Archives for category: Common Core
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Tennessee: Most Teachers Say Abandon Common Core

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2014 //
16

Tennessee is one of Arne Duncan’s favorite states because it was one of the first states to win Race to the Top funding, it has a rightwing governor and legislature, and an experienced, TFA-trained state commissioner. Thus, the state is committed to charters, to privatization, and to eliminating tenure (it already abolished collective bargaining). This is Arne’s kind of state, a state where Democrats are powerless.

But, trouble! A new poll by Vanderbilt University finds that after three years of experience with the Common Core, 56% of teachers want to abandon it. Not fine-tune it. Abandon it.

Read the story and watch the politicians try to spin the collapse of teacher support.

“Support for Common Core among Tennessee teachers has waned so much since last year that a majority now opposes the academic standards, a new statewide survey shows.

“With the future of Common Core under fire in Tennessee, a new report from the Tennessee Consortium on Research, Evaluation and Development could provide more ammunition to those who want to roll back the standards.

“The new 2014 survey, undertaken by a group led by Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development and released Wednesday, found that just 39 percent of respondents believe that teaching to the standards will improve student learning — compared with 60 percent who said the same last year.

“It also found 56 percent of the 27,000 Tennessee teachers who responded to the survey want to abandon the standards, while 13 percent would prefer to delay their implementation. Only 31 percent want to proceed. The 2013 survey did not ask questions in this area.

“There’s been a pretty big drop of support for the Common Core,” said Dale Ballou, a Vanderbilt professor and director of the consortium.

“But there doesn’t seem to be any single symptom or explanation for that change. It’s a lot of different factors that seem to be playing into this. The one thing I would caution people against is jumping to the conclusion that this means now that teachers are actually trying it, they’re discovering that it doesn’t work.”

Gosh, no, don’t jump to that conclusion, the one that common sense suggests. Don’t conclude that “now that teachers are actually trying it, they’re discovering that it doesn’t work.” There must be another explanation. If I think of one, I will let you know.

Categories Common Core, Teachers, Tennessee

Robert Pondiscio: This Is What a Great Common Core Lesson Does NOT Look Like

By dianeravitch
September 30, 2014 //
43

Robert Pondiscio, who now works for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, shows here how a Common Core lesson can be deadly dull. New York put one of its “experts” on NPR to demonstrate how exciting a Common Core lesson was . But it wasn’t.

“I referred my listeners to a recent NPR effort to get “super-specific about what makes a good Common Core–aligned lesson.” The reporter enlisted the aid of Kate Gerson, who works with EngageNY, a New York State Education Department’s web site. She’s one of the leaders of New York State’s transition to Common Core; NPR asked her to walk through a supposedly exemplary ninth-grade lesson—a close reading of a short story by Karen Russell entitled, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised By Wolves.”

Pondiscio didn’t think much of the lesson. It was the same old skills-based lesson. Same old, same old.

Categories Common Core

Peter Greene Explains to Bill Gates Why Education is not Like a Railroad Gauge

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2014 //
56

Peter Greene knows, unlike Bill Gates, that children are not like toasters that Ned to be plugged into an electrical outlet that is everywhere the same. But then Gates brings in the metaphor of a railroad gauge. Ah! A fresh metaphor! New writer? Who knows?

Greene explains why it is a bad metaphor that has nothing to do with students or teaching. And he asks the $64 question: if standardization and uniformity are so great, why does Gates love charter schools?

And now the big question: what metaphor will Gates use next to make the case for standardization of learning?

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Question of the Day, Borrowed from Bill Gates

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2014 //
89

As we noted previously, Bill Gates compares the Common Core to standardization of electrical plugs and outlets, and to the gauge of railroad tracks. This is not a new metaphor from him. He used it several months ago when he explained the need for Common Core to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

The question of the day, therefore, is this: is your child an electrical outlet, an electrical plug, or an electrical appliance? Is she a toaster or a lamp?

Here is the standard I want for my grandchildren and your children: the standards at Lakeside Academy in Seattle, where Bill sends his children. The school has small classes, experienced teachers, a beautiful campus, a wonderful arts program, foreign languages, a fabulous gymnasium, a well-stocked library, the latest technology. That’s where I want our children educated. Not as toasters but as human beings.

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

This Is Not News! Bill Gates Loves Common Core and Arne Duncan

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2014 //
85

Stephanie Simon reports on Bill Gates’ latest explanation of why the Common Core standards are a wonderful idea. We need standardization. Maybe we need a national curriculum so that everyone learns exactly the same thing at the same time. Bill Gates loves the Common Core because it is like a standard electrical outlet that we can plug children’s brains into and get standard electrical current. That explains why he paid out at least $200 million to create Common Core, so everyone could have a standard mind and be just like everyone else. Some people, like Emeritus Professor Jack Hassard of Georgia State University, think that Gates has actually pumped $2 billion into Common Core. Really, without standardizing the minds and hopes and dreams and aspirations of everyone everywhere, how can we hope to compete with the standardized minds in other nations?

 

This is not news. We knew that, didn’t we?

 

Here is some more not-news: Bill Gates thinks Arne Duncan is wonderful because Arne Duncan wants to standardize everyone’s minds just like Bill Gates. And he wants to pay teachers based on the test scores of their students, just like they don’t do at his children’s private school.

 

They can’t understand why the more parents learn about Common Core, the less they like it. That’s what the polls show.

 

Here is an anecdote, not a poll, not scientific. I spoke to a friend who is a retired New York City principal. She had a distinguished career for many years in a middle school. Her grandson came home from his first day in kindergarten. He had work sheets for homework. When she asked about his day, he said there was no recess because they had to work on reading and math problems. This is ridiculous. The children will learn to hate school.

 

Common Core will never be “national standards,” no matter how much money Bill spends, no matter how much the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pushes it, no matter how many states lose Arne’s waivers. It might survive in half the states. But it will never stop being a source of controversy. It didn’t have to be this way. The lesson is that you don’t get “national standards” by writing them in secret, then using federal funds as a lure to shove them down the throats of parents and children. If we ever have national standards, it will come about as the result of a democratic, open process, not a secret deal among oligarchs and the feds.

Categories Common Core

New York State School Boards Association Cancels Poll about Common Core

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2014 //
13

Yesterday I learned that the New York State School Boards Association was running a poll about the Common Core. When I logged on, responses were running heavily against the Common Core. Most respondents said that CC “hinders” education instead of improving it. Some 85% said that it was not liked by local parents.

 

I posted these results, and the NYSSBA canceled the poll on grounds that the response rate was so high that the results were not accurate. But before I posted it, the results were already overwhelmingly opposed to the Common Core. Don’t blame me for the opposition from school board members who answered overwhelmingly in the negative before I read the results or posted about them.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry

National Urban League Hangs Out For-Sale Sign

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2014 //
1

There’s is a lot of money to be made in education but not by teachers.

 

“In the Publiic Interest” reports on privatization scams. Today it wrote:

 

“Politico reports that the National Urban League “is stepping up its advocacy in support of the Common Core with new radio and TV spots narrated by CEO Marc H. Morial.” In July, Black Agenda Report reported that “the National Urban League got a $1 million check from now-doomed Corinthian Colleges after president Marc Morial wrote a favorable op-ed in the Washington Post. Morial then joined Corinthian’s board of directors, a sinecure that is worth between $60,000 and $90,000 a year in cash and deferred stock.”

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, For-Profit, Higher Education

Mercedes Schneider: How Did AIR and Fordham Grade State Standards?

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2014 //
10

Mercedes Schneider here compares two organizations that graded state standards: the American Institutes for Research and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. When AIR reviewed state standards and assessments, it concluded that the stands were so variable that common national standards and assessments were necessary, that is, the Common Core standards. She notes that AIR is very “scientific,” but recommends CCSS in the absence of any evidence. Fordham grades state standards without regard to their relationship to NAEP scores, and they conclude that what is needed most is Common Core standards.*

Fordham, as is well known, is funded by the Gates Foundation to advocate for CCSS.

AIR, though usually considered a research organization, has significant contracts to create CC assessments. AIR has a contract for $220 million to prepare assessments for Florida. It has a contract for $14 million as one of the developers of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. And more: “AIR has collected over $65 million from the Gates Foundation in the form of 23 grants since 2003.”

So, those who graded the state standards concluded that the Common Core was the very best thing even though there was no evidence for what they might accomplish, if anything.

*Note: I chaired the program committee at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute until 2009, when I resigned from the board. The state standards’ ratings referred only to the academic content of state standards, without reference to the states’ performance on NAEP. I recall giving a speech in some state in the 1990s in which I criticized the academic insufficiency of their state standards. Someone in the audience got up and pointed out the state’s high scores on NAEP. I confess I was stumped. The point was that the quality of the state standards was unrelated to student performance. The lesson, I now realize (which I could not admit in those days), is that the Common Core standards is unlikely to have any effect on student achievement, as Tom Loveless pointed out in 2012. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/04/18/28loveless_ep.h31.html

Categories Common Core, Testing

Join the Network for Public Education on October 11 at “Public Education Nation”

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2014 //
7

JOIN US FOR THE FIRST PUBLIC EDUCATION NATION ON OCTOBER 11!

NBC has abandoned its annual “education nation” funded by Gates and featuring the leaders of privatization and high-stakes testing.

Now is our hour! We are here for you! We are here for the millions of students, teachers, parents, and administrators who are part of public education. We are here permanently. We are not going away.

Coming Saturday, Oct.11

PUBLIC Education Nation

Panel #1: Testing & the Common Core

Just Two Weeks Away! The first-ever PUBLIC Education Nation

This time we own the table, and we will bring together educators, parents and students to tell the truth about what is happening in our schools, and what real reform ought to be all about.

Next Sunday, October 5, will be our major money bomb online fundraiser for the event. This is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Bloomberg or Walton foundations – it is sponsored by US – each and every person who cares about the future of public education. Please donate here, and spread the word.

If you are in the New York area, and would like to attend the October 11 event in person, please show up by 11:30 am at 610 Henry St at Brooklyn New School/Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, and register here in advance. You can also sign up for the online event on Facebook here.

Follow us on Twitter at @PublicEdNation & @NetworkPublicEd

Panel #1: Testing & the Common Core

One of the highlights of the event will be the very first panel,

Testing and the Common Core, which will be moderated by New York’s high school Principal of the Year, Carol Burris. Burris has written extensively about equity in schools and the impact of the Common Core, and will bring her many years as an educator to the table. She will be joined by the following education experts:

Alan A. Aja, Ph.D. is the Assistant Professor & Deputy Chair of the Department of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies in Brooklyn College. His research examines race, gender and class disparities between and among Latino and African American communities; immigration/education policy; social and economic segregation; sustainable development and collective action/unionization. Before academia, Aja worked as a labor organizer in Texas, an environmental researcher in Cuba, a human rights organizer in Argentina and in a refugee hostel in London. He is a public school parent and elected member of the SLT (School Leadership Team) of PS264 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Dr. Aja will discuss the impact of common core aligned testing in New York, Kentucky and other states on marginalized communities, with attention to blacks, Latinos, ELLs, special ed/learning and disability students. He will present the early evidence to demonstrate that the Common Core and its testing is not resulting in the closing of the achievement gap, but may, instead be leaving disadvantaged students even further behind. He will also discuss alternative ways to increase student and school performance.

Rosa L. Rivera-McCutchen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at CUNY’s Lehman College. She began her career in education as a high school teacher in the Bronx.Her research examines the theory and practice of leadership in small schools in urban settings in order to create socially just and equitable schools for Black and Latino students. Dr. Rivera-McCutchen’s research has appeared in an edited book entitled Critical small schools: Beyond privatization in New York City urban educational reform.

Dr. Rivera McCutchen will focus on the moral imperative of leading for social justice in the face of CCSS and high-stakes testing. She will highlight the challenges leaders face in resisting, and focus on the strategies that leaders have used in mounting successful campaigns of resistance.

Takiema Bunche Smith is the Vice President of Education and Outreach at Brooklyn Kindergarten Society (BKS), where she oversees educational programming and outreach initiatives at five preschools located in low-income neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York. In both her professional and personal life, Ms. Bunche Smith is involved in various advocacy efforts that relate to early childhood care and education funding and policy, and the push-back against the overemphasis on high stakes testing in public schools. She has been a classroom teacher, teacher educator, content director for Sesame Street, and director of curriculum and instruction. She attended NYC public schools for 3rd-12th grade and is now a public school parent and member of the SLT at Brooklyn New School.

Ms. Bunche Smith will discuss the early childhood education implications of the Common Core and how it affects schools, students and parents. She will discuss various parent perspectives on the Common Core as well as critically highlight those who are not part of the conversation around Common Core.

On Saturday, Oct. 11, you can tune in online here at SchoolhouseLive.org to the live broadcast starting at 12 noon Eastern time, 9 am Pacific time.

The event will conclude with a conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.

The Network for Public Education is hosting this event. It is NOT sponsored by the Gates, Walton or Bloomberg foundations. It is sponsored by YOU, each and every one of the people who care about our children’s future.

Can you make a small donation to help us cover the expense of this event? We are determined to create the space not ordinarily given to voices like these. But we need your participation. Please donate by visiting the NPE website and clicking on the PayPal link.

A live-stream of the event will be available on Saturday, Oct. 11, starting at Noon Eastern time, 9 am Pacific time at http://www.schoolhouselive.org.

Support The Network for Public Education

The Network for Public Education is an advocacy group whose goal is to fight to protect, preserve and strengthen our public school system, an essential institution in a democratic society. Our mission is to protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools and the education of current and future generations of students.

Over the past year, donations to The Network for Public Education helped us put on out first National Conference – an incredible success. In the coming year, we will hold more events, webinars, and work on the issues that our members and donors care about the most!

To become a Member or to Make a Donation, go to the NPE website and click on the PayPal link. We accept donations using PayPal, the most trusted site used to make on-line payments.

http://networkforpubliceducation.org

The Network For Public Education | P.O. Box 44200 | Tucson | AZ | 85733

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Network for Public Education, Parents, Principals, Students, Teachers, Testing, U.S. education

How Do New York Parents Grade Common Core?

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2014 //
32

The New York State School Boards Association is running a poll to ask parents their views about the Common Core standards.

When I last checked, the results were overwhelmingly negative, with 78% saying the CC “hindered” learning, and 85% saying that the CC standards were viewed unfavorably by parents in their district.

Categories Common Core
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