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Conservatives Debate Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2012 //
6

Recently I published a comment by Jamie Gass of the Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts explaining his opposition to the Common Core State Standards. I thought it was interesting as it showed the conservative argument against the Common Core.

The comment was originally part of an email exchange between Jamie Gass and Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute, a New York City-based conservative think tank. Sol is an old friend of mine, who has been writing about education and politics for many years. Sol contacted me to say that I should have printed the entire exchange, not just Jamie’s response to him.

So, I am rectifying the situation by first giving you a link to an article by Sol Stern about E.D. Hirsch and the Core Knowledge curriculum. It was just published online at the City Journal website, which belongs to the Manhattan Institute. Sol argues that the Hirsch curriculum will align well with the Common Core standards and should bring renewed attention to the Core Knowledge curriculum.

When Sol sent the article to several friends, including me, Jamie Gass responded. Jamie is very disappointed that Massachusetts was compelled to drop its highly regarded state standards and to replace them with the Common Core standards.

Sol asked me to republish the entire correspondence so that readers can understand the discussion.

So, here is the drill if you want to read on.

First, read Sol’s article. Then read the correspondence, starting from the bottom. The only thing I changed is that I removed the email addresses of those who received a copy, as there was no reason to publish them.

**************************************************************
Please start reading at the bottom
**************************************************************
Hi Sol:
As PI’s independent research has shown, the CCSSI standards are far lower than what the best states previously had; none of the major CCSSI proponents have improved student achievement anywhere in the last 25 years; and federal support for national standards, testing, and curriculum is, in fact, illegal and unconstitutional.
As John Adam said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Best,
Jamie
 
From: Sol Stern [mailto:sstern9447@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:48 PM
To: Jamie Gass
Cc:
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
We are obviously beyond any reasonable debate on this, since you insist — without a shred of evidence — that those who disagree with you are just shills who are in it for the money. That’s a pretty low standard of discourse for a movement supposedly concerned with improving education.
My final and last word: I think the “sad and disgraceful chapter in the history of education public education” is the federal government forcing school districts to use a discredited and unscientific method of evaluating teachers — and I don’t see Pioneer or any of the “reform” groups pushing back against this looming disaster.
given the mediocre records of its major advocates, I see nothing in CCSSI that will reverse this trend towards decline, or any evidence that CCSSI’s one-stop-shopping-for-lower-standards won’t, in fact, dramatically accelerate a race to the middle.
Best,
Sol
From: sstern9447@aol.com
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 6:16 PM
To: Jamie Gass;
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
Sorry Jamie, CCSSI didn’t ruin MA standards or programs. Your governor and legislature did and your job at Pioneer should have been to convince the state to reject Race to the Top, stick to the 1993 reforms and make them even stronger by implementing a Core Knowledge K-12 curriculum. And if Will is right about CCSSI violating all those laws it should be a snap for you to hire some good lawyers and go into federal court to throw out Common Core. Please, make my day.
—–Original Message—–
From: Jamie Gass <jgass@pioneerinstitute.org>
To: sstern9447 <sstern9447@aol.com>;
Sent: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 5:37 pm
Subject: RE: Hirsch and the Common Core
Thanks, Sol. I always like reading your pieces.
People can also read the attached (embargoed) Pioneer piece on MA and CCSSI, which appears in the current issue of City Journal.Our article explains how the CCSSIers helped ruin the most successful, proven academic standards/ed reform effort of the last half century. Interestingly, I can’t find one CCSSIer, or Gates-funded advocate, who has actually improved student achievement more than a tiny bit anywhere in the last 20 years. Ahem, think — Fordham, Ohio, and NAEP results J
I’d also encourage everyone to read George Will’s March column on how CCSSI violates three federal laws. Will’s column, of course, implicitly shows how the CCSSIers offer a terrific anti-civics lesson for America’s 50 million schoolchildren.
Best,
Jamie
 
Those pesky things called laws
By George F. Will, Saturday, March 10
Two policies of the Obama administration illustrate an axiom: As government expands, its lawfulness contracts. Consider the administration’s desire to continue funding UNESCO and to develop a national curriculum for primary and secondary education.
In 1994, Congress stipulated that no U.S. funds shall go to “any affiliated organization” of the United Nations that “grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.”
Last October, UNESCO (the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)voted to confer membership on Palestine. Although there are waiver provisions in most laws restricting executive discretion in foreign relations, the 107 national delegations that voted to extend membership to Palestine were told there is no such provision in the pertinent law.
The United States immediately cut off funding, which is 22 percent of UNESCO’s budget. But President Obama’s 2013 budget seeks $78,968,000 for UNESCO and says: “The Department of State intends to work with Congress to seek legislation that would provide authority to waive restrictions on paying the U.S. assessed contributions to UNESCO.”
The administration regards the 18-year-old statute as an evanescent inconvenience — that Congress will obediently tug its forelock and grant a waiver provision enabling the executive branch to slip the leash of law.
Meanwhile, the Education Department is pretending that three laws do not mean what they clearly say.
This is documented in the Pioneer Institute’s report “The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers” by Robert S. Eitel, Kent D. Talbert and Williamson M. Evers, all former senior officials in the Education Department.
The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) — No Child Left Behind is its ninth iteration — intruded the federal government into this traditionally state and local responsibility. It said that “nothing in this act” shall authorize any federal official to “mandate, direct, or control” a state’s, local educational agency’s or school’s curriculum.
The General Education Provisions Act of 1970, which supposedly controls federal education programs, stipulates that “no provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize” any federal agency or official “to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction” or selection of “instructional materials” by “any educational institution or school system.”
The 1979 law establishing the Education Department forbids it from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” or “program of instruction” of any school or school system. The ESEA as amended goes further: No funds provided to the Education Department “may be used . . . to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in” kindergarten through 12th grade.
However . . .
What authors Eitel, Talbert and Evers call the Education Department’s “incremental march down the road to a national curriculum” begins with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS). It is an initiative not of any state legislature but of a governors association, state school officials and private foundations.
This push advanced when the Race to the Top Fund (RTTT, part of the 2009 stimulus) said that peer reviewers of applications for money should favor those states that join a majority of states in developing and adopting common standards. The 11 states and the District of Columbia that won Race to the Top funding had adopted or indicated an intention to adopt the CCSS, which will require changes in curricula.
An Education Department synopsis of discussions with members of the public about priorities in competition for RTTT money says “the goal of common K-12 standards is to replace the existing patchwork of state standards.” Progressives celebrate diversity in everything but thought.
The Obama administration is granting conditional waivers to states chafing under No Child Left Behind’s unrealistic accountability requirements. The waivers are contingent on each state adopting certain standards “that are common to a significant number of states,” or the state may adopt standards endorsed by its institutions of higher education — if those standards are consistent with the Education Department’s guidelines.
We have been warned. Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, noted that “in its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas.”
Here again laws are cobwebs. As government becomes bigger, it becomes more lawless. As the regulatory state’s micromanagement of society metastasizes, inconvenient laws are construed — by those the laws are supposed to restrain — as porous and permissive, enabling the executive branch to render them nullities.
 
Jamie Gass
From: sstern9447@aol.com [mailto:sstern9447@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 12:03 PMSubject: Hirsch and the Common Core
My article on Don Hirsch and the Common Core in the new City Journal. Please do not link on line till it appears on the CJ website
Categories Common Core, Education Reform

Stephen Krashen: How Much Testing?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
11

Stephen Krashen, professor of linguistics at the University of Southern California (emeritus), wrote this post to explain how the adoption of the Common Core will change testing in the nation’s schools:

HOW MUCH TESTING?

At first glance, the assessments now being developed to accompany the common core standards do not appear to be much more than we already have, at least in terms of subject-matter covered and grade level.  According to the organizations working on developing standards and tests (PARCC and SBEC), as is the case with NCLB there will be summative end-of-the-year tests in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school and these additions: Writing is added as a component of language arts, and voluntary interim testing will be offered through the academic year.

There is reason to suspect there will be a lot more.  As Jim Crawford has stated, “With standards come tests; with more standards, more tests” (letter submitted to the New York Times, July 17, 2012).  PARCC accepts this, urging the development of an accountability system that covers P-20 (pre-school through college), and “that supports the full implementation of the common standards” (PARCC: On the Road to Implementation: Achieving the Promise of the Common Core Standards, 2010, Achieve, Inc. p. 4).

More Subjects

There are clear signs that the tests will not be limited to language arts and math. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in his 2010 presentation “Beyond the Bubble Tests” states that “the study of science, history, foreign languages, civics and the arts” should be considered part of the “vital core” and deserve to be assessed. The Department of Education’s current proposal to reauthorize the ESEA, he announced, would  “allow states to include subjects other than math and English language arts in their accountability system … the reauthorization blueprint includes millions for the research, development, and improvement of additional high-quality assessments–which could include science and foreign language tests.“

The secretary pointed out that science is an area that should be tested, but development of science assessments has to wait until science standards are developed.  These standards are being constructed now (http://www.nextgenscience.org).

Similar statements are made in the Blueprint for Reform (US Department of Education, 2010).

Test us too!

The professional educational organizations in a variety of subjects (I must emphasize, the professional organizations, not necessarily the teachers) have endorsed the idea of standards and tests in areas other than language arts and math.

Twenty-one educational organizations have asked for “standards, assessments, accountability systems, and public reporting of achievement” for science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, geography, health and physical education.” (http://www.ascd.org/public-policy/well-rounded-education.aspx.)  It was clear that they were not only asking for standards but for tests as well: Their request specifically mentions “standards, assessments, and accountability systems.”

More Grade Levels

PARCC is constructing optional interim tests to be made available for grades K-2, but explicitly notes that the goal is K-12, with benchmarks starting at grade 3: “The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium of states working together to develop a common set of K-12 assessments in English and math anchored in what it takes to be ready for college and careers. These new K-12 assessments will build a pathway to college and career readiness by the end of high school, mark students’ progress toward this goal from 3rd grade up, and provide teachers with timely information to inform instruction and provide student support. “  (http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc) (Note that as stated above, PARCC eventually expects assessments for P-20.)

Meanwhile, the US Department of Education has announced a Race to the Top grant competition, the “Early Learning Challenge,” to “design and implement an integrated system of high-quality early learning programs and services” for “infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.” (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-earlylearningchallenge/index.html).

This means more standards, and of course more testing: “This competition rewards States that will implement high-quality early learning and development standards and comprehensive systems of assessments aligned with these standards. The implementation of these standards and assessments will ensure that early childhood educators have the information they need to understand and support young children’s growth and development across a broad range of domains so that significantly more young children enter kindergarten ready to succeed.”  (From: Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Application for Initial Funding, CFDA Number: 84.412 , section C).

The Early Learning Challenge was termed “Race to the top for tots” by the New Brunswick Patch. I commented on this initiative here: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/07/stephen_krashen_race_to_the_to.html

It also needs to be pointed out that others are eager to test small children: ACT has developed a test to determine if children are ready for kindergarten. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/career-test-for-kindergar_0_n_1644215.html.   Diane Ravitch asked if this is “a sign of educational madness.” https://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/04/a-sign-of-educational-madness/.

Pre-tests?

The US Department of Education has announced its support of “value-added testing”, that is, the use of increases in standardized test scores as a measure.

Secretary Duncan supports the use of value-added measures to evaluate teachers, but maintains that they should not be the only factor in evaluating teachers. He also endorsed value-added measures as a means of rating the Schools of Education teachers     attended:

“Let’s do what the State of Louisiana is doing — tracking student scores to teachers and teachers back to their colleges of education so we know who is doing a good job of preparing educators –.” (http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-statehouse-convention-center-little-rock-arkansas)

Scathing criticism of the use of value-added measures in this way has not changed the Department of Education’s position  (See Note below).

Diane Ravitch (personal communication) has pointed out that value-added measures could very well necessitate the use of pre-tests in the fall.  Measuring growth from spring to spring does not take into account the effects of summer – it has been repeatedly documented that children of poverty fall behind during the summer. The loss in reading is due to the lack of access to books (Heyns, B. 1975.  Summer Learning and the Effect of School. New York: Academic Press.  Kim, J. 2003. “Summer reading and the ethnic achievement gap,” Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk 9, no. 2:169-188; Entwisle, D. E., Alexander, K. L. and Olson, Linda Steffel. 1997. Children, Schools and Inequality. Westview Press.)

Of course, pretesting in all subjects would vastly increase the amount of testing done.

 

SUMMARY

Current plans are to add a writing test, and to add interim testing to what is already required under NCLB.

There is every reason to suspect that we will soon have standardized testing in many different subjects, not just language arts and math.

There is every reason to suspect that standardized tests will be given to very young children, before grade 3, and there may be assessments to cover all of “P-20.”

There is every reason to suspect that there will be pre-tests in the fall.

Even if the new tests will not require more time in administration and preparation than the tests we have now, we may soon have more testing than ever seen on planet Earth.

Note:  Teachers’ value-added ratings based on previous years are weak predictors of test scores at the end of a year with new students. A teacher who succeeds in boosting scores with one group will not necessarily succeed with others (Sass, T. 2008. The stability of value-added measures of teacher quality and implications for teacher compensation policy.  Washington DC: CALDER. (National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational Research.)  Kane, T. and Staiger, D. 2009. Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation. NBER Working Paper No. 14607 http://www.nber.org/papers/w14607).

Also, different tests result in different value-added scores for the same teacher (Papay, J. 2010. “Different tests, different answers: The stability of teacher value-added estimates across outcome measures.” American Educational Research Journal 47,2.).

In addition, there are ways of pumping up test scores without student learning, including teaching test-taking strategies and making sure weak students don’t take the test.  See also: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/16/why-vam-is-junk-science/

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Testing

Yong Zhao on Entrepreneurship

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2012 //
4

Yong Zhao is the brilliant scholar whose ideas challenge the orthodoxy of testing, accountability, ranking, metrics, data-based decision making, and competition.

He knows the secret of Chinese test scores, and he says that if we follow their lead, we will destroy entrepreneurial thinking.

Since I discovered his work, I have been dazzled by his fresh approach to educational issues.

He recently published a book called World Class Learners, explaining why our current education policies are doomed not only to fail but to injure our country.

Read his interview in Education Week by Catharine Gewertz and his accompanying article.

Zhao argues that high test scores may actually hamper creativity. The nations with the highest test scores, he says, do not produce high levels of entrepreneurial activity. American policymakers were shocked and awed when Shanghai took the top place in the latest PISA ranking, and both President Obama and Secretary Duncan spoke about “our generation’s Sputnik moment.”  But Zhao says we should not be impressed because the Chinese have mastered the art of test-taking, but not the mindset that promotes creativity.

He writes:

China’s Shanghai took the No. 1 rank in all three areas of the 2009 PISARequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, but the scores do not have any bearing on China’s creativity capacity. In 2008, China had only 473 patent filings with or granted by leading patent offices outside China. The United States had 14,399 patent filings in the same year. Anil K. Gupta and Haiyan Wang put those figures in a broader context, writing in The Wall Street Journal last year: “Starkly put, in 2010 China accounted for 20 percent of the world’s population and 9 percent of the world’s GDP, 12 percent of the world’s [research and development] expenditure, but only 1 percent of the patent filings with or patents granted by any of the leading patent offices outside China.” And 50 percent of the China-origin patents, the writers added, were granted to subsidiaries of foreign multinationals.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Duncan, Arne, International, Testing

The Conservative Case Against the Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2012 //
15

A few days ago, I published Professor Stephen Krashen’s letter to the New York Times, in which he explained his opposition to the Common Core standards. Professor Krashen is coming from the progressive side of the spectrum.

Then Ireceived an email from Jamie Gass of the conservative Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts, which strongly opposes the Common Core standards from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Gass is especially angry that the CC standards replaced the proven and excellent Massachusetts standards. His letter is below.

As I mentioned earlier, I am neither a supporter nor an opponent of the standards. I am withholding my judgment until we learn how they work in real classrooms and what affect they have on students, teachers, and schools.

In the meanwhile, if advocates for the standards contact me and want to express support for them, I will be glad to post the other side. I am not printing Jamie Gass to express my view, but to express that of a conservative concerned about quality. Those who disagree should feel free to chime in.

Some of the references may seem like inside baseball, but this reflects the fact that so much surrounding the development of the standards occurred within the Beltway or a small corridor of the Northeast (not including the role of the Gates Foundation). Perhaps I should include a glossary to identify the players. Feel free to ask if you don’t know who the players are. The letter was originally written as a response to journalist Sol Stern, who chided the Pioneer Institute for not doing more to promote the E.D. Hirsch Core Knowledge curriculum:

Thanks for your confidence that little Pioneer Institute could have outdone over $100 million from the Gates Foundation and persuade the bluest state in the Union (and Deval Patrick in an election year) not to follow the lead of Arne Duncan on $250 million in RTTT money. In truth, an easier task would have been to change the directional flow of the Charles River. That said, we did have two-thirds of the authors of the 1993 law (Gov. Weld and Sen. Birmingham), as well as the president of the AFT-MA, two 2010 MA gubernatorial candidates, Sen. Scott Brown, and nearly every editorial board in the state, on our side against MA adopting CCSSI.

 Sadly, our good friends at Achieve and Fordham were working hand-in-glove with Gates, US ED, a pro-Deval think tank in MA (MBAE [Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education]), and MA state officials to make sure MA adopted the academically inferior CCSSI standards. If MA adopted, the CCSSIers would argue, what state could resist, right? In point of fact, MBAE’s, Fordham’s, and Achieve’s Gates-funded evals of the Gates-funded CCSSI standards (a nice lesson in independence and objectivity there) was the basis for the MA decision to adopt. MA state DOE officials made this MBAE/Achieve/Fordham eval link clear in memo after memo on CCSSI. In the blog below, Sandy Stotsky made the still unanswered charge that Fordham’s evaluation of MA vs. CCSSI was little more than a thinly veiled effort to undermine our attempts to retain the higher quality and proven MA standards: http://jaypgreene.com/2010/07/29/stotsky-on-the-common-core-vote-in-ma/

 Despite a year of empty reassurances from Mike Petrilli [Thomas B. Fordham Institute] that “not all states should adopt” and “we don’t think MA should adopt” it’s now clear that Fordham’s impulse towards bureaucratic compliance and illegal nationalization trumped their commitment to academic excellence. For example, they always laud not CCSSI’s academic quality, but the high number of states that adopted, or complied. A day before MA adopted CCSSI, Checker Finn [Thomas B. Fordham Institute] told the NYT something like, “no state should worry about adopting these standards” and their eval of CCSSI vs. MA was supposedly “too close to call.” In addition to being compromised by accepting $1 million in Gates money, via CCSSI Fordham has placed political expediency and bureaucratic adoption over excellence and proven results. Consequently, Fordham’s role in CCSSI has illustrated why after 20 years in Ohio (and even longer working with Lamar Alexander in TN) they have no results to show anyone, anywhere in terms of improved student achievement or NAEP scores. So, yes, as I said, the DC-based CCSSIers indeed “helped” Deval Patrick ruin the MA standards and reforms.

 Regarding CCSSI’s legality, or I should say illegality, perhaps you’re correct – this should end up as a lawsuit. Doesn’t this tell us something tragic about the desperate state of public education’s decline in America? That is, something has gone terribly wrong when former US ED officials like – the ones at Fordham and Achieve – are working with Arne Duncan’s people, unelected/unaccountable private DC-trade groups, and the Gates Foundation to help state and federal officials circumvent, or violate federal laws? At the end of the day, in terms of democratic and civic education does it really matter if kids are reading the Founding Documents or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address when the adults governing public education are openly violating federal laws?

 Finally, as you know, the Framers established a mixed and complex republic that constitutionally designated certain powers to the national government and others – mostly on domestic matters – to the states and localities.  Far from improving public education over the last 40 years, the more consolidated K-12 education has become, the lousier and more bureaucratic it has become. As Diane and Jacques Barzun have carefully mapped out in their various books, we are in a era of obvious educational decline wherein academic content and the liberal arts are repeatedly subordinated to regulation, compliance, bureaucracy, and education focusing on workforce development training and content-empty skills. This is an old story and CCSSI’s major proponents like Duncan, Gates, NGA, CCSSO, Tucker, and Achieve all advance this agenda.

 Driven by ex-DC bureaucrats, CCSSI started with low expectations and never got to MA, IN, TX, MN, or CA’s level of academic quality. With David Coleman now at the College Board, aligning AP and SAT to CCSSI, those tests too will be dumbed down in a manner that will negatively impact all modes of K-12 schooling and higher education in America. In fact, CCSSI/2014 establishes a Year Zero for lower expectations in American education. Frankly, given the mediocre records of its major advocates, I see nothing in CCSSI that will reverse this trend towards decline, or any evidence that CCSSI’s one-stop-shopping-for-lower-standards won’t, in fact, dramatically accelerate a race to the middle.

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Jeb Bush and Business Leaders Support Common Core

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2012 //
7

At the GE Foundation’s Summer Business and Education Summit in Orlando, 150 business executives heard former Florida Governor Jeb Bush strongly endorse the Common Core State Standards. He predicted that when they are fully implemented, everyone would see what a disaster American education is. This, one assumes, will facilitate his agenda of getting rid of public education and replacing it with vouchers, charter schools, for-profit charter schools, for-profit online education, and anything else that fertile entrepreneurs can dream up. Bush promised there would be a rude awakening, which clearly made him happy.

As you read this account, you see FUD playing out right before your very eyes.

Meanwhile the business executives, as usual, complained that they can never fill any of the millions of jobs they have available because they can’t find skilled workers. So, of course, they outsource those jobs to China and India where they can find skilled workers willing to work for far less than American workers.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

What Publishers Are Doing About Common Core

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2012 //
1

As this article shows, publishers are not debating the Common Core Standards, they are trying to figure out how to align their catalogue with the CCSSI as soon as possible. They don’t want to be left out of the national market for materials aligned to the new standards.

At the same time, they are more than a little concerned about the political waters. They listen, and they know there is pushback from both the left and the right, where the idea of national standards remains anathema.

Some are worried about the apparent downgrading of fiction in the CC standards; some plan to use the suggested reading list as a template. Some authors whose work is on the list are thrilled, as are their publishers. And much remains to be seen about how the CCSI will be rolled out, how it will be implemented, how much money will be available for new materials and professional development in a time of austerity.

Many unanswered questions, and a time of great change.

Categories Common Core

Stephen Krashen on the Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2012 //
19

This letter by Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus of education and linguistics at the University of Southern California, will be posted today on the New York Times website. I just received it:

The common core movement seems to be common sense: Our schools should have similar standards, what students should know at each grade. The movement, however, is based on the false assumption that our schools are broken, that ineffective teaching is the problem and that rigorous standards and tests are necessary to improve things.
The mediocre performance of American students on international tests seems to show that our schools are doing poorly. But students from middle-class homes who attend well-funded schools rank among the best in world on these tests, which means that teaching is not the problem. The problem is poverty. Our overall scores are unspectacular because so many American children live in poverty (23 percent, ranking us 34th out of 35 “economically advanced countries”).
Poverty means inadequate nutrition and health care, and little access to books, all associated with lower school achievement. Addressing those needs will increase achievement and better the lives of millions of children.
How can we pay for this? Reduce testing. The common core demands an astonishing increase in testing, far more than needed and far more than the already excessive amount required by No Child Left Behind.
No Child Left Behind requires tests in math and reading at the end of the school year in grades 3 to 8 and once in high school. The common core will test more subjects and more grade levels, and adds tests given during the year. There may also be pretests in the fall.
The cost will be enormous. New York City plans to spend over  half a billion dollars on technology in schools, primarily so that students can take the electronically delivered national tests.
Research shows that increasing testing does not increase achievement. A better investment is protecting children from the effects of poverty, in feeding the animal, not just weighing it.
Categories Common Core, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty

A Bipartisan Consensus for Bad Ideas

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2012 //
17

If you want to see a demonstration of the bipartisan consensus around bad ideas, read this interview with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Bush talks about his great success in Florida and his strong support for Governor Rick Scott, who has been wreaking havoc with the lives of Florida’s public school teachers. Of course, Bush is thrilled with this and is probably pulling the strings as the Legislature cracks the whip on their backs.

He is a strong supporter of the Common Core state standards and acknowledges that he intervened with ALEC, the far-right group of state legislators, to persuade them not to denounce the national standards. He defends ALEC and tries to paint the group as a group of “center-right” legislators, not the anti-government, pro-privatization lobby that became famous for promoting “Stand Your Ground” laws and voter suppression laws.

He is very happy with President Obama’s Race to the Top, and why shouldn’t he be? Race to the Top contains everything that pleases rightwing Republicans like Bush. It green-lights more testing and more privatization. And it hammers teachers by tying their fate to test scores.

And of course he is enthusiastic about the “reforms” passed by Governor Jindal in Louisiana, Governor Daniels in Indiana, and others on the far-right.

In your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine a consensus that stretched from Obama to Jindal? Did you ever dream that education would be the issue that would be common ground for a Democratic President and the rightwing of the Republican party?

Categories Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Education Reform, Florida, Jindal, Bobby

New Investments Needed in Technology for Common Core

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2012 //
13

A survey in Louisiana finds that most schools do not have the technology to support the Common Core online testing that will begin in 2014-2015. This will require a major investment in hardware and infrastructure.

Here is part of the article:

BATON ROUGE — A survey of Louisiana schools shows most lack the technology and facilities needed to conduct online testing that’s to be part of a new Common Core Curriculum to be implemented in the 2014-15 school year.

The Department of Education asked school systems around the state to report the numbers of computers available to students, their operating speed, the type of Internet connections and bandwidth available and where to computers were located, such as in classrooms or computer laboratories.

The “Technology Footprint” shows a shortfall in computers, high-speed Internet connections and facilities in which testing can be conducted.

“We must believe our students and teachers can achieve great things, but they need access to the right technology to do so,” Superintendent of Education John White said in a news release. “We are not there yet. Too few schools are ready for the digital age. If we plan now, and invest our funds wisely, we can change this.”

Only five school systems — Ascension, City of Bogalusa, Red River, St. James and FirstLine Schools of New Orleans — meet the minimum device readiness requirements and only two school systems — Ascension and St. James — meet both device and network readiness guidelines for online testing, it said.

In Caddo Parish, the report said, “currently 3 out of 46 schools have an adequate number of computers that meet current minimum computer hardware specifications for online testing in 2014-15. In order to bring all schools in Caddo Parish up to the minimum testing readiness level of a 7-to-1 student to computer ratio, the district will need to either purchase an additional 2,814 devices and/or upgrade some of the 2,952 computers that potentially could meet the new minimum computer hardware specifications.”

In DeSoto Parish, it read, “currently 1 out of 9 schools has an adequate number of computers that meet current minimum computer hardware specifications for online testing in 2014-15. In order to bring all schools in DeSoto Parish up to the minimum testing readiness level of a 7-to-1 student to computer ratio, the district will need to either purchase an additional 175 devices and/or upgrade some of the 117 computers that potentially could meet the new minimum computer hardware specifications.”

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Louisiana, Technology, Computers

Will Common Core Standards Matter?

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2012 //
2

A reader in Indiana makes a prediction about the Common Core standards:

The common core standards will not fundamentally change teaching and learning in this country.  If improving instruction COULD ever be accomplished by handing out a new set of standards, wouldn’t we have already seen great improvements in teaching and learning?  Traditions in schooling are not changed that easily.  Another way to think about this–  We have some really difficult set of standards in Indiana.  Does it mean that our little Hoosiers are getting a superior education because our standard are more rigorous?  Nope.   Ask any Indiana teacher to list the concepts that nobody ever understands, no matter what she tries.  When those standards are tested, a small percent get it correct and the rest do not.   I WISH that the problems that are coming as a result of implementing the CC could be headed off by simply piloting the standards. That won’t work.  The real problem is how students will be assessed on CC standards and how those results will subsequently be used to judge teachers, schools, teacher prep programs, etc.   Don’t we already have a pretty good idea what is going to happen?  It is not going to be pretty.

Categories Common Core, Indiana
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