Archives for category: Common Core
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The Erin Brockovich of Long Island’s Opt Out Movement: Jeanette Deutermann

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2015 //
23

This is a terrific profile of Jeanette Deutermann, the parent who has mobilized thousands of other parents on Long Island to opt their children out of state testing. Being a modest person, Jeanette would be the first person to tell you that she relied on a large team of other parents to launch what is now recognized as the largest social movement in the state in many years.

Jeanette works closely with other parents and with educators across New York State, as well as with Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out. She is one of the founding members of New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), which helped to spur opting out in upstate New York and elsewhere. NYSAPE represents some fifty parent and teacher organizations.

She is living proof that one person can make a huge difference. Unlike the reformers, she really is doing it “for the kids,” including her own.

Categories Common Core, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing

Mercedes Schneider: Why Is NPR Marketing PARCC?

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2015 //
38

Mercedes Scheider notes that NPR produced a segment about PARCC that glossed over its woeful situation and promoted it as a way to compare students across state lines, ignoring the fact that NAEP has been doing since 1992.

The story gushes over PARCC, but never mentions the number of states that have dropped out or the protests against its validity.

The NPR piece states that PARCC tests are “considered harder than many of the tests they replaced.”

“Harder” is not the same as “better.” Since I wrote a ten-chapter book in ten weeks, I could require my sophomore English students to do the same, and that would indeed be harder than what they are used to, but it is not necessarily better.

It sure would make me look like a “rigorous” teacher. And if anyone complained, I could just brush it off as their not being willing to challenge students to r a i s e t h e b a r.

I could even set a passing cut score, say, if they produced even half of a book. Forget any side effects of such pressure, any self-esteem issues, any loss of the joy of learning, any loss in developing a spectrum of interests and pursuits.

If it cannot be measured, it does not matter. End of story.

Those pushing Common Core have made a lot of airy promises about Common Core being the bar-raising solution to all that ails American public education. And since Common Core has been set up to justify itself, no matter the outcome– no matter if test scores rise or fall– no matter if state education reputations rise or fall in the PARCC-comparison rankings– Common Core as that K12 education center will be absolved of any fault. Its ideologues will still be able to deflect any unseemly results as “poor implementation” and any test-score-founded improvement as “good implementation” and proof that Common Core was what lower- and middle-class America needed all along.

Categories Common Core, Testing

Connecticut Will Drop Smarter Balanced for 11th Graders and Require SAT Instead

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2015 //
63

The New York Times reports today that Connecticut has decided to drop the Smarter Balanced Assessment for 11th graders and require all students to take the SAT instead.

Although it is not clear in the article, it appears that students in other grades will still take the Smarter Balanced tests.

Since David Coleman was “architect” of the Common Core and is now President of the College Board, the SAT will be aligned with the Common Core.

This is, of course, a tremendous financial coup for the College Board, which charges for every student who takes the SAT.

But it will also benefit Connecticut students, because the cut score (passing mark) on the SBA is set so high that most students are certain to fail and would not be eligible to graduate from high school. Connecticut has now finessed that problem.

The federal government requires that states assess students in both reading and math once during high school. Because so many Connecticut public school students take the SAT anyway, replacing the existing high school test, given in 11th grade, with the SAT would leave young people with one exam fewer on their roster.

State officials said that while scores had not yet been set on what would count as meeting or exceeding “achievement level,” a particular score on the SAT would not be required to graduate from high school or to rise to the 12th grade. Instead, the test will be used as one of several measures, including grades and attendance, to decide if a student has met the requirements necessary to move on.

Dorie Nolt, a spokeswoman for the federal Education Department, said that several states, including Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin, already use the ACT college admissions exam to fulfill their high school testing requirement.

Categories Common Core, Connecticut, Testing

Jon Pelto: Washington State Lowers Pass Mark for Common Core Test

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2015 //
17

Jonathan Pelto reports a very important story from Washington State. As we have learned to expect, a majority of the students in the state “failed” the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Why?because the testing groups set the “cut score” (passing mark) unrealistically high.

Remarkably, the state board of education lowered the cut score so that most students would be able to graduate.

Pelto writes:

“Yup, you read that correctly, after taxpayers were forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the Common Core and the Common Core Tests and students and teachers wasted unfathomable amounts of time prepping and taking the tests that were designed to label the vast majority of students as failures, the “lead” state behind the SBAC testing scheme simply threw out results.

“Instead of going with the cut score that was adopted by the SBAC coordinating committee last November, an unfair rating system that was adopted with the support of [Connecticut] Governor Dannel Malloy’s representatives, the Washington State Board of Education choose a new “passing” level , “where about as many kids are expected to pass the exams as passed the state’s previous tests.”

Now, Pelto wonders, what will Connecticut do?

His answer:

“Okay everyone – now would be a good time for Connecticut’s students, parents and teachers to start screaming out of utter frustration and anger!

“And then let’s go get the pitchforks!”

The reality is that no one knows how the cut scores were set, whether they actually predict college and career readiness, or why they were set so high that most students fail in every state.

Categories Common Core, Students, Testing, Washington State

Rick Hess: What Common Core Could Learn from AP US History Flap

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2015 //
13

There were two big controversies over curriculum this past year. One got resolved by listening to critics and revising the original language. The other continues to churn and burn because its advocates refuse to concede any mistakes or to make any changes.

Rick Hess writes that this is the difference between the Advanced Placement U.S. history and the Common Core. The College Board listened to critics and revised offending language. The Common Core leaders, however, have insisted that it is perfect, its critics are extremists, and not one word may be changed.

The curious fact is that the same person, David Coleman, was in charge of both. He was “architect” of the Common Core standards, and now he is president of the College Board, which administers AP exams.

Why did he respond to critics in one situation and ignore them in the other? I’m guessing but it may be that his board at the College Board told him that the controversy had to end, and it would end only by listening and responding to critics.

In the case of the Common Core, the design of the whole project left no one in charge once the final draft was published. Instead if listening and revising, advocates dug in their heels and attacked the critics as misinformed, shrill, extremist, ignorant, etc. Even the Secretary of Education ridiculed critics, and advocates for the standards lined up big business to run an advertising campaign defending the standards.

Nothing could be changed in the standards, period. They were perfect!

And this arrogant attitude guarantees that the controversy swirling around the standards and tests will burn on. Because no one will listen.

Categories Coleman, David, Common Core

Mercedes Schneider Reviews SBAC Test Contracts with States

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2015 //
9

Mercedes Schneider actually read the bulky contracts between states and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

Her most surprising discovery:

SBAC promises: “Passing an SBAC high school summative assessment assures that students will not need remediation. SBAC really ensures college readiness!”

How do they know? When this was written into the contract, SBAC had not yet been created. Like PARCC, It was never tested.

Schneider concludes:

“This rushing to prematurely-declared success is a corporate reform hallmark.

Here we go again”

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing

Vicki Cobb: Real Books Are Better Than Textbooks

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2015 //
22

Vicki Cobb writes books about science for children. In this post, she says that children are “learning to read” from dull and disjointed textbooks. They should be reading lively well-written trade books by accomplished writers.

“Each book is extensively researched and vetted for accuracy and beautifully designed and illustrated. If it is a narrative, the story is told in a compelling, page-turning manner. If it is a how-to book, directions are clear and motivation is embedded in the exposition. History, geography, sports, science, nature, art and music are all represented in this small library. Yet, for the most part, these engaging books never make it to the classroom. Instead, children read flat, dry, “informational” material that comes with work sheets and lesson plans. Teachers do not know that these books exist, that they cover the same topics that are in their curriculum, and even if they do know about them, they are not sure of how to use them in the classroom.

“You know who does know about these books? The standardized testing companies. They excerpt passages (paying licensing fees) for the test questions. So if this writing is good enough for the tests, don’t you think kids should read them in the classroom?

“Without experience in reading high-quality nonfiction, children are not building a foundation of knowledge, not learning to think in a disciplinary way, and are not preparing to be informed decision makers. The main difference between these books and those written on these subject for adults, is that children’s authors assume that their readers have little to no prior knowledge. Concepts are carefully introduced and reinforced so that the content is not overwhelming to the reader. Authors honor their readers and assume they are writing for intelligent human beings who may be uninitiated in the subject matter. The authors’ voices, their humor, wit, passions, inform the books. As an author of science books for children, I have often said that if one of my books is the first book on a subject a child reads, I have failed if it is the last.”

Categories Common Core

Bill and Melinda Gates Are Not Discouraged by Failure of Their Education “Reforms”

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2015 //
66

Bill and Melinda Gates told Nicholas Kristof that they have poured billions into education reform, but there’s been “no dramatic change.”

Although the Gates’ normally pay attention to results, in the case of education reform they are unfazed by failure.

As Inside Philanthropy reports:

This is significant for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that the Gateses still have not tapped the bulk of their personal fortune for philanthropy, as we’ve discussed in the past. While the Gates Foundation lists assets of $43 billion, Forbes pegs Bill Gates’ personal fortune at nearly $80 billion—most of which will likely go to philanthropy eventually.

This is actually a fatuous and unknowing article, as it praises the widespread adoption of the Common Core standards without mentioning how many states have dropped them or dropped the tests aligned with them or how they have become an issue in state and national campaigns. It also states that Gates spent “tens of millions” on the CCSS, when it was long ago reported by the Washington Post that Gates paid about $200 million to underwrite the effort, and some think it may have been ten times that amount. To discuss CCSS without referring to the controversy surrounding the standards is lazy (or star-struck) journalism.

The writer predicts that the Gates will shift their focus to early childhood programs, like the one run by Illinois Governor Rauner’s wife (Ounce of Prevention), and to teacher preparation programs. Again, no mention of the meager results from the Gates Foundation’s efforts to quantify teacher quality.

More testing on the way. If it can’t be measured, it doesn’t count. But don’t expect accountability; accountability is for the little people, as the super-wealthy Leona Helmsley once said about paying taxes.

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Standardized Testing

What Mercedes Schneider Did on Her Summer Vacation

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2015 //
9

Mercedes Schneider teaches high school English in Louisiana. She has ten weeks of unpaid vacation. What did she do on her vacation? She wrote a book about school choice. She set herself a goal of 1,000 words a day, and she stuck to it. She has written three books in three years. The first one was a bestiary of corporate reformers called “A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education.” The second was “Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?” A book a year! My first book took seven years. I am impressed.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, School Choice

Arthur Camins Comments on Rick Hess’s View of “What Went Wrong with Common Core”

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2015 //
11

Arthur Camins left the following insightful comment on Rick Hess’s analysis of “What Went Wrong with Common Core.” I agree with his claim that the purpose of setting a totally unrealistic goal was to make public schools fail, thus destroying public confidence in them and setting them up for privatization. It is also manifestly correct, based on Joanne Weiss’s comments posted here earlier, that the intention of the Common Core standards and tests was to create a large, unified national marketplace for products and consultants, thus spurring entrepreneurs to enter the “education market.”

Rick Hess highlights many important points about what “went wrong” with the Common Core State Standards, laying the blame on the Obama administration and inside the beltway technocrats. Missing from his analysis is exposure of any of the behind-the-scenes role for companies looking to profit from a more coherent and less fragmented market and the hopes of market ideologues searching for tools to undermine the power of teachers unions in particular and public education in general. The 100% proficiency demands were designed to undermine confidence in public education, as was the connection between teacher evaluation and common core testing in Race to the Top and School Improvement grants.

Absent from much of the media attention to the strident debates about federal v/ local control is the simple fact that no system in the world has made significant improvement based on standards and high-stakes testing. We are, I think stuck in a debate within an autonomy and control framework, while ignoring the great potential for mutual responsibility.

I wrote about this several years ago here: http://www.arthurcamins.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Past-Gets-In-Our-Eyes1.pdf

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing
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