Tom Loveless taught fifth grade in California, then earned a doctorate in educational policy, taught at Harvard, then landed at Brookings where he wrote reports on the condition of American education and analyzed international assessments. He recently retired from Brookings but continues to write.
He is one of the few original thinkers in the education think tank world. Neither the right nor left claims him. He is a straight shooter and brings a fresh perspective. He was one of the first to knock down the Great Shanghai Myth by pointing out that the student population of that city is not typical of China. Meanwhile the media and Arne Duncan ranted and raved about the superiority of Shanghai, as proven by its ranking on the international tests, which Loveless debunked.
I recently learned that Loveless had written a new paper evaluating the value of standards-based reform, the approach that is central to No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.
He presented his findings at a conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative D.C. think tank.
It is, as I expected, original and important.
Unless there is breaking news today, this will be the only post.
Please read the paper and feel free to comment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A long read, but a good one!
this is something that we have known…. but it is useful to see it demonstrated clearly in this article…. “Massachusetts and Mississippi report NAEP means about 25 points apart. Some believe that common standards can ameliorate such a difference. But as shown in Table 3, the average within-state standard deviation is larger than 25 points. Every state has a mini-Massachusetts- Mississippi contrast within its own borders. In some cases, mini-Massachusetts-Mississippi contrasts can be found within school districts, within schools—yes, even within classrooms. And those contrasts exist despite students receiving an education under common standards.” MA can boast about being #1 in aligning curriculum with tests but the politicians and legislature need to realize we are only #28 in equity… The City of Springfield in particular has been rated on “loving” cities and the huge discrepancies identify yet our BESE/DESE keep pushing for dollars to be spent on more experimental tests that make Weston, Wayland, Dover, Sudbury , Newton look good.
Extraordinarily important observation! Well done!
I know it says not to quote him without permission but I need to insert the sentence in the discussion:
“Just like the studies described above, including the Schmidt and Huoang analysis used by Common Core advocates, gauging the effect of Common Core requires analysis of state variation in some aspect of the reform. I created implementation indexes to model how states differed in implementing Common Core.”
We need to study this thoroughly; I know they tossed out Reading First and the ABT corporationreport said “well it failed”. but there is never the recognition that those funding streams get mediated through your state bureaucracy and there were some places where it did not “fail”. In the past 5 years I have tried to state when I knew MA had used the federal dollars wisely (I can give a few instances) and I find myself arguing with even teachers who say “close the Department of Ed” because everything is worthless. …. I fear that is will just get worse in the states (I think OH is attempting this) that want to close down the state’s “dept of ed” and have everything under the governor as it exacerbates this kind of problem.
The standards movement has been a political football for many years. Unfortunately, the results have been less than impressive. As far as the CCSS is concerned, there has been a negligible difference between the states that have been strong adopters verses the moderate adopters of the CCSS. Standards continue to be a top down mechanistic policy. Supporters of the Common Core have claimed that we have to wait until 2020 to see the big gains, but I am not holding my breath.
A total waste of time and money!
I urge folks to read (or reread) the first and read the second.
So much to discuss but a small part of what he brings up re standards, instructional practice and the high-stakes standardized tests that generate the numbers & stats that the corporate education reform crowd loves to use/misuse/abuse.
Remember that old empty adage: “if you’re going to teach to the test, make sure it’s a test worth teaching to”?
A blast from the not-so-distant past. Peter Greene’s blog, September 2015, quoting that exemplar of the rheephorm insider, David Coleman, of Kommon Kore and College Board fame:
[start]
It was Lauren who propounded the great rule that I think is a statement of reality, thought not a pretty one, which is teachers will teach towards the test. There is no force strong enough on this earth to prevent that. There is no amount of hand-waving, there’s no amount of saying, “They teach to the standards, not the test; we don’t do that here.” Whatever. The truth is and if I misrepresent you, you are welcome to take the mic back. But the truth is teachers do. Tests exert an enormous effect on instructional practice, direct and indirect, and it’s hence our obligation to make tests that are worthy of that kind of attention It is in my judgment the single more import work we have to do over the next two years to ensure that that is so, period. So when you ask me, “What do we have to do over the next years?” we gotta do that. If we do anything else over the next two years and on’t do that, we are stupid and shall be betrayed again by shallow tests that demean the quality of classroom practice, period.
[end]
To which Peter Greene responds: “So there was no question, no doubt that the standards were about creating tests that would drive instruction and write curriculum.”
Link: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/09/david-colemans-master-plan.html
For many decades now [see Banesh Hoffman’s THE TYRANNY OF TESTING, from the 1960s, for a relatively recent example] there have been the same empty promises of finally getting testing [and its consequences] right.
Coleman gave himself two years? And nothing has changed since [hold onto your hats!] 2011? Who’d a thunk???
😳
But look on the bright side for the heavyweights of privatization/charters/vouchers. The hard data points that get teachers fired, students humiliated, schools closed, and $tudent $ucce$$ flowing into the hands of the ‘right sort of people’ aren’t applied so strictly to them.
No, the folks at the top driving all the disruptive innovation far too often get more time to tinker and tweak and squeeze out more ROI.
As long a lease as possible for them, as short a lease as possible for the rest of us aka the vast majority.
😎
Well stated. The accountability monster looms over the public schools while charters have little to no accountability. The students with a narrowed curriculum and their teachers continue to be the big losers while the privateers reap their rewards in the form of profit.
Was it worth it?
To those few that walked away with fortunes, yes (at least the few frauds and crooks will think it was worth it as long as they got away with their crime).
To everyone else, (more than 3 million public school teachers and 50 million students and their parents), no.
Exacto.
A few quick thoughts upon reading the beginning and conclusion:
The first two sentences: “Standards define what students will learn and when they will learn it, establishing common goals to guide an entire educational system’s reform efforts. The attractiveness of the idea rests on its simplicity.”
Simplicity in the maw of complexity cannot ever be satisfactory as an explanatory mechanism or policy/practice guide.
And:
“If Common Core is to be judged by its impact on college and career effects, such outcomes cannot be measured until several years after 2020.”
Ahhh! The “measurement” meme rears its head once again. Those effects will never be measured. They may and/or will be assessed, evaluated or judged but not ever measured.
The misuse, which is very much on purpose, of the term/concept of measure is what continues to drive almost all educational malpractices these days.
That use of the word measurement is what destroys the whole house of cards, I would contend because it encourages people to look at a test as the “measure” of an individual’s worth/place in a hierarchy. It is most damaging to the student who buys into this meme of success, worthiness, approval,…What teacher hasn’t been asked in one way or another if something will count for a grade? Do we really need to try to grade children like cuts of meat? Does this obsession produce a better “product”?
YES.
Closely behind, actually a part of the measurement falsehoods is the educational standards and standardized testing “coin of the realm”.
Since the start of standardized testing there have been many cogent critiques of the many conceptual foundational and implementation flaws in that testing. Noel Wilson completely destroyed the standards and testing malpractices in his never refuted/rebutted seminal 1997 dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
Don’t get me started. The article on standards by Tom Loveless article has such a narrow focus on the reading and math and test scores for these two subjects that it lacks credibility as an account of the “problem with standards.”
Consider the voluntary “world class” K-12 standards produced under the Goals 2000 Educate America Act (H.R. 1804, 1994). Marzano and Kendall compiled a database of those standards. It included standards for 14 major domains of study, 24 nested branches of study, 259 major standards, and 4100 grade-level K-12 benchmarks. These were never examined contradictions, overlaps, and factual errors (especially the history standards). Marzano and Kendall estimated that it could take up to 22 years of schooling to adequately cover all of the content (Marzano, R. J., & Kendall, J. S. (1998). Awash in a sea of standards. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning).
Loveless does not give much attention to the command and control language surrounding the adoption of the CCSS or refusal to acknowledge that the standard were prescriptive about curricula. For example, adoption of the CCSS meant that states had to agree to use the standards verbatim and to ensure that the CCSS comprised 75% of state standards in English language arts (ELA) and in mathematics. The CCSS were supposed to be met on time, from one grade level to the next, and without menu-like picking and choosing among the standards.
In a belated effort to correct “myths” about the CCSS, the promoters of the CCSS said: “The English language arts standards require certain critical content for all students, including classic myths and stories from around the world, America’s founding documents, foundational American literature, and Shakespeare.” Those are statements about curriculum content. Add the thin rationale for privileging informational over literary texts. Those are curricular decisions. The CCSS were surrounded with lies.
Initial claims that the CCSS do not prescribe curricula or instructional methods also proved to be an illusion when writers of the Standards issued publisher’s criteria for curriculum materials. For example, the criteria stipulated that any state standards with “local content” such as state history, be placed in separate modules for instruction. (Revised Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy, Grades 3–12. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Publishers_Criteria_for_3-12.pdf
Incoherent thinking about this reform was also illustrated when the Department of Education policy makers “suddenly” realized that tests for the CCSS, initially funded at $300 million, actually required curriculum ideas and materials on which to base the tests. (No kidding, there is something between standards and tests and it is “curriculum” plus instruction!) In short order, USDE provided another $60 million to the tests writers (SBAC and PARCC) so they could fill in the curriculum gap. Some of those USDE contracts are discussed here: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/01/06contract.h34.html
By 2011, Andrew Porter and other scholars were claiming that the Common Core Standards were “The New US Intended Curriculum.” Educational Researcher, 40(3), 103-116. But that was an early and incorrect take. Why?
The CCSS spawned other standards. By my count (excluding high school) over 3,500 written between 2011 and 2016, not counting the “21st Century Skills” thingy. Standards are on the books for Computer Science (2011, 2016), National Sexuality Standards (2012), Common Career Technical Core: Career Ready Practices (2012), Social and Emotional Learning (2013), Social Studies (2013), Next Generation Science Standards (2013) with 410 connections to the Common Core, Physical Education Literacy (2013), School Social Workers (2014), School Counselors (2014), National Core Arts Standards in Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theater, Visual Arts (2014), Personal Financial Literacy (2015), National Health Standards (2015), World-Readiness Standards for Learning (Foreign) Languages (2015), International Society for Technology in Education Standards (2016 in revision from 2011, including Computer Science Standards). Is Loveless not aware of this proliferation?
And before there was the Common Core, there was the invented meme and view of standards marketed as “21st Century Skills.” At last count (2017) these standards were on the books in 21 states.
Few people know that this meme and its colorful rainbow was the invention of Ken Kay, a tech lobbyist who, in 2002, coined the phase 21st Century Skills (The Partnership for 21st Century Skills). There are several things too rarely discussed about his project.
First, most of the skills in this scheme are not unique to this century (e.g., critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity—the 4 C’s).
Second, the expectations multiply…like rabbits. The plan calls for students to master TEN Life and Career Skills, SIX Learning and Innovation Skills, FOUR Information, Media and Technology Skills these united by giving attention to ELEVEN “key” subjects and EIGHT 21st Century themes. This whole scheme is word salad.
Third, Kay’s scheme and meme were competing with the Common Core. Kay’s scheme mentioned “creativity.” A lot of people swooned with relief, especially after hearing “do this or else” edicts from David Coleman and other supporters of the CCSS. Kay’s scheme also gained traction with a 2010 Newsweek article on “the creativity crisis.” That article sent promoters of the CCSS into a tizzy and brief (failed) excursion into test development for creativity and a few other topics promoted by Ken Kay (e.g., global awareness). http://www.newsweek.com/creativity-crisis-74665
Fourth, in 2007 and 2009, Key Kay tried to get his scheme and meme into federal legislation with a special corporate tax break to businesses that would support it. (S. 1483—110th Congress: 21st Century Skills Incentive Fund Act. (2007) and S. 1029–111th Congress: 21st Century Skills Incentive Fund Act. (2009).
Meanwhile, all standards on the books dating back to about 2002 are in the process of being stripped of any coherent rationale, and morphed to fit the needs of computer coders and promoters of online instruction 24/7/ 365. Who is doing this work and why?
Within the United States, the transformation of “standards” into statements of “competency” is being led by the National Center for Education Statistics project called “Common Education Data Standards,” in tandem with the IMS Global Collaborative where IMS stands for instructional management system.
The ultimate aim of this collaborative venture is to have machine coding of standards, tests, curriculum and instructional resources ready for one-click use by educators. The “standard” for any standard is that it can be coded for interoperability—use on almost any computer. The plug and play vision of education that Bill Gates envisioned is being realized in IMS Global Learning Consortium’s, “K-12 Digital Learning Revolution Program.”
This is to say that the whole standards movement about which Loveless speaks has been overtaken by a tech industry intent on making online instruction the new international norm. The producers of recommendation systems for students will be the hired hands of the largest players in artificial intelligence. They have at their disposal a repository of every standard written for every state since about 2002 and they have algorithms for recasting any or all of the standards into machine-readable code along with aligned tests and resources.
This is the new bill of goods being marketed and sold in districts and states. Standards are reduced to easy to code competencies with badges awarded for completion of tasks. http://www.academicbenchmarks.org/home/
Fascinating! Thank you for keeping track of this byzantine world, Laura.
As usual another excellent analysis/commentary by Laura!
I’m only on page 6 right now, after work, and I have already learned a great deal. Will continue. Must read!
With all due respect, standards are the problem. When I was in school, standards were called behavioral objectives, a phrase quoted from Benjamin Bloom, I think. We were told these statements would guide us through the morass of misunderstanding that was education, making our teaching clear and concise. My first thought on his matter was to write a satirical essay describing how Michelangelo no doubt wrote a good list of behavioral objectives before he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, thus arriving at his perfect depiction of God.
Standards is one of several words, like measurement, that serve to convince the unlearned that the process of learning is like comparing what the student knows to a perfected student. People get the idea that we can place the student’s understanding on a a scale alongside some pieces of metal that perfectly balance the student’s amount of learning. This and other fecal fragments of pseudo-intellectual pursuit serve the wishes of those whose province it is to make sure we stack kids in our educational endeavors. That way they can skim the best off the top and damn he rest to penury.
But we do not work for the people who want stacked children. We work for the children. What we are supposed to do is move them closer to the people who spend their whole life enjoying the process of finding things out. For his there is only one goal: the next hill that needs to be climbed.
“But we do not work for the people who want stacked children. We work for the children. What we are supposed to do is move them closer to the people who spend their whole life enjoying the process of finding things out. For his there is only one goal: the next hill that needs to be climbed.”
Exactly, Roy! ¡Muy bien dicho!
That simple fact “We work for the children” should be the guiding statement for all our work.
Massachusetts had a set of standards that were not that different from Common Core — they were stronger and well-scaffolded. The standards for Common Core are unrealistic. I look at them as a target range, not necessarily an exact idea. Truthfully, I don’t think there is anyone in this country who truly are doing these standards word for word.
But going back to MA. Obviously, they were successful.
we had this discussion about a year ago; Sandra Stotsky wrote here how the framework was different (not the common-ness of core)….. Some in MA wanted all the curriculum frameworks to align with NAEP and that meant more test practice, and more time in the curriculum spent on “NAEP” test item practice. Sandra Stotsky explained how the ELA curriculum framework was different from that ….
If you say “successful”, do you mean the high affluent towns ? did you read my earlier comment when I re-stated Loveless’ description of Massachusetts – Mississippi? Being #28 on equity is not successful the way I would measure it… but possibly you haven’t read any of my comments in the past 3 years …. we need to stop boasting about being #1 in test scores (if you want to see some additional boasting go to Jay P Green’e blog and read how his charter school descriptions of AZ students will be beating NY and MA…)… I don’t buy into those competitive rankings.
In all my years working in public schools I never met one student who actually took the NAEP test… so I don’t know who the MA DESE gets to actually take those tests (perhaps Christine, or Sandra Stotsky knows but I don’t).
But going back to MA. Obviously, they were successful.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
“I don’t buy into those competitive rankings.”
And no one should.
Unfortunately, far too many love league tables.
Excellent commentary, Jean!!
LOL.
One-word answer:
no
All contributors in this forum are the best GURUS of all world best Gurus.
To simplify the contrast in education between school districts and between States, and even between students in the same classroom, the same teacher, the same subject, we always and clearly ACKNOWLEDGE the visible talent, style in learning and in expression among students.
No Child left behind, and Race to the Top are only “the slogan” that bites the greedy, ideological, and gullible dreamers (gullible teachers, ambitious and gullible parents, greedy con artists (who love to loot public tax payers money = aka Edu-reformers).
THERE IS ONE IMPORTANT MESSAGE:
People, especially, young people should be honest in doing their best to learn:
a) The goal to achieve a healthy body = endurance, flexibility and strength
b) The limitless of learning academically within their passion = personal finance, math, science, careers.
c) The potential achievement in arts and literature = satisfaction and contentment in learning and writing what is the best purpose of being humanity.
In short, competition and standardized process for people who love fame and fortune. I love to repeat the expression from Guru Krazy TA, and from Guru Laura Chapman. Back2basic
[start]
1) From Guru “Krazy TA” – “if you’re going to teach to the test, make sure it’s a test worth teaching to”
2) From Guru “Laura Chapman” – it could take up to 22 years of schooling to adequately cover all of the content.
[end]