got the same relatively free.
These “news” outlets have only recently decided to investigate Trumpiness, and lo, they have discovered that the fat orange-headed emperor has no clothes, no real ideas, nor I am shocked, shocked to say, any honor. He already has built a WALL — and Democracy (we are all) is paying for the effects of Trumpiness’s great barrier to real debate. Alas, unlike the President of Mexico, we can’t seem to tell the aforementioned “news” outlets to get off the distractions and pay far more attention to the real.
JVK
Whether national standards are a good thing depends heavily on the specific type of constitution and governmental structure in a democracy. The United States of America might not be such a good place for national standards because of the different levels of government, their relationships, the different ways that public schools are funded, and various regional issues. It seems to me that Massachusetts would have been better off sticking with its standards rather than switching to Common Core, for example. I just wanted to throw out the idea that not all democracies are the same. To generalize to all democracies is very difficult.
National standards don’t not improve or harm test scores. They are irrelevant.
You are so right, Diane. My district paid for lots of curricula writing time during summers in various disciplines. I also worked on the NYS ESL curriculum writing. We don’t need the federal government to tell us what to do. We had our own road maps tailored to our needs. A one size fits all approach based on bias is irrelevant and does not serve local needs or students well.
Eric Brandon– Yet Dewey’s ideas relate to democratic ideals, not to the particulars of a society’s political structure and demographics. He seems to be promoting locally-devised curricula which align generally with a broad national concept and approach– perhaps a framework– that assures equal access to a liberal education. Many different national political democratic structures can accommodate that paradigm.
I think the problems the US is having in enacting workable standards is conceptual. We point nations beating us on the PISA & conclude ‘they have national stds, we should too.’ Yet we narrowly construe national standards as a finite list of skills, which, if acquired, assure economic success. This shows misunderstanding of the very nature of education, and betrays the same classist notions Dewey warned against.
Meanwhile, if you look at Finland’s national stds, they are a broad framework. Individual school districts develop curricula and pedagogy which reflect local needs and concerns. There are specific national mandates, but they refer to key ingredients needed to promote best practices. For example, their 2014 reform includes “[an outline of] pedagogical guidelines to help schools develop their operating methods in order to increase the pupils’ interest in learning and motivation to learn.”– and allows two full years for schools to develop implementation.
And if you look closely at Finland’s educational system, it is currently in decline: http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/150410115444-RealFinnishLessonsFULLDRAFTCOVER.pdf
Oh, a study that defines “a school system in decline” as leveling/declining PISA scores. Yawn, roll eyes, bunk.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
When “fixing” our district’s low-income schools became a government funded issue, those who thought to “fix” our schools’ teachers and classroom expectations forced STANDARDS into the mix…suggesting, in the process, that teachers had never had any. What I then experienced over the next decade of everchanging test-score reforms was that the writing and re-writing of STANDARDS was (1) haphazard, (2) convoluted, and (3) wordy to the point of being redundant (and then redundant again). When I first started teaching, the curriculum guides and departmental expectations made sense; by the time NCLB and then R2T had had its way with our school, almost nothing made sense….
The fundamental mistake here would be thinking that people at the top are pushing standards because they want democracy. They’re doing it precisely because they don’t much want or care about democracy.
It is correct that we don’t need national education standards for a democratic society, at least nothing beyond a loose framework of general principles. But that is why they are pushing national standards so hard. Such a dense and specific list of national standards, enforced by standardized testing, is a tool for control and makes democracy impossible.
I don’t entirely buy that. It might be closer to the truth to say that, in education, democratic principles have been undermined by (a)those progressives who believe in top-down reforms to promote the public good [which led us to a fed DOE w/too much power, now led by folks w/different philosophy], (b)’third-way’ neolib Democrats who together w/mainstream Repubs encouraged privatization of public goods [where distant shareholders rather than voting citizens call the shots], and (c)a growing right-wingnut element who, tho their conservative forebears pushed smaller gov, shove that aside in favor of authoritarian ‘accountability’ schemes. None of them will acknowledge undermining democracy until the evidence begins burning their feet.
You said you don’t buy it, but I think you went on to support a lot of what I said.
The people who push hardest for these specific national standards, and their enforcement, are business groups, conservatives, new democrats, philanthropic billionaires, and ultimately, the kind of people who are served by having power concentrated in their hands rather than the public’s.
Sure, not everyone who pushes for national standards wants to weaken democracy. A lot of people get swept up in the hype, and end up fighting against democratic schools and society whether they realize it or not.
EdD, we agree except in nuance. But I think nuance is important when trying to figure out how best to counter the opposition. As your last para attests, the opposition is not one anti-democratic elite, but a rope made of multiple threads whose interests coalesce for the moment, but whose threads conflict in some basic ways, and may be set off against each other when teased out.
The most obvious philosophical conflict is between the ‘right-wingnuts’ and the rest. TeaPartiers, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives are only tenuously pro-natl stds/assessments. The only banners under which they collect are small-govt, anti-union, & accountability. All of them can (& many have been) convinced to dump natl stds on small-govt grounds. Most are already convinced of the merit of local control; they might even agree if some localities choose teachers’ unions so be it (or simply on the practical grounds that teachers’ unions are already toothless in their regions). The front here I believe is to hammer away at the specifics of extra costs of stds/ ‘accountability’ & school choice. In layman’s terms, they need to know how much extra they are paying for the policies they choose.
The neolib Dems/ mainstream Repubs have to be hammered on 3 fronts: 1)their specious selling point of competing internationally. They need to be constantly hauled in front of voters & shown how results of their policies weaken our int’l competitiveness. 2)again, cost: a spotlight needs to be pinned on the excess costs of privatization (some headway being made in privatized prisons already) 3)civil disobedience, i.e., Opt Out, i.e. the vote. Here is the Achilles’ heel of all top-down-reforming civil servants taking $ from corp interests. Ed policy made in voter-protected exec agencies can and must be overruled by legislators.
Beth, I don’t think anti-democratic sentiments are a monolith, or a global conspiracy. Occasionally they are, but more often they are a common shared set of interests of those in power. For example, Bill Gates. Whether he realizes it or not (he likely does, at least to some extent), he is a very anti-democratic kind of guy. Now, lots of people will say that philanthropy is good, full stop, and let Bill do what he wants, since he’s also a “smart” and “successful” guy. It follows that his Common Core is a good idea. Those people are inadvertently supporting plutocratic methods of governance.