Archives for category: Common Core
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Ask the Experts: Valedictorians Speak Out about Common Core

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2015 //
20

Newsday, the major newspaper for Long Island, New York, had the ingenious idea to ask high school valedictorians what they thought of the Common Core standards. Understand that Long Island has some of the best high schools in the state and in the nation. These students have their pick of elite colleges and universities; they are super-smart and super-accomplished. Here are their reactions.

 

 

 

“Simply, I think the Common Core is absolutely terrible,” Harshil Garg, Bethpage High School’s 2015 valedictorian, said. “It suppresses freedom and boxes children into a systematic way of thinking.”

 

Garg said he was concerned that the standards actually stifle innovation and discourage exploration.

 

“Kids are special, because they color outside the lines, and think outside the box, no matter how preposterous their ideas may seem,” he said. “To restrain that inventiveness at such an early age destroys the spark to explore.”

 

Some of the valedictorians drew from their experiences with younger students who have been more directly impacted by the implementation of Common Core.

 

“I tutor a few elementary and middle school aged students and the transition has been pretty hard on them,” said Emily Linko, valedictorian of Hauppauge High School’s Class of 2015. “All the effects I’ve seen have been negative.”

 

Another tutor, Rebecca Cheng, Smithtown High School West’s valedictorian, said she does see the purpose and potential benefit of Common Core, but is still against it.

 

“It closes your mind and forces kids to think in one particular way,” said Cheng, who tutors third and fifth graders. “There isn’t just one way to solve a problem, and it almost hinders the ability to solve a problem on your own.”

 

Kacie Candela, a private math tutor and valedictorian of H. Frank Carey High School, said the curriculum itself is good, but the roll out was botched.

 

“You can’t build a building without a solid foundation, and students just don’t have the knowledge base to do well,” Candela said. “Schools should have adopted it gradually.”

 

Watching his 6-year-old brother embrace the new standards, Vincent Coghill, Massapequa High School’s valedictorian, said he, too, can see a positive side to the Common Core’s approach to learning.

 

“I’ve seen him solve math problems in so many different ways, but it seems as though he has a better understanding of what is being taught,” he said.

 

Still, Coghill said he opposes the initiative, because he feels “uncomfortable” with federal government intervention into education, which he said should remain a “state priority.”

 

Hailey Wagner, Bellport High School’s valedictorian, agreed with Coghill, saying the federal government has no business dealing with a state matter like education.

 

And Alex Boss, valedictorian of Rockville Centre’s South Side High School, said politicians should stay out of the process altogether, stating: “Education should be left to teachers and parents, not legislators.”

 

Central Islip High School valedictorian Radiyyah Hussein finds herself somewhere in the middle of the debate.

 

“I like the fact that it is challenging and forces children in school to do more critical thinking,” she said. ” … However, I don’t like how much agonizing work has to go into solving simple problems or questions.”

 

She added, “If we want a more progressive world, we need ways for kids to figure things out in an easier and quicker fashion.”

 

Tyler Fenton, valedictorian of Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, had smiliar thoughts, acknowledging that students learn in their owns ways and also at their own pace.

 

Fenton said it’s “unrealistic” and “unfair” to hold everyone accountable to the same standards, and trying to causes “unnecessary stress and anxiety among kids.”

 

And Natalie Korba, valedictorian of Walter G. O’ Connell Copiague High School’s graduating class, said Common Core just puts too much emphasis on exams.

 

“Teachers are being unfairly judged on student performance and students are suffering as they are crushed under the pressure of standardized testing,” she said.

 

Korda added, “School should be about learning life skills and gaining knowledge, not about learning how to take a test.”

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Students

Here Is New York’s Controversial Algebra Test

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2015 //
108

A blogger has posted part 1 of Néw York state’s Regents test in algebra. The test has been aligned with the Common Core. Students must pass this test to graduate high school.

How many of the questions could you answer? How many do you think the members if the Néw York Boardof Regents could answer? How many could members of the State Legislature answer? How many could the editorial writers of the nation answer? How many could Arne Duncan answer?

I wish all those who love tests like this would take it and publish their scores.

Categories Common Core, New York, Testing

Julian Vasquez Heilig: See Shannon Puckett’s “Defies Measurement”

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2015 //
4

Julian Vasquez Heilig urges you to watch Shannon Puckett’s “Defies Measurement.” Like Peter Greene, he says it is a terrific film about the way that corporate reformers are destroying public education.

 

I watched it too. It is a comprehensive look at corporate reform and how it destroyed one very successful school. It is now destroying thousands of public schools that are the heart of their communities.

 

The film is online and free.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Testing

A Test That Will Determine Your Future, A Test You Will Surely Fail

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2015 //
76

Complaints are pouring in about the New York Regents examination in algebra, which all students must pass in order to graduate. It is now aligned with the Common Core, so it is very “rigorous.” Most students know that they are likely to fail. There are many reports of students in tears, and teachers in despair. What will New York do about the clog in the pipeline? What if most students can’t pass the exam and can’t graduate? Will they remain in high school until they drop out? Ideas? Anyone?

 

The common theme shared by parents and teachers was that any test that children will likely fail that determines their future is abusive, and that when most children leave an exam in tears something is very wrong. And don’t forget that this incredibly flawed exam will also count toward teacher evaluation, thereby prejudicing and harming teachers as well.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, New York, Testing

Paul Thomas: The Hoax of Common Core Rebranding

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2015 //
20

Paul Thomas decribes the futility of rebranding the Common Core.

He writes: “Careful examination of both adopting Common Core and then the backlash resulting in dropping Common Core reveals that states remain firmly entrenched in the same exact accountability based on standards and high-stakes testing that has overburdened education since the 1980s. “The names and letters change, but not much else—except for throwing more money at a game of wasteful politics labeled “reform.” “Political posturing and public responses to all this Common Core puffery suggest that the next time a hurricane is plowing toward U.S. soil, the Weather Channel can lessen public panic by simply announcing a kitten is off the coast of Florida. “New and different standards and tests—these are jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, rearranging chairs on the Titanic. “We need to abandon ship.” It is time to aim for equity, for equality of opportunity, not a race with winners and losers.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Just Published: Mercedes Schneider’s New Book “Common Core Dilemma”

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2015 //
18

Mercedes Schneider’s latest book has just been released. It is titled “Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?”

As you might expect from reading her posts here, the book is an incisive, well-researched account of the origins of the Common Core State Standards. She has peered deeply into the web of organizations and individuals who created the CCSS and analyzed the political controversies surrounding them. I think you will find it a fascinating read.

It was published by Teachers College Press.

Categories Common Core

Teacher Asks: Who is Behind SBAC?

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2015 //
49

As you may recall, the U.S. Department of Education funded two testing groups to write tests aligned with the Common Core standards. One is the Partnership for Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC), and the other is the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). Since the Department is legally prohibited from attempting to control or influence curriculum or instruction, this grant (for $360 million) may actually be illegal, but no one has gone to court to challenge it. Meanwhile, both PARCC and SBAC agreed to adopt the same cut scores (passing marks), aligned with the rigorous achievement levels of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This was a fateful and unwise decision. Catherine Gewertz pointed out in Education Week that most students were likely to fail, given the alignment with NAEP:

 

The two common-assessment consortia are taking early steps to align the “college readiness” achievement levels on their tests with the rigorous proficiency standard of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a move that is expected to set many states up for a steep drop in scores.

 

After all,  fewer than four in 10 children reached the “proficient” level on the 2013 NAEP in reading and math.

 

Thus, it is reasonable to expect that most children will “fail” both PARCC and SBAC and will continue to “fail” them for many years into the future. If these scores count for graduation, most students will never graduate. What will we do with them?

 

This reader, a teacher, says that PARCC has received lots of scrutiny, but SBAC has not. Any reader want to chime in?

 

For months, I have been disheartened that there has been so much media attention devoted to PARCC but not to SBAC. Don’t get me wrong: I welcome the focus on the nefarious funding-sources and profiteers of PARCC and I love, love, love the large scale civil disobedience we have seen by kids, parents, teachers and even, in some brave cases, by principals and superintendents, in places like New Mexico, New Jersey and New York. But we are not seeing the same level of journalistic interest in and investigation of the Smarter Balanced tests being suffered here in Oregon and elsewhere. Why not?

 

My hunch is that it has to do with HOW BLOODY DIFFICULT IT IS TO FIND ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THE SBAC FROM ANY SOURCE OTHER THAN SBAC ITSELF. Seriously, I recommend you do a google search and experience for yourself the Orwellian scrubbing of the Internet by the Consortium.

 

I am not a journalist and I can say tonight: I have never been more saddened by that fact. If I *were* professionally trained, I would have the expertise to spend the next month getting to the bottom of this clearly corrupt enterprise: any organization that spends this much energy obscuring every last detail about its origins, governance, finances and practices cannot be entirely above board.

 

But, using my admittedly amateurish journalistic skills, here is what I have found and, if I WERE a journalist (and not a full time teacher), here are some leads I would pursue:

 

1. Since SBAC’s Race to the Top grant ran out, it has been housed at UCLA’s education school. (http://www.smarterbalanced.org/news/states-move-forward-smarter-balanced/) This move also seems to coincide with the end of publicly available quarterly reports, which list SBAC’s subcontracts. The most recent report I could find was from June of 2013. There you will see contracts with Educational Testing Service, AIR, Amplify, McGraw-Hill, Pearson and many more. (http://www.smarterbalanced.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Quarterly-Report-June-2013.pdf)

 

2. In its new home at UCLA, SBAC is collaborating with something called the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) and guess what? It is funded by some of the very same organizations that are getting contracts with SBAC (ETS, for example), as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (http://www.cse.ucla.edu/about/agencies.php)

 

3. From what I can find, UCLA’s education school is also enmeshed in the charter school movement. In fact, UCLA offers a certificate on Charter School Finance Policy and Administration! (https://www.uclaextension.edu/pages/ProgramDetails.aspx?reg=CF586) If I were even remotely cynical, I might ask myself who stands to benefit the most from a new standardized test for which it is projected that 60-70% of kids will fail? Might it be charter schools that can swoop in and offer “alternatives” to “failing” schools, where “failing” is measured by standardized tests?

 

4. Who the heck wrote the SBAC? Looks to me like ETS and McGraw Hill, which received (at least) a combined $82.6 million from the Consortium (that’s us!) for “test-item development” and other services. (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/01/06contract.h34.html)

 

SOMEBODY has got to connect all these dots and show that the SBAC,  just like the PARCC, is a giveaway to profiteers, was NOT crafted by educators with the best interests of students in mind, and is another step toward taking the “public” out of public education.

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing

Susan Ochshorn: A Renaissance in Play? Maybe.

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
157

Susan Ochshorn, an expert in early childhood education, read a recent article by Motoko Rich in the New York Times about a “renaissance” of play in kindergarten. She cautions here that the renaissance is still in too few places and can’t come soon enough.

Ochsborn writes:

“I sure hope she’s right. But I’m not yet ready to raise a glass.

“Some educators in low-income districts–including the one quoted in Rich’s piece–cling to the idea that poorer children will be ill-served by a curriculum dominated by play, falling behind their more affluent peers. Their worries, fueled by anxieties about the achievement gap, reflect a centuries-old divide—dueling theories about how young children learn best. Never mind that the evidence base for the acquisition of reading, math, science, and social skills through play couldn’t be more robust, as the researchers like to say. Or that the most well-endowed private schools, producing the nation’s elite, have long subscribed to this pedagogical model.

“We continue to spar, leaving children in the dust. Is it better for them to lead the way, or be led? Developmental scientist Alison Gopnik, who calls children the “R & D department of the human species—the blue-sky guys, the brainstormers”— argues that teacher-led learning may produce specific answers from students, but it also puts the kibosh on unexpected solutions, or the kind of creative thinking that we purport to hold in such high esteem.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core

Teacher: The Toxic Reach of Common Core into Kindergarten

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
16

A post yesterday described the intrusion of Common Core into a Headstart program for babies.

This teacher tried but could not escape the dead hand of test-driven Common Core:

“I am just completing my 10th consecutive year teaching Kindergarten. I began the first year of the NCLB standardized testing. I previously taught grades 3-5, 10 years prior and strongly objected to the tests at that time. My principal who always praised the way I taught reading told me that I would have to restructure my program to include more workbooks and test prep.

“Luckily a position in K opened up and i was able to get away from the testing and enjoy teaching in a creative way again with thematic units and high interest books. But slowly, ever slowly that began to change. For the past 4 years I have been forced to use a “CC aligned” curriculum that I hate and must use the assessments from the program that is extremely developmentally inappropriate. And there are A LOT of benchmark tests, at least one every 2 weeks that have as many as 65 multiple choice questions like on the final ELA benchmark I gave just this week….. So now of course they would come for the babies next, not surprised, this is the trickle down effect of the poison of back mapping.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Is This Possible? Lesson Plans for Babies?

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2015 //
63

I am by nature a skeptic. I don’t believe whatever I read. I want proof or confirming sources. In the past few years, I have heard that Common Core pressure has created bizarre demands on children and teachers. A reader posted the following comment. Is it true? I don’t know.

“I have a friend who does Head Start…her “class” is birth to 14 months and she has to write lesson plans and kids have to meet “benchmarks”….got to be college and career ready from the womb.

Categories Common Core
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