Readers know that I am a strong supporter of Standards generally and the Common Core specifically. To me it is simply a no-brainer: there is no such thing as Georgia Algebra or Montana Writing. In a mobile society, and based on economies of scale, common national standards make a lot of sense.
But no friends of Standards can be happy with how this effort has evolved logistically, on the ground, in terms of guidance to and resources for districts; or satisfied with the incentives – actually, disincentives – provided for undertaking such challenging work. Worse, we are in the unenviable position of fighting over a set of standards that now belongs to no official entity, so there is no way to amend the Standards, properly defend them from critics, or (especially) push back on how they are implemented by states.
And indeed, the chief culprits here are the states, in my view, employing tactics that run counter to everything we know about organizational change.
Back to Deming’s principles. I wish to isolate one very basic problem of poor implementation. Every point of leverage being used in states is about sticks instead of carrots; and numerical ‘targets’ that cannot be understood by anyone but a few psychometricians. As suggested by my title, we are reinventing the utterly failed idea of wheat quotas in Soviet-era Russia. Command economies work no better than command schools. It didn’t work then and it will not work now.
What bugs me is that we are currently violating almost every principle about quality control articulated by W Edwards Deming 30 years ago. Deming, famous for helping Japan recover from WWII and for introducing modern management ideas to US businesses in the 80s and 90s, boiled down his complex system into a few pithy ideas that were key to genuine and effective reform in an organization. Here they are, courtesy of the ASQ (an international quality control organization), minus the few that address business issues not really relevant to non-profits:
- Create constancy of purpose for improving… services.
- Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
- Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
- Institute training on the job.
- Adopt and institute leadership.
- Drive out fear.
- Break down barriers between staff areas.
- Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
- Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
- Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.
- Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
- Put everybody in the [organization] to work accomplishing the transformation.
Drive out fear. Eliminate quotas. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. (i.e. don’t rely on external tests for quality control after the fact; build in quality all along in the work locally.) Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, including annual rating systems. These 4 crucial principles are now being violated by every current state accountability system, blessed by the Feds and RTTT money.
It doesn’t matter that many of us who work in schools and have had success with our school partners see little need for fear. It is plainly true: there is NOTHING in the Common Core Standards that requires less creative teaching and more mindless ‘test prep.’ As I have long said and written, it is crazy or thoughtless to assume that worse teaching will raise test scores. And I know from personal experience that the best schools and districts that we work with have seen their scores increase even in the face of Common Core based testing (1 district in Kentucky and 1 in New York).
But in both these cases, there are extraordinary leaders and teachers who have demanded that creative pedagogy and a focus on engaged learners doing interesting work remain the focus. Nice if it were the norm; it isn’t and never will be. That is indeed the challenge of national reform: take average leaders and teachers and help them keep improving and feeling optimistic and inspired.
I know from watching and listening all over the country in schools and in workshops, however, that many educators have become less creative, more timid and unimaginative, and have indeed lost pride in their work in the face of how heavy-handed the states have been in promulgating this retro and harmful “accountability”. Why is not the state responsible for ensuring that the incentives are right and the resources are available to do the work well? States should have to be accountable for how local leaders interpret their regs and rules. But states wash their hands of the problem of change; they merely issue mandates. So, teachers become brow-beaten by scores, encouraged to do bits and pieces of coverage and quizzing. In general, down the authority line, the message becomes: teach worse rather than better – do test prep, somehow, in the name of “standards.” (It is also depressing to see Danielson’s framework bastardized into a lockstep accountability state system.)
It is a bad game of telephone, perhaps, but it is happening everywhere, and state departments (and the feds) have an obligation to do something about it.
I think it is time for a national summit on best practice with respect to institutional change. Let’s bring together reformers, Quality Control experts, and anyone else with significant experience in transforming organizations from a fear and quota based culture to an intrinsic-motivational system. The Standards are OK, but the implementation is unwise, uninformed, and harmful. And it is up to those of us who are pro-standards to aggressively make this case.
Let’s insist, in short, on their being standards for implementing standards, and accountability for state departments of education on how well national standards are implemented.
36 Responses
“we are in the unenviable position of fighting over a set of standards that now belongs to no official entity, so there is no way to amend the Standards, properly defend them from critics, or push back on how they are implemented by states.”
I think this is the most important sentence in your post, and an issue that isn’t even being talked about right now. As it is currently positioned, the ownership and influence will lie with groups responsible for creating the year end assessments (PARCC and Smarter Balanced… but also Pearson? College Board?). Instead of “standards for implementing standards”, I think we need to shift from a top-down power distribution to a bottom-up distribution. To empower local schools and teachers with the tools to understand, implement, and improve the standards. To encourage a bias towards action and iteration over bureaucracy and legislation.
If web standards (see discussion on HTML5 here: http://alistapart.com/article/a-brief-history-of-markup) worked at all like education standards, we’d still be waiting for the first website to go live.
I feel like I just went to church. “Amen!”
#6 and #10 are the biggest hurdles I see as a teacher in New York City.
All I can say is a hearty AMEN!
Once again…….put the emphasis on inspiring teachers to be at their best. What is a teacher’s best? “Best” is known locally. One size (as you suggested fire hose connections) will simply not fit all. We are inspired by goals. We are inspired to reach towards the ” ideal”. The good news is that teachers participate in the process of articulating what we, as a profession are reaching to achieve. Any well-seasoned teacher appreciates the need to continually grow professionally. Some aspects of our practice are constant, others are pliable responding to the dynamic forces that are the reality of our daily working environment.
States do know something about their constituents. The national standards should not be “forced” on a local professional community. This practice will lead to rebellion. Professional teachers, actively engaging in the process of reform will lead in the direction of excellence and embrace standards that define “best practice.” This local and grander team-oriented approach to excellence shreds the purported success posted and endured by an inflicted federal mandate.
Cynical educators suggest that contemporary educational reform is driven by the financial gain that will benefit the testing industry as the mandated testing frenzy increases annually. The potential expense to the local districts for the increasing stress on testing is staggering. The unfortunate labeling of “poorly performing” schools and teachers reminds one of the bullying that we are attempting to teach students to avoid
As any veteran teacher knows, the survivability of these great themes of reform depends on the understanding that stable institutions are indeed slow to change. Good teachers have survived many of the sticks – and the carrots of the most recent and recurring reformist strategies. Unfortunately, some of the very best among us are leaving the profession now, abandoning ship in a storm of reform that is crippling teacher creativity and enthusiasm.
Grant, it is not not the standards that are causing teachers to leave the students. This profound loss to our community is an unfortunate consequence of teacher abuse promoted by ill-conceived evaluation strategies which now pummel our profession.
In the end, it is the relationship of teacher to student, parent, community and administration that will define a productive outcome. Teachers who know and practice their art will understand the need to strive for excellence. Art cannot be forced and is, of course, difficult to evaluate – even by well-seasoned psychometricians!
I don’t think it’s true that states and locals always know best. You have not spent a year working in Mississippi as we have. It’s shocking how bad the schools are – and the C & I state office is smaller than the same office in any medium sized district. That’s just state-sanctioned child abuse. And it’s silly to say that national standards are being ‘forced’ on people and rebellion will ensue. National Standards gave us the electric grid, the modern computer, safe hospitals, and the FDA. And you surely know that many teachers do not continue to grow professionally. I see it personally in every school in which I work and I hear it from supervisors whose hands are tied by contracts: there are many who ‘teach’ without causing much learning or inspiration. We simply have to end this romanticism about ‘teachers’ and better distinguish the professionals from the coasters. Kids deserve better. But reform is not about blaming people, as I said in my post; it’s about motivating people to improve – look closely at Deming’s Principle #3: still not happening in most schools as schools. And let’s not pretend, either, that big changes – especially in high schools – aren’t needed. My greatest pet peeve is that most teachers really believe that school is working just fine for most kids in its current form.
Just a thought…you may want to research, study and consider implementing the principles and practices related to KAI-ZEN as they apply to our work in education.
It’s a good thought, and my colleague Jay McTighe has some working knowledge of those practices. Thanks.
Teachers do not work with things like electric grids, and computers. Our professional product is found in the academic achievement that develops in real, living students. Relationship and “romance” drives the daily practice of great teachers. Perhaps the love of investing in kids is unrequited by the society that is served with such ardor by the majority of teachers. There may be a few teachers who chose the wrong profession, but it is unfair to suggest that kids deserve better. Again, celebrate the excellence that most dedicated teachers exhibit. You will find that praise works better than admonition in motivating excellence – at least that is what I leaned my seasons as a NCAA Division I coach.
“And you surely know that many teachers do not continue to grow professionally.” While I’m sure this is true, the most important question right now is why it’s true. Going straight back to Deming, we must look at the system. In a better system would there be as much of this truth? I doubt it. My guess is that fewer of those who never rise above this would make it into a class room in the first place, those that do would not last as long, and those who are better but at the bottom of a curve that is therefore higher up the scale would have a better chance and be more motivated to improve. In that national summit you mention I think one of the primary tasks would be to exclude those who are not qualified or worthy of being there such that only those with actual capabilities and interest in true reform and real ongoing improvement are at the table. Percentage wise, there are far more bad pseudo-reformers making policy these days than there are bad teachers in our class rooms and they are far less accountable to those who are affected, indeed afflicted by their policies.
As always, very interesting discussion on the topic. I always enjoy reading your blog. But, here goes the critique…. Can you have intrinsic motivation with a top-down structure? I do not see a path in the way you point. We can try to figure that out…. the one existing now does not work though.
Well, it’s a good question. I think you can. If the states, for example, rewarded districts for developing high-quality local assessment and curriculum in some audit process,that would be far better. I think states could also highlight best practices locally more effectively, and provide R & D money to support it.
What is the difference here?? Your logic that taking it down to local assessment on a district level would make it all better is not correct. It’s more top down. The state is just not creating the test. The bottom line is that teachers are told to teach so that students increase scores on the state/district assessment. That’s not what teachers are supposed to do imho. So, my question is the same- How can you have intrinsic motivation with a top down structure? Your example is just who makes the test- not who controls the purse strings and “rewards”. And following your logic then, the Common Core will make it worse, not better as the Fed will be setting out “rewards”.
#7, #11 and #12 will foster what is needed on the ground, in the school. Opportunities for leadership, growth and implementation must be facilitated, just as they must in a classroom. Many teachers are being harmed by their administrators’ practices.
More careful hiring and pruning in the first and second year of a teacher’s work will help.
Could not agree more with you – “We simply have to end this romanticism about ‘teachers’ and better distinguish the professionals from the coasters. Kids deserve better. But reform is not about blaming people, as I said in my post; it’s about motivating people to improve” – and it can not be done out of fear; of not being proficient on a 30 page teacher evaluation. It has to come from the teacher’s heart. I think a key ingredient to this is getting our college students into the classroom freshman year to see if teaching is the career that they will truly love to do. I know I love it, but the external factors are more stress inducing then ever before!
Thanks, Shawn – agreed. The stress increase is real, and we need to attract more (and better) people to teaching. Deming’s point, in part, is we WOULD attract more people if the work conditions better honored his principles. Alas, that would also require overcoming the limitations of current contracts and teacher isolationism. In the truly great schools, they work as a team, and many typical habits have been questioned and overturned (such as use of time, personnel, and assessment).
I have to jump in here about how to attract more high quality students to ed programs. Right now, we depend on a few of the reasons to go into education degrees: 1. A love of teaching; 2. Reputation of it being a reasonable degree to obtain (i.e.- not difficult); 3. Not sure what they want to do but fall into ed because they like kids. I am #3.
We need to take away #2 as a reason. I’m not saying suddenly make an ed degree difficult – to cut the weaker students. No- there is a better way. If we create reason #4 for going into teaching, we will fill the ed classrooms with more students who will have to compete for the seats. The colleges will then have their pick of the best and brightest for the degrees. Teacher overall quality will go up. And what is this reason?
#4 Teaching is a prestigious job with good pay, lots of support for classroom challenges, a career ladder that allows for promotions and the ability to really control their lesson plans. This would do a lot more for education than testing my child to death.
Thank you for this post. I have long tried to help my conservative friends see the standards are wonderful surprising needed change, but the implementation is where everyone is going wrong. I am thankful to be in a position of teacher leadership in an independent district in Illinois, and hope my state stops the nonsense with the cut scores and supports us as we focus on creative and excellent teaching.
Erin Holland, MS, NBCT
Reading Professional Development Coordinator
USD West Aurora 129
80 S. River Street Aurora, IL
630-301-5058 (office number)
331-452-7752 (work cell)
Thanks for the support. Nice phrase for the movement: Start the Standards, Stop the Nonsense!
I would love to hear your response to this story:
http://educationoutrage.blogspot.com/2013/10/milo-and-park-slope-parents-group-meet.html
Does this story match with the standards established by the Common Core, or does it represent a misapplication of them?
I don’t even know where to begin, this is such a poor interpretation of common core. Nowhere is endless vocabulary recommended. Indeed, the focus is on conceptual understanding and non-routine problem solving using core content.
But it speaks to a different issue: parents have NOT been brought in to understand what the Standards want and how they as parents can help. That’s why it’s a Park Slope, Brooklyn issue: the parents want to help do the work for their kids 🙂
Grant, what is your opinion on the assertion by the NAEYC that the CCSS are developmentally inappropriate for K-3? From this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/29/a-tough-critique-of-common-core-on-early-childhood-education/
“The National Association for the Education of Young Children is the foremost professional organization for early education in the U.S. Yet it had no role in the creation of the K-3 Core Standards. The Joint Statement opposing the standards was signed by three past presidents of the NAEYC—David Elkind, Ellen Galinsky, and Lilian Katz—and by Marcy Guddemi, the executive director of the Gesell Institute of Human Development; Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld of Harvard Medical School; Dorothy and Jerome Singer of the Yale University Child Study Center; Dr. Marilyn Benoit, past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Professor Howard Gardner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and many others.” Full statement here. http://www.edweek.org/media/joint_statement_on_core_standards.pdf
For the record, I agree with all you said about the need for a national set of standards and I especially agree that any set of standards have to be subject to constant improvement because as it stands now they are less than OK in some significant ways. That is due to the method used to build them.
I have fixed feelings about the NAEYC report. I certainly have no desire to see little kids tested. Below 3rd or 2nd grade, test results have no validity and reliability which is why the profession is steadfastly stated via many organizations that it is unwise. That said, I don’t see anything in the Standards per se that is ‘developmentally inappropriate’. In fact, whenever I hear that phrase I get antsy because it is often used as an excuse to not make kids think instead of regurgitate. I have said it for decades and I’ll say it again. It is simply not true that little kids cannot make inferences, recognize discrepancies, or generalize. They may do it crudely, but they can do it. I have hard dozens of teachers of little kids say that this or that demand is too ‘abstract’ and kids cannot yet think at that level – but that is not what the research says. People have distorted the meaning of Piaget’s phrase ‘concrete operational’ thinking. It does not mean that they cannot think abstractly. It means that they cannot think conditionally and hypothetically. I see little in the Standards making this latter demand.
I agree about getting antsy when people say the standards are not developmentally appropriate and I too feel it often is a cop out. When I started my teaching profession, I never would have thought that a 3 yr old could master an iPad or use a computer effectively. However, the way our children are learning the way our brains work today is much different than how I was taught. We cannot say that standards are not developmentally appropriate because the appropriateness changes daily as our world changes in technology.
Not true. There is such a thing as developmental readiness. It’s physical and cognitive. Just because a 3 year old can use an Ipad doesn’t make them ready for the physics and math underlying the tool.
An example….. my son was a late bloomer in all ways. He failed the vision screener in kindergarten so I took him to the optometrist. She gave him glasses. He would not consistently wear them and seemed to be able to see equally well with or without them. So, I took him to the ophthalmologist. His eyes were not working together (convergence). This is a normal developmental difference in children. Eye convergence can happen anywhere from about age 2 or 3 to 6 or 7- and that is within normal range. If your eyes have not converged, you cannot read properly. That explained why he had not learned to read until into 1st grade when he was 6 / 7 years old. He could not have physically read and expectations that demanded he read by age 5 would have been impossible for him. Is it fair to expect that children learn to read prior to an age where a child is developmentally able to perform? That is what we are doing when we push reading on 3 year olds. This is inappropriate.
I understand what you are saying, but as an educator, I don’t believe we are “pushing reading on 3 year olds” and I believe you may have read my comment out of context. I am simply stating that the way we develop and the capacity in which we learn is much different nowadays. I know that there is such a thing as developmental readiness. However, nowhere in the Common Core Standards does it say that children have to be reading at a certain age. There will always be a case in which a student is not developmentally ready for what they are learning. I understand that and agree with what you have said. I am speaking more to when people use it as a blanket statement that students are not developmentally ready for what schools are teaching. I was commenting more to this statement from Wiggins… “I have hard dozens of teachers of little kids say that this or that demand is too ‘abstract’ and kids cannot yet think at that level – but that is not what the research says. People have distorted the meaning of Piaget’s phrase ‘concrete operational’ thinking. It does not mean that they cannot think abstractly. It means that they cannot think conditionally and hypothetically. I see little in the Standards making this latter demand.” I agree that sometimes there is a misunderstanding of what children are able to do.
I hear you Dawn. I agree that sometimes educators (and I’m one myself as well as a parent) make statements that limit what students should be expected to learn. That is equally as wrong as expecting kindergarten age kids to be reading. The sky should always be the only limit when it comes to what a child can and cannot do.
But, here is the reality of the situation. You statement that: “However, nowhere in the Common Core Standards does it say that children have to be reading at a certain age. ” surprises me. Now, maybe I’m wrong but Common Core does stipulate what standards go with what grade levels and in that are expectations of levels of skills/knowledge. One of those areas is reading. I have seen a bit of the standards and have seen that there is an expectation of reading skills. I guess you could be meaning that quite literally that it does not say exactly that? It does say. And there will be assessments to show achievement. These assessments may or may not be developmentally appropriate. That is the debate. It is right for someone to question that and for a satisfactory answer to be supplied- to all who ask. This is a different argument/concern than what I discuss about limiting children.
We can make the sky the limit with learning and at the same time give only developmentally appropriate minimum standards tests.
Your comment has nothing to do with what developmentally appropriate means, you are talking about rote skills not neurological/ psychological capacity or capability.
Little if anything has changed about the way our brains and bodies develop “these days” especially as compared to earlier in our lives. I’ve heard nothing about any rapid acceleration of evolution. Is our knowledge of what actually happens better? I would say yes it is but that does not mean that the nature of what we are has changed.
In my district we have little to no understanding of the difference between the 2x4s and the greater plan for them. We did the 15 minutes of CCSS inservice. We still want to protect our teachers of science, social studies, and the technical subjects from having their students address CCSS reading/ELA goals. We, in fact, are largely just where we were. The deep discussion at the beginning never happened, and now it appears too late. I have done about as much as I can, and am the ass. We all still get our checks. The big kids get the larger checks, the others get the smaller ones, and we are all addicted to our benefits. It was a good try. Leadership matters..
I can tell you from many experience this past year that your situation is the norm, not the exception. I fail to understand how leaders can be so myopic and clueless about the impact. When we do a close reading of the Standards in workshops, it’s clear that most people have not done something similar. For example, few teachers have looked at the Appendices in the ELA Standards, arguably as important if not more so than the Standards themselves. Few people seem to understand that Standards are mostly about assessment, not instruction, so the disconnect between local results and C Core test results becomes even worse.
I’m frankly stunned at how unprofessional most people are about the Standards. The electricians, plumbers, and carpenters currently working on my house know ‘code’ backward and forward. Can educators say the same?
I am so encouraged by this! I agree totally with your points and only wish I had the power to do something about it. We have frustrated teachers that are great teachers who feel they must teach the State provided modules rather than be creative and look at the data and develop instruction that will fit their students at the point they are at in the here and now. Presently, I see a one size fits all mentality and it goes against everything we have learned from the research. I do agree with Kim and feel like I’ve been to church and now should go forth more resolved to do what’s best for kids. It also reminded me that I am not good at politics! Thanks for standing in the gap.
We all have to be involved. If not, those who are eager to be involved will win – typically with an axe to grind – will win the policy debate.
Grant-
I have a question for you and wonder what you recommend to this parent. This parent of a 3rd grader is very upset and frustrated by Common Core. This little boy is an exceptional reader- having a lexile in the 1100’s. With Common Core, the reading list is based on the lexile score of the student. This child has been assigned to read “Hatchet” among other novels generally regarded as 7th grade literature (my 7th grader read that book in school). There is one novel where the family home gets sucked into the earth because of some natural disaster. This child has become anxious about his home and the mom has had to reassure him that his house will be ok. These “survivalist” type novels are not appropriate for the 9 year old boy developmentally just like a violent “R” rated movie would not be suitable. The parent asked the teacher why she was assigning these books. She reported that her hands are tied. She has no choice in the matter. She said that Common Core dictates that he read that and she must assign it. She did try to make it better by reading the story as a class (it’s a gifted class). She talked with the Principal about it too. The Principal said the state of FL mandated this in it’s administration of common core.
So, what is a parent, teacher, and principal to do about this? This is wrong. Everyone in the building knows that. Yet, there is nothing that is done.
These are some of the issues I see going on with Common Core. What is going on here?
This is an awful story, isn’t it? But I am totally puzzled. Almost every district I know allows choice in reading by 3rd graders and choice in assigning books by teachers. There is no conceivable way this is a state mandate. This is, rather a bad game of ‘telephone’ I suspect where 4 layers down people are interpreting the demand for rigorous texts in a thoughtless one-size-fits all way. There is simply nothing in the Standards or the Appendices or the Publisher’s Guidelines that supports a mandatory 4-grades-above grade level book on questionable subject matter.
I would immediately ask questions at the district level. Who writes curriculum in ELA? How much choice is mentioned in the curriculum document? How much freedom do teachers have to craft lessons based on feedback and kid interests? Even if a textbook is used, there is typically choice in using the readings. I strongly suspect that the teacher’s hands are NOT tied since any one novel is not typically required by either local standards or state standards. I would ask the teacher to explain exactly how and where her hands are tied, and also ask to see the 3rd grade curriculum.
In any healthy 3rd grade classroom there are many choices of books, by difficulty level, for kids to choose; rarely is a single novel required of all – especially if it’s violent – at 3rd grade.
Thanks for your reply. I’ll see where your questions get me. This teacher is horrified by this policy and at least perceives that she has no choice in the matter. The principal also feels this way. I’m not sure if they are misinterpreting something or not though.