Hurrah for New Zealand!
The Minister of Education in New Zealand, Chris Hipkins, announced that the government is putting an end to national standards and charter schools.
The bill includes provision for existing charter schools to operate under their contracts while the Ministry discusses possible options, including in the state system, on a case-by-case basis.
“My preferred option is to explore early termination of contracts by mutual agreement.”
My hunch is that New Zealand has a strong tradition of good public schools and common sense. Also, the financial industry and tech sector did not spread campaign contributions to elected officials.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s nice to know that there are countries in the world where the politicians are not bought by corporate greed. That there are politicians that still honor the sacred nature of childhood.
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North Carolina finds out that operating two school systems means less funding gets to students:
“This detailed budgetary information permits us to estimate a range of fiscal impacts using a variety of different assumptions. We find a large and negative fiscal impact from $500-$700 per pupil in our one urban school district and somewhat smaller, but still significant, fiscal externalities on the non-urban districts in our sample.”
No one in ed reform anticipated this, apparently, that operating two systems would require more money spent on transportation and administration.
Instead they described a world of flowers and rainbows, where everyone chooses their unique school and there is no possible downside or trade-offs.
This is used car salesman stuff- “no risk! no money down! you CANNOT LOSE with this deal!”
Which was and is nonsense. There’s a LOT of downside risk to their experiments. By the time the public sees the downside the cheerleaders will be down the road and on to another sales event.
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People in Ohio are running into the downside risk of ed reform right now. They lost a billion dollars.
Shame none of these genuines saw fit to warn the public that experiments come with downside risk.
Oh, well. It’s not their money! Put another billion down on the roulette table and let’s do some more “transformation!”
Meanwhile the 90% of students in public schools can’t even get an audience with lawmakers.
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Chiara: if I am reading you correctly, I assume that “genuines” should read “geniuses.”
😁
And referring to a previous thread: as soon as there are bumps in the ed reform road, and the quick [and costly] fixes fail to produce the promised miracles—short-term or long-term—suddenly there will be complete silence about what was only a short time ago touted as a guaranteed road to the Promised Land of Educational Excellence.
Silence, yes, but soon followed by new clamoring for yet more money for yet more unproven panaceas, failure not even remotely possible because it will all be seasoned with that special rheephorm sauce.
Really? There’s such a thing as a “special rheephorm sauce” that gives flavor and substance to any helping of teaching and learning? Uh, if we’re speaking Rheeally honestly…we shouldn’t forget that when facts and logic and honesty and reality aren’t in the mix there is always “choice” which, don’t you know, “brings free-market dynamics into public education, using the magic of competition to lift all boats.” [Mr. Michael J. Petrilli]
I like the Harry Potter books too, but those that inhabit rheephorm think tanks that consider them Education Hogwarts that can produce magical solutions to real-life difficulties and complexities?
Perhaps a word or two of caution about such sureties from a very old and very dead and very Greek guy:
“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.” [Demosthenes]
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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“My hunch is that New Zealand has a strong tradition of good public schools”….if that were the case here in the US, I too would be more comfortable to not have national standards…I am wondering how many schools already have the same expectations across the board? There’s always the factor also of the population of New Zealand, how many kids are being educated, etc…
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The US used to have a tradition of good public schools prior to the to 1990’s and there were NO national standards. Teachers were given benchmarks for a grade and the teachers were allowed to teach however they felt was necessary to steer their students toward those benchmarks (autonomy). Nation At Risk was the beginning of the corporate greed in education. Jlsteach….You must be a newer teacher if you believe that national standards are the best way to educate children. It’s a sorry state of affairs in education that benchmarks became standards, curriculum became scripted and the God awful test became everything. Tied to national standards will ALWAYS be a test….to test the standards.
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I’ve been reading up on NZ’s ed system. They had been developing / implementing a detailed set of achievement stds/ benchmarks step by step since 2002. The “natl stds” is actually an accountability system implemented in 2011 under the Natl Party, which initiated annual stdzd tests/ data-reporting for Yr1-Yr8 – aligned, but focused entirely on reading & math benchmarks. That’s what they’re scrapping now that the Labour Party is in charge.
The criticisms were levelled by what is apparently a very strong “education sector” – incl teachers (looks like they listen to them!) – & are just like what you hear here about the problems w/NCLB/RTTT accountability system: content of curriculum reduced in scope due to emphasis on reading/ math to exclusion of other subjects, teaching time lost to prep/admin of tests & data-reporting, loss of time for art, music, phys ed. – all w/o indication of any positive results.
Stds are still there to be used optionally as schools see fit – in other words, they are guidelines. Just like our state stds were before Common Core/ accountability systems. It is more appropriate to think of NZ as parallel to a US state. Like us, their publschs handle about 87% of all students – but they have only 763k pubsch students. That’s about the same as the number of pubsch students in MA.
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Can someone in ed reform tell me how they can continue to tell people that setting up three school systems will cost the same as one school system and all the systems will have the same per pupil funding they had prior to privatization?
That’s just not true. How can they justify telling the public this? It’s nonsense.
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Exactly. It’s not like we don’t have many clear examples of on-the-ground effects of breaking-up & privatizing public systems.
The US health care system is one example of the losses/benefits to dismantling a seamless public system.
Our once robust Public Health system was systematically dismantled by Reagan Republicans (with some complicit neoliberal Dems) into the expensive, fractured, privatized non-system we now have.
Need we say more about the racist, cruel & inhumane privatized prison system?
TN once had one of the best early intervention systems for birth to 3yrs until it was completely privatized in the early 2000’s. Now Early interventions are part time contract workers, no benefits, the numbers of home visitors dropped so drastically that many have caseloads that went from 10 -15 up to 40 -50.
Learning stops in ed reform circles. If there ever was a group that needed an intervention it’s these people.
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New Zealand had three school systems long before there were charter schools: the state (or public) system, the private system, and the state integrated system. The first two are self-explanatory. State integrated schools are the antithesis of charter schools – they’re private schools that are publicly run!
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Privates don’t really count in that discussion. I think Chiara was referring to the cost to the taxpayer of supporting tradl publics, while also supporting other entities to run charter and voucher schools.
The state-integrated schools in NZ include mostly Catholics, plus some Protestant schs, & a few Montessori & Waldorf. if I understand correctly, it’s a budgetary compromise that responded to the ’60’s fin collapse of religious schools – which happened because of laws reqg all schools to meet govt ed reqts. The govt couldn’t accommodate a sudden increase of 15% enrollment, so they made a partnership where the relig schs keep the property & admin [& charge a low tuition to cover], while the govt pays in to increase sch hrs/ ensure certif teachers & full govt curriculum. NZ taxpayers seem to have had strong resistance to paying for relig schs but this was a workable compromise.
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Oh my gosh Chiara– & it isn’t even 3 systems, it’s many more. Charter-chains are each ‘systems’, but there are unpty-ump other indiv-run charters and vouchers.
Yours was my initial reaction yrs ago when I became aware of privatization on the public dime. I immediately thought of our retail situation here in town: the old anchor dept store [tradl pubschs] faltering, selling cheaper goods & providing far less customer service due to the leaching away of clientele to online shopping [virtual academies], far-away cheap box stores plus smaller mall-franchises moved in [charterschs] – while little boutique stores popped up to serve the wealthy dissatisfied former dept store clientele [privates]
No one with a brain could conclude that proliferation of store-types cost the same & served the public good as well as the old paradigm of a strong, hi-qual dept store flanked by a handful of ind proprietors. The downtown has suffered & struggled for 20+ yrs due to the loss of ratables from storefront turnover/ empty storefronts during every econ downturn, & prop taxes have risen accordingly.
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Here’s ed reform privatization guru David Osborne to the City Club in Cleveland:
“In a decade or less, you could double the effectiveness of your schools with this approach.”
Privatization is miraculous! Get rid of public schools and labor unions and you will get DOUBLE returns!
Give me a break. How can he promise people these things? He has NO EARTHLY IDEA if that’s true.
Our ‘elites” should be ashamed of themselves that they’re so darn easy to dupe. Maybe we should start looking at the quality of education in exclusive private schools. Not a lot of “critical thinking” going on here.
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Yes, well, you know the old saying, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
David Osborne and the rest of his ed reform/privatization ilk are snake oil salesmen. Latter day P. T. Barnums, and worse. They believe that “there’s a sucker born every minute,” and sadly, they’re right.
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New Zealand has been known for offering a solid education to its young people. It seems as though some charters have sprung up due to GERM. Many of the young people that attend the charters are Maori and others native to the Pacific islands. While in the radio discussion they are lamenting a decline in performance of schools, the decline is minimal. I did not get the sense that they are facing the same level of militancy about privatization that the US is where there is a cottage industry of “think tanks” funded by billionaires bashing public education on a continuous loop.
At least the Kiwis were able to have a reasonable discussion on the issue, and politicians were basing their views on some level of evidence. Their national policy has not been captured by the the wealthy the way ours has. Their approach to the issue was reasonable and rational, and their goal is to provide the best schools to serve their students. In our country our representatives ignore reality, the handwriting on the wall, waste, fraud and embezzling. They continue on their forced march to capture public dollars ignoring repeated failures while they churn out fake research. The US is in denial!
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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A little analogy about charter schools.
https://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/trading-the-dependable-ford-for-a-lemon/
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Diane Ravitch is a good historian, an eyewitness to the ed reform. But she is not a good policy maker or forward thinker. Charter school en masse as a money pit are bad. Charter school as limited experimental schools with experimental curricula are useful. National curricula is a must have to be able to move to another city and start from where you left without gaps in the program. National curricula provides the safety of knowing what one is to study and when. And it provides the even playing field.
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John Doe,
I assume you think that education policymakers in New Zealand are bad policymakers. I didn’t make the decision to abandon the national standards and curricula; they did. I think they were right. If you have well-prepared, qualified teachers, they can make decisions about what works best in their schools, working with their colleagues.
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This is a BIG IF: If you have well-prepared, qualified teachers, they can make decisions about what works best in their schools, working with their colleagues…
I am wondering if New Zealand has that…I would honestly say that is not the case in the US…So maybe you have some type of standard, norm, expectation and then ween off of the national standards once folks are on similar pages? Otherwise you will continue to have disparity across the entire nation.
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There you go again, jlsteach, spouting the “bad teacher” mantra. We have shown you time and time again that those supposedly “bad teachers” make up a miniscule percent of all teachers, and they are usually counseled out or let go by the third year. Basta con esto, eh!
And there is nothing inherently wrong with having “disparity across the entire nation”. That is what one should expect when local democratic school boards determine what is best for their local community public school students.
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John Doe,
How the hell did this country supposedly become the top dog nation of the world in the 20th century with no national curricula?? No, that is not a rhetorical question. I’d like to read your thoughts on that question. Thanks!
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I worked in a district that frequently had a significant number of students from other parts of the US as transfer students. Surprisingly, we did not find vastly different levels of preparation among students in reading and math in most public school students. Where we found a more problematic difference was in students that had attended various private schools. They tended to lag behind our grade level students.
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An appropriate choice of usernames, J.D., for an argument that was D.O.A., dead on arrival, and of unidentifiable origin. A one size fits all, scripted curriculum is harmful to students and not worth it just for students who change schools. Believe it or not, it is actually possible to adapt when changing schools. Too bad we don’t have any fingerprints or dental records on that fools gold claim. I’d like to notify the next of kin before they make the same mistake.
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So from my take. I don’t believe that John Doe was calling for a scripted curriculum. At least I know that I was not calling for it. What I AM calling for and I think is quite reasonable is that students who take the same course complete the same material. A scripted curriculum would mean that everything was done in the same exact order…
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Frameworks are different than standards. As long as there is mandated, annual, standardized testing, teachers will be forced to use “curricula” that are lock step. And that is in fact what you have been calling for — making sure teachers teach what you think is “the right thing at the right time.” Your words.
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So again, yes and no…I understand the concerns about standardized testing and how it controls what is taught…that being said, let me be clear about the “the right thing at the right time” – that does not mean on Day 12 that every single teacher across the nation is teaching the exact same way…what it does mean is that by the end of the year, teachers have covered certain material.
As I have stated many times here before, and will continue to state again…I have all too often seen the best intentions of math teachers end up ruining students because of what they taught. Students enter into their class behind – but instead of teaching them material in a particular content, they try and get them caught up – this leads to the domino effect of students leaving HS with grades in classes that don’t reflect the material they were supposed to cover. Then they get to college an have to pay for remedial courses that don’t have any credit…this has gone on for years….it has to stop and some point..
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Seriously. Stop. Bashing. Teachers.
And now, that’s enough. I am done because I don’t want Diane wasting time reading this back and forth when she could be writing her book. Goodnight now.
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John Doe,
1) Theoretically, I agree that charters could serve a useful role as limited experimental schools. That’s certainly what Al Shankar envisioned back when he supported them. The reality, however, has proven that that isn’t going to be possible in the long run. Big corporate interests will always commandeer charter schools for their own interests and the only ones that will survive will be the big “no excuses” corporate cookie cutter models.
2) Why is it important that students who move to a different state/district/school be able to pick up exactly where they left off? Do you not trust students to be able to make that transition, even though students have been doing exactly that since the advent of public schools? And, further, what is the advantage of “knowing what one is to study and when”? Don’t you think it’s possible that students in different locales have different areas of interest and relevance? For instance, should my friend’s school in rural Indiana cut out their agriculture program because that’s not terribly relevant to urban Indianapolis? If genetic variation makes us stronger as a human species (and it does), why would knowledge/study variation not make us stronger too?
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Dienne – we agree on the way that charters have changed from their original vision from Al Shanker – so I am with you there..And yes, I understand the importance of tailoring education to different parts. But what if someone in rural Indiana wanted to be a doctor and take certain levels of math or science classes, but well they were only offered agricultural focused math/science because well, that is the norm for the area? My fear (and possibly that of Jonn Doe’s) is that only certain kids will get exposure to certain topics, etc. I am sure that you would agree that the way education was done previously, when only CERTAIN children (i.e. white, kids of means), were exposed to certain courses and others were not. Or do you think it’s ok that kids in Mississippi may only take two years of math to graduate from college but kids in Massachusetts need four? With such a plan in place, a child’s fate will even more so be detremined based on where they are born and where they live (I know, that in many ways that is true now, but having common expectations for what kids should learn COULD help alleviate this)
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Jlsteach,
You’re “but what if. . . ” doesn’t hold any water at all because coming from a rural public school teacher I can guarantee I’ve never seen anything like you describe. And even were it to be the case, a student motivated to become a doc would just then take the needed courses at the undergrad level. But the fact remains your example is ludicrous.
Same with your Mississippi and Massachusetts example. Throughout the 20th century there were wide discrepancies in graduation requirements throughout the country and the US of A still managed to become THE top dog nation, at least economically and militarily, not necessarily morally or ethically of the world.
Do you just despise the local democratic process, that which is nearest and most accessible to the populace, so much that you feel a need to have a Soviet-style top-down management system installed??
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Duane – poor teachers exist. I know you don’t think so, but they do…and while you seem to support that the good ol US of A has become the “top dog”…disparity still exists – right so let local schools decide…does that mean that kids in one area will not be able to ever access one another..
You seem that there have to be two extremes – and I say that there are solutions in the middle – you have common expectations but you don’t tell teachers how they should teach. That being said, the more freedom you give teachers, there is more opportunity that some will use it wisely and well, some will not use it so wisely…Why are you and others so against the fact that poor teachers don’t exist in our system. Why?? And where you have you shown me time and again the poor teachers make up the small percentage – if you are using data from observations – maybe the tools are flawed (hmm, maybe?)
My point to Dr. Ravitch is that one starts with the assumption that we all teachers are quality teachers – and I disagree with that assumption from the outset…
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I have never written that “poor teachers don’t exist” or any thought that would even hint at that. Please do not put words into my mouth, it’s unseemly.
My contention is that the percentage of those supposed “poor/bad” teacher is so small that to institute such malpractices that are judging a teacher by completely invalid student test scores and/or other various nefarious schemes such is VAM is absurdly insane.
“does that mean that kids in one area will not be able to ever access one another..”
No!! It doesn’t mean that at all.
“Why are you and others so against the fact that poor teachers don’t exist in our system. Why??”
I believe you are asking why I (and Diane) claim that there are no “poor” teachers. We don’t make that claim, never had and never will. It is ludicrous and risible as one only has to look at the charter TFA hires to understand that there are “poor” teachers in that sector (along with some in the public and private/parochial school sectors.) We do not start with that assumption so yours is a straw man argument.
And. . .
“And where you have you shown me time and again the poor teachers make up the small percentage – if you are using data from observations – maybe the tools are flawed (hmm, maybe?)”
Any assessment tool “may be flawed”. I’d argue that all assessments (and why even include the term “tool” in that statement?
Other than to obscure the fact that all assessments are subjective) are flawed in one fashion or another. So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? If you catch my drift. If not let me know and I’ll further explain.
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Duane – fair enough. Never said you said hat, but I’ll move on…as for things never said. I never said that I was for VAM as measurong what a good teacher was. I agree VAM is not a good model. I also didn’t say that I was for th charter TFA (although TFA is not a chartrer)
As for private or parochial schools as I mentioned to Dr Ravitch a big difference there is the lack of tenure. Teachers are on year to year contracts – if your bad you will most likely be let go..should we have that with public schools?
Also notice I have yet to address how things are taught..I just believe there should be some common expectations. Imagine if in Georgia a $1 was worth 75 cents but in Maine it was $1.50…does that make any sense? Now take that analogy and apply it to a class called Algebra 2
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“Teachers are on year to year contracts – if your bad you will most likely be let go..should we have that with public schools?”
As one who went K-12 Catholic schools, I can say that no, not all “bad” teachers were let go. I can think of more than a few that should have been long gone, and that was as a young kid, we realized just how bad some of the teachers were. Be that as it may, no, I wouldn’t want public school administrators to have that power as they have had in the past only to abuse the power and teachers and play favorites with relatives, good ol boys, etc. . . .
In my mind your analogy does not work as one can never “monetize” what a particular student learns. There have always been broad “common expectations” for what a 1st grader or a 5th grader should know, do, demonstrate. You fallacy in thinking lies in believing that these age levels, and/or subject matter can be broken down into discreet bits of information that can be transferred to the student and that all students will then “understand” all that was transmitted. It doesn’t work that way at all. Try to get 15 district Spanish teachers together to determine specific learning objectives and, having been through that attempted process, I can say it’s worse than herding weasels. Each teacher brings his/her own strengths, weaknesses, desires and knowledge to the classroom and that is the basis of the power of non-standardized education as students get exposed to a variety of different learning environments.
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Y’know, jlsteach, just because Indiana is rural does not mean that it is backwater. I went to high school in rural Indiana and, guess what, we had science and math classes that would qualify someone to be admitted to a pre-med or other science program.
“Or do you think it’s ok that kids in Mississippi may only take two years of math to graduate from college but kids in Massachusetts need four?” [Emphasis added]
So, wait, did you mean to say college, or high school? Because I’m pretty sure the colleges determine their own graduation requirements. Assuming you meant high school, that’s kind of the point. Kids in Mississippi who plan to go on to college are going to need to have however many years of math, science and everything else that their chosen college requires, so the state minimum is pretty irrelevant.
What, incidentally, does Massachusetts plan to do with all the kids who can’t/won’t take four years of math and hence can’t graduate? I’m thinking a whole stateful of people unqualified to work anywhere other than Target is not good for Massachusetts.
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Dienne – I meant HS. So here’s my point…let’s say that a kid in Mississippi graduated from HS with only two years of math…but he wants to go to college. No one tells her that she needed four years to go to certain schools…so now what? yes the state minimum is relevant…if a child only has to take two years of math to graduate from HS, will they be able to pursue opportunities in Ivy League schools? Or any college? Or are they limited by the graduation requirements….and on the flip side – what sorts of jobs or colleges can kids who graduate with only two years of math really pursue? As for your answer about kids taking four years of math – the school I taught at in DC was one of the first to require four years of math, including Pre-calc (sorry Duane for the repetition -I know I have written this before)…Now whether they used it or not is another factor (although one person who is a paraprofessional hoping to be a special ed teacher recently told me that the math he learned in my classes helped him pass the Praxis exam to become a teacher)…The point is that being exposed the students have more options. IF there are situations where kids cannot pass (Can’t is not a word that I use in education, but I will use it here since you used it). states, districts and schools need to find ways to offer the support to make sure that it happens. And no, offering quick packets as shortcuts to graduation don’t cut it.
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“Duane – poor teachers exist.”
Right. And poor doctors exist too. So let’s have government officials with no medical training decide who those doctors are and what specific “knowledge” every doctor needs to have, regardless of field, geographical region, population, etc. And let’s measure that “knowledge” with a standardized test (given to the patient, of course!) and any doctors who pass are automatically “good” doctors and those who fail are “poor” doctors and should be fired.
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jlsteach…what you seem to want are content delivery specialists and they are very different than teachers. If all that I want is content delivered, I can hook my kids up to a computer in my home and make sure that they sit in front of it to learn their “drills”. I want teachers that help kids learn how to use the content that is taught. I want varied curriculum and humanities taught. Cars are standardized, but human beings are not. Until you understand the concept of true “teaching” you will always play the “bad teacher” card.
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Lisa – no actually that is NOT what I want…In wanting to have common standards, I believe that all students should be exposed to the same things…so a kid in Mississippi with Alg II on his transcript will mean the same thing as a kid in Massachusettes with that on his transcript…Teaching is an art, and yes, I think that having variety matters…for example I think that in English all kids should be exposed to things like Shakespeare, or some of the classics…yes, even kids that may struggle to read and write (there are ways that they can be exposed to strong literature)…what I would be against is that a kids passes 10th grade reading reading minimal board books or just passages out of a textbook…In the 1960s in desegregated schools, there was tracking – kids of color got one curriculum and those who weren’t got another…IS that ok? Because that is what is happening across different states…What I really do not understand how folks who support students would think that it would be ok (and yet, I assume would be against students receiving different education just because of their color)
I agree that there needs to be flexibility and that teachers should not have to all TEACH the same way. But I do think that pedagogically there are some methods of teaching that are better than others – in fact plopping kids in front of a computer is a method I would NOT support as a regular means of teaching
I also think that those who think there are NO bad teachers are wrong. Do I think that those who are ed reformers who only blame bad teachers are correct? No – often it’s the guidance or lack there of that has led to poor teaching…BUT that doesn’t mean poor teaching doesn’t exist.
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“No one tells her that she needed four years to go to certain schools…”
Oh ffs, jls, do you think they don’t have guidance counselors in Mississippi? That’s their job. When I was in high school (in rural Indiana, let me remind you), the state of Indiana did not require foreign language as a graduation requirement. Oh nos, what did I do? Poor me, the only college I could get into was the University of Chicago. (Hint: our guidance department helped me to understand the difference between state minimum requirements and college requirements.)
“…what sorts of jobs or colleges can kids who graduate with only two years of math really pursue?”
Jobs that require a high school diploma but not a bachelors, which is still the majority of jobs.
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I am sure they do…and I am sure that some of them will lead students to consider other colleges…and I also am confident that there are some that will say that because a child is of a certain color, or economic background that he or she should go to X school, etc. I am happy to hear that you had a supportive and wise counselor to lead you to UChicago. That’s fantastic. Not all kids have that though.
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Thank you, Lisa M!
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You know, the last time I checked, I as a public school teacher was able to read the comments of this blog without having my profession insulted. I grow tired, jlst, of reading such negativity about teachers. American public school teachers are and have always been the best in the world, the first and the foremost; we will, we will rock you!
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Sorry, who is insulting the profsession? I never said that all teachers were bad or that teaching as a profession was a fantastic one. I was a classroom teacher and there are many days that i still miss being in the classroom. You say “American public school teachers are and have always been the best in the world” – look, I love the enthusiasm, but that sounds sort of like America first, America the best…There are lots of great teachers out there, but I have seen and continue to see teachers who struggle. Some of that is because they aren’t supported enough. but others have managed to remain in the profession when they probably shouldn’t have. Someone earlier said there are bad doctors, and bad lawyers. Yes, there are…and either one of two things happen – people stop going to them (which happens)…or more likely then not, those doctors and lawyers are the ones who will accept any case (think ambulance chasers as lawyers)…taking advantage of those who are the neediest…But guess what – kids don’t have the choice of who they get as the teacher…do they?
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Admit one time that the vast majority of American teachers (not TFA) are qualified professionals doing an amazing job. No one or profession is perfect. Twenty years of bashing the profession, though, based on widely publicized “bad apples” is on my last nerve. Stop it!
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I don’t know if I will go so far as the majority…what I will say is that there are lots of fantastic teachers in all of our schools (including, by the way, teacher for america teachers)…at the same time there are also teachers that aren’t that great. to say there are poor teachers is not the same as bashing the profession.
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“I don’t know if I will go so far as the majority….”
So fewer than 50% of teachers are good. Thanks for putting yourself on record. I think it is now safe to include you amongst the teacher bashing rephormers.
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You know you’re right. I may have gone to far saying that the majority of teachers were not the teachers. But let’s say 10!percent we’re good. i’ll even go there. Would you be OK say 90% of seatbelts worked? I’ll give you that teaching alone isn’t the only factor that needs to be included however I sincerely believe that teaching can be improved. So what do we do about teachers who struggle you continue to have children fall behind?
It seems to me that in your mind anybody who questions teachers at all is a “rephormer.” That to me is a problem. Instead of acknowledging that some teachers aren’t doing their job you seem to just want to say hey and everything is great it’s everybody else’s fault. I’m willing to meet at the rollout of common core was disastrous and a top down nature of it hasn’t worked as expected. Are you willing to admit that there are teachers out there who arent doing a good job and that their teaching isn’t helping children?
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“It seems to me that in your mind anybody who questions teachers at all is a “rephormer.” That to me is a problem. Instead of acknowledging that some teachers aren’t doing their job you seem to just want to say hey and everything is great it’s everybody else’s fault. I’m willing to meet at the rollout of common core was disastrous and a top down nature of it hasn’t worked as expected. Are you willing to admit that there are teachers out there who arent doing a good job and that their teaching isn’t helping children?”
Nobody is going to argue that point, jlsteach. It’s inherent in all professions: some people are better at what they do than others. Some are workaholics, some are slackers, and there’s a whole lotta in between.
Here’s an imaginary scenario:
Bill and Melinda Gates have decided that the medical profession needs an overhaul. Too many “bad” doctors and too many different diagnoses/treatments from city to city/state to state/nation to nation.
They pour billions into developing and implementing new standards for ALL doctors to adhere to and follow. Standards that are written primarily by insurance companies with little input from actual professionals in the medical field. Everything is standardized, nationwide, from accreditation through to retirement.
Many medical professionals are up in arms over this huge shift, but the media is totally on board, calling them pampered, overpaid, and lazy. The public buys into this, thinking of the doctors they’ve had through the years who they felt didn’t measure up. (I can hardly imagine anyone who’s not experienced a negative interaction with a medical professional at one time or other in their lives.)
Less and less of the brighter minds want to enter the field and the experienced pros begin to retire, as their expertise is no longer deemed “relevant”. In order to attract more people, accreditation requirements are lowered. It becomes more and more difficult to find a doctor who really knows their stuff unless you’ve got the $$$ to spend on a regular basis.
Etc.
Nobody’s saying there aren’t sub par teachers, jlsteach. The question is; how do we deal with them? It’s been almost two decades of test and punish ad nauseam. Many extremely talented teachers have either retired or been forced out of the profession. Promising teaching candidates are opting for other professions or just passing through, now that they don’t see the profession as one that can be made into a career.
So much of this began with the national media campaign which vilified not just the “bad” teachers, but the profession as a whole. We’re not defending sub-par teachers. We’re defending the teaching profession as a whole.
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Gitapik, you picked the wrong profession to discuss…I understand your point about standardizing doctors, but I would say that for the most part medicine is standardized. Yes, there are places that one can go to if they believe that certain types of medicine are better than others (i.e. you can go to someone who practices Eastern medical practices versus Western)
Here are the BIG two differences between medicine and teaching:
Consumers have a choice in who they chose as a doctor – well, some choice (insurances certainly play a role in this). But it’s not like – this year you HAVE to have this doctor, and next year you HAVE this doctor. You cannot change doctors all year, etc. IF you doctor thinks the way to cure the flu is to run a mile, well, then you have to do it that way, etc. That’s not the way it is in education, is it?
So, I have a couple of friends who are in the medical profession…Doctors have to renew their boards every 10 years – and renewing doesn’t just mean going to a few different PD sessions or conferences. They take a massive test. And there are consequences for not being renewed. Not to mention there are common expectations across the nation – if you go to a board certified doctor in Kansas and a board certified doctor in Tennessee at the very least you know that those doctors passed the same assessment (yes, a test!)…So, if you want to go that route, and have teachers take a test every few years to maintain their certification, well I’d be open to that…BUT I do think that instead of measuring teaching (or even being a doctor) only by a test, other measurements should be used as well…a combination of factors should be decided for certification…
If we were to raise the stakes for maintaining certification, I am confident that we were have better teachers in the classroom and fewer “bad teachers” – you asked what to do about them – well, here’s one solution.
There is NOTHING worse than feeling like a parent cannot do anything because his or her child’s teacher is a poor teacher and nothing can be done to move him or her.
Look, I am not one that says that all teachers are bad – in fact most survey’s will say that I am happy with my kids teacher but overall things are a mess…I think part of that is that parents may not know how to engage with their teachers, or even they feel like they cannot say anything. In any cultures, questioning a teacher is considered blasphemous – the idea that the teacher is always right…Now, you are right, we have had a complete swing to the other side – the teacher is always wrong. I felt this myself when I taught in the classroom less than 10 years ago – kids were earning poor grades (this is HS) because the kids were not doing the work, and yet it was MY fault they were earning poor grades. I had to come up with answers, etc.
Again, and again I have said that I think the solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think that CC dd some good things in promoting thinking, but in many ways it took things to an extreme and did so too fast (in the same way I think the intent of NCLB was a good thing, but to say that all kids would be proficient by 2014 was just a bunch of educators patting themselves on the back for having high (instead of really unrealistic) expectations. I also think that giving teachers complete autonomy in the classroom can lead to some great things, but also opens the door to teaches doing whatever they want to do that may not be so great…
Solutions to complex problems cannot be made by simple answers like “Common Core Curriculum” or “teacher autonomy”
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“I think the intent of NCLB was a good thing, but to say that all kids would be proficient by 2014 was just a bunch of educators patting themselves on the back for having high (instead of really unrealistic) expectations.” Nah, it was a bunch of policy wonks patting themselves on the back. Teachers were thinking, “What idiot came up with this impossible standard?!”
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As I said…it was way unrealistic in terms of standards and expectations – but that is where we are at in education – everyone looks for the quick fix, and if you say that you are going too slow, well, then it’s not going to happen. Doesn’t mean that the idea behind it – making sure all kids had access to the same opportunities in education, wasn’t a good thing.
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Isn’t there some pithy saying about “good intentions”?
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jlsteach:
“There is NOTHING worse than feeling like a parent cannot do anything because his or her child’s teacher is a poor teacher and nothing can be done to move him or her.”
I know. My daughter had 2 poor teachers growing up. Both were cluster teachers. One was overwhelmed with newly discovered personal issues and the other was just burnt out. But two out of all the other teachers she worked with is pretty good. She worked hard, had fun, and received an excellent education in the NYC Public Schools system.
“…in the same way I think the intent of NCLB was a good thing, but to say that all kids would be proficient by 2014 was just a bunch of educators patting themselves on the back for having high (instead of really unrealistic) expectations.”
Please understand: there were no educators involved in the planning of the NCLB. And there were precious few involved in the planning of the Common Core, as well. None at all from the K-12 area. It’s a very, very important distinction to make and understand. It’s why I included a system of standards for doctors being drawn up by the insurance companies with nobody from the medical field being consulted, in my imaginary scenario.
Look: I know that the parallels between the two professions aren’t perfect, but the basic concept highlights similarities. A large scale, multi-year/decade media smear campaign is designed to and will sway public opinion, regardless of the person, company, or profession that’s being targeted. And big money can and will do what it wants, regardless of the ramifications.
CCSS was not and is not necessary to increase our educational standing in the world. In fact: we don’t need anything like that. The movement to “save our schools” is based on the performance of our schools in highly impoverished areas. The pushers of “reform” have taken that and expanded it to ALL public schools…which is just not the reality. Standards don’t mean a thing when somebody’s kid has to lie on the floor, hungry, at night, afraid of gunfire from the streets.
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Let me start with this comment – you mentioned, “I know. My daughter had 2 poor teachers growing up….” And then you say that two of our so many teachers in NY is an ok percentage..
I will assume your daughter had access to resources that other families did not in her classes…I wonder if they all ended up in the same place.
No one, particularly me, is negating the role that poverty and violence play in the lives of children, particularly those from areas of poverty. That being said, I still will argue that we right now cannot really measure the impact of having one poor teacher, but the fact is that I would guess it can be monumental – in the same way that having a fantastic teacher can change a child’s life for good)…I have tutored math privately and I cannot tell you the number of kids who say that it was with one teacher that they were turned off of math, etc. Is that really good for kids?
AS for the claim that NO educators were involved in NCLB or even Common Core, I would love where you got that – a reference please. as I would imagine that there were educators involved along the line somewhere in both of those (as I mentioned earlier, CCSS = particularly the standards for mathematical practice) came from NCTM – the national council of teachers of mathematics (so teachers are certainly involved in that group!)
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I don’t think we’re ever going to achieve perfection in any field, jlsteach.
Education is an imperfect science. There is no single reason for good or bad student/teacher relationships. A lot of very good teachers have either been driven out of or retired from the field as a result of this attempt to standardize everything and root out the bad apples. Some have been given that label, themselves, simply because they chose to speak their minds to the admins about a system gone off the rails.
Regarding my daughter:
“I will assume your daughter had access to resources that other families did not in her classes…I wonder if they all ended up in the same place.”
You may “assume” anything you like. WHY you would assume that is another matter. You know nothing of me, my daughter, or anybody else in my life. I can tell you that I’m anything but a high roller. We gave her all the love, support, and discipline that parents can give to a child. What she got she earned in a very, very big way, on her own.
Would you like me to assume something about your personal life?
I’ve had my eye on the CCSS and the other aspects of education reform for a long time. Here are a couple of links, though I’m sure you’ll come up with some of your own:
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/sandra-stotsky-on-the-mediocrity-of-the-common-core-ela-standards/
Interesting that there aren’t many 1st, 2nd, and 3rd page hits on my searches when I’m looking for dissenting views on the CCSS. The vast majority of hits are glowing endorsements. I’ve attended classes on how to create the best online image possible, and there was a section on how to get your website at or near the top of the list of the major search engines.
I have a folder of articles I’ve found, over the years, though. That’s where I got the links from. There are more, but I found those right off the bat and I think they are close enough to give a taste of what I’m saying.
We can dissect and argue forever and I’d rather now. Bottom line for me is that none of my colleagues and friends of my colleagues were or are impressed by the CCSS. We were doing quite well with our kids before they were imposed and they took away a great deal of the spontaneity and autonomy that was necessary to reach and teach the kids. Both in special and general ed. And we were all completely taken aback by NCLB and RTTT, seeing both for the sham that they were. You won’t find a single one of my colleagues patting anyone on the back for either of those initiatives.
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Apologies – I did not mean to assume anything. However given that you are in education and are posting on this education blog I’ll assume that you had access to resources to support your daughter even though she had poor teachers…
I’ll go back to the implementation of CCSS (I’ve already said that NCLB expectations were too fast). But you know it’s interesting – I bet like you every teacher will say everything’s fine and that they don’t need help. Clearly the way our education situation is in the US and the disparity in experiences for different students in different schools in the same city means something isn’t right. If people are doing such great things then the tests given shouldn’t really be an issue (in terms of material – I get any test takes getting used to how to take it not to mention the recent tests online – again that’s implementation not the assessment)..
Clearly We aren’t going to agree hear…
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My usage of the word “fine” is fluid. My emotionally disturbed kids were anything but fine when they went off. And the children with severe autism who I teach now are very often not easy to reach. Not fine. My point is that the CCSS and Danielson frameworks don’t address their needs, yet my colleagues and I have been forced to include them as reference points in all of our unit and lesson plans for many years. They are a waste of time and energy and they stand in the way of effectively dealing with the challenges that these kids face.
Using the tests as a reference point for success is an area that you and I would be best to avoid. Especially at this time. You’re right. We should lay it to rest for the time being.
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My point is that the CCSS and Danielson frameworks don’t address their needs, yet my colleagues and I have been forced to include them as reference points in all of our unit and lesson plans for many years-
So here is an area that I think we may actually agree…but again, I point to the implementation of the frameworks rather than common sense…I can understand your frustration with that. And yes, those that really think “all students:” mean all students…well, there’s a challenge there.
As I have said here may times before, my passion stems from the numerous inequities that I have seen in public education – going back to the 60s and 70s where tracking said all of the smart (or white kids) took math classes while all of the kids of color took shop. Your pathway was defined by your race or your economic status, not your potential…that’s why I think that such frameworks, overall are good things.
Now, back to the common sense needed. I currently am tutoring a child who has dyscalculia. He also has some emotional needs as well. That being said, I know that given some supports he can do the mathematics. I am not a special ed expert, but for months I asked his teachers (he does go to a private school focused on kids with learning differences) to provide the student a note card, to allow him to not have to simplify his answers in radical form, etc. For months, his teachers and the school dept said no…finally, this past week, they relented…and guess what, the kid did much better on his requiz.
Do I see the student taking calculus anytime soon – probably not. Do I think that his math test scores should be at the same level as other students? Nope. Do I think he should have accomodations to do the math? Definitely…
Yes, your school should consider ways to adapt CCSS or DAnielson or assessments to meet the needs of your students.
We are all defined by our experiences…you are defined by your experiences with being forced to do certain standards, etc…And I am defined by seeing kids tracked into different tracks based on race or economic class…
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I was part of the tracking system and yes, it was definitely used as a vehicle of continued racial segregation.
Not to belittle that fact (and I mean that), but it was also a vehicle of socio-economic segregation. My school was very predominantly white. The kids from the blue collar families were in shop and those in the more well to do families were set on the track towards more lucrative white collar mobility.
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So yes, both racial and socio-economic segregation…which is why I think NCLB (think of George W Bush and the “soft bigotry of low expectations”…that’s the idea of where NCLB stemmed from…yes. it has turned into test and punish (thus, my continued focus on implementation)
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“I’ve attended classes on how to create the best online image possible, and there was a section on how to get your website at or near the top of the list of the major search engines.”
Forgot to mention that one of the most effective ways of getting to the top (most people don’t go past the first page of a search) is through online association of your site with that of a large corporation that attracts lots of hits as well as corporate sponsorship and endorsement.
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This desire to standardize has used the issue of movement of students to justify common standardization to the point locally of requiring precisely when and what is being taught in a daily basis. It is a rationalization. Every good teacher teaches all he/she can all the time. If a group can go farther, they should not be held back by some list made out in some professor’s mind. If they cannot, a list of unattainable standards will be far worse for a rural kid in Indiana than any perceived lack of teaching expertise.
The desire for common national standards pushes us toward fascism. The diverse push for excellence makes way for free and open discussion, the cornerstone of democracy.
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Well, as you can imagine I completely disagree…So as I just wrote – should a dollar bill be worth $1.50 in Maine and 0.75 in Georgia? How is that different than two kids in those states taking Algebra II but getting completely different material. Whose hurt in that case – the students…I agree that we should not become autocratic where each person is teaching the exact same thing the exact same way. I am against scripted curriculum, But I am for having some type of notion that courses present similar material – it does not have to be exact. I also am talking about opportunity – in our democracy we believe that each student, no matter their color, economic wealth, etc have the same opportunities. The fact is that currently those kids don’t…is that ok? Is that really democratic?
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“You know, I was all for democracy, but recently I feel that I’d rather trust a few smart people than a bunch of stupid ones.” So, John Doe, try trusting a few smart teachers who know your child and the material. Standards writers know the material but not the child. Teachers have a view of both. Who can know who is smart?
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“try trusting a few smart teachers who know your child and the material” – that’s sometimes a big assumption and may not fit all teachers Roy. Furthermore, do we know for sure that all of the standard writers were never teachers at one point? I concede the point more teachers should have been involved in the process, but…
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JLS: you have sort of made my point with the money analogy. If I lived in Nashville, my dollar would not buy as much gasoline as it does in the rural areas. As a rural resident, that makes me happy, but it illustrates the lack of accountability we have on gas stations. Those guys need to be earning the same everywhere. What if my budget does not fit with higher prices in Nashville? We need standard prices. This is ridiculous, of course, for running a business selling gas on higher priced real estate demands that you make more money.
Like economics, standardization of education is problematic.
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Well, I certainly didin’t mean to make your point…Yes, money can go farther in different places…BUT I mean literally if you handed the clerk $1 in Tennessee and they said (you owe me 25 more cents) for an item that had a $1 price tag. But in maine you handed the person a $1 for $1.50 and fully paid for the item. Same dollar bill – different values depending on where you go.
I didn’t say you need standard prices ,BUT I do think that $1 should be worth $1 (i.e. 100 pennies) no matter what state you live in…right?
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What I was trying to point out above is that the problem of standardization is even obvious when it comes to money, which is pretty simple. What you get out of a class with the title of Algebra I would seem a lot more complex. It is even more complex to suggest what a history class should be like. Should I not be able to teach the children about important local history. If a majority of my children are descended from families that traveled the great wagon road down the Shennadoah during the French and Indian War, does that not require me to make them aware of that history? But what if I was from Kansas or Nebraska? The German-Russian heritage seems appropriate there. So if we say all children have to know about Johnny Bourgogne, and it will be on a test that means my job, does that not restrict me to Saratoga? This is the problem with standards. They have unintended consequences. Or are they really unintended?
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So sure, there are some unintended consequences also of NOT having standards, but there are also consequences of having complete autonomy…sure kids should get to learn about local history (some states have entire classes about local history – when I taught in DC, kids had to take a course called DC history – I thin kthe similar thing happens in states like VA and Texas). But if you were to teach all local history in a class called world history, well, yes, I think teaching only certain history would be an issue…
Just wondering, you ever teach AP courses, like AP US History? I am thinking that there are common things that all students should be exposed to for such a course.
So what if we do this as a compromise = agree that there is a core amount of material that should be in any given class and then some percentage of flexibility to appeal to the students in a given class.
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““try trusting a few smart teachers who know your child and the material” – that’s sometimes a big assumption and may not fit all teachers Roy. Furthermore, do we know for sure that all of the standard writers were never teachers at one point?”
Do you see your own double standard here? Not all teachers know the child and the material, so we should treat all teachers as if they are bad. On the other hand, well, maybe some of the standards writers were once teachers so we should trust standard writers. See what you did there?
No one has ever argued that all teachers are good, so you can put down your sword and stop trying to slay that strawman. But your answer to the issue of “some” bad teachers involves trusting other people, who also might be bad at their job (and who also have far more of a financial interest in putting their own needs first than teachers do – no one has ever gotten rich off of being a teacher, but plenty have gotten rich off of standards and curricula).
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What I am saying is this…that teachers should have freedom in the classroom for how they implement material, certainly ,But here’s my catch with that – I would have a lot more faith in giving that freedom teachers had demonstrated some sense of competency…the rub – not all teachers have done that (even those that have been rated as proficient, or good, etc)
Sure, I am the first to say that the way that common core standards were rolled out was well, rather crappy…in many cases, maybe in all cases, it was completely top down – in part because the need to rush things in so fast…That I agree was not ideal..
That being said, I think that a balance can be made and found – as I just posted – neiterh total autonomy or total control are good for education
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Allan Alach of New Zealand and Phil Cullen of Australia have been battling the edudeformer forces for many years. Here is their website: https://treehornexpress.wordpress.com/
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Thanks for the link. Who would have thought a teacher so far away would seem so close to home. I really liked the carbs and teaching. Who would have thought that teaching required the same carb intake as an artic explorer.
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“New Zealand or New Zealot?”
New Zealand is for evidence
New Zealot is for gospel
New Zealand is for common sense
New Zealot for impossible
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Wow, someone actually reads these comments. Thanks for everyone, especially to Ms. Ravitch, for replying.
I’ll try to be brief (and will probably fail).
“If you have well-prepared, qualified teachers, they can make decisions about what works best in their schools, working with their colleagues.” – You can have this in a small scale set up, maybe in an experimental charter school, he-he, but not on mass scale, never. You can say that places like Oklahoma are an exception, but seriously, the whole state is an exception? That what is not? New York City? https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21736102-low-teacher-pay-and-severe-budget-cuts-are-driving-schools-brink-whats-matter There are great teachers, teachers-inventors, who move the art of teaching forward, but most teachers are barely competent in what they teach, they do not strive to make any difference with their personal approach – they likely have none. If I am not mistaken, in Finland teachers need to have a degree in pedagogy and in the specific science they are to teach, like a math teacher must have a degree in math, or at least a degree in teaching math. When all American teachers will have a degree, I may revise my position on this, but until this happens – and it will never happen – the teachers are to be treated as workers on conveyor line. This is sad, but most of them are clueless in what they teach. They may be nice people, but useless as teachers. One is better off perusing a good textbook, which still exist in this country, and skip the school – a hollow public school or or a religious private one – altogether.
“And there is nothing inherently wrong with having “disparity across the entire nation”. That is what one should expect when local democratic school boards determine what is best for their local community public school students.” – Right, and if one does not like the democratic rules of a particular location, one has to move out? You know, I was all for democracy, but recently I feel that I’d rather trust a few smart people than a bunch of stupid ones.
“How the hell did this country supposedly become the top dog nation of the world in the 20th century with no national curricula?? No, that is not a rhetorical question. I’d like to read your thoughts on that question. Thanks!” – Imported Jews, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Italians, etc. There are some home-grown ones, but the pillars of the current American might – nuclear power, space flight – are built by immigrants. And you do not need millions of smart people to do these grandiose projects anyway, you need literally dozens. Mass education is not needed to build a nuke. On the other hand, laying down roads or building cardboard houses does not require anything more complex than basic algebra.
“Why is it important that students who move to a different state/district/school be able to pick up exactly where they left off? Do you not trust students to be able to make that transition” – No. Just stop calling school pupils students, and it will become clear to you as well.
“For instance, should my friend’s school in rural Indiana cut out their agriculture program because that’s not terribly relevant to urban Indianapolis?” – Sure, the rednecks should stay rednecks, the city folk can study higher math and art.
for a while I was drinking the public ed cool-aid, how the poor teachers want their best, but are underfunded and overloaded. I am growing very anti-public ed now for a very specific reason: there is no – absolutely no, zero – options to accelerate math in middle and in high school in my school district. Whatever tests you take, whatever placement exams you pass, whatever courses you take in a community college, you have to go through this maddeningly slow course of watered down math, which is now integrated, so it is Math I in Grade 9, Math I in Grade 10, Math I in Grade 11. So maybe – just maybe – you will be lucky to take AP Calc in the senior year, if only they don’t throw the pre-calc requirement in front of you. I would be less angry with this if ALL schools in the country were like this, and all college applicants had the same set of courses. But this does not seem so, some districts are more flexible. Should I consider this a problem with public ed or with my particular school district? Should I go to the school board meeting and ask for math acceleration path? I already have enraged them, but they don’t budge. All they are interested in are their jobs and the test results, which are higher with this watered down math course. Would a charter school be more flexible? Maybe. But ultimately, I see no difference in quality of charter schools and public schools, the first care about money, the latter about their jobs. The only option for a customized personalized education is a private school, but then again most of them are religious, which narrows down the choice practically to zero.
Stream of thought, eh?
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“Sure, the rednecks should stay rednecks, the city folk can study higher math and art.”
I always like when people reveal themselves for the bigots they are right up front. Thanks for cutting to the chase and saving any further need for response.
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“I always like when people reveal themselves for the bigots they are right up front. Thanks for cutting to the chase and saving any further need for response.” – Totally fine with me. Just a small bit of advice if I may: please, pretty please, learn what sarcasm is before subbing in a literature class.
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Sarcasm does not require the use of bigoted language.
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“There are great teachers, teachers-inventors, who move the art of teaching forward, but most teachers are barely competent in what they teach, they do not strive to make any difference with their personal approach – they likely have none.”
Wow, what utter excrement of bovine origin. Never gave a damn and still don’t about supposedly “great teachers” as over the years I found the “teacher of the year” awards to be little more than who could kiss the asses of the powers that be who determined the “winner”. “Great teachers” = a total crock.
And “most teachers are barely competent”. Maybe in private charter, parochial and religious schools, but in the public school sector the vast majority are highly competent who consistently day in and day out work with, get to know and understand their students and present the curriculum so that ALL students may learn, if they choose to learn.
And, yes, most teachers actually do have their personal approach which they have determined, along with their administrative supervisors, to work for them and their students.
And that was in response to reading just the first long paragraph, and actually the top third of that. Wow! Tell you what John Doe, show some courage, tell us who you really are, what your relationship to public education is, what you teach, what age level, etc. . . For without that you’re just another trollbot in my mind spouting the same old horse manure I’ve been hearing for all of this century.
C’mon, let us know who you are. Are you too afraid?
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I continued reading this claptrap: “Imported Jews, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Italians, etc. There are some home-grown ones, but the pillars of the current American might – nuclear power, space flight – are built by immigrants. And you do not need millions of smart people to do these grandiose projects anyway, you need literally dozens. Mass education is not needed to build a nuke. On the other hand, laying down roads or building cardboard houses does not require anything more complex than basic algebra.”
REALLY, I mean REALLY. Are you joking? And all of your pith and vinegar is because you can’t get “accelerated math” in your district? REALLY?? Basta ya, contigo.
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Don’t you understand that it’s education reform (Common Core curriculum) that causes teachers to seem like they don’t know the content they are teaching!!!!! My gosh, people just don’t seem to get it. Most of the math teachers that I speak with don’t like teaching what they are forced to teach and they don’t like how they are being told to teach it. Most English teachers I speak with would like to have more reading of the classics, but that’s not on the stupid test. Teachers don’t like this, but when they do voice an opinion, they are told to stop the whining, shut up, and deliver the content as stated. This is all a design to make teachers look bad. John Doe and jlsteach….you drank the wrong colored Kool Aid because you have fallen for the reform lie.
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Or maybe Lisa M we have been teaching things the wrong way all along…Common Core is NOT a set curriculum…rather it’s more of ways that teaching can be approached. I would guess that most of those math teachers want to teach math the way they were taught math – rote memorization, drill and kill, etc. What do you mean “forced to teach” – that would be a a district by district decision, I think.
No, the design is NOT to make teachers look bad – in fact the ideas of common core teaching are all about engaging students as opposed to rote memorization – it’s not as easy as just open the book – give problems, etc. In fact it is a lot more challenging to plan for. My guess is that is part of the reason why teachers don’t like it.
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I never had to teach math to Common Core, thank goodness, but I can speak as someone who used to teach math:
Common Core is just a confused (and confusing) jumble of ideas cobbled together by a physicist (Jason Zimba) who believed (and probably still believes) that simply knowing advanced math makes one qualified to create standards for k-12.
I have seen the results of Common Core first hand in my nieces and nephews — and it has been a train wreck.
It most certainly does NOT “engage” students. It’s emphasis on explaining ( in several different ways) how one got the answer to what are often very simple problems (or at least what used to be simple problems before CC came along and confused young children with “arrays” and other stuff) has had a serious negative impact on interest in math.
And the emphasis on solving word problems at young ages before the students have even learned the basic underlying math concepts is completely misguided.
Jason Zimba is little more than a quack (when it comes to standards development, at least) who should never been allowed anywhere near a math standards development project — to say nothing of heading up a project that impacts the learning of millions of students.
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Says the father of twin nine-year-old and also a high school math teacher let me give some perspective on common core. First of all I agree with you that it has not been rolled out in an effective manner. Second I also agree with you that in some cases it can go overboard. For example having students do one simple problem 10 different ways. That being said, one thing coming core does well in my Pinyan is that it helps answer the why questions. Mathematic should be more than rote memorization. When you add two numbers greater than 10 you put a small little one on top of the next column. If you subtract 33-17 you Crossout the three make it at two and put a one next to the seventh. But why do we do that? Just because a teacher told us? How does that promote understanding if you just do rote memorization? Do you think that students should just memorize poems and be able to recite them or do you think they should also consider what the words mean? Prior to coming core mathematics had only been treated like rote memorization
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One more quick thought. I really believe that part of the problem with teaching around common core is that most elementary school teachers when I taught this way. So if you asked an elementary school teacher why do we do this process they may not know the answer. That does not make them bad teachers. But with that that show it’s teachers need more support and understanding the mathematics. A few years ago I taught a middle school math course to college students. Much of it was about how you can show students the reasoning behind the math. For example when dividing fractions why do you “Flip the second and multiply”? The students were amazed that for so long they had learned a rule but didn’t know why. Now his teachers they could explain to students the why
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I disagree on many of your points.
First, I don’t buy that the problem with Common Core is that it was just poorly implemented because for all practical purposes, one can not separate the standards from the implementation. Everything was driven by standardized tests, which meant that everything had to inevitably “align” (which was actually the stated goal of the people behind CC like Bill Gates and David Coleman). Common Core was — and IS — the whole package: standards, curriculum and tests. Pretending otherwise is just that.
Second, your talk of reducing memorization is very puzzling, since learning several (sometimes contorted) ways ( to do simple arithmetic , for example) actually requires MORE memorization, NOT less than is required for learning just one simple straightforward way.
And let’s face it, a certain amount of memorization is necessary in math. One can not derive from first principles every time one wishes to solve a problem (and even if one could, one would not want to have to do that)
Third, a students’ understanding of math concepts is built up over the years and at each successive stage, students get a deeper understanding of what they learned before, perhaps first through simple memorization. There is no reason a student has to have an understanding of the why? In 2nd or even 6th grade. This is particularly true of basic arithmetic.
Many people (including many mathematicians) have learned/memorized that a^n + b^n = c^n has no solutions for positive integers a, b, c and n for n >2.
And in fact, until relatively recently even mathematicians would not have been able to tell us “why” (or even whether it was indeed true with certainty) It took the use of very advanced math developed over the 350 years since Fermat first made the claim to explain the “why”. That’s obviously an extreme case , but it does illustrate the idea of “building up to understanding” which permeates math at all levels.
As a math teacher, you undoubtedly know all this.
But let’s set aside the specific debate about Common Core for the moment and consider a few simple questions:
Shouldn’t this whole discussion about the best approach to teaching math have taken place BEFORe even a single standard was set down?
Shouldn’t it have involved discussions between hundreds if not thousands of math teachers across the country?
Shouldn’t the standards have been developed by experts in math standards development after a thorough consideration of all the research that has taken place over the past half century and consideration of the input of those hundreds or thousands of teachers?
Why should the math standard development for millions of school children across our country be left up to a guy working in his garage? (as Jason Zimba famously admitted). I know it’s supposed to make Zimba sound heroic, but it really just makes him sound dumb.
The whole thing is just bizarre.
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A quick comment about working in a garage – I don’t know why Zimba said that, but my guess is it connects to someone like Steve Jobs (or even Mr. Gates) who created the first computers…in their garage. I know that Gates is not the ideal example here, but why does it matter where one works.
Second, NCTM (national council of teachers of mathematics -aka math teachers!) had previously posted best practices for teaching math that focused on less memorization and more understanding. Not sure how many are in NCTM, but there are probably thousands (if not hundred of thousands)..
Third, the fact that you are equating a complex equation to show that there are examples where we cannot explain why is a bit ridiculous. Granted, I appreciate that you state, “that’s obviously an extreme case , but it does illustrate the idea of “building up to understanding” which permeates math at all levels.
Here’s my take on it…the way that we did math through rote memorization for the last few years we have created a generation of people who just plug and chug and give no thought to their answers. I am a bit stunned that you write, there is no reason a student has to have an understanding of the why?…
In my experience, the why often helps students better understand where answers come from -particularly for students that are struggling. What if you always forget to put the 1 above the tens column and so you would say that 17+15 = 22…In the past, we would just mark that wrong and tell a student to memorize that right process…Now, when having students group 12 rods into one 10 and two rods, they begin to see why we put the 1 up top and maybe memorize less.
you seem to be advocating for a process of memorize now and then understand later, where as the folks from CC are saying understand now and then repeat later.
I understand your perspective on the package, but here’s what I would say…if you have a given test, it shouldn’t matter the order that the material is taught, etc. as long as by the end of the day you hit certain topics…
As for memorizing more methods…no, I see it as choosing one’s favorite methods and scaffolding that til you have more comfort.
I mentioned my two third graders – with math they are very different. One of the eats math up – I can give her problems like 12 x 22 and she will reason her way to an answer (I know that 22 x 10 = 220 and 22 x 2 = 44, so…). She doesn’t need a pencil or paper, if she did do 22 x 12, she would of course follow these steps, but sort of a backwards way (she would write 44, then add a 0 and put 22..but would she know why she was adding the zero in the 1’s spot?)..
The other does not come to math so quickly – she wants to be a poet. Yes, a poet. I’m all for supporting her on that. With things like adding two digit, she used the different strategies and chose her favorite one to use…She needed the scaffolding. The problem with the implementation, in my opinion, is that instead of introducing all strategies and clearly asking kids which one they prefer, teachers often make them do ALL of them for the same problem. Yes, I think that’s redundant.
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Gates working in his family garage? That’s a good one!
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So, here is a post that shares this (along with other companies that started in a garage).
http://www.accountingdegree.com/blog/2011/10-big-businesses-that-started-in-a-garage/
Note, some of these may be mythical -for example Steve Wozniack has stated publicly that Apple didn’t begin in a garage…
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As a physicist i certainly understand the importance of understanding why,.
But that understanding develops over time and there is no need to understand the why in the younger grades, which i thought I had made clear.
When I say they don’t need to know why it is with reference to things like dividing fractions or long division.
Students in the younger grades don’t need to know why a certain method works, just that it does.
And they certainly do not need to know 5 different ways to do simple problems.
You are free to disagree and to teach Common Core.
Just don’t force it on the rest of us.
That’s all that I ask.
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I will disagree with you on the dividing fractions – in my experience when kids just try and memorize a process, then will make mistakes and not even realize that their mistakes do not make sense (i.e. they will say 1/2 divided by 1/4 is 1/8 because they forgot to flip the second fraction. BUT if we show them how division is separating into parts or you show using a part/whole mentality they may better understand how or WHY 1/2 divided by 1/4 is 2 (really, you divide and it gets bigger? Why? Mind blown!)
And if something is good practice – why shouldn’t it be shared or “forced” onto others??
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I have to say I am with jls on this SDP. I taught remedial math to middle schoolers who had just run out of the capacity to memorize algorithms. If they made a mistake they had no idea. It was enough for them that they followed the rules (or so they thought) even with a calculator. I did have to go back and deconstruct basic math concepts, so that they understood what they were doing. We spent a lot of time on estimating and getting answers “in the ballpark.” We had to build toward correct answers since they had spent most of their school years being confused and wrong. To be “in the ballpark” they had to understand the concept. It was in that process that I learned why flipping the fraction worked in dividing by a fraction and was able to teach them as well. We expanded numbers out the wazoo to finally grasp place value for whole as well as decimal numbers. We did do some rote memorization with basic operations. Were they surprised when the one they considered even “stupider” that them learned the multiplication table and was able to spit out answers they still had to use their calculators for. Our standard homework was ten minutes table practice. I encouraged using a myriad of online games we had found including ones that did not require lightening fast reflexes (generally not a strength of these kids); this one student was religious about practicing, and it showed. It was not easy, but it showed these kids that they could memorize. It also showed them that having that information at their finger tips made the next step easier.
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jlsteach commented: “I will disagree with you on the dividing fractions – in my experience when kids just try and memorize a process, then will make mistakes and not even realize that their mistakes do not make sense (i.e. they will say 1/2 divided by 1/4 is 1/8 because they ” | | Respond to this comment by replying above this line |
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| | | jlsteach commented on GREAT NEWS: New Zealand is Scrapping National Standards and Charter Schools. in response to SomeDAM Poet: As a physicist i certainly understand the importance of understanding why,. But that understanding develops over time and there is no need to understand the why in the younger grades, which i thought I had made clear. When I say they don’t need to know why it is with reference to things like dividing fractions … Continue reading “GREAT NEWS: New Zealand is Scrapping National Standards and Charter Schools” I will disagree with you on the dividing fractions – in my experience when kids just try and memorize a process, then will make mistakes and not even realize that their mistakes do not make sense (i.e. they will say 1/2 divided by 1/4 is 1/8 because they forgot to flip the second fraction. BUT if we show them how division is separating into parts or you show using a part/whole mentality they may better understand how or WHY 1/2 divided by 1/4 is 2 (really, you divide and it gets bigger? Why? Mind blown!)And if something is good practice – why shouldn’t it be shared or “forced” onto others?? | Reply | Comments |
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Bill Gates’ garage?
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I referred quite specifically to Common Core.
And no, I don’t believe Common Core and all the rest of the junk that went along with it should be imposed on the rest of us just because some clown working out of his his garage thought that was a good idea.
The process that produced Common Core was anything BUT “good practice”.
More like a cruel joke.
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@SomeDAM Poet
“First, I don’t buy that the problem with Common Core is that it was just poorly implemented because for all practical purposes, one can not separate the standards from the implementation.” – one can. Yes, there are some instructions in the CC, but the amount of explaining of how to group the circles and move them to another column in the table is not prescribed. Schools are lazy and use ready-made materials like EngageNY.
“Second, your talk of reducing memorization is very puzzling, since learning several (sometimes contorted) ways ( to do simple arithmetic , for example) actually requires MORE memorization, NOT less than is required for learning just one simple straightforward way.” – you are confusing memorizing with learning. Memorizing, say, the normal forms of a relational database takes more effort than realizing that to ensure searchability and reduce storage requirements it is probably makes sense to have only one copy of each thing in the database, it is probably makes sense to uniquely identify each thing, it is probably makes sense to link related things to their parent thing using the given identifiers, it probably makes sense to have shorter identifiers for faster search, etc. Basic arithmetic is the same. When you know how and why you actually need to memorize less, at the same time the ability to connect things together and make judgements help in other areas. People are wrong to think that school math is just math, nope. It is a whole set of skills, which can be used by a journalist or politician or doctor. Do not reduce math to stacked addition.
“And let’s face it, a certain amount of memorization is necessary in math.” – no one argues with that.
“There is no reason a student has to have an understanding of the why? In 2nd or even 6th grade. This is particularly true of basic arithmetic.” – Disagreed. Having understanding of basic arithmetic is important, especially considering it was borne from thousands of years of practice, unlike, say, complex numbers which are completely impractical to many.
“Shouldn’t this whole discussion about the best approach to teaching math have taken place BEFORe even a single standard was set down?” – Yep. A federal commission made of professors of math and pedagogy, and a Ministry of Education. Not in this country.
“Shouldn’t it have involved discussions between hundreds if not thousands of math teachers across the country?” – Are you going to ask them that this company wants federal funds to develop computer-based tests where you will not see the results besides the final score, and that company wants federal funds to create printouts? Meh. It is business, they want money and they want them now. Discussion? Again, not in this country.
“WHY 1/2 divided by 1/4 is 2” – divide half a pizza into quarters of a whole pizza, get two pieces. And yes, this stuff must be explained to kids in elementary school.
This stuff is not some DAM common core, it is just common sense, and this is how it has been taught for ages. Just because one drives a Honda does not mean Honda invented cars.
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John Doe,
I tried pushing national standards when I worked in the Bush 1 administration. We turned everything over to the professionals in each field. It was a disaster.
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So, what made it disastrous – the implementation? The lack of piloting, etc? Maybe the fact that it was so disasterous (and of course the constitutional role of education at the state level) led to the pathway of CCSS
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@jlsteach
Regarding disastrous centralized policy – exactly, CCSS were the answer. Because the options for centralized policy are:
* Federal standards, pushed by DOE (will cause states’ outrage)
* Private standards, pushed by a huge business, like College Board. This is what we have in form of SAT and AP classe- private tests and lessons elevated to national level simply because the provider of these “services” is almost a monopolist… Now we have ACT, so we have two. Should we expect a third one?
* Some form of inter-state agreement, this is what Common Core is. Sure, feds pushed it from the top by dangling funding carrot, but formally speaking, CCSS is not a federal standard. But now you can see what happened to it: uneven implementation, different curricula, rigid coursework “because of common core”.
As a result, Common Core gets bad rap because of bad implementation, and the practices it promotes get bad rap because they are linked to Common Core.
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“If you have well-prepared, qualified teachers, they can make decisions about what works best in their schools, working with their colleagues.”
If only this were true. Because of the current system of “test and punish”. Everything starts in DC and goes down from there. All decisions are about making someone above them happy. The states want to make the Feds happy, The districts want to make the State happy. The schools want to make their district happy. The teachers want to make their schools happy.
Frankly teachers, no matter how qualified or unqualified are following directives. If they were truly able to make their own decisions and collaborate with their colleagues to do it, then things would look far different than they do today.
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thank you!
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NOT true with ESSA. Feds no longer have any real overreach. States no longer have to please the Feds.
The problem in reality is that NOW that the states have had a taste of test and punish, many of them choose to retain it even thought it is no longer a federal requirement. And states refuse to turn over APPR to local control, a veritable Republican tenet that is ironically not followed.
Obama and Arne Duncan did this, as did their fellow Democrats and GOP. It was a bi-partisan effort, and it succeeded. He put NCLB on steroids. What a bastard.
HIs and his wife’s portraits nauseate me.
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“HIs and his wife’s portraits nauseate me.”
What a petty thing to say! And that advances the conversation how?
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I agree – great news for the kids of New Zealand. Listen up, USA!
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I will try to build a more coherent defence of a national curricula.
uniform springboard for everyone from New York City to Oklahoma. It depends on teachers, of course, but given decent and standardized textbooks one can teach oneself using only the printed and online materials, and be sure they are on the same page as other pupils in the country;
the above provides equal conditions for getting to college (aren’t everyone for equality here? No? Yes? Maybe?)
Mobility is simplifed: the family moves to another city for a better job, their kids don’t feel any gaps or duplications; the same textbooks, the same coursework (Has not this country touted mobility, both terrestrial and social, as a big win?).
the clear and known coursework from K to 12 allows figuring out what will be taught next or what was taught before, to patch the gaps or to go forward; Again, if the teacher is not great, than a good textbook can make up for it.
For the above to work there should be a commission making standards and publishing textbooks. This is nearly impossible to do in this country, where publishing is basically monopolized by a few juggernaut publishing houses, and there is no ministry of education. The DOE, by its own definition, only collects statistics from schools, it does not issue instruction documents. In this climate one can only hope that those publishers come up with a decent set of textbooks, but my experience show that most of these textbooks suck in one way or another: too thick, yet watered down, too many distracting pictures. Social science textbooks peddle religion under the guise of learning about ancient cultures.
The idea of common core was something close to the federal standard, but because it is implemented differently in different states and localities, there is still no uniformity. Some kids can get Math I / Alg I in 6th grade, others get it in 9th grade. The common core idea backfired, and the only result of it is that Algebra I has been all but eliminated from 8th grade in California, and more and more districts switch to a rigid course sequence under the pretence of being compliant with common core, despite that it allows for different pathways.
I don’t even talk about physics, chemistry, biology, geography, astronomy… which are not graduation requirements in most states. Spend 13 years in school and leave with Calc if you are very lucky. What a joke.
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John Doe,
I used to agree with you. I even wrote a book about it. I don’t agree anymore. I explained why in the revised edition of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.”
The greatest failure of American schools is caused by poverty and inequality and underrresourced schools.
If you can explain how a national curriculum cures poverty, please try.
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Ms. Ravitch,
I bought your book and read it, twice (um, was it the revised version? I don’t know.) I also bought and read the Finnish Lessons by Pasi Sahlberg. I have my own experience. I see what my son is spending time on in school – six hours a day!
I read articles all the time about charter schools that have turned into money-making machines, about gray schemes and lack of control. But do I think that public schools are better? No. Not in this country. Not with this business-like approach to everything: healthcare, education, energy, environment protection… When just several big publishers controlling the education market, they can dictate the curriculum, they can dictate how the material is broken down into a pupil’s textbook, teacher’s guide book, worksheets, additional problem book, answer key book… They milk the districts while the kids have to get through this morass.
A national curriculum will not cure poverty, but you seem to miss out that not only the poor and underprivileged suffer in this system. Those who are above the grade suffer too! I was told outright that there is no way my son can get an accelerated math course, no matter how great his scores are – there is just no option for that because – surprise, surprise – the program is designed for a middling pupil who can barely grasp a concept of an equation in 8th grade. You may say that these middling pupils exist primarily because of poverty and you may be right. Or not. When I see parents coming with their 5-year olds to, say, DMV, flipping through Facebook, while their kid is watching a cheap cartoon on their own phone or tablet, I fail to grasp how having more money would help those people – maybe they will be able to afford a bigger tablet, or two?
My mood is grim, the whole system seems broken. I don’t see winners, besides the businesses that make money on education by pushing “reforms” every five years or by offering online services, when they collect all the data and the teachers, pupils and parents do not even see the specific questions and answers from a test. It seems that homeschooling is the only reasonable option for me as a parent – I got good enough education to teach my son – or a really great private school, but these are as rare as 10-carat diamonds.
Thanks for reading this, I really appreciate it.
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John Doe: people on this site always read your stuff and take it seriously. Enjoy.
As for your frustrations, welcome to the profession. The word Diane used above was under resourced. That sums up why your kid cannot get a math course he needs. It sums up why I feel frustrated that I cannot teach an advanced course in world history at a junior or senior level. We do not have the money. I teach 140 kids a day in six classes. Students who are older are primarily taking dual credit classes, none of which are as challenging as the undergrad classes I had in college 40 years ago. Yes, it is frustrating, and the reason we have this problem is that we do not fund education the way we did 40 years ago.
Why then, do some feel that the solution is to create an even more expensive parallel school system to solve these problems? Voucher, charter and similar programs pull money away from schools and programs, leaving parents to get frustrated.
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Roy Turrentine: I am not sure how more money can help. It seems to me that even the most underfunded schools can do better if they spend money where it should be spent. Do elementary and even middle schools need computers? iPads? Do schools need to sign contracts with companies that provide online testing, without even being able to get back the transcript of the test? Do schools need to copy 140 worksheets each day instead of providing a textbook for the whole year and asking students to buy a $3 notebook, which would last a trimester? Do they need so many goddamn pencils and markers?
Without textbooks kids do not learn how to use printed materials, how to find information, how to refresh their memory about something they were learning a month ago – they just have no skill of taking a textbook and using the subject index. Without being taught how to write down a problem and split it into given-find-solution parts they are bound to be lost when asked to solve something harder than a multiple choice test. Without learning proofs they have no idea about formal logic. Without access to good textbooks they will have to use the junk that the big publishers offer, including half-ass math and science books (science? Is it 17th century? What about physics, chemistry, biology, geography? These subjects are hard to get even at high school, and they are not available at all in middle school), and religion-peddling “history” books. Are you telling me that these issues can be fixed with money? The whole system is built on businesses latching onto it and sucking every available dollar.
(Cooling off) Well, in more egregious cases more money and more teachers and lower kids-to-teacher ratio will help to ease the pain. But at best this will produce middling results, not the best.
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John Doe,
The research on class size reduction is robust.
The research on school choice is negative.
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John D.
What you are advocating for is a either a Soviet or Communist China top down approach to schooling. I for one believe that the free and open nature of American public schooling with each democratically elected school board to control the local community public schools to have been a far better “system” (actually non-system) than command and control communistic schooling.
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So what happens Duane when said “democratically elected” school board advocates for a scripted curriculum and top down mandates…where teachers have no control…you’re ok with that? Or even worse when said school board, filled with non educators, advocates for some insane policy – like say all kids should learn the same math every year. I mean we had a democratically elected president right? How about turn out?
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Well then it would be time for the teachers, parents, students, perhaps even the adminimals to start letting the board know how wrong they are and that if the policy isn’t changed, said participants will make sure that said board members will not be for long in their position. Hell, at least the option is there to work at the local level to get rid of the problem.
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And before you go and accuse me of being a communist Dwayne let me be clear. There has to be a proper balance between top down and bottom up. To me neither extreme is good for education. Unless you want to get rid of every single teacher and we hire them to ensure that we have good quality teachers. And while we’re at it let’s get rid of all central office employees to make sure those teachers get quality PD…You know that still happens at some schools were all the teachers are forced to be rehired. Guess what, that’s been proven to not work either
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I didn’t call John D a communist. I said that he is advocating for a top down command and control system like the two mentioned communist countries have. That is not calling someone a communist.
But don’t worry, it ain’t all that bad, my life long conservative friends have been calling me a commie pinko for damn near a half century. I’ve survived the onslaught.
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Just a nitpicky side note, but this is a recurring issue. I’m pretty sure Duane didn’t misspell his own name, yet you can’t seem to type it correctly when it’s printed right there on the page for you. Perhaps just an oversight, but one that indicates a lack of respect and attention to what people actually write.
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See – you immediately assumed disrespect – when I cay say that that is one of the downfalls of voice to text…way to jump to conclusions dienne77!
Lo siento Senor Swacker.
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No hay problema, Dienne. No problem as it happens to me all the time and from what I’ve seen it’s usually a spell check thing, although I do have one friend I’ve known since grade school that does misspell my name on purpose to try to goad my goat. I just give it right back to him, like brothers might do.
So, no problem, jlsteach with the misspelling. I thought that we were having a rather decent back and forth in the conversation-obviously we don’t see eye to eye on quite a number of education issues, but at least the dialogue is there. To quote Johnny Prine “That’s what makes the world go round” (and the pitfall of a misunderstood verse):
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“he is advocating for a top down command and control system like the two mentioned communist countries have” – China is not a communist country, its ruling clique is called Communist Party, this does not make the country communist. Ditto the Soviet Union, it never has been communist, not a day. It was a sort of peoples’ dictatorship if you will. Hopefully we’re done with definitions; with wrong definitions you can get a wrong solution to a problem, like calling white male landowners “the people” when mucking the Constitution.
You seem to have come from the 19th century. You doctor comes to your home at your first call, instead of you waiting on the line for a chance to schedule an appointment two weeks ahead. You get your milk in a glass bottle at your door instead of buying plastic jugs at a supermarket. Your local sheriff knows you by name and does not freak out when you pull up your pants (what if you wanted to pull out a gun instead?). The democracy you are talking about is long gone, if it existed at all. This country is just like Russia now, top-down control, over there by some shady men, over here by corporations, but the outcome is the same – small people are being screwed. Over there Orthodox Christians are taking over (they do need some ideology after all), over here right religious groups are grabbing more and more power. I tried fighting with my local district, they don’t budge, moreover they say that they are just elem/middle, and to have what I want they need to handle it together with high school district, but they are different districts, so you know, screw me.
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It sounds as though several folks think the Common Core State Standards are curriculum standards…they are not…they are assessment standards. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000) are Curriculum Standards and are broken down by grade ranges (K-2, 3-5, 6-9, 8-12) to show that topics need not be taught in specific grades, but rather in a range of grades because these Mathematics teachers realized that all students are different and learn in different ways and at different rates of speed. Using the Common Core as curriculum standards narrows the curriculum as we all know and this tends to force teachers (as many of the responders indicated) to teach is specific ways…teach to the test. It is my contention (and has been since I was a classroom teacher and department chair) that if one has developed a solid curriculum, if one then teaches that curriculum in ways that students can understand, then they should do well on any assessments, assuming the assessments are well structured. We all know, though, that the “state assessments”, I.e. PARCC, are not well structured and do not provide any useful information about anything.
I am currently teaching a Mathematics for elementary teachers course to college freshmen and sophomores. I stress the NCTM standards and reference the Common Core only because I know they will be facing them In the classroom as, unfortunately. I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon.
As to quality teachers, go into any school…elementary, middle, high school and even college and one will find good quality teachers who work hard to make education and learning interesting, enjoyable and enriching, …plus a few who should have found a different career. But this is true of any profession. Consider the number of doctors, lawyers, etc etc etc who also should have found a different career path.
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The Common Core was created as part of an integrated system in which all the parts were intertwined and teachers had no autonomy. Standards, curriculum, assessment, textbooks, teacher education, college admissions exams, curriculum materials, teacher professional development–all were supposed to be wrapped tightly around the Common Core.
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How could assessment standards not be curriculum standards? If it’s going to be tested, how can it not be taught?
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The authors of common core chose a very peculiar stance: it is not a curricula, it is a set of standards. Yet, if you cared to read these “standards” you would find very specific instructions of teaching certain things. So it is more than just a set of specs, yet is under-baked for being a complete curriculum. Teachers DO USE it as curriculum, but whenever argument arises about how this or that is being taught, the common core guys retort with “this is not a curriculum”. Right. In any case, in grades 3-8 it is used as curriculum, because it is bolted dead on to elementary and middle school classes. The 9-11 portion is supposedly less rigid, but as I vented above, becomes pretty much as rigid as in middle school. For example:
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/access-denied-algebra-in-eighth-grade-and-egalitarianism/
https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/2018/01/31/residents-voice-concerns-to-school-board-about-proposed-math-program-changes
One may think that I am contradicting myself: I am for a federal curricula, but when more and more California districts switch to the same rigid curricula with clear-cut progression of courses I hate it. Right, a dilemma. Well, I want a well-defined basic federal curricula with electives and acceleration options for EVERYONE in the country. As of now, I see fewer choices than before, yet the curriculum is not universal across the country, heck even across my state. So the inequality remains, but it is harder to break out, because they say it is common core that requires them to do this (it is not). They think that by teaching watered down algebra in 9th grade and by watering down the tests they will get better scores. And the scores is all that matters for them. Good scores make everyone look good. Good scores ensure funding and bonuses. What parents look for when they research schools? Scores and whether teachers are “nice”. No one cares that a particular school has no math textbooks whatsoever, and that homework is not given because the copying machine died, so the EngageNY worksheets could not be printed.
I guess this particular blog post is not the best tribune for me to vent…
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Timely, yet still does not prove that national program/curriculum is bad in principle. Just proves that greedy idiots should not be in the government: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/12/teaching-is-on-the-road-to-hell-the-story-of-the-national-curriculum-proves-it
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We have had Common Core since 2010. Hasn’t shown any progress anywhere.
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“Patience is a Virtue”
A decade’s not enough
For Common Core success
I know it might be tough
But fifty years is best
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We must learn from the mistakes
Made in 2001
When we thought in13 years
100% proficiency would be done
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“How to beat our enemies”
To beat them in a war
We needn’t fire a shot
Just send them Common Core
And watch them go to pot
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war/we, in/need and the whole needn’t thing… I am sure you can do better.
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¿Quién es usted?
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Un pendejo.
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Good grief! SDP is not shooting for a national poetry award here. Are you familiar with poetic license? I am sure you can do better.
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Yes, in/need, indeed, I have a poetic license and (for anyone else who has not noticed the obvious) I am not afraid to use (or even abuse) it.
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Poet, ignore him, he is being a self-centered, know-nothing jerk with his nose in the air.
We love you, and he can go…….do something to himself that I cannot say without being banned.
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And I’m sure that you absolutely cannot do better.
Who the he!! do you think you are? Who died and made you critic of the blog?
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I am the first (or second, at least) to admit that my goofy stuff stretches the definition of “poetry” to it’s elastic limit — and often beyond.
I learned from the best: Dr. Seuss.
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SomeDAM Poet is obviously in need of schooling.
Not the old, 18th century model that we see in SO many of our PUBLIC schools, today. No! SD Poet needs “Personalized Learning” in a charter or private school setting so that he can get the individualized care he needs.
So that, surely; he can and will do better.
In need of schooling
and deft retooling,
Our SomeDAM Poet
Will someday know it
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“Pearsonalized Poetry”
Poetic test
Is multiple choice
Poetic best
Is Pearsonal voice:
A? or B?
Or C? or D?
That, you see
Is poetry
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SomeDAM Poet: my comment was childish and uncalled for. I apologize.
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Thanks but there was no offense taken.
I’m not a real poet and don’t pretend to be.
As I have stated several times in the past, Dr. Seuss is my favorite poet, so that should tell you all you need to know.
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““Pearsonalized Poetry”
Poetic test
Is multiple choice
Poetic best
Is Pearsonal voice:
A? or B?
Or C? or D?
That, you see
Is poetry”
Clear and concise. You get an A+ for this one, Poet!
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Sorry. This should work better.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2018/02/10/charter-schools-bilk-you-dump-kids-and-lawmakers-dont-care/324359002/
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Lynn, that’s a great article. Will post in time.
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Dr. Ravitch, I thought you’d want to see that. By the way, I have some stories you might want for your book. Let me know where to send them.
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Sorry. This should work better.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2018/02/10/charter-schools-bilk-you-dump-kids-and-lawmakers-dont-care/324359002/
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Great news. An entire nation! We should follow suit.
Uphill struggle for us, here in the States, though. I just read this in my NY Times Daily Briefing:
“• Bill and Melinda Gates published the annual update for their foundation today. They remain optimistic about the world’s progress and addressed how President Trump’s policies haves affected their philanthropic work.”
“…remain optimistic about the world’s progress…”?
Who the hell ARE these people!? Self appointed guardians of the universe?
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“Ok, let’s all say Gates…I mean grace”
God is Gates
God is good
Thank Him for our schools
Amen
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VAMthem
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It’s unreal just how much power these people can wield with their wealth.
I’m trying to imagine myself at a party:
“I’m pretty optimistic about the world’s progress”.
Right…
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I’m trying to imagine myself saying “I’m optimistic about my own progress”.
If there is one thing these people do not lack it is self-esteem.
Narcissus ain’t got nothing on Gatesissus.
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“Gatesissus”
When Gates beholds a mirror
He sees the Apple guy*
Reflection is in error
But Gates don’t wonder why
*Steve Jobs
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Sanity, finally! Good for New Zealand!
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New Zealand had its own GERM in 1984 when a largely state run system became a defacto one with ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ reform. Then most schools became largely autonomous with their own Boards of Trustees tasked to work out how the school should operate but within a national curriculum ad with funding provided by the state for the day to day running of the school and teachers/principals salaries paid from the central budget. Charter Schools here operated a little like this but with relaxed rules around needing qualified teachers and almost everything else. For example at the same time that state schools were bullied (this is the right word) into National Standards Charter schools were free of them. The thing being that the funding for charter schools still came from the state from the same bucket that everything else in education was paid from. The goal clearly was to break teacher unions which actually aren’t that strong here. Most teachers fall back on the ‘we can’t do much (against bad policy) because it will affect the kids’ line whether they believe that or not.
It didnt really matter about Charter Schools or National Standards. The charter movement is tiny and most folk are happy with schools in NZ. Teachers rate highly in every poll about most trusted people/profession and we have a way here of subverting or ignoring rubbish foisted in our schools by doing what is legislated for in that regard but not letting it get in the way of good teaching and learning.
Bad policy has contributed to challenges in NZ education and yes we as teachers have, mostly, done our bit to fight against their biggest negative effects but what has really got in the way of NZ education in the last 30 years is neoliberalism which has seen us go from being the most egalitarian country in the world (and I might suggest fairest) to being the antithesis of that. We are only now with a change of government fighting to address this issue – the biggest issue in the education room in every country.
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And may I add that the important thing is not being free (as I guess in the land of the free) but being fair (as in fair play)
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