This post was originally posted on December 21, 2016.
It is a review of my decision to oppose the Common Core standards. A few days ago, I met a high school teacher who told me she had quit her job as a teacher because her supervisor told her she could not teach poetry anymore, due to the Common Core standards. Defenders of the standards will say that the supervisor misinterpreted the standards. Unfortunately, many others are following the same guidelines: Put away poetry and classic literature; teach students to read informational text so the nation can be globally competitive. If I told you there was no evidence for this claim, would you believe me? Do you know that students can learn to read critically and thoughtfully whether they are reading literature or factual information? Every kind of text requires interpretation and understanding.
I oppose the mandated use of the Common Core standards. If teachers like them and want to use them, they should. I have no problem with that. It should be up to the teachers, not to a committee that was funded by Bill Gates, promoted by Arne Duncan, and marketed as a “state-led initiative,” which it was not.
I did not reach this view frivolously or for political reasons. I first read the standards in draft form in 2009. I read them when they were published in 2010. I was invited to the White House in 2010 to meet with the President’s top advisors–Melody Barnes, the head of the Domestic Policy Council; Rahm Emanuel, then the President’s chief of staff; and Ricardo Rodriguez, the President’s education advisor. They asked what I thought of the CCSS. I said that until standards are implemented, until they are tried and tested in classrooms with real teachers and real students, it is impossible to know how they will work. However good they might look on paper, the real test happens in real classrooms, where they must be tried and reviewed. I urged them to give grants to three-to-five states to implement the standards, listen to teachers, work out the bugs, and learn what effects they will have. Will they raise achievement? Will they narrow or lower the achievement gaps among different groups? We can’t know without running trials and revising what needs to be fixed. They flatly rejected my suggestion and said there was no time for that. I realized then that their goal was to have the standards in place in time for the next presidential election in 2012, whereas my goal was to figure out how to make sure the standards were valid and useful for students.
In 2013, after watching the fiasco of the rushed implementation of the standards in New York, I came out in opposition to them, in part because of the process, and in part because of the failure to implement them appropriately and create any mechanism for fixing them.
I also strongly oppose the arbitrary imposition of quotas for literature and informational texts. Those quotas have no basis in research or evidence. The quotas reflected the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) guidelines for assessment developers. As students get older, the tests have more questions that are informational. But the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, had no intention of telling teachers what they should teach or how much time to devote to literature or informational text. (I know this for a fact because I served as a member of NAGB for seven years.) One could read literature for twelve years and still be able to read informational text. The decision about how much time to spend on fiction or nonfiction belongs to teachers, not to national committees.
My bottom line is that teachers who like the Common Core standards should use them; teachers should be free to use any part of them; and teachers should be free to ignore them if they wish. Since they were never field-tested, never validated, there is no reason to mandate them.
So here are some of the posts from the past that I hope will inform you about the CCSS and why I oppose them:
This was my first post, written in early 2013, explaining why I could not support the standards.
A post where I explained my views to the Modern Language Association.
This post in 2014 explains why the CC failed the test of standard setting.
https://dianeravitch.net/2012/12/27/no-one-opposes-reading-non-fiction/
A post about the battle between fiction and nonfiction.
An explanation of why fiction matters, written by someone else.
Tom Loveless on the decline in teaching fiction.
Johann Neem on the danger of Common Core to the teaching of history:
Research say fiction matters.
That is a small sampling from scores of posts about Common Core.
I had long been a proponent of national standards. The flawed development and rushed implementation of the Common Core undermined my belief. As the results from the tests appeared, it became obvious that national standards do not raise achievement, do not narrow achievement gaps, and do not produce better education or equity. The Common Core taught me that national standards are not a solution to the problems of poverty, lack of appropriate funding, and neglect of education as a primary responsibility of the public. College-and-career readiness are not the purpose of education. Full development of every child’s capacities is. Preparation for citizenship is. Ethics and a sense of responsibility for oneself and to the community are. What matters most can’t be measured. Wisdom. Kindness. Character. Integrity. A love of learning. A sense of justice. Concern for others. Courage.
As time goes by, it seems clear that the biggest beneficiaries of the Common Core standards are the testing companies and the vendors of technology, not students or teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, you can add to your list Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha Nussbaum. An absolute essential read.
Not for Profit is on my Android device; I’m moving it to the top of my TBR list now (after a bit of literature to get my mind in balance).
Intention counts in decision making. If the CCSS had been developed because they would help teachers do a better job, they might have had a more successful launch of the Common Core. Instead, the standards are not the result of a collaborative effort that included teachers. They are a politicized straight jacket designed to hobble real teaching and learning. They are designed to turn schools into test prep.factories, to create a punitive high stakes testing environment, with a one size fits all iron fist. The CCSS were never written or adopted correctly, and they never will be in this hostile climate of privatization.
Your thoughtful approach is much appreciated, Diane, and your proposals to the Obama advisors made so much more sense than what actually occurred. I’m still not sure if the creation of the Common Core was more about implementing national standards or about putting schools, teacher, and students (not sure the order) under “comparable” measurement systems, but I suspect the latter. Regardless, the entire approach has been one episode of “Ready! Fire! Aim!” after another.
Having worked as a software engineer for a long time and given that Bill Gates was behind Common Core, I can say with a high level of confidence that it was all about creating a single set of standards for all schools that companies could write curriculum software, texts and tests for.
That makes it very easy for companies because they can take advantage of the economy of scale and also take advantage of the fact that they only have to create and maintain a relatively small number of versions that they know will not have to be modified very often (if at all) because Common Core was copyrighted and schools and states had no control over it.
Bill Gates actually made it clear that this was the purpose of his plan for National standards in a speech he made for the Conference of State legislatures in 2009.
People should have paid attention to what he said back then. He claimed it was all meant to serve teachers, but it’s clear who it was really meant to serve: companies like Pearson and Microsoft who could take advantage of a potential multibillion dollar market.
The opportunity to use the tests that accompanied Common Core to close schools and fire teachers was just an added bonus (leveraged by Arne Duncan and others) but the primary purpose was to make the schools into giant and readily exploitable “market”.
Of course, “improving education” was just the excuse everyone agreed to use for Common Core. It was like WMD for invading Iraq, as admitted by Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq war ruse.
Yes, originally the common core standards were proposed as a framework for all schools to use as a guide in developing their own curriculum for their own students. Dr. Ravitch’s recommendation to implement the standards n verify what works was ignored by Arnie Duncan and all public education has been hurt by him. In NY, educators n school leaders who discounted the testing craze John King initiated n who encouraged teachers to teach the whole child saved their schools from this ideological madness mixed with political n business self interest. Thank you Diane for presenting all of us with the truth. Every educator, principal, superintendent, school board member and parent should read this essay.
I have a question. When does Bill Gates’ “10 years” run out?
Never! Just like the “fixes” for his products.
Never they will blame it on something else and double down on failure.
He said “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”
Probably leaves it open that it might be longer. In other words “probably at least a decade”
Gates is an expert at deception and sleight of hand.
Being that they love testing, those 15 year old’s who saw a decline in PISA might be considered a field test. But Newsday in NY has been silent. Perhaps the Opt Out movement was hurting subscriptions or perhaps it is embarrassing to the editorial staff, after pushing the promotional packages they were handed by the Reformers.
Diane, I am editor in chief of the Journal of Leadership and Instruction published by SCOPE Educational Services a not for profit study council. We would like to publish your essay “Why I Opposed the Common Core Standards”. We believe that principals n superintendents who receive our journal will share copies of your essay with parents at your school. Please let me know how to seek permission to publish your essay in our spring edition. Sincerely, Robert J. Manley Cell 516 443 8271
Sent from my iPhone
>
Robert,
If you wish, I would like to send you the draft my forthcoming book “Infidelity to Truth: Educational Malpractice in American Public Education” that discusses in detail the purpose of public education (and government in general), standards and measurement in the teaching and learning process and the consequences of using false and invalid onto-epistemological concepts to guide educational practices, resulting in said practices being malpractices that hinder the teaching and learning process harming (discriminating against) many students. Should the government be discriminating against some students, rewarding some and punishing others?
You can contact me at: dswacker@centurytel.net .
Duane Swacker:
Please let us know when your book is available.
😎
Will do!
Robert, don’t count on the Superintendents’ Association of NY embracing any opposition to the CCSS.
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch!
The biggest problem with CC was never the standards themselves but how they were implemented. I happen to work in a district that started preparing for them 5 years in advance but too many of them chose to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the ticking clock, probably believing that they would go away like most big educational initiatives. Content providers (textbook companies) weren’t ready in time and most teachers were left to create their own curriculum and materials at the last minute. Even in my “prepared” district there was a lot of scrambling that first year.
But really, the decision to adopt the CC should have been made at the local school district level, not at the state level. People who actually know about education and who can have an open dialogue with the people in charge of teaching it are far better equipped to make that decision than a couple of high level administrators who can be wooed by the people who stand to make a lot of money off the change in curriculum.
By the time you do that though, you’ve lost what the CC were intended to do which was to standardize the curriculum across the country which is itself not a good thing.
I like to use the restaurant analogy. If you want a really good meal, you tend to go to a locally owned restaurant. One with maybe 1 or a few locations. When you go to a restaurant that serves up the same thing no matter what state you’re in, you wind up at McDonalds or Chilis.
“The biggest problem with CC was never the standards themselves but how they were implemented.”
Horse manure!
The problem lies specifically in the concept of educational standards and how the CCSS came about. None of the nationally and internationally accepted procedures for promulgating standards (see NIST or ISO guidelines) were followed by any stretch of the imagination. First the definition of educational standard doesn’t fit any acceptable meaning/usage and serves to confuse and obfuscate the discourse: “The word standard is in the top 1000 most used words in American English and the Merriam-Webster online dictionary gives the following definitions:
Standard
1: a conspicuous object (as in a banner) formerly carried at the top of a pole and used to mark a rallying point especially in battle or to serve as an emblem
2a: a long narrow tapering flag that is personal to an individual or corporation and bears heraldic devices b: the personal flag of the head of state or of a member of a royal family c: an organization flag carried by a mounted or motorized military unit d: banner
3: something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example: criterion <quite slow by today’s standards>
4: something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of a quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality
5a: the fineness and legally fixed weight of the metal used in coins b: the basis of value in a monetary system
6: a structure built for or serving as a base of support
7a: a shrub or herb grown with an erect main stem so that it forms or resembles a tree b: a fruit tree grafted on the stock that does not induce dwarfing
8a: the large odd upper petal of a papilionaceous flower (as of the pea) b. one of the three inner usually erect and incurved petals of an iris
9: a musical composition (as a song) that has become a part of the standard repertoire
The the CCSS are being used “as a measure of supposed quality” through the standardized tests attached to/conjoined with standards.
Discussion of standards continued below. . .
Second, where the primary problem lies, though is with the concept itself of educational standards. Noel Wilson has proven the complete invalidity of the standards and testing regime in his never refuted nor rebutted 1997 treatise “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.
Court:
If I may recast what you said in my own words—hoping I am not misstating what you wrote—the problem with CCSS is precisely that the painfully botched implementation was the (sadly) default setting given the reason why they were created in the first place.
To cut to the chase: $tudent $ucce$$ aka the bottom line of corporate education reform.
Some wit tagged RTTT as DashForTheCash. The owner of this blog has made it clear in her posting what should have been done and how, in order to create viable, helpful and sustainable national standards a la CCSS. The creators and enforcers of CCSS from the beginning obviously had goals and values in mind other than genuine teaching and learning because they opted (in spite of the good advice proferrerd by dianeravitch & others) for what can only be termed worst business & management practices. Why? Because in order to garner as much $tudent $ucce$$ for the few at the expense of the many, the whole enterprise had to be done quick and dirty.
Delay and democracy and concerns about quality had to give way to the imperatives of the bottom line. To paraphrase the famous Vince Lombardi quote: “In corporate education reform, $tudent $ucce$$ isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
Or as Anthony Cody puts it in THE EDUCATOR AND THE OLIGARCH (2014), title of chapter 22: “Bill Gates and the Cult of Measurement: Efficiency Without Excellence.”
Again, if I missed the mark, my bad.
My thanks to you and Duane Swacker for your comments.
😎
I like very much your endorsement of buy-in at the municipal level.
However I have to disagree that “the biggest problem w/ CC was never the stds themselves.” I can only speak to the ELA stds, as a degreed student of literature, a World Lang teacher, & Mom to 3 pubsch kids.
My understanding of math CCSS is that tho’ there is controversy, the issues [the ‘math wars’] pre-dated CCSS-Math by decades. CCSS-Math appears to simply capture a snapshot of this struggle where it was at in 2009, i.e., ‘conceptual’ math on the ascendancy, ‘rote’ math in decline. The only issue I’ve seen debated at length is that CCSS-math dumbs down Algebra, causing scheduling difficulties for those districts which can accomplish Alg I by 8th-gr (instead of 9th), thus stymying advanced districts who previously could offer pre-Calculus senior year…
But let’s go to CCSS-ELA, which is the thrust of Diane’s post. Until the first draft of CCSS-ELA was issued, there wasn’t an Eng or Comp-Lit teacher on the planet who’d thought back on The New Criticism (circa 1950) w/ much other than a laugh; lit criticism had evolved by leaps & bounds since then.
The New Criticism was a mid-20thC pendulum swing, reacting to the [until then] long-dominant 19th-C German Expressionist lit-crit, which had wandered far afield from the literary text, assigning biographical, psychological, et al authorial motivations, thus undermining the published text. The New Criticicism said: only the text counts. Read it closely; the text & only the text survives.
It is important to note that New Criticism was about poetry in particular. David Coleman, the ‘architect’ of CCSS-ELA, majored in poetry and philosophy. Once he had a public platform [in ed], & found himself [funded by Gates] in the catbird spot for shaping pubsch ELA curiculum, he made this leap: kids today are incentivized by pubsch ed to create self-indulgent self-expression via creative poetry, essays, et al. They need to learn to sublimate such self-indulgent drives: study instead a ‘close reading’ of every text: learn instead to parse every text for its ‘message’, & how its ‘phrases’ etc get the message across… Not much different from teaching kids how to sell a product.
Biggest problem, not the only problem. Even with the 5 year deadline, they were rushed and schools were not ready to implement them. The standards could have been made better and schools and text book companies should have been given more time to adapt.
I’m no fan of CC but I’m also not going to run around crying that the sky is falling because of it. I don’t like the testing that goes along with it either but that was happening before CC anyway and while it can, and probably should, be seen as a way of driving sales of electronic devices in schools, it’s probably going to bite them in the ass now that results are showing higher scores for schools who administered the test with pencil and paper.
Agree except I don’t think CCSS-ELA can be made better by revision. The overall mentality of divvying up literacy into skill- bites makes it resistant to tweaking. There are lots of good pieces in it, but I suspect teachers have to wrestle with it to make it workable. But you’re right: if local districts could devise their own assessments & use scores for sensible purposes, the teacher could take what’s useful.
The computerized aspect is also a big problem as you note, especially in primary grades. I hope districts will take note of the higher scores w/ pencil& paper, but I suspect they may instead refuse to back away from the computerized versions after spending so much to accommodate them.
“David Coleman, the ‘architect’ of CCSS-ELA, majored in poetry and philosophy”
Does anyone else see the irony?
“The Common Poet”
Dave’s a Common Poet
He doesn’t give a hoot
For English as we know it
Or language arts to boot
He loves the Common thinking
By technophiles and bots
That’s full of lights ablinking
And dollars (lots and lots)
He hates the classic Lit
And “touchy feely” stuff
He really thinks it’s &%!t
And never makes you tough
“The Conman Poet” would prolly be better.
“Will they raise achievement?. . . it became obvious that national standards do not raise achievement. . . ”
That “raising student achievement” fits right in with the false standards and testing regime that has been imposed on the public schools. It is a false, irrational, and illogical concept that can only serve to demean and debilitate the teaching and learning process. I’ve never given a shit (to paraphrase the CCSS guru D. Coleman) about “raising student achievement”. My concern and all involved should be looking to improving the teaching and learning process on a teacher by teacher in each classroom basis. Anything else is a waste of time, energy and monies.
When, oh when, will we ever stop regurgitating and reinforcing the edudeformer and privateer lies and falsehoods???
School officials can’t necessarily take away poetry and literature, but they certainly can take the meaning out of poetry and literature. Common Core in Los Angeles means reading shorter texts multiple times, or “close” reading. Therefore, it means short stories and novels disappear. Don’t get me wrong, for Common Core, I am told to teach classic literature. But instead of reading Lord of the Flies, we are compelled to read only the first chapter of Lord of the Flies, over and over again. It’s not analytical or critical thinking. It’s not meaningful. It’s not memorable. Reading single chapters of classic novels and single stanzas of classical poems over and over and over is not powerful education. It’s dumb.
What many refuse to see in this moment of forcing “common” standards, “common” curricula and “common” testing” — is that nothing is implemented in a common way. EVERYTHING depends upon the personality, the interpretation, and the actual intention of those running any particular school, any particular district or any particular state. What may be working well in one location may be a scrambled mess in another.
It would seem the fingerprints of billionaires’ foundations are all over every scrambled mess.
Wow, that is horrible, LCT. My only exposure is to the PreK classroom, & my kids thankfully graduated before CCSS was implemented here. You’ve just confirmed every terrible speculation I’ve had as to how CCSS-ELA works on the ground. Good lord.
Personally, I never tire of reading Dr. Seuss
I do not like the Common Sham
I do not like it, DAM I am
Would you like it with a test
Would you like it with a vest?
Would you like it with a Chetty?
Would you like it with spaghetti?
Would you like it with a VAM?
Would you like it with some spam?
I would not like it with a test
I would not like it with a vest
Not with a Chetty
Not with spaghetti
Not with a VAM
Not with spam
I do not like the Common Core
I plan to teach it Nevermore!
A couple things: I am glad to have my favorite Poet here; lamentable to be missing LeftCoastTeacher of late. I was just emailing Duane about that this morning before I saw this post. Fascinating to read the post and all the comments!
Now, it’s obviously not the implementation. Common Core isn’t getting any better. The problem is the testing, not the teaching.
Like asking people to recycle only if they really believe in it — must people won’t make the effort. There are elements to the CCSS that address serious gaps in our education.
The CCSS like charters may have some redeeming qualities. When these ideas are put in the hands of people with an agenda, they become weapons of mass destruction, and the target is a keystone our our democracy, public education.
NYT,
Gains on the NAEP are disappearing with Common Core. Gaps are not narrowing. I don’t know about you, colleague, but I do not see a redeeming quality in standardization. It is not like recycling; recycling is a good thing to do. Being used to grow a scaled up market for edu-products is not good.
“Being used to grow a scaled up market for edu-products” was precisely the purpose of national standards as envisioned by Bill Gates, without whom Common Core would have been just a mote in David Coleman’s eye.
As Gates said in his speech to the National Conference of State Legislators in 2009
“When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better.”
In service of better teaching, my as*terisk.
By Gates own admission later on, it’s all about creating standardized electrical sockets that companies can plug their edu-products into
… and, like a leech or a lamprey eel, start feeding off the student host, sucking the life energy right out of them (of course, Gates didn’t actually say the latter but only thought it)
The CCSS are not standards — that’s the problem. But they do mention valuable skills that every person should develop whether you are from New York, Texas, California, or Iowa.
“The Common Core taught me that national standards are not a solution to the problems of poverty, lack of appropriate funding, and neglect of education as a primary responsibility of the public. College-and-career readiness are not the purpose of education. Full development of every child’s capacities is. Preparation for citizenship is. Ethics and a sense of responsibility for oneself and to the community are. What matters most can’t be measured. Wisdom. Kindness. Character. Integrity. A love of learning. A sense of justice. Concern for others. Courage.”
One set of poorly implemented national standards convinced you of that? Although I agree that citizenship the full development of every child is the main reason for education, many do believe the American Education was to increase the middle class — which would involve “college-and-career readiness.” But it is all semantics – by achieving the full development of every child, we would be preparing them for life including college and career. This should include a national set of skills, or it won’t happen.
Dear colleague,
Was there no education before the NCLB? No middle class? No economic gains that were swept away by automation and globalization? Do you think if I have academic freedom I will fail to teach literature and language, and instead teach underwater basket weaving? I don’t need corporatists making decisions for me. I am a teacher.
What a great post, LCT. I have copied it to file for future use!
Um.. we are losing the middle class…
No, I don’t believe we are teaching students the necessary skills for citizenship in the 21st Century.
Exhibit A: Trump
cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Why-I-Oppose-the-Common-Co-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Common-Core_Core-Curricula_Diane-Ravitch_Fraud-161221-444.html#comment635549
with this comment… which has many embedded links at the address above.
DOES ONE SEE THE PLOT AND THE PLY to GET’EM YOUNG!
The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students and worse it prevents genuine educators from presenting our future citizens with the TRUTH about history and science.
Shared knowledge is a requirement for a democracy,. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
This ‘reform movement’ was designed to allow the Billionaire Class to create an ignorant citizenry. What do you think will happen when the Koch’s can write North Carolina’s social studies curricula? https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum
They took the real teachers out of the classroom and then labeled the schools as failing, so they could be replaced by novices, ‘trained’ to regurgitate the common core crap.
Go, see who is the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX and know who gave us an ignorant population who voted for Trump.https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf
See Diane on “privatization”
https://dianeravitch.net/?s=PRIVITIZATION
, and my series, using information that Dianeprovides about the state legislatures http://www.opednews.com/Series/legislature-and-governorsL-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-816.html
which are taking over the local schools, with nary an educator on board, and giving them to charters, with not a shred of oversight!
I speak only for myself—
One of the most incisive, hard-hitting, and informative posts in the more than 3 1/2 years of this blog.
In baseball terms, a four-bagger that went over the backfield wall into the river beyond and won the world series.
😎
P.S. And great thread!
The inextricable connection between theach CCSS and high stakes testing makes them impossible to evaluate. If they are meant to nudge students to learn more deeply than is common practice, that takes a no risk research environment.
How true. And how sad that a no-risk research environment– even the basics, like reading and discussing a whole novel or poem, not just an excerpt– is apparently disappearing from the classroom!
The intimate connection between CC and the tests was assumed (essentially baked in) by the people who proposed and developed the standards.
Gates said the curriculum and tests would align with standards creating powerful market forces.
Coleman admitted teachers would inevitably teach to the test, and implied that that was actually a good thing that could be leveraged.
It’s actually strange that so many people ignored what Gates and Coleman said. They were laying it all out there but for some reason, people refused to pay attention.
“But as teacher-blogger Jose Vilson, puts it, “People who advocate for the [Common Core standards] miss the bigger picture. … [They] came as a package deal with the new teacher evaluations, higher stakes testing, and austerity measures, including school closings.” The Common Core is just the last of a series of politicized and incentivized business models inappropriately being applied to education.” From an article by David Greene-“The Long Death of Creative Teaching.” https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/03/17/how-common-core-standards-kill-creative-teaching
When you teach to standards: You limit student learning- the curriculum gets narrowed–they change a way a teacher teaches
You guys are the experts, but I kind of like the Common Core. I see the argument if you had fabulous state standards but I don’t think Ohio had very good standards.
I’m also baffled why people think there’s something state-specific about standards. Really? Kids in NY are that much different than kids in Ohio?
I’m just going by my experience with 4 kids thru one public school, but my youngest son’s English class isn’t wildly different than the eldest’s was. They’re reading poetry and novels.
The math is a little different- I learned that differently- but my son seems comfortable with it. It was explained to us that is is akin to “Singapore math” and our school was using that anyway.
My middle son tested poorly and didn’t fit in that well with an academic program so maybe I would feel differently if he was in school now.
My main complaint with the Common Core is I feel it was sold to people dishonestly. Public schools were told they would get “support” and politicians reneged on the support and only care about the tests. They do this again and again in ed reform. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. I think schools should secure the funding BEFORE they accept the mandate. Make one a condition of the other. If they don’t they’ll never get the “support”. I feel like schools need to be tougher negotiators.
Would you drive on a bridge over a 200 foot chasm designed by non-engineers?
What made David Coleman qualified to write English LA standards for k-12?
What made Jason Zimba qualified to write Math standards for k-12?
Lots of people know the basic English and math involved in Common Core.
But writing standards involves much more than simply knowing the basics. It’s actually not unlike building a bridge.
The ignorance of people like Coleman and Zimba is exceeded only by their arrogance.
If you had the standards without the tests and without the national ed reform “movement” and all the other anti-public school stuff they promote, would you still hate the standards?
I’ve read Carol Burris so I know she would still object- she objects specifically to the content of the standards- but what about the rest of you?
How much of this is about generally negative experiences with “ed reform”?
I work in arts education. The CCSS were built around a concept of curriculum wherein everything under study must enhance learning in math and ELA and with the specifc standards cited.
The CCSS treat the arts as a “technical subject.” There is no rationale for decision anywhere, only that fiat.
Thanks. I hadn’t considered that. My son genuinely loves music – I think band class is the highlight of his day. I’ll have to think about that.
Yes, the “standards” themselves are fine – even great. They want units to be student-driven, develop questioning, build up stamina to find honest answers to their questions, extract relevant information from resources, be specific with their thoughts, express themselves creatively but with substance.
In a nutshell, CC ELA reduces “A Christmas Carol” and all other literature to a pretext for analysis practice. Is that why we should read “A Christmas Carol”? In other words, it doesn’t recognize the real value of the literature. Plus the exercises it prescribes do not do a whole lot to make you a better reader or thinker. It’s fine tuning, not building core capacity. It’s a poor use of school time.
What’s wrong with middle schoolers reading “A Christmas Carol” alongside nonfiction text analyzing what it truly means to be compassionate or comparing compassion to empathy?
It’s a good thing for students to go beyond the literature, reflect on themes and how they apply to their own life.
The problem is that it’s analysis for analysis’ sake. Common Core does not say teach compassion or teach the classics; it says teach reading skills. Attaining the other goals is left entirely to chance. That’s a huge problem.
The standards never say not to read the classics or teach compassion. Maybe your administrators are not that bright.
You would not be able to teach something like the example I mentioned before? About A Christmas Carol and articles about compassion?
CCSS is the guiding star. And it says teach reading skill. Most educators interpret this to mean that teaching reading skill is important and nothing else is that important. This is a profound error. So yes, one could teach “A Christmas Carol” along with companion non-fiction pieces in order to impart something more than reading skill. But why would one when CCSS makes reading skill seem like the alpha and omega of education?
And, by the way, I don’t believe that CCSS will even obtain the narrow objective it aims at. Reading ability is not a muscle that gets big with exercise, though that’s the underlying premise of most CCSS activities. Reading ability is largely a function of one’s general knowledge, and CCSS does little to build that (an appendix of CCSS acknowledges this fact and prescribes a coordinated, content-focused curriculum, but no one is paying attention to this part of CCSS).
Here are three posts from a couple of years ago by Robert Shepherd which get specific about problems with CCSS-ELA. The comment threads are great, too.
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/12/13/shepherd-what-is-wrong-with-common-core-ela/
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/04/14/robert-shepherd-why-i-oppose-the-common-core-standards/
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/04/14/robert-shepherd-a-closer-look-at-the-common-core-standards-2/
We should remember that no matter who out there comes up with national classroom “standards,” it is in the imposing of these standards on a broad range of states, districts and schools that things are never delivered on a level playing field. The subsequent hiring of a diverse range of policy “experts” — so many with little classroom experience — to enforce minimally understand change never rolls out the same, even from school to school inside one particular district.
If you read ed reformers you find they don’t talk at all about Common Core anymore.
Once the tests went in they lost interest in the rest of it. They mention it once a year, when the test scores come out.
They could have saved a lot of time and money and just raised the cut score on standardized tests 20%. There’s no interest in what public schools actually DO with these standards. They checked the ‘standards’ box and rushed off to the next “innovation”. Now they’re all chasing “blended learning”.
Chiara,
Data are worth more than gold to the data conquistadors. That’s what it’s all about. Testing, Common Core, blended learning, Bridge Academies… Data plus privatization equals more than all the gold in the New World.
“The Gold Standard”
Gold is the standard
For measuring ed
Common Core lanyard
To tie up the bread
The CCSS Is about money, not our young. Teachers and students are being used FOR the PROFITs of a few as well as political power … so SIC. I find it appalling that lawyers, marketers, businesses think they own our young like they own automobiles. The teachers are just chauffeurs as far as they are concerned.
Thank you, Diane. This post is more than terrific. So glad you are here with us. Please stay healthy. We care about you.
“It’s the money, stupid”
Always ’bout the money.
Never any more
Michael Milken honey
Fraudulent at Core
I’m a high school English teacher in NYS and I was switched to teaching freshmen where I had to revise most of my lesson plans and curriculum to align to CC. Our curriculum supervisor, a one-dimensional corporate lackey, heavily advised us to use Engage NY and their methods and strategies. The first half of the year was MISERABLE, boring the socks off the kids and turning them off to me and ELA most especially. During that January Regents week, I said “[F this shinola], I’m going back to what worked” for both the kids and myself and that was the ’05 NYS Standards where we read fiction, dabbled creatively in workshop style for poetry (and kids ACTUALLY liked and took to poetry by doing it my way which has been working, albeit with tweaks and adjustments here and there to accommodate changing styles of kids and technologies), had stimulating discussions. Sure, I use nonfiction but NOWHERE near how much the hack designers wanted. This is my third year and, with just enough test prep that doesn’t crush their spirits, we have CRUSHED our CC-aligned exams at the end of the year.
Reading fiction leads to thinking on one’s own and, with 11 years of professional experience, questions of social justice ALWAYS come up during our fiction reading. Parents AND kids ask me my opinion of the CC standards and this is my reply: they are designed to turn your kid into an obedient servant our corporate and elite-controlled political overlords, nothing more. Questions of a fulfilling life of meaning for your child, with attention paid to common sense and reality about surviving in our heavily rigged system, are subordinated to what will be useful in a cubicle farm. (Let the eye-rolling over this trite and cliche statement begin)–but it’s true. Sorry D, you know David Coleman personally but his arrogance, a byproduct of his very privileged educational upbringing, has made him ironically ignorant of what happens down here in the trenches with Real People. I suppose that’s bound to happen to someone who as absolutely ZERO classroom experience.
Whoops, 3rd teaching CC, 11th year teaching. Sorry.
Diane, I teach physics and we have the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which is basically what Common Core is to English and Math. I do not teach optics (mirrors, lenses, etc.) any longer because it is not in the NGSS. I teach a very watered down version of physics combined with earth science since geology and earth science were snuck into the physics curriculum in an effort to eliminate those classes.
I am a supporter of public education but things like this make it hard to hold on to hope that students are being prepared properly to enter a competitive world.
The CCSS downfall: the administration did not anticipate how few people would take the time to understand them.
In 2011, there was a major curriculum organization that MANY schools used (and still use) to show they were implementing the standards. The company explained how irrelevant it is for students to use encyclopedias — that students would just copy exactly what they see in the books. Their solution: provide encyclopedia-like information on their website for students to copy. It’s worse than the encyclopedia! But it’s online and informational, comes from a very reputable company, district leaders love it, it’s easy to implement, so it’s all GREAT! But no one takes the time to look at it.
Most of the curriculum companies resemble this. I am always looking at new stuff, and I have not read ONE company that has provided materials that fully represent the standards. I have to paste together teacher and educational websites, and my own thinking to develop materials.
Just this week a middle schooler mentioned that whenever a school assignment asks him to “think critically,” the work proves to be the same as if they could just did some plain old “thinking.”
That “critically” is what makes CCSS these days…
Wrong. The problem is not that no one understands the standards. The problem is the standards.
But why? Take a look at the ELA standards, which one do you oppose?
Ridiculous. I oppose the one with the standards.
I apologize for my tone. It’s just that I grow tired of repeating. Do DPE’s ever read anything?
NYT: did you check out my post above (from last year, 12-2316 12:58a,m,)? There are detailed discussions there that cite issues w/specifics.
bethree5,
Thank you for showing me those links. Although I did not think he did a great job critiquing the specific standard — he was all over the place and so negative that it lost all merit.
But in the first link, I did respect his comment about abstract thinking not belonging in a set of standards. I think it is a fair argument and should further be discussed among educators.
I liked Diana Senechal’s first response to the third link.
From my perspective of a 3rd grade teacher, I’ve seen quite a few positives from common core. While I was not impressed with how they were created etc, nor do I believe the SBAC is necessary nor even truly aligned with the standards, I have seen an increase in student problem solving and critical thinking. Much of what I see as complaints are due to not having a clear understanding of the standards. For example, many seem to think it “dumbed down” math, but I’m seeing a huge increase in student number sense and algebraic thinking. The 3rd grade math I taught at the beginning of my career was much more simplified with surface level understanding. It can be developmentally appropriate if taught with developmental levels in mind (I was just teaching the Distributive Property using concrete/ hands on strategies which many 3rd graders need. As for fiction and nonfiction, it is important to teach both as reading strategies neede do have differences between the two. Generally I teach a certain strategy or skill and then teach students how to apply it to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I’m seeing a huge improvement in students ability to dig deep into text…especially with nonfiction as for some reason that was so neglected previously.
Now, keep in mind I have taught in 3 different states over different standards, so I do have something to compare to.
As for national standards, I will say that it has opened up a tremendous amount of resources for me as a teacher as I can look at other states and districts. I’m on the west coast, but have found some great math resources from Georgia for example. The amount of misinformation is maddening at times, but it is in my opinion offset by the deep level of understanding I am able to achieve through cross state information.
I’m not saying the standards are perfect, all standards need to be revised and adjusted as new information comes to light. Now, if only somebody with common sense would rework the crazy amount of mandated testing that is by far not aligned with common core….that is what our energies should be pointed to in my opinion. After all, kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers seem to be doing quite well without the yearly state test to keep us wayward teachers “accountable”.
“if England had the Common Core”
If England had the Common Core
Then Shakespeare would have said
“The standard is a worthless bore
And poetry is dead”
“And reading close is straining eyes
And makes me want to puke
The load of David Coleman lies
Is worthy of rebuke”
“The play’s the thing to catch the King
And Juliet’s the sun
For English ain’t a “common” thing
And ought be lots of fun”
If Conmon Core struck England,
Then, Shakespeare would be Bill,
An artless, grit-hewn, worthless bore,
A charter cheering shill.
Cause reading close and straining eyes
In Bill’s youth would have sealed
Belief that “no one gives a [sigh]
‘Bout what he thinks or feels.”
If Shakespeare were a conman
It’s likely that he’d play
The role of David Coleman
Who always has his way
Cuz Hamlet ain’t got squat
On Coleman and his grit
And Hamlet thinks a lot
But no one gives a @&!t
“To be or not to be?”
Is never asked by troll
And Conman Core, you see
Is empty as a hole
“Irrational Standards”
We heard the word as “national”
The standards for the land
But Coleman said “irrational”
And honest was the man
“The Conman Core State [sic] Standards”
The standards, as stated
Were made by the states
But claims were inflated
Con-cocted by Gates
To me “The Common Core Standards” sound like a pile of junk. Not only do I feel that education is being destroyed by all harsh and foolish rules, I see no hope for well qualified teachers. Back in the good old days they had control of their classrooms and taught well. When I served as principal in two schools at different times, our teachers were smart, caring, and willing to work hard. They taught well, students learned, and parents supported us. It was heaven back then. But what I read about education today sounds like hell or stupidity. Is there any hope for bringing back good teaching and concern for students, or should we just shut the whole thing down?