Bill and Melinda Gates release an annual letter, updating the public about their activities.
In this post, Peter Greene reviews their latest annual report and is struck by how blind they are to their mistakes.
He notices two constant features:
1) He is almost always wrong.
2) He never learns anything.
“If we look at last fall’s speech (both the pre-speech PR and the actual edited-down version he delivered), we can see that Gates knows he’s supposed to be learning things, that a shift in direction and emphasis needs to look like a pivot based on a learning curve, and not just flailing off blindly in another direction because the previous flails didn’t turn out like you hoped (against all evidence and advice) they would.
“What looks on the surface like an admission of failure turns out to be an assignment of blame. Small schools, teacher evaluation, merit pay, and the ever-unloved Common Core have all been a bust, and yet somehow, their failure is never the result of a flawed design, a bad concept, or being flat-out wrong about the whole picture. What Gates invariably announces he’s “learned” is that he was basically correct, but he underestimated just how unready people were to welcome his rightness, and he needs to tweak a few features.
“So Tough Question #2 was “What do you have to show for the billions you’ve spent on U.S. education?” And his short answer is “A lot, but not as much as either of us would like.”
“This is classic Gates. “The Zune was a huge success, but we needed to tweak the matter of customers not wanting to buy them.” “Mrs. Lincoln thought the play was a triumph, but we might need to tweak that last part a bit.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“So Tough Question #2 was “What do you have to show for the billions you’ve spent on U.S. education?”
That’s easy. Influence. He bought influence. The money is the one and only reason he has such a profound impact on elected leaders.
He already has money. Now he wants power, and directing policy for 50 million public school families is a lot of power.
This man” fails up” every time he decides to throw his money into the game. He has caused more misery in Africa than their own corrupt governments have caused. His money in Africa has caused collaboration to cease among the medical communities in lieu of competition for money. If Bill could just throw the money into the mix and then shut his mouth he wouldn’t be such a vile humanoid, but he has to throw in his money and then stir the pot so that he can sit and watch the madness ensue. It’s a sick game for him. It’s so dystopian that it’s hard to believe that it’s real.
Gates’ EGO is larger than his mega mansion. This is why he can’t see himself and all the harm he has created for his own profits. Gates is just a marketer of BAD ideas, from which he benefits while those who use his products are at his mercy.
Wish he would just go live in his Utopia in the desert, build a wall around it, and lock himself in the compound along with the other deformers.
Have you seen pictures of his mansion?
It looks like it was designed by a committee.
Utterly tasteless.
Not unlike his software.
And his school “reform”
There seems to be a pattern…
If you want to know how Windows UI has been designed, why not just reading about it? Unlike Common Core, there were multitude of usability tests, at least back in Windows 3.1/95 era, and a Common Controls library has been created to be used in each and every Windows application to ensure uniformity because – you guessed it! – uniformity means predictability, which means ease of use, which means increased productivity.
Common curriculum for all the states, does it ring a bell?
I know quite a bit about Windows, going back to the very beginning because I was working as a software engineer writing programs that ran on Windows (from Windows 3.1 onward) and on DOS before that.
If Microsoft was testing their stuff, you sure could have fooled me!
As a software engineer, I was actually frightened by lot of the Microslop that I had to interface with.
I also worked with MS developer tools (eg, for Windows CE) that were often poorly documented (if at all).
But you are right about the approach to standards being similar to the approach to software with regard to “uniformity” (uniformly poor?).
I have pointed that out here myself on many occasions.
The whole point of Common Core was to produce a single standard that companies could write software for without having to customize everything. The fact that the standard was copyrighted meant that it could not easily be changed, which made the development and maintenance process much easier for companies “interfacing” with the standard.
@SomeDAM Poet
nowadays it is either copyrighted or public domain. Apparently, they did not want to make it public domain, but the copyright is a friendly Creative Commons one, so I would not regard it as a predicament.
As a computer user, I prefer all apps to have the same principles and look, this is much easier than figuring out how each particular app works.
“As a computer user, I prefer all apps to have the same principles and look, this is much easier than figuring out how each particular app works.”
The same is true about kids: the more they look the same and the more they work according to the same design principles, the easier it is to use them for various purposes.
Taken alone, the copyright on CC might not seem a predicament, but what you obviously don’t understand is that there is a larger context in which the copyright exists: states had to sign an agreement that they would use the CC as is (in it’s entirety, with no changes) and that they would not add any more than 15% of their own material to their total state standards package.
“States that choose to align their standards to the common core standards agree to ensure that the common core represents at least 85 percent of the state’s standards in English language arts and mathematics.”
There is irony here: your focus on the copyright illustrates perfectly the problem of “close reading” that takes no account of the larger context.
Simply reading the copyright in isolation does not tell anything close to the whole story in this case.
Huh?
Double Huh?! Diane has been writing sensible articles for a long time, day after day. Maybe I am missing a sarcastic or ironic comment?
As usual, everything has become very politicized. I agree with Gates. I disagree with Gates. There is good in the common core. There was bad with the common core.
No one spends the time openly analyzing both sides for fear of the opposition manipulating any positive feedback. So there never will be any honest resolution.
As an educator in the field – for the sake of the kids – it truly breaks my heart.
As Bob Shepherd has repeatedly documented (see, for instance, below), there is little good and much harm in CCSS because, among many other things, the standards (indeed, the very idea of standards) rests on a lot of flawed assumptions.
But even if CCSS had been pure rainbows and unicorns, it would still be harmful because it was imposed top-down, with no room for correction, and inextricably linked to harmful, punitive tests which have narrowed the curriculum down to math and something that remotely resembles reading (if you squint hard and drink heavily).
If we’re going to have standards at all (and if it were up to me, I’d say no), they have to be voluntary guidelines that can be varied based on the needs of individual groups of students, there has to be room for correction and re-working of the standards, and they can’t be tied to any testing, most especially not high-stakes testing.
Are you referring to federal standards or standards in general?
Any standards really. The presumption behind standards is that without being told from above what to teach, teachers are, to quote West Virginia Governor Justice, “dumb bunnies” who wouldn’t know what to teach. Standards are inherently top-down, authoritarian and distrustful of teachers and students, whereas real education can only happen in a bottom-up environment where teacher and student voice and needs are front and center.
Another presumption behind standards is that students are too stupid to switch gears if they move. Little Johnny moves from Illinois where he’s learning about adjectives and fractions and the Civil War to Indiana where he learns about run-on sentences and percentages and the Teapot Dome scandal. Oh nos! How is Little Johnny ever going to adjust??? Is it really such a problem that Little Johnny has a different set of knowledge from his Hoosier peers? Can’t he learn from them and they from him?
Education is inherently a relationship among the student, his/her teacher(s) and peers. It cannot be standardized or teacher-proofed without losing what makes it education rather than indoctrination. It’s about an exchange of ideas, information and reality testing (experimentation) relative to each participant’s actual life, not some formulaic set of knowledge or skills to be poured into each kid’s head.
I disagree. The toughest things to teach would be avoided by most teachers (unless they put a tremendous amount of money for smaller class sizes, but that’s not even a guarantee).
You have little faith in teachers.
“CCSS … would still be harmful because it was imposed top-down” – your whole existense on this planet was imposed top-down, whether you believe in God the maker of everything or evolution. So what? Does not say much about the quality of the end product besides reflecting bitterness and resentment.
“with no room for correction” – not true. CCSS is just a basic blueprint. If a particular disctrict or principal does not allow for additions or corrections, it is not a CCSS’s problem.
“inextricably linked to harmful, punitive tests” – a whole week of 5-hour tests is crazy, I agree. And no value for students, teachers, or parents. But other tests are no better, for example NWEA, that does not tell you more than a number score, half a year after the test was taken.
“narrowed the curriculum down to math and something that remotely resembles reading” – it is not a curriculum, and it is not narrowed. Only math and ELA were standardized more or less, everything else is still up for grabs for the states, which I think is a mistake. Chicago public school district decided to make physics a mandatory requirement for high school graduation, but one third of Chicago high schools simply don’t offer physics even if one wanted to take it! Is this also CCSS’s fault?
Education is America is laughable. Thirteen years at school with physics and chemistry not mandatory. It is a joke, no matter public, charter or private schools are.
Gruff,
Let’s stipulate that any standardized test used for aboountability, for grading and ranking students, teachers, and schools, is worthless. When used at all, such tests should be diagnostic.
I am an average teacher and work in an advanced public school – probably one of the best in the country. My fellow teachers think I’m an intellectual elitist. I’ll be the first to sadly admit that is not true.
But even at an advanced school, I can tell you that teachers represent an average educated person in this country. You can’t expect us average people to always achieve above average work all the time – especially with average salaries. Teachers will always be overworked, underpaid, and have a tremendous amount of demands outside of the classroom as a result.
It is not about having little faith in teachers. Nothing is wrong with average educated people needing guidance.
The standards needed to be tested before full implementation – no doubt! But mainly because so many people had little idea what to do with them. The curriculum materials never matched up, most administrators did not fully understand them, and teachers, as well as students, were left deeply confused and annoyed.
The CCSS has caused a great deal of harm due to its implementation, but not necessarily the standards themselves.
CCSS is defective in the assumption that all children will learn at the same rate and by grade 12 will be college and career ready. It ignores students with disabilities and ELL. It is developmentally inappropriate for young children. It prioritizes informational text over fiction and poetry for no good reason. It has led to a decrease in the teaching of literature. It was designed to be tested. Close reading, that is, without context, is absurd. Other than that…
“CCSS is defective in the assumption that all children will learn at the same rate” – in Finland, education system of which you seem to praise, they do not have tracking or GATE, and all pupils learn at more or less the same rate – yes, as you noted, the detailed curriculum may vary, but the main goalposts set by the government, are set quite firmly. As for those with disabilities, a modern well-developed society should have few of them, and they should have their own curriculum. CCSS was designed for normal people. The increasing number of developmental defects in the American children may be a sign of a bigger problem: bad food, bad environment, late birth, etc. ELL? Finland is dual-language country, they seem to have no problem with that.
Whenever they talk about ELL in the U.S. they usually mean Spanish, they allowed to teach in Spanish – again – in California after passing the new bill, but I think this is a mistake: there should be a single national language, AND there should be mandatory foreign language classes starting no later than 6th grade. Presently, it is completely inside-out: foreign-language classes are electives in high school, few students take them, and they cannot learn it well enough in just one or two years. At the same time, Spanish-speaking kids talk Spanish, watch Spanish-language TV, immersed in Spanish-language environment, which harms their English language skills.
I have visited Finnish schools and no one ever said that all children proceed through school at the same pace. Since there are no standardized tests, it is impossible to substantiate that claim.
There is nothing in the Finnish curriculum that tells teachers to downgrade poetry and fiction and to favor informational text.
Finnish children are healthier than American children because few of them live in poverty, whereas we have the highest child poverty rate of any OECD nation. They have guaranteed health care, we do not. They have tuition-free higher education, we do not. They have no standardized tests to steal time from instruction. They have a 15-minute break after every class, time to play. They emphasize the arts, we cut them.
“As for those with disabilities, a modern well-developed society should have few of them, and they should have their own curriculum.” I do not hear a teacher talking here. Do you know what ELL stands for? Do you know that there are districts with over forty different languages spoken? Can you even imagine what it is like to sit in a classroom and be expected to learn when you don’t know the language? Do you understand that the “disabled” are not some homogenized group that can be shunted to the side with a dumbed down curriculum?
I could go on. You have joined a forum that basically was started as a place where teachers’ voices could be heard. (Correct me if I am wrong, Diane.) Diane welcomes everyone. Stay awhile and listen. Asks questions. Save the attack mode until you know what you are talking about.
“Pace” was a wrong term. Just like you can get from A to B by walking, running, by car or by train. If you walk you experience the travel first hand, if you fly then you just board and get off, but you are getting to the same destination at the end of the leg, and start the next leg with everyone else. They cannot have someone who still learns multiplication table and others who already have started algebra at the same grade level. The slowpokes will get simpler problems and fewer of them, but they visit the same major destinations so to speak.
CCSS is defective in the assumption that all children will learn at the same rate (not true) and by grade 12 will be college and career ready (this is true). It ignores students with disabilities and ELL (this was somewhat true). It is developmentally inappropriate for young children (this at times was true in math only). It prioritizes informational text over fiction and poetry for no good reason (not true). It has led to a decrease in the teaching of literature (not true). It was designed to be tested (oddly, true). Close reading, that is, without context, is absurd (“close reading” is just another word for analyzing). Other than that…
The most honest and wise resolution is to get rid of those supposed “standards” and let the teacher determine what works.
How did this country become what it is without education standards prior to the CCSS?
Your good cop/bad cop routine is nothing more than mushmind thinking. Read what Noel Wilson has proven about the fallacies and errors involved with “educational standards” to understand. Read and comprehend the most important piece of educational writing in the last 50 years “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 and get back to us.
Are you in the classroom right now?
At this very moment, no! (sorry couldn’t resist, it’s the smartass in me). I retired from teaching a couple of years back mainly due to health issues. I taught for 21 years starting when I was 39. I have a MA in ed admin and was certified to be an adminimal.
I have done a number of other jobs throughout my life. I am a master upholsterer, although I don’t do it anymore, either. I won’t bore you with all the other positions I’ve held.
“They are future cogs and gears in the economy.”
NO! They are not “future cogs and gears in the economy”. Were you being facetious with that comment. If so, my sarcasmometer (which can also detect facetiousness) needs recalibration. I wonder which one of those prior cogs or gears can repair it/recalibrate it.
Since at least Aristotle, who decried using people as a means and not treating them as an ends in and of themselves, most realize that humans ought not be viewed as something to be used by other humans. I’d bet you understand that concept NYTeacher. And no, we teachers don’t “produce” anything much less students who would become worker bees.
You see the fundamental purpose of public education (as derived from the 50 states’ constitutions) is “to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.” (From Ch 1-The Purpose of Public Education in “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education” by Duane. Swacker.) Now if a person after their schooling, or even if while attending decides they would like to take a job that one might be considered as a cog or gear in the system, hey that’s their choice, but it is not the public school’s mandate to produce those “future cogs and gears”.
Ba dum tss. I always appreciate silly jokes. You never have to apologize.
In addition to the point Duane makes here and in numerous other posts about the futility of a cross the board standards, I would like to add another. The best teachers are the ones who are sort of their own human beings. We need these kind of people in education. Their little trips off by themselves might not work all the time, but some of the independent thinking has become standard and accepted through a slow assimilation process.
The idea of standards repels these people. If left to the standards writers, school would be taught by humans who were little better than computer screens, joyless wonks providing about the same stimulation as a toasted oat flake. What bright creative kid will take a job that Tampa him down like clay in a post hole? We need to jettison standards to attract good kids. We can never pay them enough, so give them what independent thinkers crave, academic freedom and respect.
Sorry for the auto correct error, the word is tamps. As in to tamp something down. Maybe auto correct was not educated through the CCSS
I found the Tampa down to be humorous. Machine intelligence, eh!
Roy: yes, yes, yes
Roy,
“The best teachers are the ones who are sort of their own human beings.” – Huh?
“but some of the independent thinking has become standard and accepted through a slow assimilation process.” – standard?
“The idea of standards repels these people.” – the people, whos thinking has become standard, are being repelled by what they produced? Are they, like, impersonations of God?
“If left to the standards writers, school would be taught by humans who were little better than computer screens, joyless wonks providing about the same stimulation as a toasted oat flake.” – do you know what standards are? It is that for a round peg there should be a round not square hole. I know, kids are not pegs. They are future cogs and gears in the economy. Do you want them to have a job so they would be paid so they could afford food and home? Then they should possess some skills to be able to participate in the economy. Are you saying, they are above this lowly goals? They need to fly high, to read poetry, to sing songs, to discover the laws of algebra all by themselves just like the al-Khwarizmi did long time ago? This is all fine, but they will be living on a street.
“We need to jettison standards to attract good kids” – what about the 95% of the grey mass? Hopefully you’ll teach them enough arithmetic so they could push dope without going bankrupt.
“what about the 95% of the grey mass?”
Really, I mean REALLY. “the grey mass”. Is that how you view the students in your classes. REALLY, I suggest you get out of teaching. You may not think that your attitude shows, but I can guarantee that many students are picking up on your “bad vibes” about them. “Grey mass” WOW and OUCH!
“to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
It just struck me Duane,…do you suppose that enjoying “the fruits of their own industry” might not just be restricted to enjoying being able to do stuff but might have something to do with gainful employment. I really did enjoy getting a paycheck for “the fruits of my industry.” 🙂 (I also enjoyed the (inter)act(ion) of teaching.)
Yes, what you describe can definitely be a part of the meaning. Industry here doesn’t necessarily mean “business” but for hard work, doing one’s own choosing in any activity, etc. . . . Just as the “pursuit of happiness” is a broad undefined category, “fruits of one’s industry” should be viewed as a similar broad category.
One of the keys is that it is the individual’s right and responsibility to determine what those things mean, not the government and especially not the government through the schools. Over the years I’ve seen quite a few teachers who believe that they should “control” (at least as much as they can) what those things mean to students. And I couldn’t/can’t agree with those teachers.
We agree. We can present material, but we have no control over what actually sticks/has meaning for the student.
Gruff
You didn’t answer Duane’s question, which is a very good one:
How is it that our country did so well for all those decades without national standards?
And for future reference, it’s “grey matter”, not “grey mass”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_matter
Matter is the material “stuff”. Mass is a measurement of the amount of matter. And “grey matter” refers specifically to the matter in the brain.
As a former science teacher, I cringe when people confuse very basic scientific terms.
Most people learn the difference between matter and mass in middle school science (or before) and learn specifically about “grey matter” in high school biology.
“Gray matter”
Which appears as dark matter in Devos’ or Gates’ brain.
@SomeDAM Poet
Meant to say “masses”, but thanks for correction.
Why the country did well without standards? One did not need a college degree to assemble cars in Motor City. Screw up together big cars and get decent pay and pension – these times are gone. Really, don’t even need high school diploma. so it was irrelevant what school taught.
Ten years ago, when Apple was looking for a bunch of mid-level engineers, they could not find enough, so they moved production to China, where such people – not the superstars, but solid mid-level specialists – are in abundance thanks for standardized and efficient system of education. Apple said it would take nine months to gather required staff from the whole country into one place, and they would not know for sure that these people possess similar skills. Volkswagen could not find enough qualified people to work on their new plant, so they opened their own vocational/engineering school. Same for Toyota.
I think they outsourced because engineers were so much cheaper and day workers lived on campus and were available 24/7 for assembly at about $1 an hour. American workers can’t live on that.
SomeDAM Poet and Duane E. Swacker:
“How is it that our country did so well for all those decades without national standards?”
I’ll answer this for Gruff (and I agree Gruff sounds very condescending much of the time, but other commenters are pretty harsh on Gruff as well).
I don’t think we are in a good place right now:
Trump is president. He made it as president. The role of president of the united states will NEVER have the same meaning for me again. Time and time again, he can say such dopey things and because we have gotten so numb to it all, we only call out the worst. And the best the other side can come up with is Oprah…? Is celebrity the only way to become president now? That’s a good place?
Climate Change is happening. As much as we rip on Trump, how many of us are fighting to change our recycling laws and spend the extra time to really separate trash in the proper bins. How many of us, separate the little piece of plastic from the envelopes we get in the mail because its not suppose to go in paper (this is true!). We do as much so we don’t get fined but if we are truly to believe in extensive devastation that appears to be happening, how come most of us aren’t doing something about it? New York City does not go as far as it needs to — we are way behind countries like Germany.
Most of us have Facebook and use Amazon. There is plenty of warnings about technocrats (yes, including Bill Gates!) and yet, even if we all agree how awful they are: We post, we purchase, we Uber.
This youngest generation, for the first time in a long time, is FINALLY giving me hope. As I just wrote this last sentence… you know, maybe the scores are down globally, but is it possible that there might be something positive about common core? Again, not the tests, but the (dare I say it) “close reading” aspect?
NY Teacher,
Since you are impressed by “close reading,” can you explain why it makes sense to read The Gettysburg Address while knowing nothing at all about the context, about the Civil War or Lincoln? Can you explain how to understand Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” without having anyknowledge of segregation, racism, and the civil rights movement?
I think that Dr. Kings speech “Beyond Vietnam” can be quite easily understood.
Gruff, if a student knows nothing about the war in Vietnam, nothing about the Civil Rights Movement, and nothing about Dr. King, would they understand as well as students with historical context?
The purpose of close reading is to prepare students to read decontextualized questions on standardized tests.
That is not good education.
The purpose of close reading is to be able to locate a subject, an object, a predicate, an adjective and adverb in a sentence. Also, if a subject A is then used in another sentence as a subject, then clearly this is the same entity doing something, if it is used as an object, then something is done with it. If it was mentioned three paragraphs away, then a student must recall it. Close reading indeed does not require much context, it requires understanding syntax, the structure of the sentences, how the tenses work, how the suffixes and endings work. Basically, treating text like a formula, into which you can put “variables” and get back final “value”. Close reading is about making connections, memorizing intermediate results, using logic and make judgments based on interconnections of words, not on their actual meaning.
As for your specific question, I think students will understand the meaning of “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government” or “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” without historical context, just look around and read recent news.
Sorry, Gruff, context is necessary for understanding. The Gettysburg Address is not meaningful to a person who reads English but never heard of the Civil War or Lincoln.
You argue for empty procedural skills.
Read E.D. Hirsch. At first he hailed the Common Core, thinking it was Core Knowledge. Then he realized it was the same decontextualized and empty skills that he spent many years critiquing.
“The purpose of close reading is to be able to locate a subject, …”
Just reread your own paragraph closely about objects, subjects and whatnot. I fell asleep. This is how they taught Russian and then English languages to me 50 years ago. They thought, if they taught languages with appealing rational concepts like grammar, rules of pronunciation, if we “understood” how a language is made up, we’ll learn faster, better, because we do not spend time on guessing and correcting errors. With this focus on rules instead of context, they eliminated the main motivation to learn a language—namely to communicate with it.
Whenever I sit down to read a text I want to understand, I have a context, a motivation: I need to understand a user guide to the new smart television, instructions to fill out a form, or a scientific paper. But even then, I do not try to identify what the object, the subject and whatnot are.
What is notable is that even these nonliterary, typically hard to read texts have been changing nowadays: user guides are often replaced by pictures (IKEA is a master in these), and modern scientific papers are much more comprehensible as pictures and graphs replace longish explanations—exactly as scientists communicate with each other in real life when they meet.
In other words, even in scientific communication we appeal to the unconscious much more often than to rational descriptions and understanding that are pregnant with rigorous rules and definitions.
When I see a paragraph that is supposed to develop or test close reading skills, I am completely puzzled, because I see a purposely difficult text with no context and I have absolutely no motivation to read it other then satisfying the teacher or test requirements.
Hence it appears, close reading is an empty skill, and its advocates try to appeal to a mode of communication that is very old fashioned. Coleman and friends are simply out of touch with reality.
In Common Core, one of the math counterparts of close reading is the perpetual overcomplication of simple math or algorithms with the claim that it promotes deeper understanding. It’s a bs skill never used by anybody, especially not by mathematicians.
In case of addition of two numbers, in CC they don’t allow the kids to use the simple method of adding two numbers, but the kids are forced to learn a specific, extremely cumbersome way of adding two numbers which they claim shows the kids’ understanding of why the algorithm works.
It’s the equivalent of not allowing the kids just to brush their teeth before going to bed, but demanding every night that they explain why tooth brushing is important, why toothpaste is needed, how the actual brushing works on the surface of the tooth, and what are the possible pitfalls of incorrect brushing. If they mess up any part of the explanation, even if their brushing is correct, they get punished.
Here is the perfect exhibition of what I am referring to. Please read the “helpful” notes sent to parents. They are maddening even to me, though I am a mathematician.
https://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/common-core-math-problems/
I followed the link to the “explanation” of the math problems. What a bunch of S**T!!!! I have a degree in mathematics/computer science and those “algorithms” are worse than useless-they don’t teach the student ANYTHING. The parent’s cheat sheet is even worse-it reminds me of the NEW MATH that was foisted upon students in the dark past. It complicates something that should be easy and fun.
So, Core Knowledge is better than Common Core?
Core Knowledge is a content-based program. It is not a national curriculum.
Common Core is a scripted skills-based program masquerading as a national curriculum.
“Since you are impressed by “close reading,” can you explain why it makes sense to read The Gettysburg Address while knowing nothing at all about the context, about the Civil War or Lincoln? Can you explain how to understand Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” without having any knowledge of segregation, racism, and the civil rights movement?”
I hope if you are asking, you are sincerely interested in listening with an open mind and heart.
If someone was to do those examples, I can only imagine they wanted to read it repeatedly throughout the historical unit. There would be different approaches depending on where you are — one without context (but remember: there would always be SOME context – if it was the Gettysburg Address, then students would at this point know the reasons for getting into the Civil War), while gaining context, and lastly, with the context.
It allows students to be reflective on what they are reading, that sometimes it is necessary to re-read difficult materials as you become knowledgable on the subject manner, and how you might change and adapt your investigation on a topic as you gain interest and develop a personalized opinion. This is true to life — when reading about world issues or politicians that are new to you and you need to understand these things on your own.
I wouldn’t take the SAME approach with every unit, and I would be very selective with the resources – something that can really be rewarding and motivate the students. BUT it is definitely a worthwhile way of doing things, yes.
Reading without context is foolish. Good test prep, not understanding.
Ok, so you give some historical background info to the students, then want the students to read some sources related to the material, then have a class discussion on this where students would give their interpretation of the text. But why test them on this? In fact, I do not even understand the relationship of a class discussion to a (possibly standardized) test taken by individual students. After all, a historical text can have all kinds of different interpretations. See the Constitution.
That was a really close-minded, knee-jerk response. I’m a teacher, not a bureaucrat. Very disappointing.
I donate and will continue to donate to NPE, and am grateful for all that you do to help fight public schools. Maybe the leaders of a dirty fight have to put blinders on to stay focused and continue moving forward, but I wish we could evolve from that.
Mate
I am not a mathematician, but I do have a fairly extensive math background, having a BS in physics.
I had the same reaction to CC math that you have.
I watched my nephews get bored to tears “explaining” (in several different ways) how they got the answer to what were very simple math problems.
And they were marked off even when they got the correct answer if they did not provide the required explanations.
Sadly, CC turned them both off to math.
And I don’t buy what many have claimed: that it was the implementation, not the standard that was the problem.
I don’t believe it is possible to separate the two.
Nor was that the intention of those who designed Common Core.
If you listen to what Bill Gates and David Coleman said early on, their clear intention was that there would be no separation between the standards, the curriculum and the tests.
Gates stated that “alignment” of the three was the goal and Coleman admitted that the tests would drive the teaching and presumably curriculum.
SDP, unfortunately, I had a very personal experience with CC: up to 6th grade my son loved math, and he, in fact, was gifted, as I discovered and his teachers also indicated it to me. Then in 7th grade, my son comes home, and tells me, he has a quick way of doing some algorithm in math, much faster and simpler than the teacher does it, but the teacher doesn’t want to hear about it, and on the last test, the teacher marked off all my son’s solutions. My son even told me “Dad, why did you tell me that my method is good when the teacher says, it’s not the correct way of solving problems?”
So I went to see the teacher, and he explained to me that my son needed to learn the official (the CC) method since that showed the understanding of the algorithm. I then asked the teacher if he understood my son’s quick way of doing the algorithm, and the teacher said “There is no need for me to even listen to it, because your son’s job is to learn the CC method so I can see the he understands why the algorithm works.” I then asked the teacher “Why is it useful for kids to show their understanding of the algorithm in every problem?” to which the teacher replied “As a mathematician, I am sure you can figure out an answer to your own question.”
And so my son stopped thinking about math. He simply obediently learned whatever and however the teacher told him to learn in class.
To this day, I have no idea, how I could have handled the situation better.
@Máté Wierdl
You linked to a whole page of pictures, so I don’t know what exactly is wrong there. Some of these problems and solutions are lame, others are idiotic, yet others are quite sensible. T “use the simple method of adding two numbers” one should know how addition in ten-based positional system works, and these examples you provided attempt to explain it. They are crude, but at least it is an attempt. Also, none of them as far as I can see are Common Core, because they do not seem to come from corestandards.org website. It is someone else’s take on the task of explaining how the decimal system works. Again, not a very successful implementation.
Gruff, what is wrong is that the way you see things on the pics is the way kids are told to solve problems—every problem involving addition. They are not allowed to use the simplest form of adding or subtracting numbers.
The pictures show various ways of understanding the algorithm.
As I said, the way teachers are told to teach CC math is like not allowing kids simply brush their teeth, but they also have to show, every single time they brush, an understanding of the importance of brushing. It makes no sense to the kids, it makes no sense to parents, and many (most) teachers are also puzzled by why they have to teach this way.
The following link gives a textual description of how adding 9 and 6 is supposed to be done in the spirit of Common Core. Unfortunately, the videos referenced in the text do not exist anymore.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/03/common-core-teaches-kids-new-way-to-add-9-6-that-takes-54-seconds/
Mate
Unfortunately, it sounds like your son and my nephews had very similar experiences.
My nephews were both very good and very interested in math until about the same age as your son.
And one of my nephews had an eerily similar experience to that of your son in getting many of his test questions marked wrong because he did not provide the explanations that the teacher was looking for.
The district I live in in CT actually had a pretty good math program until Common Core reared it’s head. I know of one high school math teacher who actually quit rather than teach it.
In a fair world, Jason Zimba, the chief author of the math standard (who made hundreds of thousands of dollars writing it, not incidentally) would be made to answer for what he imposed on students and teachers alike with no knowledge of how things would turn out.
But of course, he won’t ever be held accountable — or even admit any responsibility, for that matter. Like everyone else who had a hand in writing the standards, he blames “implementation” for what pretty much everyone now recognizes as substantial problems.
Translation: “Blame the text book publishers and blame the teachers, but don’t blame me!”
The ultimate irony is that Zimba himself admitted that the Cc math standards were not geared toward STEM.
Precisely whom it WAS geared toward is a mystery that perhaps only Jason Zimba knows the answer to. But he is not talking.
“Read E.D. Hirsch” – Isn’t Hirsch’s Core Knowledge “a circus trick, an effort to prove that a six-year-old can do mental gymnastics?”
Not necessarily. Hirsch is not a government. He can suggest but unlike Common Core, he cannot npmandate.
My background is not math, but my closest friend at school was an outstanding math teacher. She always taught “common core” before CCSS existed.
Like most teachers, she wasn’t one to spend time reading the standards. She would receive the assigned textbooks and get to work.
The truth is, she saw firsthand that the implementation was lost from the materials. She saw what they were trying to do, but got it all wrong. She retired as a result.
But at the same time, understanding the basis of what the standards were trying to do – she completely believed in.
Basically, the CCSS approach to math: instead of just telling students, “Here is the equation,” they present a problem and have the students figure out the equation: What do they have? What do they need?
But like everything, things go to extremes. Did we need to do this with addition? subtraction? multiplication? Division? And present this critical thinking skills at such a young age, probably not.
But starting with middle school, this approach is totally the right way to go.
“But starting with middle school, this approach is totally the right way to go.”
You are talking about teaching math so that it makes sense to the kids, but this is not what’s going in CC: it demands an explanation every time kids add two numbers. It’s like demanding a description of how the lung works every time you take a breath. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
NYTeacher, I think you are taken by the language of the CC standards. Just because they claim, the emphasis is on making kids better understand math, doesn’t mean that they gave us a system that promotes understanding.
Similarly, just because the CC authors claim that their system improves kids’ critical thinking, doesn’t mean, CC improves critical thinking.
Here is my favorite “critical thinking” video. Is there anybody on earth who thinks, the intentions of the teacher is good, just her implementation sucks? At best, she has no clue about what critical thinking is.
http://wd369.csi.hu/apu/sa_math.mp4
Goodnatured folks assume, the CC authors had good intentions, they just screwed up the implementation. CC authors had as good intentions as school reformers: they never wanted to make education better for the masses. No, they wanted to create a system which would allow “powerful market forces” to enter education.
I think the lesson of the last decade is that no system should be implemented in education which considers any other interests but the kids’.
Mate,
Although I don’t agree with everything that you said, you provided a fair argument.
Like I have consistently said, I don’t believe in the test themselves. To me, the theory behind the CCSS is untestable: You can grade a research paper, but can you “test” it. They would all have to be exactly the same. That’s insane.
With your tooth brushing analogy, the testing part I agree is silly, but as they age, shouldn’t all those things be a motivating aspect to why they continue to brush? Should things always be so robotic aka “Because I told you so.”? For the many tweens who refuse to brush, wouldn’t exploring tooth decay help?
“Should things always be so robotic aka “Because I told you so.”? For the many tweens who refuse to brush, wouldn’t exploring tooth decay help?”
We have to separate understanding in mathematics and using what we learned (like formulas) in mathematics. Both are important. Of course, the method of adding two numbers needs to make sense to kids . But they shouldn’t have to prove their understanding every time they add two numbers. In fact, understanding doesn’t improve at all and math usage becomes cumbersome.
Just think about breathing: if you are forced to say a sentence about lung function every time you take a breath, your breathing gets screwed up, while being able to repeat the same sentence about lung function doesn’t mean you understand how the lung works. Should kids have some understanding of how the lung works? Yes. Should they be allowed to breathe automatically? Yes.
In my over 30 year teaching experience in this country, schools have overemphasized usage of math at the expense of understanding (most other countries I know of are also guilty). But CC, instead of promoting understanding, made the situation far worse because it screwed up even the procedural parts of math.
Good discussion folks! Thanks!
@Máté Wierdl,
“Gruff, what is wrong is that the way you see things on the pics is the way kids are told to solve problems—every problem involving addition.” – which pics specifically? There are many pics on the page that you linked.
“They are not allowed to use the simplest form of adding or subtracting numbers.” – before knowing how to use “the simplest form” they need to learn why this simplest form works. I completely agree that the schools overused these pictures, they should be used sparingly only when teaching place value concepts. Not CCSS problem.
“The following link gives a textual description of how adding 9 and 6 is supposed to be done in the spirit of Common Core.” – I know about this video, it makes me cringe by using “decomposing”, “grouping” and oh, “anchoring”. It is crude, but the concept is sound and is not new. All this is as old as the decimal system itself. Nothing new has been invented in basic math education besides using sets and set operators to teach arithmetic (new math). Everything else is at least 300 years old or older. The video you linked to uses known concepts, but stilted language. It is a perversion, has nothing to do with CCSS per se. As you said, “in the spirit” of CCSS at best. Everyone thinks he can be an educator, or even worse, a snake oil pusher. They read a couple of books, invent “8 steps of adding numbers” and go around the country with lectures and shows, making it look like they invented something new and shiny. Lots of leeches who want a piece of pie for themselves, and they have it, because districts and schools are lazy, and because they need to spend funds allocated to them. More funding will not improve the situation.
“It is crude, but the concept is sound and is not new. All this is as old as the decimal system itself. ”
Again, you are arguing in general terms “Kids need to understand the decimal system”, exactly as the CC’s proponents do. It’s also true that kids need to learn about contraception, but the crucial question is when?
Do kids need to understand the decimal system at a conscious level to see why 9+6=15? If not, why torture them with it? On the other hand, they do need to memorize the sum of any 2 one digit numbers since it is needed later.
@Máté Wierdl
“Again, you are arguing in general terms “Kids need to understand the decimal system”, exactly as the CC’s proponents do.” – yay, I am on board with CCSS, let me have a drink, whiskey with Red Bull.
“It’s also true that kids need to learn about contraception, but the crucial question is when?” – that is what YOU think, lots of other people think that there is no reason for contraception, and therefore no reason for learning about it, especially learning about it in school.
“Do kids need to understand the decimal system at a conscious level to see why 9+6=15?” – of course, they do. How do YOU explain 9+6=15? Do you just ask them to memorize it? And also memorize 9+17 and 9+18 and 9+19… What about 264+395, do they need to memorize it too?
“If not, why torture them with it?” – Torture? Are you talking about Abu Ghraib or about eight-year old lazy snowflakes? Or about teachers who do not understand the principles of decimal system themselves?
Showing your age with that “whiskey with Red Bull” comment, eh!
“eight-year old lazy snowflakes”
Ay, ay, ay, effin ay!
Gotta whip those 8 year old lazy snowflakes into shape!
Gruff: “How do YOU explain 9+6=15? Do you just ask them to memorize it?”
As I told you, there is a simple explanation for why 9+6=15 via counting. Why bring in the decimal system and place value? Most 6-7 year olds won’t get it, and those who get it, sweat over it a great deal. But t’s not needed at all. What 6-7 old kids can do is get used to seeing place value and the decimal system in action, and they understand the difference between 15 and 51 without an in-depth, rational exploration of the decimal system. This is how kids learn language too: they do not get rational explanation for grammar, sentences, at age 2. They see and use the language in action, and when their brain is ready for a rational explanation, they get one—a full decade into already using the language.
Math is a language, and it should be taught as it best fits kids not as adults would like to do it.
So you see, there is absolutely nothing unusual in understanding something first unconsciously, and you get a rational explanation only later when your brain is ready, or you become curious about it.
Gruff: “And also memorize 9+17 and 9+18 and 9+19… What about 264+395, do they need to memorize it too?”
Of course not. As you know well, in the addition algorithm, you only need to know by heart the sum of two one digit numbers. Kids have absolutely no problem then with adding a one digit number to a 2 or more digit number, as in 9+17 and 9+18 and 9+19. To calculate 264+395, you already use the algorithm or use some kind of adhoc method. CC glorifies and calcifies these adhoc strategies, who knows why.
Another thing CC glorifies and calcifies is story problems. Story problems require translation between English and math. Is translation the best way to learn a language?
@Máté Wierdl
“As I told you, there is a simple explanation for why 9+6=15 via counting.” – the only way to explain this via counting is to treat “15” not as a decimal numeral, but as a symbol, like a Chinese or Japanese logograms. You would say that IIIIIIIIIIIIIII can be written as “15”. This is unproductive, because you cannot memorize the written form for all numbers. Also, this does not tell you that 8+7 will be 15 as well, or 12+3.
“Why bring in the decimal system and place value?” – um, because it directly specifies how numerals are written?
“Most 6-7 year olds won’t get it, and those who get it, sweat over it a great deal.” – not in my practice. The methods are known for several hundred years, you start with counters, then replace first nine counters with characters called digits. Then you say that if you want to have more than nine, you put it in a box and count boxes instead. Small boxes go into bigger boxes. What if there is one big box, no small boxes, and some units? You show how to use “0” for no boxes, and what happens if “0” is not used. It is dead simple, and it gives you the system for the whole infinity of numbers.
“they understand the difference between 15 and 51 without an in-depth, rational exploration” – only if they see these as separate symbols without deeper meaning. Sadly, many American students do not move above this logographic approach, it is even worse than using Roman numbers.
“Kids have absolutely no problem then with adding a one digit number to a 2 or more digit number, as in 9+17 and 9+18 and 9+19.” – I don’t know how you can do 9+19 without knowing place value.
“not in my practice.”
So what is your background, Gruff?
“only if they see these as separate symbols without deeper meaning.”
Do you also come up with a model to explain the “deeper” meaning of words, sentences, grammar to 6 year olds, since they wouldn’t understand what you are saying, they wouldn’t be able to speak?
I now start seeing clearly why reformers deemphasize the arts and play, and are convinced, kids can learn well by staring at a computer: they believe, all learning and understanding happen at a conscious, rational level. They believe, kids don’t get the meaning of the words “dog” or “love” without extensive explanations.
@Máté Wierdl
Are you a proponent of whole language? It works for few words, but when you want to read a word you never saw before you need to know the pattern. When you want to figure out who did what to whom, you need to know the word order in a sentence, and a way to figure out how they relate – you cannot do this with whole language. I do not disagree with the necessity of memorizing, but memorization happens only at the very early stage of learning, and should include only the bare minimum, after that analysis and synthesis take over.
Why do you say /ræt/ for “rat”, but /reɪt/ for “rate”? Because of the vowel at the end. It is a simple rule, which frees you from memorizing all the words from a dictionary. Moreover, it allows you to create new words and to read words that are not in the dictionary.
Your example with “dog” and “love” is about talking, not reading or writing. Alas, knowing how various objects are called does not provide you with rules for building complete sentences. To build a sentence one needs to know the rules of how sentences are built. Young kids learn these rules implicitly from their parents. If you think that children just memorize words than you are mistaken: children fish out the patterns from the spoken phrases, and use these patterns to build their own sentences. Later on, they learn formalized rules at school. Or not, in which case they say “would of” or “your fine” without even knowing why this “of” is there. Not only they do not know, they do not care, because they got used to memorizing instead of analyzing. That is the sort of “education” that you seem to promote.
Gruff “Not only they do not know, they do not care, because they got used to memorizing instead of analyzing. That is the sort of “education” that you seem to promote.”
Not at all. You clearly do not read what I am writing. You are in favor of complicated explanations (“deep analysis”), inappropriate for young kids, I am in favor of simple, natural explanations—those, which are given in Finnish schools. You are exhibiting exactly what is wrong with CC—including the non-listening attitude of its creators.
@Máté Wierdl
“You are in favor of complicated explanations (“deep analysis”), inappropriate for young kids, I am in favor of simple, natural explanations—those, which are given in Finnish schools.” – then EXPLAIN to me in your terms why 9+6=15. I am serious, I would really like to hear how to EXPLAIN it without mentioning place value. I would also be grateful, no kidding, if you point to the Finnish way of explaining this kind of stuff.
Do you get into a discussion with the kids about place value before you teach them how to count past nine? Do you draw boxes inside bigger boxes or whatever you do in your “practice” before you allow kids to hear and say fifteen? Once kids learned counting up to twenty, do they really need any more concepts to be able to figure out what nine plus six is?
Now, for some unknown reason to me, you changed the subject of adding two one-digit numbers, and you decided to focus on how we write things down in math, so you keep focusing on why we write fifteen as 15 and about the need to explicitly explain the “deeper” meaning of the digits 1 and 5.
Well, even here, a general discussion of place value is not yet needed. As kids learn to count, they get used to saying twentyfive, thirtyfive and write 25 and 35 (it sucks for English speakers that they say fifteen but write 15, instead of saying teenfive to match the order of the digits in writing). They get used to saying twenty instead of two when they see the digit 2 in 25. There is no need to explicitly explain place value at that point, but they get to see it in action as they say twentyfive and write 25, because they do understand intuitively that the 2 is, in fact, a shorthand for twenty. In other words, they hear and see the language of math in action, but not everything is explicitly explained to them, but they are still learning, they are developing a feeling for it.
The process is similar to learning the word door. Kids use the word a lot, and soon enough they intuitively understand that the word can be used to name any door, hence it hides a general, abstract concept. But if you try to explain this to them, they would get terribly confused. Still, even though kids are not capable of following a rational explanation for the meaning of the word door, they can still use the word correctly.
Later, when kids need to learn the addition algorithm, they need to understand place value—but we do not talk about that time here, we only talk about nine plus six, and for that the only prerequisite the kids need is being able to count.
An often heard criticism of CC (and New Math) is that it wants to go too fast, in too big steps. It is true. If in doubt, compare the US and Finnish first grade math tests
US: https://roundtheinkwell.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/the-math-test.pdf
Finnish: http://taughtbyfinland.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/testpic2.jpg
So instead of rushing into general concepts and rational explanations for “deeper meanings”, give kids time to develop a feeling for the material.
This is general idea: in our lives, we develop an intuitive understanding for many things, though we may not be able to give a rational explanation for what we know. Similarly, kids learn and understand things not just through rational explanations, but through experiencing, playing, experimenting, using stuff. But they need to be given time to do this.
A British educational research team visited fifty Finnish primary schools in the mid 1990s. They reported of highly disciplined and ordered lessons, where catering to the students’ individual differences was not a priority:
“whole classes following line by line what is written in the textbook, at a pace determined by the teacher. Rows and rows of children all doing the same thing in the same way whether it be art, mathematics or geography. We have moved from school to school and seen almost identical lessons, you could have swapped the teachers over and the children would never have noticed the difference. in both the lower and upper comprehensive school, we did not see much evidence of, for example, student-centered learning or independent learning” (Norris et al., 1996, as quoted in Simola, 2005, p. 462).
—
Granted, this is what Finland had 20 years ago, and they are transitioning now into something more individually-targeted as they say. We’ll see how it works for them.
Gruff,
Why don’t you read about the Finnish schools of today. They underwent a dramatic transformation.
Read Pasi Sahlberg’s “Finnish Lessons”
@Máté Wierdl
It seems one of my messages got lost, so I would like to re-post it. It is a page from Finnish math textbook, so I wonder what is your opinion on the tape diagrams and circle sectors shown there, and are they significantly different from the pictures you linked. Thanks.
@Máté Wierdl
“Do you get into a discussion with the kids about place value before you teach them how to count past nine?” – when counting orally this is not strictly needed because the words for eleven or twelve are just words.
“you decided to focus on how we write things down in math” – because you shared the 9+6=15 video.
“Well, even here, a general discussion of place value is not yet needed.” – How do you explain why 1 and 5 written together somehow mean something other than six? X and V written together mean X+V, because Roman system is not positional, it does not have a concept of place value.
“As kids learn to count, they get used to saying twentyfive, thirtyfive and write 25 and 35 (it sucks for English speakers that they say fifteen but write 15, instead of saying teenfive to match the order of the digits in writing).” – Funny that you lament that 15 is not “onety-five” for the reasons of… place value. Because if you name it as fifteen or “humpty-dumpty” it does not matter if you simply use it as a name. It matters if you bring in the idea of place value.
“They get used to saying twenty instead of two when they see the digit 2 in 25.” – So they realize that 2 means two tens. You prefer them to figure it out themselves instead of simply telling them this is how numerals are designed?
US: https://roundtheinkwell.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/the-math-test.pdf
First off, as it does not come from corestandards.org, this is not CCSS per se, it is Pearson’s book. Second, it has glaring errors like #12, which does not have a single subtraction. But most American school textbooks are crap, this goes beyond CC or not CC, they all are quite bad. I have some calc textbooks from 1980-ies, these are usable. Just because textbooks are not good does not mean that explanations are not needed. This is a wrong equivalence.
Finnish: http://taughtbyfinland.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/testpic2.jpg
This shows what I said earlier: counters, associate counters with digits, memorize digit value, then learn to add without converting to counters. Notice, that there is no adding beyond ten. All well-known sound concepts. Nothing wrong here. The same idea as in the American version, but done right.
Gruff,
I call this discussion to an end. You are not addressing general principles. You are picking an endless argument with a professor of mathematics about the subject he knows best. Give it up. I won’t post any more such comments, intended to prolong a picayune argument.
“As usual, everything has become very politicized. I agree with Gates. I disagree with Gates. There is good in the common core. There was bad with the common core.
No one spends the time openly analyzing both sides for fear of the opposition manipulating any positive feedback. So there never will be any honest resolution.”
Like every other policy that affects the country as a whole, a national standard SHOULD be politicized. The decision to have national standards is by it’s very nature a political decision. Or at least should be.
Unfortunately, the democratic political process was completely bypassed/subverted by Gates and Arne Duncan with their Race to the Top scheme (which was likely not only unethical but illegal as well)
The time for analysis was BEFORe the standard was imposed on millions of students and teachers with no proper testing.
The way that Common Core was imposed with virtually no political debate in state legislatures, local districts or even Congress is reason enough itself to reject it.
Why should anyone accept what essentially amounts to experimentation on their children without consent?
Why should we just accept a fait accompli and now work with the perpetrators to “salvage” the hack that they imposed on us?
People like Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Jason Zimba and David Coleman had NO right to do what they did.
They don’t care about any other’s rights, only their own to take all they can.
I recently watched an interview with Gates on “Ellen.” He answered questions, but seemed detached and distant. His lack of engagement made Ellen work on overdrive to get some type of typical human response from him. While he was not Temple Grandin, he seemed like he may have a bit of Asperger’s. While I am not a psychologist, I am a student of human behavior from all my years teaching and now tutoring. The interview was awkward, and he seemed uncomfortable, and maybe he was just having a bad day. All he said about education was that he wanted the best teachers to work with developing teachers. While it sounds like harmless mentoring, nothing Gates touches is harmless to public teachers, and it generally has something to do with selling software.
I think Gates is dying.
He looks like he has aged about 40 years in the last ten.
A couple of years ago, I took a vacation to a Caribbean island and went on a snorkeling trip with about a dozen others. One was a high-level Microsoft executive. She confirmed what you said, Retired Teacher, about Gates and said “everyone knows.”
I think it could also be an internalized version of narcissistic personality disorder, or perhaps a hybrid of that and Aspergers. No matter how well reasoned or researched, no matter how well a position is backed up by facts, if it’s not one of his own ideas, Gates seems incapable of considering things on their merits.
The US Department of Education were out selling ed tech again yesterday:
“Pictures are said to be worth a thousand words. Here’s one operating room from the 1800s. Here’s what today’s looks like. This was yesterday’s general store, and here is today’s. Here’s yesterday’s classroom, and today’s.
The vast majority of learning environments have remained the same since the industrial revolution, because they were made in its image.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Students lined up in rows. A teacher in front of a blackboard. Sit down; don’t talk; eyes up front. Wait for the bell. Walk to the next class. And… repeat. Students were trained for the assembly line then, and they still are today.
Everything about our lives has moved beyond the industrial era. But American education largely has not. We can see its effects in the data.”
I know none of these people attended public schools, but have they seen the “blended learning” programs they’re selling? I have. It’s kids sitting in front of screens cycling thru endless assessments. Short assignment, then assessment. Over and over and over. I estimate my son spends 25% of his time in a “blended learning” classroom taking tests. They collect all that data from somewhere, and I’ll tell you where it comes from- it comes from ENDLESS assessment.
If Betsy DeVos is looking for a “factory model” she should take a look at the product she’s selling.
I resent paying the public employees at the US Department of Education to sell ed tech product. I think it’s unethical and a misuse of public funds.
The stale picture of “today’s classroom,” which DeVos tweeted, looks like a charter school or a religious school, except the kids seem engaged and happy, not docile and compliant
The damage done to English language arts by the Common Core State Standards is incalculable. The state ELA standards that preceded them were pretty awful too, but the difference is that educational publishers have now made the CCSS into the default ELA curriculum. Test prep exercises based on the CCSS (in their various state-branded instantiations) have replaced real writing and genuine interactions with whole texts.
The ELA standards were always moronic. They always reflected a lot of unexamined, false assumptions about reading, writing, speaking, and listening. I’ll give just one example, but I could give hundreds of these.
CCSS and almost all the ELA standards that preceded them contained a standard about using Greek and Latin roots to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. Now, at one time, when almost everyone learned Latin and Greek in school, people actually did COMMONLY guess the meanings of unfamiliar words based on their roots. But it’s actually pretty rare, these days, that a good reader will do that. Long ago, when educated people in Europe typically knew some Greek, if they encountered the word phrontistery, they would be able to relate it to the Greek phrontistḗs, “a thinker,” and figure out from context that a phrontistery was a place for thinking or study. But today, someone who encountered this word would simply look it up if he or she wanted to know its meaning. Memorizing a few Greek and Latin roots is actually not a very efficient method for gaining access to the meanings of unfamiliar words in English, for a lot of reasons that I won’t go into here, but this chestnut has appeared for many, many decades in most ELA standards and appears in the CCSS as well because Coleman and his pals simply cribbed from existing standards instead of thinking, for a change, about their reasonableness.
So, what happens, now, is that every level of the ELA standards mentions using Greek and Latin roots to determine word meaning, so every state exam tests for this, and all the textbooks and online study materials dutifully teach students that the root -spec- means see and the root -voc- means call, and a lot of effort is put into learning these, even though doing so is not very useful. When the kid encounters the word evocative in his or her reading, knowing that -voc- means call won’t tell him or her what the word means. And knowing fifteen Greek and Latin roots will give the child access to very, very few of the 600,000 or so words in English that he or she doesn’t yet know.
Knowing those roots is so useless, in fact, that writing exercises for textbooks to test for the standard on Greek and Latin roots ends up being quite difficult. Having worked in educational publishing for years, I can tell you that writers struggle to create passages with good examples of using these roots to determine meaning because it’s really fairly rare that simple analysis based on root meanings will result in a clear definition.
And so it is, standard after standard. If you think about the standard at all carefully, you find that there are major problems with it and that dedicating time to its mastery has enormous opportunity costs–time is taken away from other tasks that might actually be productive. People learn new vocabulary in semantic groupings in meaningful contexts and not, typically, by doing analysis based on Greek and Latin roots. So, if you want to teach people vocabulary, you might actually create such contexts for people to explore, but that won’t be done because it’s not in the standards. The textbooks and online instructional materials are required to be closely aligned with the standards that are in turn based on superstitious folk theories about how kids learn English, and no one can innovate or think freshly about any of this because Gates paid Coleman, who had no relevant experience, to do the thinking for us all, and he didn’t think at all but simply recycled a lot of questionable truisms about what kids should learn in English class.
Indeed, the Common Core is common, in the sense of “base, received, mediocre, pedestrian, unimaginative, ordinary.”
So, Bob, when are you designing an online (!) course to teach us this stuff. Wait a minute. You have! I wish you had more time to post. I learn so much from you. Thank you.
I agree, speductr. I was gonna write something similar, when I saw your comment.
“But today, someone who encountered this word would simply look it up if he or she wanted to know its meaning.” – Instead of developing synthetic thinking you promote either rote memorization or using tech for quick lookup. Both of these techniques are farther from real learning than figuring out the meaning of a word based on its root.
“Knowing those roots is so useless.” – this is an obvious lie. Knowing what “demos” and “kratia” mean helps understanding what this country is supposed to be about.
You bash Gates for “recycling a lot of questionable truisms” but offer nothing more than drill-and-kill or a screen swipe.
Lol. Thank you for illustrating how difficult it is to get people to think beyond their preconceptions about this stuff.
And yet, knowing that -voc- means “call” might help a student understand “evocative” but only in hindsight. No student will see e-call-ative and think “bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind.” Earlier generations exposed to Greek, Latin and classical literature might make the leap but not 21st century kids forced to memorize greek roots rather than “learn” them in context.
Thank you, Scott, for saying this more clearly than I did!
Yes, Bob, Scott said this more clearly than you did, if this is indeed what you meant to say.
While I agree that rote learning of dozens of roots is not very sensible pursuit, I think that synthetic techniques are valuable to figure out meaning of unknown words as well as to synthesize new words. This is one of the two ways children learn their vocabulary: one way is memorizing, another way is making up words based on known words and rules. Both are important, because without memorizing there can be now synthesis, or the synthesis will be inefficient, because the rules must be memorized after they are deduced.
Therefore, basic knowledge of ethymology and how prefixes, roots and suffixes work is important.
For example, knowing that “di” (and its Latin counterpart, “bi”) means “two”, one can make sense of monoplane vs biplane, unicycle vs bicycle, monologue vs dialogue, etc.
Looking up a word every time on the Internet is more degrading than learning some roots and prefixes.
sigh
“sigh” – very eloquent and persuasive, Bob.
Gruff, I’d suggest a little caution when entering a new arena. Bob Shepherd has been around this blog practically since inception and, yes, he is indeed quite eloquent and persuasive. I’m sorry you seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot on your first day around here, but I’d suggest you read his posts more in depth before commenting further. I think if you start over with an open mind, you’ll find him quite insightful.
There is more to learning English, Horatio, than is dreamt of in Stanley Kaplan’s test prep philosophy.
Krashen researched studying Latin and found that it did not transfer over to helping students increase vocabulary. I had four years of Latin in high school very and high verbal SAT scores. However, I was also an avid reader and a lover of words and languages so maybe my experience is not typical. We understand that scores are not terribly useful in real life, but education that enables young people to read, write and think is. The CCSS and the pursuit of “scores” have no basis in fact, and the “reformers” have derailed the education young people need to thrive. We need to get the free market fools out of schools so teachers can do their job without outside carrots, sticks, bonuses and other assorted idiotic assumptions distracting them.
I love etymologies. The poet Randall Jarrell wrote, “A word is a world,” and indeed, this is often so. So, a case can be made for learning etymologies for their own sake, simply because they are often interesting, but learning roots is NOT a key to developing vocabulary, as Coleman, in his ignorance about these matters, seems to have thought. That’s a myth–one of many, many myths instantiated in/perpetuated by the Common Core. What makes those instantiations of folk beliefs in our national standards particularly egregious is that the CCSS ossifies the myths and prevents innovation. I guess we have to wait until Gates convenes again his national curriculum Politburo, with Coleman at its head, before we’ll see any change. Aie yie yie.
I could sit all day with my head buried in the OED. How languages evolve is fascinating!
Language is best acquired naturally. Reading, listening, conversing, and thinking. Anyone who has a pursuit that they are passionate about naturally acquires the specialized language of that subject without any formal instruction. Millions of examples of this truth abound. Talk to anyone who loves baseball, or carpentry, or birds, or fly fishing and you will hear a wealth of natural language acquisition. Trying to teach explicitly is a recipe for failure.
I love entomology too.
I have always found the bombardier beetle to be particularly interesting.
Well argued, I say. Standards schmanders.
Bob, you are so good!
“Indeed, the Common Core is common, in the sense of “base, received, mediocre, pedestrian, unimaginative, ordinary.” ”
So you think, CC is self descriptive? When I look at the design of the math portion, I think about replacing common by primitive.
LOL. Yes, yes, yes!
Click to access LockhartsLament.pdf
Great reading, thanks, Bob. Lockhart is writing from a mathematician’s point of view; what mathematics is for a mathematician: it is an art form, and hence asking how useful it is should be forbidden. Indeed, if you declare a subject useful, it is taught in a way so that it can be tested, and the end result is what we see today: people have all these formulas in their heads like “a squared plus b squared equal c squared” without the faintest idea about the story behind the formula.
He argues that at least part of mathematics should be taught from this mathematicians’ point of view.
Mathematics for a physicist is quite different, and it’s worth listening to what Feynman says about the differences between the mathematicians’ math and the physicists’ math. Those who emphasize rigor in education should really listen to Feynman what he has to say about that at about 4 min 30 seconds.
Good one.
Gates is not an idiot. If he keeps hitting in the same spot, then he intentionally does it because of whatever reasons he has, which may have nothing with well-being of teachers, pupils or the public school system as a whole.
If Gates cannot reduce something to a code-able unit and treat that as a metric, then something must be tweaked.
Gates continues to fund the Common Core and projects designed to make all learning that “counts” fit into a competency framework that can be awarded a badge. The Gates Foundation is the major funder of an international effort to make online learning the norm worldwide, with data standards and certifications for the “interoperability” of courseware and tests.
The pedagogical version of “reduction ad absurdum” perhaps?
Patrick,
You are toast. I don’t want you on my blog. You violated rule #1.
To paraphrase Nixon, if a billionaire does it, then it is not illegal.
Quote: Amazon Inc. Paid Zero in Federal Taxes in 2017, Gets $789 Million Windfall from New Tax Law The online retail giant has built its business model on tax avoidance, and its latest financial filing makes it clear that Amazon continues to be insulated from the nation’s tax system. In 2017, Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it. The company’s financial statement suggests that various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options are responsible for zeroing out the company’s tax this year.
The company’s zero percent rate in 2017 reflects a longer term trend. During the previous five years, Amazon reported U.S. profits of $8.2 billion and paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 11.4 percent. This means the company was able to shelter more than two-thirds of its profits from tax during that five year period. End quote.
https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-2017-gets-789-million-windfall-from-new-tax-law/
I happened to talk to a librarian/medieval historian colleague yesterday about how bookstores are disappearing, how even Barnes and Noble appear to be going under, and she told me about a respectable online store, Biblio.com.
https://www.biblio.com/pages/Social_Responsibility.html
@SomeDAM Poet
“This effort is voluntary for states, and it is fully intended that states adopting the common core may choose to include additional state standards beyond the common core.” – voluntary and allow additions.
“States that choose to align their standards to the common core standards agree to ensure that the common core represents at least 85 percent of the state’s standards in English language arts and mathematics.” – makes sense to me, the CCSS standards are watered down enough, there is nothing to remove, only to add.
“Any changes to the CC standards had to come from the organization that has the copyright” – right, but the round table is supposed to discuss these changes and updates, this is not a one-way road, and not a once-defined rigid spec. Also, as we discussed before, states and schools can add more on top of CCSS. Also, CCSS is not a curriculum but a bunch of criteria, any curriculum-looking parts in CCSS are just for reference, but lazy districts and schools use these parts as curriculum and then blame CCSS for its crudeness and incompleteness.
Gruff
You implied with your focus on the copyright that states were free to take what they wanted of CC and leave the rest.
When I pointed out that that was not the case, you simply changed the focus to the word” voluntary”, which only applies to whether the states accept the standards or not.
But again, you show your ignorance of the whole process.
Many states accepted Common Core sight unseen in order to get Race to the Top money at a time when they were severely strapped for cash.
It’s pointless arguing with you because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
It’s actually rather pathetic that you actually seem to think you know more about English/LA than someone like Bob Shepherd, more about math than a PhD Mathematician ( Máté Wierdl) and more about national standards than Diane Ravitch.
You have no idea how foolish this makes you look.
And not incidentally, taken as a whole, your argument here has been incoherent.
At the start you (rightly) stated that the purpose of CC was “uniformity”.
I agreed with that ( and have said that many times before on this blog, as have many others. It’s not a particularly profound observation, at any rate, since Gates himself said as much, as far back as 2009.)
But then you went on to argue (based on your narrow focus on the copyright) that states were free to do with the standard what they please.
Not only is that false, as I pointed out, but it would make absolutely no sense if the purpose of the standards was national uniformity. You don’t achieve uniformity across states with each State doing it’s own thing. That’s just nonsense.
You must think Gates is a real dummy if you actually believe he wants uniformity but was willing to let states pick and choose which parts of the standards they are going to accept.
Gates is a lot of things but a dummy he ain’t.
@SomeDAM Poet
“At the start you (rightly) stated that the purpose of CC was “uniformity”. But then you went on to argue (based on your narrow focus on the copyright) that states were free to do with the standard what they please.” – I am sorry if I gave a wrong impression. By saying that one could use bits and pieces of CCSS as they please I meant that it is not prohibited to copy and disseminate them, unlike say a song or a movie.
If you are a signatory state then of course, you need to use the program as a whole, this is the whole point of using something. CCSS is in fact quite generously allows using up to 85% of its requirements, not 100%
But you can add to it, and you can teach the concepts that are required to be taught in any manner you like, the suggested way of doing it is just a suggestion not a complete curriculum, as some people think. The core of Common Core are the goalposts, the skills and topics that must be learned by students. These skills are aligned with tests – of course – to be tested. Makes total sense. If you think there are not enough topics covered by CCSS then add more, it is not prohibited, but the new topics will not be covered by standard tests. If you think that there is too much stuff in CCSS then you haven’t seen math curricula from other countries – I am not talking about ELA -, compared to which the American school math is a joke, CCSS or not. If you think that CCSS requires using specific methods of teaching the concepts and skills then you – or, more likely, the district – did not understand what CCSS is about, and lazily took their examples as complete curriculum.
Forget about it, Gruff. In 10 years, no one will remember the Common Core.
“These skills are aligned with tests – of course – to be tested. Makes total sense.”
No, it doesn’t make sense at all. Understanding of math cannot be tested well if at all, while CC talks about it all the time.
“If you think that there is too much stuff in CCSS then you haven’t seen math curricula from other countries”
I hope you also realize that these countries do not have standardized tests to test their “high level” curricula—which sounds funny in light of your claim just a paragraph earlier according to which “These skills are aligned with tests – of course – to be tested.”
What’s your background, Gruff?
“In 10 years, no one will remember the Common Core.” – Not because it is particularly bad, but because they will need to justify more spending and contracts. This I am not arguing with.
No, because it was hastily designed and built to be tested. The testing structure was supposed to include 50 states. As states withdraw from PARCC and SBAC, that structure has already collapsed.
“If you are a signatory state then of course, you need to use the program as a whole,”
Of course, now that I have pointed that out to you and called your argument incoherent, you now claim that.
Of course!
Ha ha ha!
@SomeDAM Poet
“Of course! Ha ha ha!” – you want to talk, or you want to point fingers? Yes, it is obvious that a set of rules and agreements deemed as a whole must be used as a whole, is this something new? But if you want just to pull the pieces out of it, copy them, disseminate them, use them in your daily work, you can do it for free instead of paying licensing fees, that what I meant. But you can continue laughing.
Gruff,
No matter how you slice it, CCSS is still baloney.
Do you think the US, unlike any other country in the world, should instruct English teachers what proportion of their classes should be devoted to literature vs “informational text”?
Why do you think major groups of early childhood educators have opposed CCSS? It is not developmentally appropriate.
Same for special needs students.
Are you David Coleman writing under a pseudonym?
“I hope you also realize that these countries do not have standardized tests to test their “high level” curricula” – they do have SOME tests. I am not at all in awe with pretty much ANY tests used in the U.S., because most of the time they are fill-in-the-bubble multiple choice test, and often they are administered by a third party, and you do not get the questions and answers back, and the number that you get is half a year late, so it makes absolutely no affect on teaching. They suck big time. But this is how testing in this country works, and CCSS is no worse in this regard. Do not like testing? Why not opt-out other tests as well? You are being subjective.
A proper math test in my mind is three to five problems, solved on a clean sheet of paper, NEVER on a worksheet, with necessary explanations. It is graded by a teacher, returned back to the student, who can take it home, and the parents can see all the questions asked, all the answers given, and the final grade given by the teacher. Most of the tests given nowadays in school is a farce.
“No, because it was hastily designed and built to be tested.” – that alone says nothing about its quality.
“Do you think the US, unlike any other country in the world, should instruct English teachers what proportion of their classes should be devoted to literature vs “informational text”?” – In some other countries there are very specific authors and texts that are supposed to be taught in each grade, and they do not make a fuss out of it. But when I talk about CCSS I mostly talk about math, haven’t looked too deep into ELA.
“Same for special needs students.” – special needs are special needs. Regular cars require drives to have hands and feet, you are not objecting, are you?
“Are you David Coleman writing under a pseudonym?” – I wish.
Funny how you have moved from your 2010 book. Why do you think that your current opinion is correct, and the earlier one was wrong?
I learned from experience, Gruff. As I learn, I adjust my views. I use this Blog as a place where we can share what we learn.
Billy Gates Gruff
You obviously STILL don’t get it, so I am going to try one more time to explain it to you.
The vast majority of states initially signed on to accept Common Core as their standards.
“Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform. To be eligible, states had to adopt “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place.”[18] Though states could adopt other college- and career-ready standards and still be eligible, they were awarded extra points in their Race to the Top applications if they adopted the Common Core standards by August 2, 2010. Forty-one states made the promise in their application.” — from wikipedia
Every one of those states who signed on agreed to accept the standards in whole, as is, with no changes, as I had to point out to you.
That’s the CONTEXT in which you have to consider the CC copyright.
Context matters, despite your claims to the contrary.
Had you been aware of the context/history surrounding Common Core (including the way that it was piggy backed on Race to the Top), you would certainly have understood that Diane was referring to the vast majority of the states who adopted the CC — NOT the few who did not.
It makes absolutely no sense, but if you ACTUALLY BELIEVE Diane was talking about the small number of states that did NOT sign on to adopt the standards (or perhaps to some Jenny Schmo operating her home school who wanted to use a few of the standards), that’s just further proof of your ignorance of the issue. Your ignorance is your own problem, not ours. If you wish to make totally irrelevant points, that’s your prerogative, but don’t expect anyone to listen.
But thanks for so clearly illustrating the problem of “close reading” , which does not consider context.
Close reading is a tale told by an idiot (David Coleman) full of Common Cores and copyrights, signifying nothing.
Most states signed on to the CCSS standards before they were finished. Some signed on without seeing them. They did it to be eligible to win hundreds of millions of RTTT $$$$$$$.
“Billy Gates Gruff”
The CC and the demands for regularly testing it were intended to be spread all over the nation from top down. That’s the first outrageous problem, and it’s just crap on the cake that there were no preliminary, decades long, small scale experiments.
Did CC spread all over the nation? Yes, it did. Did it screw up education for at least a 100 million kids? Yes, it did. Did it make the lives of 3 million teachers miserable? Yes it did. Were billions wasted on it? Yes, they were.
Gruff is trying to argue that CC inherently was good, just the implementation sucked. Sounds like Bill Gates indeed. We could even call this kind of defense the BG defense: “the underlying idea and the intentions were good just the implementation sucked”.
The intention of spreading and implementing an idea all over the nation is bad. No further analysis is needed. Want examples to strengthen this conviction? CC is a perfect example.
It is fascinating to me how trolls appear out of nowhere, needle everyone, then disappear, only to be replaced by another one.
“It is fascinating to me how trolls appear out of nowhere, needle everyone, then disappear, only to be replaced by another one.”
I bet some our paid to do this.
And not incidentally, when you look up “Oxford Moron” in the dictionary, it says “see David Coleman”.
David Coleman, the lead author of the Common Core English/LA standards, is a former Oxford attendee (not degreed by Oxford, however) who recently attempted to use the shooting tragedy in Parkland Florida as a sales pitch for the wonders of the College Board’s AP courses.
He further took the “opportunity” to “critique” a speech by one of the Parkland high school students, Emma Gonzales, suggesting that ” Her speech may have benefited from a less partisan approach and an attempt to better understand the positions of gun rights proponents”
Yes, of course, in her profound sorrow and anger about the death and injury to her friends, Emma should have tried to understand gun rights proponents.
Makes perfect sense. To an Oxford Moron, that is.
“And not incidentally, when you look up “Oxford Moron” in the dictionary, it says “see David Coleman”.”
Interestingly, there is a prof at Oxford called David Coleman.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/find-an-expert/professor-david-coleman
“You obviously STILL don’t get it, so I am going to try one more time to explain it to you.” – What exactly I am not getting and what exactly did you explain? You copied wikipedia, but what does it mean? That states were coerced into accepting CC? I know it, so what?
“That’s the CONTEXT in which you have to consider the CC copyright.” – how the above relates to copyright?
“Context matters, despite your claims to the contrary.” – context matters in an argument, it does not matter in a close reading exercise. You just took my statement out of its context and you claim that context matters. Congrats.
“It makes absolutely no sense, but if you ACTUALLY BELIEVE Diane was talking about the small number of states…” – I really don’t know what you are talking about. It would help if you provided a quote before replying.
“The CC and the demands for regularly testing it were intended to be spread all over the nation from top down. That’s the first outrageous problem” – you continue to conveniently avoid the fact that there are other tests that are administered by states via a computer without any valuable outcome, but somehow CC is the only villain in town.
“Did it screw up education for at least a 100 million kids? Yes, it did.” – I think I’ve heard arguments like this somewhere… “Believe me!” Who might that be?
Professor Milgram, who did not approve the standards said: “As bad as Core Standards is, it is better than standards in 90% of the states.” Your “100 million kids” is a completely made up number.
“The intention of spreading and implementing an idea all over the nation is bad. No further analysis is needed.” – whenever anyone says “it’s bad” and “no further analysis is needed” you know that they have no real data to back up their puffy claims.
““The intention of spreading and implementing an idea all over the nation is bad. No further analysis is needed.” – whenever anyone says “it’s bad” and “no further analysis is needed” you know that they have no real data to back up their puffy claims.”
I provided no data, because no data is needed for saying “you do not implement untested ideas for a whole nation”. The same way no data is needed to prove “You do not experiment with children without their and their parents’ consent” because it is an axiom, self evident truth—more self evident than some of the 10 commandments.
So what is your background, Gruff?
“Your “100 million kids” is a completely made up number.”
It’s a good estimate: at any one time during the school year, there are 50 million kids in public schools, and most are studying some version of CC as we speak. Since CC is almost a decade old, you can easily conclude that over 100 million kids have been screwed by it, considering that each year, about 5 million new kids enter first grade since 5-10% of kids never finish high school. Lemme know, if you have a dramatically different conclusion.
In the meantime, you can explain to me how my conclusion would change the essence of what I am saying if I replaced the 100 million by 50 million, which is the absolute minimum: “Bill Gates’ CC program screwed up education for 50 million kids”. Does anybody feel better?
If someone actually paid Billy Gates’ Gruff for commenting here, they deserve to get their money back.
Diane, at 12:14.
I give the gruffster a week more tops.
Billy Gates Gruff
It’s actually quite humorous that, despite your talk of the importance of close reading, you either did not read the CC copyright/license “closely” or you did not understand what you read
Here’s the critical part:
“The NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) hereby grant a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to copy, publish, distribute, and display the Common Core State Standards for purposes that support the Common Core State Standards Initiative. These uses may involve the Common Core State Standards as a whole or selected excerpts or portions.”
The first part of the section I bolded says that the CC has to be used “for purposes that support the Common Core State Standards Initiative.”
To understand what that means in practice, you have to also read the CCSSI “memorandum of understanding” that I quoted to you previously, which makes it clear that states who “adopt” the standards must do it in full, with no changes and only up to 15% additions.
I said “context matters” because it is impossible to glean that critical information from the copyright/license alone.
The second part of the bolded statement means that neither the wording nor meaning of the CC standards can be changed, nor can they be used to produce “derivative works”. They must be used as” a whole” (for those states who adopt it) or “selected excerpts or portions” for any who do not (eg, for people who may be quoting it).
Again, this has to be placed in the proper context because, although there is a reference further down in the license that refers to states that “adopt” the standards “in whole” without the extra information in the memorandum of understanding agreement that states who adopted CC had to sign, one can not know the precise requirements for those states who adopted the standards.
The copyright/license worked in conjunction with other agreements that states signed to define what they could and could not do with the standards.
Second, I quoted the part from Wikipedia simply because it makes clear that the vast majority of states initially agreed to adopt CC as their standards ( in order to get RTTT money), which is important context because, as I pointed out previously, every state that adopted the standard had to do so in full, with no changes and no more than 15% additions.
Given that context, it makes no sense to think that I, Diane and others were referring to anything other than the states that “adopted” the CC in full.
This is all the time I am going to devote to explaining this. If you can’t understand at this point, I’d have to say that you probably never will. Or perhaps you don’t wish to understand?
Taco Tuesday, Fishstick Friday, how much national uniformity is really necessary?
One might have fun with that concept. I’d offer some suggestions, but I don’t want to offend our hostess.
This nation loves uniformity: staying at a big-chain hotel, eating at a global-chain fast food restaurant, watching big-chain TV shows. It is just the idea of federal oversight frightens them; I suppose these freedom-lovers prefer oversight and dictate of large monopolies.
“I suppose these freedom-lovers prefer oversight and dictate of large monopolies.”
And you’re advocating for the quite large monopoly of CCSS????
Only those parts of the nation that the lame stream media and the talking headless of the pundit class allow you to see, the rest of us get along quite nicely with our and others iconoclasm.
There is at least a chance of revising CCSS by member states, while a corporate product is a corporate product. Yes, I prefer CCSS to Pearson, although I do understand that CCSS does align with interests of big corporations like Pearson.
CCSS is copyrighted by the Chief State School Officers and it is an infringement of copyright to alter it.
“non-exclusive, royalty-free license to copy, publish, distribute, and display the Common Core State Standards for purposes that support the Common Core State Standards Initiative” – seems like a very reasonable license to me. The terms say nothing about modification, but then again, they do not require to use CCSS exactly the way they published. One can build their own curriculum using pieces of CCSS: “these uses may involve the Common Core State Standards as a whole or selected excerpts or portions.”
Compared to how other intellectual property is regulated, it is free as beer and almost free as speech – they do not accept modifications that you may want to send to them, but who cares, build your own course. You will not be able to sell or otherwise advertise your course as “Common Core with Updates”, but you can come up with your own name and freely use bits of Common Core as building blocks. It is a pretty decent license.
You want a completely free standard? Then it must be federal. But even then I don’t think feds will eagerly accept modifications from any Jane and Joe. So, really, no difference.
“they do not require to use CCSS exactly the way they published.”
Hey, Governor, you are free to modify the CC any way you want, but here is $1 billion if you do as I say, and here is an extra $1 billion if you VAM the teachers. Tonight, let us have dinner, and talk about your reelection next year.
“Hey, Governor, you are free to modify the CC any way you want” – what this is about? The single biggest carrot/stick for a teacher is a district, they decide which methods, curricula, tests to use. If district has reasonable members, then it can give teachers enough leeway to use CCSS as a guideline, not as a prison cell. One more time: CCSS by itself is not a problem, it is the lazy bureaucrats who impose rigid methods onto teachers. Why do you blame Bill Gates for offering money – in ways which are legal in this country – but do not blame those who accept the money? Why you do not blame the laws and practices that allow lobbying and providing funds in exchange for benefits? The system is rotten, but CCSS is for some reason to blame.
If you read more, you would understand why the CCSS itself is a problem. The plurality of members of the drafting committee came from testing companies—ACT and the College Board. CCSS was designed to be tested. The drafting committee had no experts in early childhood education, special education or ELL.
The idea that States that adopted CC were/are somehow free to pick and choose parts of the CC standards and change parts they don’t like is simply false.
Here is the wording from the agreement the States had to sign when they adopted CC, CCSS Memorandum of Understanding.
“States that choose to align their standards to the common core standards agree to ensure that the common core represents at least 85 percent of the state’s standards in English language arts and mathematics.”
The same Memorandum of Understanding that states had to sign made clear that states could NOT change the standards OR remove parts, only add up to 15% to the total.
Any changes to the CC standards had to come from the organization that has the copyright, which was THE reason for the copyright.
It’s actually absurd to think that Gates and others behind CC somehow allowed states to take what they wanted of Common Core and leave the rest. That would have defeated the entire purpose for the standards, as outlined by Bill Gates back in 2009 to a speech to the national state legislators conference.
“next-generation assessments aligned to the common core. When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching.”
That ONLY works with a single standard that is tightly controlled.
“unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching.”
This language comes from the same dungeon as NRA-s “clinched fist of truth” and “death is an undeniable fuel of life”.
Please, remove the same message I submitted above, wrong thread.
@SomeDAM Poet
“This effort is voluntary for states, and it is fully intended that states adopting the common core may choose to include additional state standards beyond the common core.” – voluntary and allow additions.
“States that choose to align their standards to the common core standards agree to ensure that the common core represents at least 85 percent of the state’s standards in English language arts and mathematics.” – makes sense to me, the CCSS standards are watered down enough, there is nothing to remove, only to add.
“Any changes to the CC standards had to come from the organization that has the copyright” – right, but the round table is supposed to discuss these changes and updates, this is not a one-way road, and not a once-defined rigid spec. Also, as we discussed before, states and schools can add more on top of CCSS. Also, CCSS is not a curriculum but a bunch of criteria, any curriculum-looking parts in CCSS are just for reference, but lazy districts and schools use these parts as curriculum and then blame CCSS for its crudeness and incompleteness.
The ever-unloved TESTING has been a bust, and yet somehow, it’s always the
“others”, of flawed design, of bad concepts, or being flat-out wrong about the whole picture. It’s always “who” is right, by defining “who” is wrong. It’s always “they” do
it for the money, and not for the children. It’s always Gates this or Betsy that.
Holy “absolution of complicity” Batman, the assignment of blame continues…
The only difference between Bill Gates and Trump is that Gates has a better-paid and brighter crew running his PR campaign to mislead people and make him look good.
What do you expect from someone who never graduated college and never invented anything (MSDOS was taken from a stolen copy of Digital Research’s CP/M, Windows is simply a steal of the design of the Macintosh Operating System, even the Zune and Surface are poor imitations of Apple’s iPod and iPad, oh and can we even forget the Microsoft Phone – an even poorer imitation of the iPhone?)
Um, where did MacOS come from? Everything is a remix.
Ah, but not all is stolen! There was a nominee for the supreme court who was asked if the breakup of Microsoft would destroy innovation in the U.S. to which he replied, “Microsoft has never innovated anything!”
MacOS, by the way came from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center-California) where the ALTOS system was developed. The developers were unhappy that the folks at Xerox headquarters (back east, of course) didn’t see a future in it. They invited Steve Jobs to see it and explained everything to him (I would guess they wanted to see their image take shape, even if not at Xerox0.
Depends on your definition of stealing. For Xerox people, who created this stuff, it was stolen.
Gates is closed-minded and thinks his money can buy whatever it wants; sometimes, it can, sometimes it can’t.
Is Bill Gates America’s dumbest smart person? Edit: Is Bill Gates the world’s dumbest person?
And, yes. And, yes.
Or is he America’s smartest dumb person?
This is a comment worthy a 7yr old. Come again, are you saying you are a teacher? So, it is you and others like you who should know better how to educate young souls?
Gruff,
May I ask who you are and how you became smarter than everyone else?
Your tone is disgusting. No one ever taught you manners. You can return when you learn some.
El Gruffo has to hide behind a pseudonym and make rude and snarky comments. Hey, at least have the cojones to do so in your real person. Otherwise, well let’s just say. . . You’re full of shit. And yes, I am breaking one of the rules, but hey, it needs to be said.
Seven year olds are good people. I aspire to seven.
Billy Gates Gruff?
“What Gates invariably announces he’s “learned” is that he was basically correct, but he underestimated just how unready people were to welcome his rightness, and he needs to tweak a few features.”
Great description. Perhaps it’s time to admit that we were wrong, and he is simply not a smart person. Instead, as most billionaires, he was lucky and ruthless as he collected billions from us.
I think we can say this much: Gates is not smart enough to recognize what he is not smart about.
Advice? How do I get my email to stop sending Diane’s emails to Junk?????
Sent from my iPhone
>
I wish I knew.
It can’t be as simple as going to spam, checking or highlighting it and clicking on the not spam button? At least that is the way it works for me. Of course, my spam filter works fairly well although I should probably check the file more often than I do. Anyway, the procedure I mentioned usually works for me, but I won’t swear by it ,and it is probably different for you.
I get more than 1,000 pieces of spam daily and I gave up screening it
It took too much time
You’re right, Diane. Both you and Deborah Meier’s get far more spam than I will ever get. Those of us who are more or less (these days ) invisible to most of the world aren’t targets for as much garbage.
There is a standard way of making sure, all mail from this blog arrives to your inbox and not your spambox: whitelist the address donotreply@wordpress.com. It may even make sense to whitelist the whole wordpress.com domain. More specific advice can be given once we know what mail software you are using.