A few days ago, a prominent education researcher tweeted that only rightwing nuts oppose the Common Core. Brookings scholar Tom Loveless tweeted back that this was not true, that there are liberals, progressives, and classroom teachers who do not like Common Core.
The Twitter exchange prompted me to offer a list of books about Common Core that I consider essential reading for those who want to learn more about the criticism of Common Core.Those who take the time to read these books will understand the opposition to Common Core and stop stereotyping them (as Arne Duncan did) as people who wear tin-foil hats, which seems to be the ultimate insult these days.
Mercedes Schneider, Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools? Schneider is a teacher and researcher. Her book is a thoroughly researched and comprehensive history of the development of Common Core.
Nicholas Tampio, Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy. Tampio, a political scientist, argues persuasively that the creation of national standards by a small group of unaccountable people is fundamentally undemocratic and that national standards themselves are guaranteed to stamp out creativity, authentic teaching, and diversity of thought.
Terry Marselle, Perfectly Incorrect: Why the Common Core is Psychologically and Cognitively Unsound. Written by a teacher, this book compares the Common Core standards to recognized research about teaching and learning and finds the standards to be “unsound.”
Kris Nielsen, Children of the Core. This book, written by a teacher, explains how the standardization and mandates of the standards are demoralizing teachers and harming students.
There are many other books that explain why teachers and parents, regardless of their political views, oppose the Common Core.
If you have read others and want to recommend them, leave a comment.
If you want to inform yourself, please read these books.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, there is a joint effort to circle public education, and the forces come from all the directions. This fight goes for at least forty years already. But if one wants to fight these forces not just with slogans like “say no to charters” but with facts and reasons, then these facts must be true.
For example, regarding Kris Nielsen’s book, here is a comment on Amazon: “Not only is there little information about the Common Core, but it becomes clear as one reads further into the book that the author does not KNOW much about the Common Core. The writing is repetitive; the whining incessant. Too bad. There are many powerful arguments against “corporate reform”, which has been a plague on public education in this country. But this book just gives ammunition to the reformers, who dismiss thoughtful educators as ignorant.”
I singled out this particular comment because it reflects my own feelings about anti-CCSS and anti-charter crowd: while they – that is, you, most visitors of this blog – may see the correct reasons for CCSS and powers that push it, their arguments are very often slanted, incomplete or downright incorrect. This is the very first thing they teach you in a history class: use primary sources, that is, official documents, meeting minutes, direct quotations, payment receipts, etc. Instead what often happens, someone shouts something like “CCSS requires 70% of non-fiction texts”, and everyone parrots it without much thinking. Look in the primary documents first. Such sloppiness indeed gives the reformers more ammunition against you. Every critique that you put out must be extremely clean of misinformation, must be provable with primary documents, must be substantiated with references.
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BA, I did not write Kris Neilsen’s book, so I cannot be held responsible for every line in it.
I did not write any of the other books.
I suggest you read them so you are better informed.
I was in at the beginning of CCSS. I read the CCSS long before it became public. I met with David Coleman; we had a private lunch. I met with officials (including Rahm Emanuel, then Obama’s chief of staff) at the White House, to discuss the Common Core. I proposed that they give it a trial in 3-5 willing states before going national. They insisted that it had to go national before the 2012 election. They didn’t want to know how it would work before rolling it out.
We now know that none of their promises were true. The scores went flat on national tests. The achievement gaps did not shrink, they may have increased.
The CCSS is wholly inappropriate for young children. It has driven down the teaching of literature. Even its advocates (Thomas B. Fordham Institute) admit that.
Do you ever inform yourself before writing comments here?
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“I did not write Kris Neilsen’s book, so I cannot be held responsible for every line in it. … I suggest you read them so you are better informed.” — There is clearly a disconnect in your statements. I presume that “better informed” means getting true information on the subject, thus you suggest it as a source of truthful information, thus implicitly endorsing it. If you do not vouch by it, why would you suggest it then?
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BA,
You write from sheer ignorance. You make dogmatic statements about teachers and Common Core based on nothing but assertion.
Have you read Mercedes Schneider? Have you read Nicholas Tampio?
Can you explain why one man paid hundreds of millions, maybe billions, for the writing, promotion, and advocacy for the Core? Can you explain why it was never given a trial in any classroom?
Can you explain why professionals who work with young children object to the Common Core?
I really don’t intend to waste any more time refuting your statements because you have no knowledge or evidence for anything you say. There is nothing to refute. Just uninformed opinion.
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“I really don’t intend to waste any more time refuting your statements” — actually, it is I who is trying to refute a statement that another visitor provided and which you supported, that CCSS requires 70% of non-fictional texts. This is not true.
I, on the other hand, simply picked a comment that resonates with my feelings when I read spiteful tirades of the visitors of your blog.
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As I have repeatedly shown, the instruction to devote 70% of instructional time to “informational text” appears in the Common Core guidelines, the official Common Core materials. That ratio is based on NAEP instructions to test developers. I was on the NAEP governing board for seven years. No one intended the assessment guidelines to be turned into instructions for teachers. This is entirely illegitimate and has no basis in evidence, research, or practice.
Yes, the 70-30 ratio favoring informational text appears in the Common Core guidelines. And it is wrong. Ignorant. Arbitrary.
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I will no longer post your comments that erroneously claim that CC does not require a 70-30 split favoring informational text in reading in high school.saying it again and again does not make it true. The CC adopted the NAEP reading framework as its own, which requires that students in high school spend 70% of their time reading informational text. Coleman has defended the split, saying that it applies across the curriculum. English teachers in high school have reduced the teaching of literature in response to CC.
Your insistence that it’s not true is wrong.
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Your comment seems to treat a book review on Amazon as if authoritative.
Have you read all 1,620 Common Core standards? Do you know the distribution of those standards between MAth and English Language Arts and Literacy? Do you consider the written or the online versions of the Common Core primary sources of information about the Common Core.
You say: “Every critique that you put out must be extremely clean of misinformation, must be provable with primary documents, must be substantiated with references.”
Your critique seem to be based on one customer satisfaction survey of one book on Amazon,. You selected a review that confirms your views.
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Good catch, Laura.
BA’s got the technique down… carp, change goal posts, and call for perfection but, never apply the same demands to the deform deceivers.
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“Your critique seem to be based on one customer satisfaction survey of one book on Amazon” — If you haven’t noticed, I did not critique the book.
“You selected a review that confirms your views.” — This is a very astute observation, especially considering that I said it myself: “I singled out this particular comment because it reflects my own feelings about anti-CCSS and anti-charter crowd.”
When I mentioned misinformation and primary documents, I was referring to a comment for an earlier entry on this blog that stated that CCSS requires 70% of non-fiction texts.
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Here is another review of Kris Neilsen’s Book on Amazon, which says it should be required reading for all parents:
“It spells out in clear vision the problems with the common core and places concern for our children to the forefront. We must fight for our children to stop the government from wrecking our good schools. Parents and teachers need to wake up and not allow a government takeover of our schools that will fail miserably and increase truancy. Constant testing is not what I want for my children and their education! I want my children to have a good education that prepares them for life and college. Yes college, not community college. Not a low wage paying job! I want all children to be in a school system that works as American schools have consistently done before the common core. What was wrong with our old educational system before the common core I ask? Nothing just the government doing propaganda to give us the idea that there was something wrong with OUR education! If you really look into it as I saw at a presentation against the common core you will find that we are and were doing well. And the countries that are doing well are not using a common core type curriculum but using our earlier models of school curriculum in this country! So don’t believe the people that say there is something wrong with our educational system in the first place. How about giving federal money to schools without requiring them to adapt to a system that in the long run will not work.”
It is ridiculous to judge the pros and cons of a book based on Amazon reviews.
There are good ones and bad ones for every book.
Only a fool would judge a book by Amazon reviews. Or by its cover.
The zcommon Core standards should be judged by their results: no promises kept. Flat scores. Increased achievement gaps. Much opposition by classroom teachers, who use them and know them best.
How many times does an experiment fail before it is judged a failure?
Why was CC never field tested before it was imposed? Why no effort to work out the flaws?
What the rigid belief that it was perfect and needed no tweaks?
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Voicing opposition to Common Core is POINTLESS. Wiser to focus on a meaningful process to improve!
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To improve what?
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“Meaningful process to improve” is a no-brainer. We’ve discussed it a bit on the blog, but it’s such a straightforward issue it doesn’t need a lot of time. To see how CCSS were actually promulgated, Mercedes Schneider’s blog has lots of info. It’s “how not to do it;” there was neither stakeholder input nor field testing nor improvement procedure. Many states have w/drawn, tweaked & rebranded. NYS’ “process to improve” has been covered here [hint: not “meaningful”].
Here’s how real live professionals do it [American Natl Stds Inst]:
“Accreditation by ANSI signifies that the procedures used by the stds body in connection w/devpt of the ANS meet the institute’s essential reqts for openness, balance, consensus and due process… ‘Due process’ = ANSs are developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the reqts of various stake holders… all interested and affected parties have an opportunity to participate in stds devpt… ‘Openness’ = a collaborative, balanced and consensus-based process.”
Another aspect of CCSS that is frequently criticized is the linked standardized exams. Here again, “meaningful process to improve” is a nut long ago cracked, but today, simply not followed by states nor encouraged by fed.
Here’s how NYS Regents used to do it before they were “ed-reformed”:
“Regents exams are prepared by a conference of selected New York teachers of each test’s specific discipline who assemble a test map that highlights the skills and knowledge required from the specific discipline’s learning standards. The conferences meet and design the tests three years before the tests’ issuance, which includes time for field testing and evaluating testing questions.” In “my day” (almost 50 yrs ago!) the procedure included regular feedback/ proposed changes.
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For all those Common Core (NextGen is the NY re-brand) promoters, cheerleaders, advocates, sycophants, Kool-Aid drinkers, true believers, profiteers, or fully indoctrinated . . .
. . . where’s the beef?
Flat test scores?
Enraged parents?
Failed methodologies?
Constrained curricula?
Bored students?
Defeated students?
Hyper-failure rates?
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I don’t know if the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (its new director is Eric Bettinger, linked to Aspen, received Gates grants, and had some “entrepreneurship” thing listed in the bio) supports Common Core or not. But, CEPA is heavy with white men (14), including Hanushek, short on women (3), and in terms of Black experts (0).
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Common Core is so white? This is your argument against Common Core, Linda? If it is white, and it is male, then it is clearly wrong.
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Too many White men (thanks for the admission) are in think tanks, not contributing to GDP. They get to wear suits, have no accountability and avoid teaching kids. Why exclude the sisters and brethren of color from the same paychecks?
An incredibly narrow group of oligarchs end up with demographically similar minions from privilege who, keep Frankenstein alive for them, despite the Rand Corp.’s proof of failure. My guess- investors in the largest seller of for-profit schools-in-a-box appreciate colonialism as a time-saver.
If you haven’t read, “Don’t Surrender the Academy” (Philanthropy Roundtable) co-written by Frederick Hess and a Gates employee, it’s a must read. Also read Kim Smith’s (Bellwether, Pahara, NSVF) 2003 interview in Philanthropy Roundtable.
The problem with democracy for you, BA, and the Koch’s is, it’s not exclusionary and it hampers profit taking?
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Paint me surprised- one of the women of CEPA got a $3,000,000 grant from Gates and a Thomas B. Fordham prize.
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Count me among the nuts. The Common Core State Standards in ELA are a puerile mess. Here, a review of ONE of them, though one could do the same for most:
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Fabulous essay, Bob! A healthy, corrective breath of fresh air after reading a few CC ELA stds. Wish I had a whole volume of them to hand out to ELA teachers. The Shepherd ELA’s could stand proudly on their shelves, much as the Dutch Catechism did on my Mom’s shelves– no Boston Catechism to be found there [subtitle: how I grew up not hating Catholicism].
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LMAO!
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And thank you, bethree5, for reading the piece. One posts these and wonders whether anyone did or will.
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The Coring of the Six Hundred (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson) | Bob Shepherd
Row on row, row on row,
Row on row stationed
Sick at their monitors
Sat the six hundred.
“You may now type your Username”
Said the test proctor.
Set up for failure
Sat the six hundred.
“Enter your password key!
“Mercy upon you!
“During the testing
“No one can help you.”
Someone had blundered.
The unspoken truth. But
Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do or die,
Theirs was but to try and cry.
Set up for failure
Sat the six hundred.
Text to the right of them
Complex, out of context,
Bubbles in front of them,
Plausible answers,
Tricky and tortured,
Boldly they bubbled and well
Though smack in the mouth of hell
Sat the six hundred.
This is what reading means,
Now that Gates/Pearson
Has reified testing
Far beyond reason.
Pearson not persons.
Plutocrats plundering
Taxpayer dollars
Spent to abuse.
The children are used.
They bubble and squirm
To reveal their stack ranking
And never again
Will know joy in learning
Never again
Humane joy in reading
And writing, no never again,
Not the six hundred.
Text to the right of them
Complex, out of context,
Bubbles in front of them,
Plausible answers,
Tricky and tortured,
Boldly they bubbled and well.
Gritfully slogging through hell
Sat the six hundred.
When shall their innocence,
Innate curiosity,
Joy in their learning
Ever return?
This never shall be.
Theirs is to gritfully
Show the obedience
Proper for proles,
Their preordained role
In the New Feudal Order.
Standardized children
Standardized minds.
Common, not great,
Though sufficient to serve
The ends of the state.
Lost to themselves
And the fruits of their labors.
Honor this children’s crusade.
Honor the price they paid.
Remember when they learned and played.
Our once-young six hundred.
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LOVE your posts. Thanks.
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Thank you, Laura. That means a lot to me.
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Doggone it, Bob, I planned to post that! You beat me to it.
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I would be honored if you cut it and here and posted it one day. I will send a version to you.
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Who can argue with the PR around Common Core? More rigor! Critical thinking instead of rote memorization! But it’s all a fraud. The claims are unfounded. The Common Core curriculum fails to deliver. A foundation of core knowledge is the only true foundation for the vaunted higher-order thinking skills we want our kids to exhibit. Common Core, perversely, militates against teaching this essential knowledge. It’s devolved into mental weightlifting exercises that allegedly strengthen the mind, but do no such thing. It’s producing graduates who not only lack the skills it purports to teach, but graduates who are profoundly ignorant of the knowledge one needs to be a competent citizen that can participate well in the public sphere. Wake up, America! Look behind the spin and PR of Common Core advocates. The emperor has no clothes.
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Yup. It is a fraud. A multi-billion-dollar scam perpetrated in order to sell online programs correlated to one set of national standards that weren’t thought through. It was business, hucksterism, pure and simple. A monopoly play.
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“If you have read others and want to recommend them, leave a comment.”
I hesitate to pound my own chest as my book is not a direct attack on CCSS but attacks the underlying onto-epistemological falsehoods and errors involved in the standards and testing malpractice regime.
“Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education”
In it I discuss the purpose of American public education and of government in general, issues of truth in discourse, justice and ethics in teaching practices, the abuse and misuse of the terms standards and measurement which serve to provide an unwarranted pseudo-scientific validity/sheen to the standards and testing regime and how the inherent discrimination in that regime should be adjudicated to be unconstitutional state discrimination no different than discrimination via race, gender, disability, etc. . . .
Please feel free to contact me at duaneswacker@gmail.com and we can arrange to get you one. I’ve already lost my money on publishing it so all I ask is that you give $10 or $20 to your favorite charity.
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