Archives for category: Common Core
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Common Core on Teaching the Gettysburg Address: What a Travesty!

By dianeravitch
November 28, 2013 //
102

The Common Core emphasizes the importance of “close reading,” that is, understanding the meaning of a text without reference to context or background knowledge, which presumably might privilege some students over others.

In this post, Valerie Strauss explains how the writers of the Common Core conceptualize the teaching of the Gettysburg Address. It was delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, nearly five months after the Battle of Gettysburg, where Union forces defeated the Confederate army.

Strauss writes:

The unit — “A Close Reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address“ — is designed for students to do a “close reading” of the address “with text-dependent questions” — but without historical context. Teachers are given a detailed 29-page script of how to teach the unit, with the following explanation:

The idea here is to plunge students into an independent encounter with this short text. Refrain from giving background context or substantial instructional guidance at the outset. It may make sense to notify students that the short text is thought to be difficult and they are not expected to understand it fully on a first reading — that they can expect to struggle. Some students may be frustrated, but all students need practice in doing their best to stay with something they do not initially understand. This close reading approach forces students to rely exclusively on the text instead of privileging background knowledge, and levels the playing field for all students as they seek to comprehend Lincoln’s address.

The Gettysburg Address unit can be found on the Web site of Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit organization founded by three people described as “lead authorsof the Common Core State Standards.” They are David Coleman,  now president of the College Board who worked on the English Language Arts standards; Jason Zimba, who worked on the math standards; and Susan Pimental, who worked on the ELA standards. The organization’s Linked In biography also describes the three as the “lead writers of the Common Core State Standards.”

Strauss added a letter from a teacher who complained about the insufficiency of “close reading” when considering a text so fraught with meaning as the Gettysburg address. How is a student to understand the text while knowing nothing about where or why it was delivered?

In this post, Paul Horton–who teaches history at the University Lab School in Chicago–reacts to Valerie Strauss’s column on the Common Core “close reading” of the Gettysburg Address.

Horton writes:

The reading of the Gettysburg Address for the authors of the Common Core Standards is an exercise in the acquisition of literacy. The document is cut away from any context that would allow students to understand its historical significance.

This idea, after all, is the whole point of the postwar evolution of the “New Criticism”: literary value is determined by a work’s internal complexity: the tensions between elements or particulars and symbols, as leading “new critic” John Crowe Ransom who was the founding editor of the Kenyon Review might say.

Students who read the Address will be assessed on developing a short essay discussion of three main ideas discussed. The short essay will be graded according to a rubric that looks for key words, organization, and the repetition of key ideas.

He notes that this vitally important speech is shorn of any historical meaning when it is subjected to “close reading.”

Why the “close reading,” absent context?

It makes student answers easier to grade by machine.

Horton writes:

When the test makers designed the standards and the curriculum, they were not concerned with what the kids are learning or with anything that could possibly resemble knowledge. They created tests that could be graded easily and cheaply, either by teams that had been validated on an airtight rubric, or by computer algorithms.

And he adds:

If you were to write about the unbearable sadness of feeling the weight of hundreds of thousands of deaths and families torn asunder, you would fail your Pearson test. The state Superintendent’s “cut” might feel like an amputation.

Context? Don’t they do that in history class? From what I have seen, the Common Core snippet patrol can pare “Big History” down to a couple of milliseconds of not so cosmic time. History is lucky to get a “New York minute” these days. Schools are letting go of all of the old farts and marms who teach in depth research and who care about “significance.”

If you don’t know that the winter of 1863 was a tough time because of all of those details that the retired and fired teachers took with them when they cleared their desks, you would be a great candidate for teaching the “Gettysburg Address” and History with the script handed you by our genius test makers.

How is it possible for any student to understand the meaning of the Gettysburg Address without knowing the historical context in which it was delivered?

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Common Core, Curriculum

New York: Speakers at Public Forum Again Blast Commissioner King, Regents, Common Core, Testing

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2013 //
18

Another public forum in the suburbs of New York City, and another nearly unanimous display of outrage towards the policymakers in New York state.

Commissioner John King has made clear again and again that nothing said at these public forums will change his course of action.

He will stick to the Common Core and the testing no matter what parents and teachers say.

And so will the Board of Regents.

Of course, this display of disdain toward the public only serves to raise the temperature, and speakers were plenty heated by the knowledge that no one was listening.

According to the report linked here,

“They’re mad as hell — and they’re not going to take it anymore.

A Common Core forum held at Eastport-South Manor Tuesday night brought out scores of parents, educators and students who echoed a common refrain of disappointment, despair and anger over a curriculum they said stands to dim the light of learning in their children.”

Many were outspoken:

“Setting up kids to fail is damaging to their self-esteem,” said Kathleen Hedder of the Rocky Point Board of Education. “How can you accurately rate progress if no one understands the rules and the game has changed mid-stream?”

Added Jan Achilich, director of special education at the Remsenburg-Speonk Union Free School District, added, “What you are doing is tantamount to physically throwing them into a rushing river without a life preserver.”

The Blue Ribbon school, she said, where music and dance have long been celebrated, is “now a place where anxiety and stress shadow our days.”

Concerns were raised about special education students who cannot keep up to a cookie-cutter standard.

Achilich asked King to reevaluate the current situation.

Others blasted King.

Julie Lofstad of the Hampton Bays Mothers Association lashed into the commissioner. “Can you explain why our children aren’t as important to you as Mattel?” she asked. The toy company, she said, recalled toys that were “potentially harmful. Why don’t you recall the Common Core? Why aren’t you willing to admit the Common Core is flawed, and needs to be fixed, or the program scrapped?”

A local school board president said,

“This is a program that breaks the children, not educates,” he said. “It is destroying our children. Allow our teachers to teach, not be proctors.”

“Shame on you,” said Chris Tice of the Sag Harbor school board. “Please tell us specifically how you are going to fix this and give us a timeline.”

King responded by saying there was a “great gap” between the evening’s conversation and what is happening in classrooms that he’s visited, where children are writing and reading more challenging texts — his words were met by a loud outcry from the audience.

The standards were adopted in 2010 and would be phased in over seven years.

“They won’t be here in 2017 and neither will you,” one audience member yelled. 

John King again made clear that he disagrees with the public. They are wrong, he is right. Period. ”

He disagreed that Common Core instruction was “less joyful” and said he saw kids happy in their classroom. “Joy and rigor in learning aren’t opposites.”

The article does not mention the appearance of any members of the Tea Party or (as Frank Bruni put it recently in the New York Times) “left-wing paranoiacs.”

The speakers were parents and teachers and school board members in the local communities.

 

Categories Common Core, New York

A Texan Responds to Frank Bruni About “Coddling” and the Common Core

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
28

This comment came from a reader:

Diane,

In response to the Frank Bruni article in the NYT I wanted to share with you what I shared with my colleagues at the Schlechty Center. I am a Senior Associate with the Center, a former school superintendent in Texas and was heavily involved in the effort of the Texas Association of School Administrators in developing the document, “Creating A New Vision for Public Education in Texas”, with which you are familiar. Here is what I shared:

We have always had some parents who were over protective, but to use current parental reactions to Common Core and abusive uses of standardized tests as evidence that todays children are being “coddled” is a gross misinterpretation of what parents are saying. The “suburban white moms” comment from Secretary Duncan, which was the trigger for this article, is a misinterpretation and a misrepresentation as well as a mischaracterization. The suburban schools I am familiar with are highly competitive environments and in many cases a lot of children are pushed too hard, are expected to be involved in numerous organized activities in and out of school, leaving little time to “be children”.

More disturbing is how dismissive the author is of the critics of Common Core and the associated testing. He categorized the critics from extreme conservative to extreme liberal and those engaging in imaginary conspiracies about privatization. The latter is a veiled slap at the work of Diane Ravitch. The criticism of CC and the test-based accountability are real, growing, and based on legitimate concerns. The privatization movement is well substantiated. To reframe the discussion as “too much coddling” may be an attempt to shift the focus of the debate. The fact that 17 states are now backing away from Common Core is probably alarming to the so-called “reformers”, Secretary Duncan, Jeb Bush, etc. –and perhaps to this author.

If one looks closely at the criticisms, they are more about the standardized tests, arbitrary cut scores, and failing labels, etc., as the single means of assessing and reporting on the Common Core, than they are about the standards themselves. As Phil has asserted for years, when high stakes are attached to the assessments, the assessments become the standards.

John Horn

Categories Common Core

Gary Rubinstein: My Daughter’s Common Core Workbook in Kindergarten

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
53

If you really want to know what the New York City public schools are doing to make sure that five-year-olds are on track for college and/or careers, read Gary Rubinstein’s description about his daughter’s Common Core workbook for kindergarten.

State officials claim they don’t want to test children in k-2, but that is not what the workbook says.

Gary notes:

Each page of the book features in large letters the words ‘TEST PREP’ so any administrator who claims that they don’t encourage test prep for kindergarteners is lying.  Also notice that these kindergarteners are getting early practice in bubbling. 

He reproduces example after example of math questions that the students are supposed to answer.

These five-year-olds are expected to know how to add and subtract and to do problem-solving. There is even some algebra thrown in for good measure.

Gary thinks the $30 that this workbook cost would be better spent on field trips and activities.

One of his commenters said that the workbook is not itself Common Core but a publishing company’s effort to implement Common Core.

I expect we will see many publishers using their resources to make school as “hard” as possible so that five year old children are on track for college and careers.

Categories Common Core, Curriculum

An Inside Look at the Opt-Out Movement

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
12

Robert Kolker has written an excellent analysis of the anti-testing movement. The central figures are not “white suburban moms,” but a family from the Dominican Republic. Young Oscar, who loved school, loses interest when his favorite subjects and activities are replaced by test prep. The larger the test looms, the less Oscar cares about school.

Into this vivid story, Kolker weaves an overview of the opt out movement. For years, it was small but noisy. With the advent of Common Core testing, which failed 70% of students in New York State, the movement is flourishing. The more disgusted the students and parents are, the more their education is turned into endless testing, the more the movement finds new converts.

Categories Common Core, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

Anthony Cody: Common Core and RoboGrading

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
12

Anthony Cody wonders in this post whether the Common Core standards are designed to facilitate computer grading of student essays.

Cody includes a commentary by Alice Mercer, who describes a writing task on the Common Core test. She reaches the startling conclusion that the standards were written to accommodate computer testing, which explains the limitation on background knowledge.

She writes:

“Even if my assertion that the standards were written to accommodate testing, and more specifically machine scoring of writing are wrong, these are still lousy tasks that are very low-level and not “rigorous” or cognitively demanding.”

Cody, reflecting on Mercer’s observations, writes:

“This reveals one of our basic fears as educators and parents about the Common Core and associated tests. The project is an attempt to align and standardize instruction and assessment on an unprecedented scale. The future, according to the technocrats who have designed these systems, involves computer-based curriculum and tests, and frequent checks, via computer, on student performance. And as this report in EdWeek indicates, there is great deal of money to be made. Los Angeles Unified has already spent a billion dollars on iPads, and one of the chief justifications was to prepare for computer-based assessments such as these.”

Categories Common Core, Technology, Computers, Testing

My View: Why Parents Are Rejecting Common Core

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2013 //
127

This is an article I wrote for CNN.com, explaining why there is strong parent resistance to Common Core testing.

The pushback is not so much against the standards as against the decision to make the tests so “hard” and set the passing mark so unrealistically high, that most students failed.

In a democracy, public officials have to remember that they were not hired to impose their dogmas on everyone and that government functions best when it has the consent of the governed.

The most important lesson to be learned from the growing backlash is the importance of critical thinking. Right now, public officials defend the CCSS by calling critics names and trying to discredit them as extremists and ideologues.

Why not listen, engage in honest dialogue, and demonstrate a willingness to think critically and reflect on the objections, rather than smearing those who ask questions?

One of my intellectual heroes was Robert Hutchins, for years the president of the University of Chicago. He once said, and I paraphrase, never stop listening to your critics; they may be right.

Categories Common Core

Carol Burris: Follow the Money for Common Core Implementation

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2013 //
47

Carol Burris puzzled over a strange phenomenon. Why is the state spending so much money on Common Core-aligned curriculum?

In the past, New York state set standards, and local districts developed their own curriculum, usually at a cost of about $1,000 per grade. Now, teachers are expected to use state-purchased curricula, developed at a cost of millions.

Burris digs deeper, and, of course, discovers the Gates Foundation, helping to create a national curriculum.

Burris asks:

Why do New York State Education Commissioner John King and [Board of Regents’ chair] Tisch refuse to slow down New York’s rushed Core implementation, despite outcry from the public?

If parents, teachers and taxpayers had the time to critically examine the curriculum, they would ask the hard questions that would lead to its unraveling. This is not just a math problem. There are English/Language Arts vendors producing $14 million worth of New York curriculum as well. Recently ELA modules were ridiculed at a local school board meeting in upstate New York.

There are big questions that the press needs to ask about Common Core Inc. and all of the vendors that are receiving public money. There is also an overarching question that should be asked: Is this an attempt to create a national curriculum by having federal tax dollars flow to New York State and then out again to an organization committed to Common Core curriculum development?  And to all of the business leaders who so enthusiastically support the Common Core—do you want your future workers to count like Sally? Is this the best curriculum that more than $28 million can buy? I think not.  It is time we take a look with eyes wide open.

 

Categories Common Core, New York

Edward F. Berger: Who Owns America? The People or the Oligarchs?

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2013 //
27

Edward F. Berger has published an excellent post about the hostile takeover of American democracy by a small number of people with a great deal of wealth.

Read it all. He begins:

“A majority of those who hold the power and wealth of our nation run their coercive top-down empires as personal wealth and power generators. They see themselves as decision makers who should shape the world (i.e., similar to the ‘rule of the few’ model used in China). They believe in their system of unquestioned force-based rule. They believe that that the American Constitutional system of governance, law, and elected representatives interferes with their perceived ‘right’ to rule.

“Their use of power and their control of resources, dictate government and economic policies. Their present approach is to take over any government (County, State, and Federal) that has goals other than their own. For example, turn public lands including national parks over to them and let them exploit the resources. Turn the schools over to them and let them limit education and profit from the money taxpayers pay for public education. Privatize every aspect of government, including prisons, for profit. Appoint czars to run cities, schools, and public services. Reject elected officials.

“Representative Democracy is an irritant to this loosely affiliated oligarchy. They do whatever it takes to control those elected and get them to do their bidding. They subvert the Democratic system and stop citizens from organizing, voting, or questioning them. An educated populous must be dumbed-down, and public comprehensive education must be disrupted. An example is what they have already accomplished in Red States – states that have the worst education, medical care, women’s rights, work opportunities, freedom, and obviously, representation.”

Can we save our democracy?

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Economy, Education Industry

Frank Bruni Wonders Whether American Kids Are Too Coddled

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2013 //
60

For many years, Frank Bruni was a wonderful restaurant reviewer for the New York Times. But now he is a regular opinion writer for the New York Times, and when he writes about education, he is way over his head. He was one of the few to write sympathetically about the corporate reform turkey “Won’t Back Down,” which opened in 2,500 theaters to bad reviews and disappeared a month later.

His latest effort was a strident defense of the Common Core standards and tests, in which he made fun of the parents who spoke out against the overuse and misuse of standardized testing. His thesis was that American kids are “too coddled.”

Surely, he was not referring to the majority of public school students in the south and the west who–according to the Southern Education Fund–live in poverty. Are they coddled?

Does he know that in New York State, only 3% of English learners passed the tests; only 5% of students with disabilities; only 15-18% of black and Hispanic students? What will we do with these students if large numbers fail these “rigorous” tests in the future? Surely they won’t be coddled.

His purpose is to show solidarity with the Common Core standards and tests, although he doesn’t seem to know how they were developed, why they were adopted, or why their advocates feel certain they will produce good results.

He disparages their critics as extremists, echoing Arne Duncan:

“The Common Core, a laudable set of guidelines that emphasize analytical thinking over rote memorization, has been adopted in more than 40 states. In instances its implementation has been flawed, and its accompanying emphasis on testing certainly warrants debate.

“What’s not warranted is the welling hysteria: from right-wing alarmists, who hallucinate a federal takeover of education and the indoctrination of a next generation of government-loving liberals; from left-wing paranoiacs, who imagine some conspiracy to ultimately privatize education and create a new frontier of profits for money-mad plutocrats.

“Then there’s the outcry, equally reflective of the times, from adults who assert that kids aren’t enjoying school as much; feel a level of stress that they shouldn’t have to; are being judged too narrowly; and doubt their own mettle.

“Aren’t aspects of school supposed to be relatively mirthless? Isn’t stress an acceptable byproduct of reaching higher and digging deeper? Aren’t certain fixed judgments inevitable? And isn’t mettle established through hard work?”

Imagine thinking that the burst of thousands of privately managed charters and the spread of vouchers to 17 states in the past 20 years is worthy of concern? Nah, that’s leftwing paranoic thinking. Imagine wondering how strained school budgets can afford billions for new software and hardware, more bandwidth, more teacher evaluations based on tests, more tests, more test prep…..Nah, just more left-wing paranoic thinking.

Categories Common Core
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