Ann Policelli Cronin, an experienced teacher in Connecticut, says that the Common Core should be considered a first draft. Here are her comments:

The Common Core State Standards: A First Draft

Much of what is written about the Common Care State Standards is based on a faulty premise about their quality. For example, on August 18, 2013 in The New York Times, Bill Keller wrote that the Common Core State Standards are “ the most serious educational reform of our lifetime and will raise public school standards nationwide”. Three days later, Charles Blow wrote that the Common Core State Standards will teach students “ to think critically and problem solve” and will “bolster” good teaching.

Not so. The Common Core Stare Standards will diminish student learning in high school English classes and will inhibit good teaching.

The CCSS harken back to the past and contradict the research of the past 70 years in the field of English language arts.

The CCSS will not develop strong readers. The authors of the standards herald the fact that they will require all students to read difficult literature. The truth is that assigning student to read books beyond their ability, rather than putting time and effort into developing the students’ skills and fostering their interest, will make them use the internet to locate summaries and analyses of those books instead of reading them. The CCSS do not address how to motivate students to actually sit and read a book, engage with its ideas and questions, and actively respond to those ideas and questions. With the CCSS, students will not be asked to BE readers.

The CCSS will not develop effective writers. All student writing will fit a prescribed formula for an argument in an impersonal, objective voice. Inductive reasoning and narrative thinking, the two other kinds of thinking that students need to develop through writing, are eliminated due to the CCSS concentration on the deductive reasoning of argument. Students will also be hampered in their development as writers because they will not be allowed to use the personal voice, as both Mr. Blow and Mr. Keller did in their pieces. Timed, in-class writing is valued rather than the deep thinking of multiple revisions. With the CCSS, the students will not be asked to BE writers.

David Coleman, the author of the English Language Arts Standards for the Common Core proudly says, over and over again in his stump speeches that English classrooms now prepare students for a world in which others care about what they think and feel, but in reality, he says, often with an unprintable expletive, “No one really cares what they feel or think.”

That is the world for which the CCSS will prepare the next generation, a world in which individual ideas and questions are absent.

There is an arrogance to the CCSS and to their spokesperson, David Coleman.

There is an arrogance to the English standards being written by people who have never taught English.

There is an arrogance to ignoring the rigorous standards of the professional organization of English language arts teachers, the National Council of Teachers of English, disregarding their published critiques of each draft of the CCSS, and being impervious to the fact that NCTE has not endorsed the Common Core State Standards.

There is an arrogance to saying that the narrow CCSS definition of what it means to read and what it means to write will help students to be the innovative thinkers and autonomous learners that the workplaces of the future will demand them to be.

There is an arrogance to saying that the standards that other countries have determined as measures of achievement, such as the ability to learn when faced with new situations or problems and the ability to think critically and creatively through collaboration with others, are not achievements because those skills are not on the narrowly confined tests aligned with the CCSS.

There is an arrogance to saying that student achievement can be defined only by the tests that the designers of the ill-conceived CCSS have commissioned.

It is time to look at the existing CCSS as a first draft. We have the knowledge and the expertise to write a next and better draft. As researchers, as English teachers, and as those who know well the workplace of the future, let’s work together to create standards which help all of our students to BE readers, to BE writers, to Be thinkers, and to create a world in which, indeed, we are all expected to have the motivation and the skills to express what we think and what we feel.

Ann Policelli Cronin, a recipient of national and state-wide awards for English teaching, curriculum design and professional development, has been creating English programs and supervising middle and high school English teachers in Connecticut for 27 years.

Susan Ohanian addressed
this letter to the top officials of the state of Vermont.
She asks straightforward questions about the claims made for Common
Core: what is the evidence? Who wrote them? Where is TE evidence
that Vermont schools were doing a poor job? What will it cost to
implement the Common Core? What makes the new assessments better
than current ones? Bottom line: where is the evidence? Or, look
before you leap.

James Milgram is a professor emeritus of mathematics at
Stanford University. He served on the validation committee for the
Common Core mathematics. He did not agree to approve the standards.
He sent me the following letter. He has spoken out against the
standards in various states. See here
and here.
   

Dear Diane, In
your own writings you mention that the biggest issue with Core
Standards is the lack of evidence. This is largely true. But at
least in math there is significant international evidence that
major parts of the standards will not work. For example, the only
area we could find that has had success with CCSS-M's method of
treating geometry is in Flemish Belgium. But it was tried on a
national scale in Russia a number of years back, and was rapidly
dropped. Likewise, the extremely limited high school level content
is so weak that Jason Zimba, one of the three main writers
described it as follows: First, he defined "college readiness" by
stating: "We have agreement to the extent that it's a fuzzy
definition, that the minimally college-ready student is a student
who passed Algebra II." Perhaps this explains why the only math at
the high school level, aside from a snippet on trigonometry, is
material from Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. Moreover, the
Algebra II component does not describe a complete course. Zimba's
definition is taken verbatim from his March 23, 2010 testimony
before the MA State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Later, in the question period, Sandy Stotsky asked for some
clarification. The following is a verbatim transcript: Zimba stated
"In my original remarks, I didn't make that point strongly enough
or signal the agreement that we have on this - the definition of
college readiness. I think it's a fair critique that it's a minimal
definition of college readiness." Stotsky asked "For some
colleges?" and Zimba responded by stating: "Well, for the colleges
most kids go to, but not for the colleges most parents aspire to."
Stotsky then asked "Not for STEM, not for international
competitiveness?" and Zimba responded "Not only not for STEM, it’s
also not for selective colleges. For example, for UC Berkeley,
whether you are going to be an engineer or not, you'd better have
precalculus to get into UC Berkeley." Stotsky then pointed out:
"Right, but we have to think of the engineering colleges and the
scientific pathway." Zimba added "That's true, I think the third
pathway goes a lot towards that. But your issue is broader than
that." Stotsky agreed saying "I'm not just thinking about selective
colleges. There's a much broader question here," to which Zimba
added "That's right. It's both, I think, in the sense of being
clear about what this college readiness does and doesn't get you,
and that's the big subject." Stotsky then summarized her objections
to this minimalist definition by explaining that a set of standards
labeled as making students college-ready when the readiness level
applies only to a certain type of college and to a low level of
mathematical expertise wouldn’t command much international respect
in areas like technology, economics, and business. Zimba appeared
to agree as he then said "OK. Thank you." So these are the
standards that Sybilla Beckmann recently described by stating that
"No standards I know of are better than the CCSS-M." Well, if you
believe that then perhaps I can interest you in large bridge in
NYC. As to the "third pathway" that Zimba mentioned above, it never
actually existed. The version of CCSS-M Zimba was talking about was
the March 10 public draft. It had placemarkers for the key calculus
standards, but aside from those placemarkers, this version
contained about the same material -- only in Geometry, Algebra I,
Algebra II and a trig snippet -- as appears in the final version.
Moreover, the calculus placemarkers and any hint of a third pathway
are gone in the final version. It is also worth noting that
Clifford Adelman did an analysis of the odds of completing a
college degree based on the highest level math course completed in
high school. The odds for Geometry were 16.7%, for Algebra II they
were 39.3%, but for Trigonometry they were 60%, 74.6% for
Precalculus, and 83.3% for Calculus. So we can estimate that a
"minimally college ready student" has a less than 40% chance of
completing a college degree. Is this really what the National
Governor's Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers,
and the Gates and Broad Foundations want for our youth? Yours, Jim
Milgram 

Anthony Cody chastises Dennis Van Roekel, president of the NEA, for his enthusiasm for the Common Core standards.

Cody warns that standardization does not enhance teacher autonomy. One size fits all is not a recipe for professionalism.

He writes:

 Mr. Van Roekel seems to want us to inhabit some alternative universe where teachers can teach according broad guidelines, and high stakes tests are on hold until we somehow have perfected their ability to fully capture student learning. Yet in New York, Common Core tests were given just a short five months ago, and only 30% of the students were rated proficient. Governor Cuomo is calling for the “death penalty” for low scoring schools. Teacher evaluations are required to include test scores. There will be more pressure brought to bear at every level, and once again, schools in African American and Latino communities will be the first closed.