If you don’t like the Common Core standards, you will enjoy reading Susan Ohanian’s blast at them.
Ohanian thinks that the CC is a massive error at best, a sordid conspiracy by the elites at worst.
What do you think?
Archives for category: Common Core
The New York State United Teachers urged the state education department to slow down the rush to testing the Common Core because neither students nor teachers are ready.
NYSUT says: Don’t test what hasn’t been taught.
Sounds sensible.
But this is the strange thing.
Open the link. Look at the old math problem. Look at the Common Core problem.
What do you think?
I understand the old version. The new one–the Common Core example–doesn’t make sense.
Is that just me?
There is growing evidence that the Common Core standards are absurd in the early grades. They require a level of academic learning that is developmentally inappropriate.
Little children need time to play. Play is their work. In play, they learn to share and to count, to communicate, to use language appropriately, and to figure things out.
A story in a NYC newspaper shows just how ridiculous the Common Core standards are when imposed on 5-year-olds: Here is a story, well worth reading, about how Common Core is being implemented in kindergartens across New York City. The headline is. “Playtime’s Over.”
Says the story:
“Way beyond the ABCs, crayons and building blocks, the city Department of Education now wants 4- and 5-year-olds to write “informative/explanatory reports” and demonstrate “algebraic thinking.”
“Children who barely know how to write the alphabet or add 2 and 2 are expected to write topic sentences and use diagrams to illustrate math equations.
“For the most part, it’s way over their heads,” a Brooklyn teacher said. “It’s too much for them. They’re babies!”
“In a kindergarten class in Red Hook, Brooklyn, three children broke down and sobbed on separate days last week, another teacher told The Post.”
How did this happen?
This article by Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige explains that early childhood educators were not included on the committees that wrote the standards, and their feedback was never incorporated.
It is as if a large group of business leaders were asked to write standards for surgeons, or if surgeons were asked to devise standards for plumbers.
When you learn what these standards expect little children to do, you have to wonder if any of the people who wrote them have small children or if they ever taught small children.
I am reminded of a book that came out last year by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl called Childism, about prejudice against children. These days, we don’t put them to work in factories at 5 or 6, and we don’t beat them in public, we just make them do things that they cannot do and make them feel like failures before they turn 7.
This NYC teacher of children with autism is having trouble teaching her students the Common Core.
Readers, do you have any advice for her?
“I just started teaching full-time in NYC as a special educator for children with autism. Upon arriving my new job, I have not received any support and help from my administration. With the new common core alignment for my students, I know that many of them are just not ready for that kind of learning yet. It is ashamed that my administration is pushing me to teach my kids how to retell details from a text when some of them still need to learn how to hold a pencil, do potty training, or drawing a line. I am absolutely opposed to this common core alignment in NYC. I do see this new standard as a way to set up special educators to fail.
As an educator, I like for my students to thrive in their learning at their own pace, especially for students of special needs. However, the more I get pushed around by the hierarchy and “educratics”, I do not feel like this job is a profession that I can respect any longer. I have put too many long hours to make my students learn but only to have the administration telling me that I am not challenging my students enough.
I feel that there has to be a better solution for making our student learn and be ready for the 21st Century. For every state to get funding for RACE TO THE TOP, that is just setting every child to fail and fall in the bottom.”
Jim Martinez decided to research the sources of the Common Core State Standards. Given their importance as a redesign of the nation’s highly decentralized education system, we can expect to see many more such efforts to understand the origins of this important document.
“Engaging the nonsense – a brief investigation of the Common Core”
A teacher asked me where the Common Core came from, another suggested that I “teach” the Common Core in my Master’s degree level courses.
So my curiosity got the best of me and I spent some time understanding something about Common Core from my perspective as a scholar and educator.
My first discovery is that the Common Core is a political document. That may seem fairly obvious, but what I mean is that there is an identifiable political ideology and history that has contributed greatly to the current document. I’ve attached a link to document that led me to this conclusion.
http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards – English Language Arts Appendix A
This document contains references to supporting representative research for the Common Core. As I read the document something caught my eye, it was the following quote from Adams (2009)
““There may one day be modes and methods of information delivery that are as efficient and powerful as text, but for now there is no contest. To grow, our students must read lots, and more specifically they must read lots of ‘complex’ texts—texts that offer them new language, new knowledge, and new modes of thought””
This bothered me. I don’t agree with the statement and so I decided to read Adams (2009) I did a Google search and found this:
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/adams.htm – The Challenge of Advanced Texts:The Interdependence of Reading and Learning.
From the text I figured out that Adams is a heavy weight in reading and literacy circles (pun intended) there’s just a style of writing and authoritative stance that gives you clues, I then looked her up in Wikipedia to confirm my suspicions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Jager_Adams
If you read the article you find that not only is she a heavy weight, she is politically connected as in, inside the room when policy decisions are made.
I Googled a little more and came to this document.
http://www.niu.edu/cedu_richgels/PDFs/Adams1991.pdf
It’s a critique on her work in the 1990s that refers to her government directed research on phonics instruction. The critique and her response are very informative. It took me a couple of hours to find these documents and read parts of them and I think I found some answers to some questions and was provoked to some other thoughts that I will share with you now.
Common Core includes in it’s history, No Child Left Behind and other national educational policy reports dating back to A Nation At Risk (1983). It’s important to remember that most research is government funded and so it is unfair to critique educational research for it’s funding source. However, it is absolutely fair to question who gets to decide what the research is about and how that research is presented and used.
I happened to pursue a line of inquiry that involved Adams (2009) but there were many other researchers cited (Beck and Mckeown, vocabulary development, are notable as well) in the Common Core. I disagreed with Adams and I wanted to explore the source of the disagreement, the critiques helped clarify my understanding of my disagreement. The critiques also provided valuable insights on the theoretical framework Adams uses in her research. I still disagree with her, but I am respectful of her efforts. Which brings me to my next point.
There are many researchers cited in the Common Core, with many research agendas, using many methodological approaches across many disciplines. There is no cohesive theoretical framework or agreement on what constitutes the best approaches from a scientific research perspective to teaching and learning being represented in the document. Critics of the representative research in the Common Core abound. Some of the representative research consists of laboratory trials with small numbers of students, some include longitudinal studies and some of the research includes significant limitations that should be considered carefully when considering the claims that are made in the research.
Given the ambition of a national educational policy it seems that the best policy makers could come up with are some “best practices” that have achieved some success. It is very helpful to publicize that kind information, however, we have to ask: Is it useful to claim that a patchwork quilt of research underlying a set of standards is a framework for a solution to the educational challenges this country faces?
When teachers are asked to implement standards that they feel “do not make sense” it is not that teachers are simply ignorant and require professional development, it is in my opinion, the initial reaction of a person engaged in a craft/practice that is highly dependent and responsive to local conditions.
The Common Core standards are derived, in part, from an abstraction (the patchwork quilt of research) and are being pushed on to practitioners. The research strands that I examined tended toward the notion that knowledge acquisition is the endgame of school-based learning. I would not be surprised if that were true of many of the other research strands as that sentiment is pervasive in education.
Knowledge acquisition learning is about remembering and being able to manipulate abstract knowledge. We determine that a student has acquired knowledge by testing or providing a task that can only be completed if the individual has the requisite skill or knowledge. The Common Core is intended to set the standard for this type of learning and so there must be tests. Let’s set aside for the moment that the standardized tests we already use are not calibrated to the Common Core. If we believe in an educational system that prioritizes knowledge acquisition in the service of a national security agenda (economic competitiveness, technology dominance, etc.) then testing is necessary.
We experience the consequences of this priority in classrooms every day. I don’t have to detail them here.
If we believe that education is about more than knowledge acquisition, and that national security can be achieved through other concepts such as healthy communities, sustainable resource uses, national unity, world peace, or the elimination of hunger and poverty. Then we need to take responsibility for our practices, assert our own understandings of those practices, expose those practices to peer-review and challenge “what does not make sense” collectively.
I am finding that engaging the “nonsense” has been a good learning experience.
Thoughts and comments are welcomed.
Anyone who attended public schools knows there was plenty that was wrong with them.
I grew up in Texas and attended segregated schools. That was wrong then, and it is wrong now, even though it is no longer mandated by law.
I had some great teachers and some awful teachers.
Over the years, in my studies of American education, I have documented the rise and fall of reform movements. Some were more successful than others, but one thing is certain: Public schools must constantly get better, and they should today.
In this article, Marion Brady explains what he thinks was better about the era before today’s test-driven, data-driven, privatization-friendly reforms. He thinks the drive for standardization is a big mistake.
What do you think?
A friend of a friend of a friend passed this along, hoping I might be able to answer the question about the appropriateness of this test question in second grade.
What do you think?
“Please read a question on a quiz that my 7 year old son in the 2nd grade got wrong and tell me if I’m crazy for thinking that the testing and vocabulary have gone a bit nutso?”
Kings and queens COMMISSIONED Mozart to write symphonies for celebrations and ceremonies. What does COMMISSION mean?
A. to force someone to do work against his or her will
B. to divide a piece of music into different movements
C. to perform a long song accompanied by an orchestra
D. to pay someone to create artwork or a piece of music
The Common Core standards have arrived.
Some love them. Some hate them.
It’s time for a debate.
Marc Tucker thinks they are necessary and appropriate in an age of globalized commerce.
Yong Zhao thinks they will standardize minds and crush creativity, which is needed in an age of globalization.
What do you think?
A reader writes in response to debate about Common Core in Indiana:
Common Core and the PARCC Assessment can only be described with one word in Illinois: daunting.
Illinois school districts are losing resources yearly, state aid being among them. Last year the state prorated its aid to schools at 94%. This year it is expected to be at 89%, and next year it could be as low as 80%. All this as expectations go up.
The little glimpses we’ve received in our numerous staff meetings of the possible PARCC assessment have left us feeling overwhelmed to say the least. Next week the Illinois State Board of Education will vote on whether to increase cut scores on the ISAT test to better align with the rigorous Common Core Standards. This will result in a significant decrease in the number of students meeting or exceeding state standards.
I teach in an Illinois Spotlight School (defined as high poverty schools where high academic performance is closing the “achievement gap”). We have faced many challenges with the lack of funding coming into our school. We used to be on the cutting edge of new technology but now we are faced with an outdated computer lab where large groups of students will gather to take the future PARCC assessments. This will present a huge challenge not only with our infrastructure but with many of our students as well. Many students will not have the skills to take on-line assessments as they have been working in small RtI groups during computer classes (a sad reality). Many students still don’t have computers at home.
I believe strongly that students need good, solid foundation skills and a wide range of experiences before they can think critically. The lack of funding has caused our school to limit field trips to one per year. I predict that number to go down to zero in the near future.
I hope Illinois follows Indiana’s lead in having a serious discussion about the Common Core and especially the timing. Our teachers have been scrambling to find resources that align to the Common Core. And now our students will be tested before full implementation?
I have no objection to high expectations for students and accountability for students and teachers. But we must be given time, resources, and a seat at the policy table. I
feel like I’m on a sinking ship. A moratorium on any new assessments until we have implemented, developed resources, and made reasonable changes to the CC sounds like a good life raft to me right now.
A report from Indiana:
Vic’s Statehouse Notes #106– January 17, 2013
Dear Friends,
Yesterday’s committee vote on Senate Bill 184, the voucher expansion bill, was delayed until next Wednesday’s meeting. This gives us all more time to send additional messages of opposition before the vote.
Voucher Expansion
Senator Kruse announced at the beginning of yesterday’s Senate Education Committee meeting that the vote on SB 184, the voucher expansion bill, as well as on two other bills would be taken at the January 23rd meeting. The only bill voted on as scheduled was Senate Bill 189, which was passed 9-0 with bipartisan support after being amended.
I have no inside information about SB 184, but sometimes bills are delayed in this manner because the sponsor doesn’t have the votes lined up to pass the bill and wants more time to try to find the votes. Whether this is true in the case of the sibling voucher bill is up to speculation, but the net result is that the bill still has not passed the committee and public school advocates have until January 23rd to reach more Senators, especially those on the Education Committee, to share your deep opposition to sending more public money to private schools through an expansion of vouchers for siblings. In many legislative districts, this weekend will be the first “Third House” or “Crackerbarrel” meetings in which legislators meet with constituents back home. I hope public school advocates will show up at such meetings with the message that public schools need more support and supporting private schools with more vouchers is the wrong priority. Go to it!
Common Core
Senator Kruse then turned yesterday to a hearing on SB 193, the Common Core bill, subject of two rallies and much debate prior to the hearing. Many of us in fighting the voucher bill in 2011 argued that private schools should not want vouchers because the strings that come with public dollars will take away the independence of private schools. That is exactly what has happened in this case and should prompt a reassessment of the full consequences of the voucher law.
As I listened to the story of how the fight against the Common Core began in Indiana, I learned that private school independence has already been corrupted by the voucher program. Senator Schneider, in introducing his bill to take Indiana out of the Common Core program, described how two parents in his district came to him greatly concerned that their voucher-accepting parochial school was changing its textbooks and curriculum to comply with the Common Core curriculum and the new assessments to come, since voucher schools must take the state assessments. These parents were greatly distressed by the changes they traced back to the Common Core curriculum, especially in math, and thus, a movement to overturn the 2010 decision of the Roundtable and the State Board was born.
Without the voucher program requirement that schools accepting vouchers must take the state tests, the private school could have ignored the Common Core and used textbooks and tests that fit its preferred curriculum. Now this huge public policy debate with national implications is being driven by private and parochial school parents and the outcome will impact every public and private school in Indiana. The voucher law has thus entwined public and private schools in an unanticipated way through the Common Core curriculum battle.
The hearing, which Senator Kruse noted began at 1:37, went on until 7:00pm last night. The Senate Chamber and gallery were standing room only and some 50 chairs were filled in the hallway outside the Senate Chamber. The vote on SB 193 is scheduled for the next meeting, January 23rd.
House Education Committee
The first meeting of the House Education Committee was held this morning at 8:30am. House Bill 1012 amending the law governing the transfer of surplus buildings to charter schools was passed 12 to 1. The bill reduces the four year waiting period to sell a building to two years and includes a 30-day fast track procedure when a ready buyer is available. House Bill 1060 amending the law governing criminal background checks on teacher applicants was passed 12 to 0.
Chairman Behning announced that House Bills 1005, a complex bill regarding high school remediation, and 1295 regarding the IU School of Public Health would be given hearings at the next meeting on Tuesday, January 22nd. The new schedule for the House Education Committee is to meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30 until the House convenes around 10:30.
Contact Senators
Senators need to hear again this week from the grassroots about Senate Bill 184. Please let them know of your opposition to expanding the voucher program in a way that will for the first time add new and expensive fiscal costs to the program. Other voucher bills have been announced, and strong resistance to this first one, SB 184, will help us fight the others down the road. The Senators on the committee to contact are as follows:
Chair: Sen. Kruse
Republican Members: Senators Yoder, Banks, Buck, Kenley, Pete Miller, Leising and Schneider
Democrat Members: Senators Rogers, Broden, Mrvan, Taylor
Thanks for all you are doing to support public education!
Best wishes,
Vic Smith vic790@aol.com
ICPE is working to promote public education in the Statehouse as efforts are made to take public money away from public schools through an expansion of vouchers. We are well represented by our lobbyist Joel Hand, but to keep him in place we need all members from last year to renew and we need new members who support public education.
Go to http://www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information.
Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:
I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998.
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Julian M.Smith
4th Grade
Scipio, Elementary
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