Archives for category: Common Core
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Hoax: Laura Chapman on Ohio’s Phony Review of Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2016 //
21

Laura Chapman, who lives in Ohio, has written extensively on this blog about the defects of the Common Core standards. She notes here that the state of Ohio is pretending to review the CCSS. But they have made the review so difficult that few parents or educators will be able to make their views known to the state. This cannot be an accident.

 

 

Chapman writes:

 

 

Common Core is up for review in Ohio, sort of.

 

 

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) only wants comments from the public that will tweak specific standards, not reasoning that might warrant dumping them all. The press (in this case the Newark Advocate) repeats the myth that the standards were developed by a broad coalition and correctly raise the bar for U.S. students, who often lag their international counterparts.”

 

 

The ODE only wants to know which standards need to be tweaked and according to a spokesperson, the current review has nothing to do with controversies.

 

 

ODE has set up a website for “feedback” relevant to three questions:

 
1. Are these standards still appropriate for the students in each grade?
2. Do these standards still reflect what is most important in each subject area?
3. Do these standards still reflect what students need to know to be successful after high school?

 

 

In order to offer a response you must go to a website where you can enter the feedback system. It is structured with five entry points for 963 Common Core standards: K-8 Math (229), HS Math (156), K-12 ELA (32), K-5 ELA (250), 6-12 ELA Literacy (296).

 

 

The number of standards is daunting enough (the system as dropped subordinate parts (e.g., a-f ) attached to many of standards–the parts that steer instruction and complicate judgments. The feedback system is semi-structured. You can search for standards by grade level and major topics, or enter a key word and see what that turns up.

 

 

Casual comments are clearly ruled out. When you have identified one standard for a comment, you are asked to follow these steps. (Begin quote)

 
1. Type of Suggestion Select the type of edit being suggested for the standard above. —Clarity—Grade Level Appropriate—Content Error—Other
2. Claim. Provide a description of your content-focused issue or concern with the standard you identified.
 Characters 0/1000
3. Resolution. Provide a description of a possible resolution to the issue that you claimed above.
 Characters 0/1000
4. Research/Rationale* Provide research, information or data that supports the claim made above concerning this standard. Characters 0/1000 If you have none, enter “None” into the box. (End Quote.)

 

 

So far the state has received over 350 comments. I am trying to find out the ending date for the on-line comments and more about “a committee” that will meet after the on-line comment period is closed.

 

 

This on-line comment “opportunity” is inexpensive, limits responses, and demands more time than most people can devote to it. I think the CCSS will not be changed much. It is not just that educators played such a marginal role from the get-go, and that Bill Gates paid for the CCSS, and the rest.

 

 

Ohio already has 3,203 standards on the books, an average of 267 per grade level, including the existing Common Core (including parts a-e). There are no caps on standard-setting.

 

 

There are also brand new national standards that might be worthy of concurrent review—including National Core Arts Standards (2014) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013). In fact, the NGSS include 410 cross references to the Common Core: 203 in math, 96 in reading, 90 in writing, and 21 in ELA literacy—all before high school.

 

 

Apparently Ohio “continues to review the NGSS document for the purpose of identifying related resources and strategies that schools can use to support Ohio’s Learning Standards in Science, which began serving as the foundation for Ohio’s State Tests in Science in 2014-2015.”

 

 

It seems doubtful that Ohio ever intended to have a serious and “actionable” review of the CCCS. Why? Ohio has already contracted with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for math and English tests that are supposed to be ready now (Spring 2016) having dumped PARCC. In addition, AIR already has contracts for science and social studies tests. The “feedback form” is at http://www.ohio-k12.help/standards

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, Ohio, Testing

2016 Election: Where Do the Candidates Stand?

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2016 //
16

This is a good article by Steven Rosenfeld about the 2016 election. Rosenfeld focuses on the charter school issue. He understands, as so few national commentators do, that charter schools are an existential threat to public education. 
He reviews the reactionary views of the Republican candidates, all of whom support privatization.
And he deconstructs the views of Hillary and Bernie. 

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Reform

Illinois: Don’t Believe It When They Tell You Not to Opt Out

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2016 //
10

A former Chicago Public Schools teacher left a comment and referred to this article, which features one of her students. He is organizing a boycott of PARCC. Illinois offers no “formal” way to opt out; the decision is left to children. Some schools are threatening punishments of various kinds, and school officials imply that the tests have been improved. They say, for example, that the results will arrive in the summer, instead of the fall, when there is still time to help children. On the face of it, that claim is ridiculous. The child is not in school in the summer, for starters. He or she won’t have the same teacher by the time the results come in. Worse, there is nothing in the results that will “help” the teachers or the children. How are children “helped” by learning that they have scored a 1, 2, 3, or 4? How will they be helped if they learned what percentile they scored it? This is all nonsense, which is why students and parents should opt out and demand an end of this massive waste of money and instructional time.

 

This week, when state standardized testing begins at many CPS schools, at least one sixth-grader at Sumner Elementary School will be sitting out PARCC.

 

“I’m going to refuse PARCC next week because we haven’t had typing classes,” Diontae Chatman told the Board of Education last week, missing school for the first time all year so he could testify.

 

“We didn’t have a qualified math teacher from September to January,” he added. Plus last year, students taking the test online were logged on and off repeatedly, among other problems.

 

But skipping the test, even though state law allows it, could bring about consequences that feel unfair to children.

 

“My school is threatening to take away our field day to students who refuse PARCC,” Diontae explained. “I think we all should get treated the same way, if we take it or if we don’t take it.”

 

Once again, neither Chicago Publics Schools nor the Illinois State Board of Education have any specific directive for how schools should treat children who refuse to take the exam between now and May 15.

 

Meanwhile, the district is urging all parents to participate in the test, saying PARCC provides useful detailed data.

 

“PARCC is a mandatory exam and the district’s failure to implement the exam does have serious consequences” that are financial, Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson said. “We’re making a lot of short-term fixes, so we can’t afford any reduction in financing from the state as a result of our failure to administer the test.”

 

PARCC — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers — is given to third- through eighth-graders and some high schoolers. Aligned to Common Core standards, it aims to show how well students are preparing for college at each grade level. Though PARCC was designed to be interactive and taken on a computer, CPS’ third- and fourth-graders still will take a paper version.

 

PARCC still carries no consequences at CPS, which uses a separate test to evaluate teachers and schools.

 

For its second year, PARCC has been shortened. It has a simpler format, and results have been promised much sooner than last year — by the summer, rather than late autumn, so that teachers and parents can actually use the results.

 

Those improvements still won’t stop a number of families in Chicago from skipping it.

 

 

[Some readers said the link doesn’t work; this works for me: https://r-login.wordpress.com/remote-login.php?action=auth&host=chicago.suntimes.com&id=107184512&back=http%3A%2F%2Fchicago.suntimes.com%2Fnews%2Fparcc-test-no-opt-out-policy%2F&h=]

 

PARCC Testing Begins, But Still No Opt Out Policy, in the Chicago Sun-Times

 

 

Categories Chicago, Common Core, Education Reform, Illinois, Opt Out, Standardized Testing

Katie Osgood: The Cruel and Unusual Treatment of Children with Disabilities in Chicago

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
27

Katie Osgood teaches students with disabilities in Chicago. She teaches third-graders. PARCC testing begins soon. The reading level if the tests for her students are sixth grade.

She writes here about the harm these tests will do to her students.

Her students’ IEPs will not be honored. No accommodations!

She asks why children of 8 and 9 are asked to perform literary analysis.

She writes:

“The PARCC test is mind-mindbogglingly inappropriate and long. It gives NO USEFUL information for teachers or schools. It ignores IEPs. It is damaging to kids. It triggers our most vulnerable learners destroying trust and joy in the classroom. It robs classrooms of SO MUCH STINKIN’ TIME.

“Oh, and by the way, PARCC originally was in 24 states, but has now dropped to only 6.

“There is NO REASON for Illinois to continue using this test. None.”

Categories Chicago, Common Core, Special Education

D.C. Think Tank Ridicules Critics of Common Core

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2016 //
50

The Center for American Progress is a D.C. think tank that is closely aligned with the Obama administration and the Clintons. Recently it released a video making fun of people who don’t like the Common Core standards. The parents in the video express absurd views about Common Core and appear to be extremist wing nuts.

 

CAP doesn’t seem to understand the critics’ concerns and ignores them:

 

Early childhood educators say the standards are developmentally inappropriate.

 

The standards assume that all children, when taught the same material at the same pace, will learn at the same pace. They don’t.

 

The standards overlook children with disabilities and English language learners.

 

The standards were funded by one man, Bill Gates, who believes in standardization.

 

The tests for Common Core adopted a passing mark that dooms most children to fail.

 

Some educators sincerely like the Common Core. Some sincerely believe that the Common Core is harmful to students. Ridiculing those who disapprove of CC does not advance the discussion.

 

Peter Greene saw the video too, and he was not pleased. He is an experienced high school teacher in Pennsylvania and he is not a fan of Common Core.

 

He writes:

 

“The message here is literally that Common Core critics are the tin foil hat crowd. Sigh.

 

“I mean, who is this for? Satire is only effective for an audience that is familiar with what you are satirizing, but anyone who is familiar with Common Core or the criticism of it knows that CAP isn’t just taking shots at a straw man, but a picture of a straw man pinned to the straw lapel of a straw suit being worn by a straw man. I mean, I consider myself fairly familiar with the art of mockery, and you can’t mock somebody if your mockery doesn’t have some sort of root in reality. A good caricature has to be recognizable as the thing being caricatured. And, not to get all wonky, but it doesn’t even establish an internally consistent world– the Core is new, but their college age daughter went through it, although the parents who fear the Core never noticed what was happening with their older daughter, and all of these family members relate to each other as if they’re strangers?And what are we to make of the message that parents are dopes?

 

 

“This simply sidesteps every legitimate criticism ever leveled against Common Core and leaves it untouched, though it certainly does zero right in on all those people who say that Common Core requires you to throw out books or ignore math or has something to do with mutant armies. Really stuck it to those guys, let me tell you. I can’t imagine how they failed to lampoon all those people who say Common Core will make your houseplants die.”

 

Shame on CAP.

 

 

 

 

Categories Common Core, Education Reform

Carol Burris: The Coming Collapse of Corporate Reform in New York

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2016 //
27

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, has been active in the resistance to New York’s state’s reliance on high-stakes testing for several years. As a high school principal, she helped to organize other principals across the state in opposition to test-based evaluation of both principals and teachers. About 40 percent of the state’s principals signed the petition opposing the so-called Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) based on test scores.

 

In this article, she describes the recent dramatic turn of events in New York. This state led the way in corporate-style reform. For many years, the Board of Regents–the state’s governing body for education–has strongly supported standards, testing, and accountability as the key to statewide success. Since the passage of charter legislation in 1998, the charter sector has grown, especially in the state’s urban districts. The leader of the Regents, Merryl Tisch, is a member of one of the city’s wealthiest and most philanthropic families. Tisch was a member of the Regents for the past 20 years, and chancellor since 2009. She pushed hard to win a Race to the Top grant of $700 million. She pushed hard for Common Core and rigorous testing. She selected David Steiner of Hunter College as Commissioner of Education, then pushed him aside and selected John King. She said it was all about the kids, particularly the poor kids. She thought that high standards and rigorous tests would be good for them.

 

But then came the parent opt out rebellion, and state officials went into a frenzy trying to figure out how to placate the angry parents. As it happened, Tisch lost her most powerful political ally in the legislature, and suddenly the landscape began to change. There are 17 members of the Board of Regents. Less than a year ago, six of them signed a letter protesting Governor Cuomo’s demand for tougher testing, accountability, and teacher evaluation policies. (A seventh member gave conditional support to the dissidents.) At the time, the dissidents seemed to be fighting a steep uphill battle, with the governor and the board majority opposed to their ideas. A month after the issuance of their letter, the board hired MaryEllen Elia as state commissioner to replace the unpopular John King. Elia was well known as an ardent advocate for high-stakes testing, the Common Core, and test-based accountability.

 

Burris explains in her article the miraculous revolution that occurred in less than a year.

 

Tisch announced that she would not run for reappointment by the Legislature. One of the dissidents, Dr. Betty Rosa, announced that she wanted to succeed Tisch. The possibility of Rosa winning seemed far-fetched. But incredibly, she was elected in a secret ballotmby the Regents on a vote of 15-0, with two abstentions.

 

As Burris writes, Rosa has been critical of the Common Core, high-stakes testing, and test-based evaluation. She was supported by the parents in the opt out movement.

 

The dissidents have taken charge.

 

Burris writes about her personal interactions with Betty Rosa, who is a career educator:

 

Rosa was one of three Regents who voted against the teacher evaluation system known as APPR. In 2011 she met with principals and actively listened to our concerns. As a former administrator, she understood why the practice was bad for kids, and never waivered in her opposition, referring to the inclusion of scores as “poison.”
In 2013, she publicly spoke out against the Common Core, accusing the State Education Department of manipulating data and ignoring successful schools in order to create a myth of massive failure to support their reforms. And last year she led a group of seven Regents (all women and nearly all career educators), in opposition to Cuomo’s revision of teacher evaluations. The seven created a position paper of dissent regarding the Governor’s law that increased the proportion of test scores in teacher evaluations, and six of the seven voted against the New York State Education Department’s revisions.

 

Burris predicts what she expects from Rosa. She calls it a “sea change.” I call it a miracle.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, New York, Privatization, Testing

Researchers: Common Core and Tests Do Not Help Neediest Students

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2016 //
36

Valerie Strauss reports on an important statement signed by more than 100 education researchers, asserting that the Common Core standards will not improve the achievement of the neediest students and will not reduce the achievement gaps between haves and have nots. Furthermore, the education researchers recommended that high-stakes exams should be abandoned, because they are not reliable, valid, or fair.

 

She writes:

 

“The researchers, from public and private universities in California — including Stanford University, UCLA, and the University of California Berkeley — say that the Common Core standards themselves do not accomplish what supporters said they would and that linking them to high-stakes tests actually harms students.

 

The brief says:

 

Although proponents argue that the CCSS promotes critical thinking skills and student-centered learning (instead of rote learning), research demonstrates that imposed standards, when linked with high-stakes testing, not only deprofessionalizes teaching and narrows the curriculum, but in so doing, also reduces the quality of education and student learning, engagement, and success. The impact is also on student psychological well-being: Without an understanding that the scores have not been proven to be valid or fair for determining proficiency or college readiness, students and their parents are likely to internalize failing labels with corresponding beliefs about academic potential.

 

More specific to California: a recent study on the effects of high-stakes testing, in particular of the CA High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), found no positive effects on student achievement and large negative effects on graduation rates. The authors estimated that graduation rates declined by 3.6 to 4.5 percentage points as a result of the state exit-exam policy, and also found that these negative effects were “concentrated among low-achieving students, minority students, and female students.”

 

 

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Testing

NEWS FLASH: Making Tests Harder Does Not Make Students Smarter!

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2016 //
19

Steven Singer writes here about a dumb policy that is now commonplace thinking among both Ivy League corporate reformers and redneck legislators: If you make the tests harder, they reason, students will get higher test scores.

 

No, no, no, and no.

 

Singer says his students are weary of the endless testing. And it is getting worse because the tests will be even harder to pass in Pennsylvania.

 

He writes:

 

 

In the last two years, Pennsylvania has modified its mandatory assessments until it’s almost impossible for my students to pass.

 

Bureaucrats call it “raising standards,” but it’s really just making the unlikely almost unthinkable.

 

Impoverished students have traditionally had a harder time scoring as well as their wealthier peers. But the policy response has been to make things MORE difficult. How does that help?

 

Consider this: If a malnourished runner couldn’t finish the 50 yard dash, forcing him to run 100 yards isn’t raising standards. It’s piling on.

 

Oh. Both your arms are broken? Here. Bench press 300 lbs.

 

Both your feet were chopped off in an accident? Go climb Mt. Everest.

 

That’s what’s happening in the Keystone State and across the country. We’re adding extra layers of complexity to each assessment without regard to whether they’re developmentally appropriate or even necessary and fair to gauge individual skills.

 

Where Common Core State Standards have been adopted (and Pennsylvania has its own version called PA Core), annual tests have become irrationally difficult. That’s why last year’s state tests – which were the first completely aligned to PA Core – saw a steep drop off in passing scores. Students flunked it in droves.

 

Where the previous tests were bad, the new ones are beyond inappropriate.

 

Yes, across the country, the tests have been written and designed to fail most students. “Reformers” cheer the increased “rigor.” Do they care that most students are failing the tests? Why do they think that the score on a  standardized test is a measure of good education? More likely, the pursuit of high test scores via multiple-choice tests undermines good education.

 

 

 

 

Categories Common Core, Pennsylvania, Standardized Testing

New York: Opt Out Leaders Stunned by King’s Approval

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2016 //
25

To say the least, John King had a rocky tenure as Commissioner of Education in New York. He managed to alienate parents with his abrasive, top-down style and his unwavering commitment to the Common Core.

 

Reporter Jaime Franchise spoke with leaders of the Opt Out movement, and all expressed astonishment that he was nominated and confirmed for the post as Secretary of Education in light of his performance in New York.

 

“Jeanette Deutermann, a Long Island parent, founder of the Long Island Opt-Out Info Facebook page, and co-founder of nonprofit New York State Allies for Public Education, blasted King’s ascension Tuesday via her popular Facebook page.

 

“It is inconceivable that a man synonymous with failed education policies could be promoted to the highest education post in our nation,” she slams. “The incompetence of John King as New York’s SED Commissioner was epic, and New York will be cleaning up the mess he made for years to come. The silver lining may be the igniting of an education uprising across the country the way his leadership, or lack thereof, ignited New York.”

 

“That “ignition’ is the robust, pro-public education and anti-Common Core movement that sparked parents, educators, and students to organize, protest, and take action against the education reforms they believed were undermining public education.

 

“Michael Hynes, superintendent of Patchogue-Medford schools, finds the idea of King as U.S. Secretary of Education “beyond appalling.”

 

“It’s really scary to think that that gentleman, and I’m being kind by saying that, has the potential to reframe or to move forward with what Arnie Duncan has started,” he told the Press in January. “This is a guy who is pro-charter, his kids go to Montessori school. I really believe he doesn’t know anything about public education. And now potentially will set policy nationwide.”

 

 

 

 

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, John King, New York, Standardized Testing

Senate Approves John King, 49-40

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2016 //
64

Today, the US Senate voted to confirm John King as Secretary of Education by a vote of 49-40.

 

The only Democrat to vote no was New York Senator Gillibrand.

 

King was opposed by many New York parent groups because of his unwillingness to listen, his unyielding devotion to the Common Core, test-based teacher evaluation, high stakes testing for children, and the corporate reform agenda.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education, VAM (value-added modeling)
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