Tis the season to bash the Common Core – to the point of some over the top heated rhetoric.
Let’s remind ourselves why the Common Core is just common sense.
There is no Nebraska algebra or Virginia reading. There is little disagreement about what constitute good outcomes in reading writing and math, yet by allowing the states to define those outcomes, place them willy-nilly in different grades, and test for them idiosyncratically we put students in a mobile society at a great disadvantage. (We also invite politically-correct science standards). To have everyone in the country studying the same subject at the same time makes it easier for families to cope with school changes and makes it far easier for teachers to find colleagues and gain expertise.
Mississippi. According to NAEP, only 19% of 8th grade math students are proficient or advanced. Yet according to the state’s tests, 65% are proficient or advanced.
For decades this has been a national scandal: the states have vastly different – and often low – standards for proficient performance, and in the weak states their students are being consistently misled on where they really stand.
NAEP as long-time harbinger of low standards. Speaking of NAEP, for 30 years we have known that even the best state standards are tested too leniently. Note that in the math chart for Mississippi that nationally only 34% of 8th grade students are proficient or advanced. NAEP results have for decades revealed that what counts as proficient in every state is really a minimum competency level of performance in the wider world, as this English Professor reminds us. Long before the two assessment consortia, in which “more difficult” tests are promised, NAEP test results have consistently shown that our students are poor at meaning-making and transfer of learning – something to be highlighted in the new tests. Alas, what many critics of Common Core forget is that it has been politically untenable for states to fail or warn a third to a half of their students – yet, this is in fact the reality of where students stand in terms of genuine readiness.
The shocking 40% remediation rate. The whole impetus for common core was “college and workplace readiness.” The stark reality is found in the shocking number of students who must take remedial courses in college – on average 40% of students. Surely even the harshest critics of Common Core do not think this is an acceptable situation. As I recently argued, high school teachers have far too often been unaware of what college work demands, as many recent studies have shown. Why should that be tolerated?
The power of scale. With national standards comes an explosion of common resources, from both commercial and non-commercial sources. While lots of the anti-common-core talk bemoans the influence of behemoth companies, the fact is that Common Core permits small organizations like mine to create materials and find an audience – something we could not do when there were 50 different sets of standards. And all one has to do is look at the Teaching Channel, EngageNY, and shared lesson sites to realize that teachers now have an extraordinary trove of materials to choose from, across all the states – and those resources will only grow.
No loss of creativity. As I argued in a previous blog post, far too many people conflate standards with curriculum. The standards do not inhibit curricular innovation or imaginative teaching. The standards are like building code. It is foolish to argue that building code inhibits the architect from creating a beautiful and functional dwelling. Yet, there is a lot of hysterical talk now about just such inhibition. As I argued, there is nothing in the standards or the external tests that requires slavish test prep as the local response. This is just an utter failure of imagination, a mis-understanding of the Standards, and a lack of will from educators locally.
Look, no one I know likes or wants heavy-handed accountability, stupid tests, and burdensome state regulations. I have written on why I think value-added modeling is a disaster as a single-year evaluation system, and I commend Randi Weingarten for demanding a fair lead-in time on testing yesterday. But to blame that on the common core itself is like blaming the 1st amendment for the failure of kids to stop swearing. Part of the power of the standards is that they give us principles to create and to argue from rather than just leave us in a world of strong opinions or naked power. It is those very standards that give us the platform as educators to demand justification for any process or policy that undercuts their meaning and power. (Note that Randi supports the Core.)
Far too much of the resistance to the standards is driven by adults and their issues, in my view, rather than by consideration of what kids are entitled to. Kids are entitled to a great education that prepares them for achieving their dreams. Kids are entitled to consistency across teachers and schools – and in transition from schools to colleges. Kids are entitled to teachers who focus on outcomes not merely good intentions or coverage. Without a tighter alignment between each student’s experience and the wider world we are hurting their dreams and limiting their options.
I lived through an earlier time of no common standards; I taught in an era when you could pretty much do what you wanted. It was fun for teachers but not so great for average or struggling learners. (Hard to believe, but in 1960 only half of Americans graduated from high school.) We have rightly taken on the moral burden of educating everyone; good for us. We can’t back off that commitment now.
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All of your above arguments give reasons to have a common set of standards. You give no review of this one in particular. I have read much about the current one on the table (Common Core) that has me very concerned. I agree with all of your above statements regarding the reasons to have a common set of standards. However, it would be very naive to say that these standards do not come with a huge set of “high stakes’ to go along with them. It is the high stakes I have a problem with. With Common Core, the stakes get even more intense.
No set of standards is going to be perfect – it’s an ugly committee document. You don’t say what you have read. I have read these standards incredibly closely and built both curriculum and workshop training on them – they are just fine, given the nature of the beast. All this talk about Indiana’s being better – hogwash. Political posturing. They all basically call for rigorous learning of core content. And only the ocmmon core tied it to explicit performance standards which the states totally finessed for a decade.
And anyway, the battle is won or lost locally in how people create curriculum and assessments related to the Standards.
As you know, I disagree about ‘high stakes’. The average student has little to worry about since in most cases until hs the test scores have no fallout (unlike many other countries). In many canadian provinces the exam is 1/3 to 1/2 of your final grade – that’s high stakes. Even hs: You want high stakes, look at the French bac or the Chinese system. We’re a LONG way from high stakes in this country. Even the APs aren’t high stakes. Hell, even the big last football game of the year is more high stakes.
What I find so tiresome in the current debate is that now, finally, there ARE stakes for teachers; so, many teachers have gone and riled up all the kids and parents. I am old enough to know what happens when their are no consequences for performance – it hurt kids and kept the craft pre-professional. Everywhere I go – and I go a lot of places in this country – I see young educators completely on board with accountability as sensible. The only issue is ensuring validity of the system, then, not whether it is ‘high stakes’.
Wow- I guess you are truly unfamiliar with the system of accountability in FL – and headed to your areas too. Here are some things you may have missed:
1. Third graders must pass FCAT. Teachers are required to keep very detailed portfolios of work throughout the entire year to demonstrate all the parts of FCAT in case the child fails it. If they can demonstrate with the child’s work that they should have passed FCAT, then the child is not held back.
2. Anytime a child scores low on FCAT they are placed in remedial classes for the entire next year. So, if a child gets a “2” on FCAT in 5th, they lose their elective in 6th grade and must take remedial class for the full year. It does not matter if they scored low due to illness or other reason. I know this because it happened to my child. And it happens to many kids I have known.
3. Kids who take upper level math (alg. and geometry) in 7th and 8th grade because they are advanced math students have been required to also take the math FCAT – until this year finally. That has meant that they take FCAT with all the prep that goes along with it and they must also pass the EOC (end of course exam) to pass the course. The FCAT and test prep takes them away from learning the course so they can pass the EOC. And this is a high stakes test. It must be passed or the child must repeat the course.
4. We have high stakes EOC’s for Alg. 1, Geometry and Biology. If a child fails the EOC, they are in tutoring and remedial. These courses are required for graduation. But now, the legislature has seen that we will have a huge problem with a dropping grad rate with this policy. So, now if you fail this course, you can be “career ready” and given an alternate diploma that does not get you into college.
5. We have multiple diagnostic tests for all our high stakes tests throughout the year. I can send you a calendar. It’s ridiculous. Our kids spend very little time learning and a lot of time being tested. Or watching a movie while others are tested.
This is just some of the high stakes garbage we have. I’ll take having 1 test per year any day. That’d be a breath of fresh air.
This is what I fear for implementation on a national level. With luck, the glitches will get people to think clearly about what national assessments are and are not good for.
>I have read these standards incredibly closely and built both curriculum and workshop training on them – they are just fine, given the nature of the beast.
You are profiting off the standards and that undermines your credibility.
We’ve read the standards closely, too, and, not being paid to give workshops that defend them or oppose them, we’re showing quite specifically that they are not “just fine”. They are not researched-based and they are not internationally benchmarked, despite repeated statements to the contrary. In our blog, we pull NAEP results and show how Common Core fails to address the endemic problems that NAEP exposes.
Those who defend the math standards simply cite others who support them as the basis for their support in what amounts to a big rhetorical round robin.
>No set of standards is going to be perfect – it’s an ugly committee document.
…which when slapped together ignored better written and higher level standards that already existed–and obviously still exist.
We also don’t oppose common standards, but we oppose inflicting bad standards on millions of students.
A lot of cheap talk here but I’m publishing your post anyway. Obviously, you don’t follow my work: I have publicly criticized the math standards numerous times. So to say I ‘profit’ off them is just cheap sxxx. I work with them as best I can – just as I do with laws that aren’t perfect but adequate. You don’t provide any evidence for your views here, just empty rhetoric.
Wow, that’s incredibly unconvincing.
Why are the ELA/Literacy standards so different from those of any high performing country, in almost every aspect, from fundamental goals (just college and career readiness?), to scope (far more narrow and academic), to organization (four sets of reading standards? different standards at almost every grade level), abandonment of basic disciplinary tools (genre analysis?), range of writing (not even a full concept of persuasive writing), and intellectual ambition (no real “criticism” in the literary sense, or even a full sense of “interpretation”)?
Has anybody ever explained even the changes between the American Diploma Project and the CCRS? The ADP’s “Logic” section was much stronger than the CC coverage, for example.
Does anybody really think the CC ELA standards are better than Massachusetts’ or Indiana’s?
Frankly, the issue is not the content standards; it’s the performance standards, as I have long written. And BTW we disagree: I think genre studies are not a vital goal for the typical student. And I think the C Core emphasis on argument vs persuasion is spot on. So, I guess we disagree.
Sorry to go into the weeds here, but I’m genuinely puzzled by these positions in reference to genre and persuasion. If these were designed to be basic skills literacy standards, sure, but they are supposed to be college-prep standards focusing on textual analysis.
Are you really supposed to do this “Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.),” without using the concept of genre? Why? If you do need it, why was it omitted from the standards? Is this a college level concept now?
And while I can see that persuasive writing might not be so important for your college classes, understanding modes of persuasion beyond logical argument could not be more important for people living in a media saturated world, where the vast majority of messages are not based on logic and evidence.
For that matter, you don’t even have to leave the “informational” texts in the standards to hit that issue (“We hold these truths to be self evident…,” etc.).
I’m coming a little late to this party, so I don’t know if anyone is still around, but I think the de-emphasis on literary genre (poetry, fiction, drama) in favor of a rhetorical conception of genre (different purposes and audiences require different strategies) *is* a good thing because literary genres are not transferable across disciplines and thus are suspect as “big ideas” and organizing principles for units (see Peter Smagorinsky’s Teaching English by Design). To paraphrase Smagorinsky, short stories are so varied in form and treatment that reading one doesn’t really give a framework for reading another. (The same could be said for poetry, novel, etc. by extension.) Therefore, to use Grant’s language, the “essential” question “What is a short story?, which is the implicit essential question for a short story unit (same for any other genre), is essentially useless and keeps the curriculum isolated from other disciplines. Yet many English teachers cling to genre as an organizing principle for their curricula.
A much better organizing principle, I feel, is using the anchor reading standards. For instance, a unit on character grounded on R3, allows students to grapple with different techniques authors use to develop their characters’ personalities, which cut across *all* genres and even disciplines (art and history come to mind). Similarly, R4 tells us that we need to let students wrestle with the question, “How does word choice shape meaning?”, which again cuts across all genres (analyzing connotation in poetry transfers to fiction, drama, etc.) and disciplines.
This doesn’t mean I think literary genres are not important. But I think they should be subordinate to more overarching ideas like analyzing diction and character.
I agree, naturally. More broadly, genre study is a technical concern and thus of questionable value in a general education for younger students. Which is not to say – as you note – that genre study is unimportant, but properly not the priority. The equivalent in math is a lengthy study of advanced algebra (e.g. sinusoidal functions, logs, trig, etc.) should be elective not required.
If genre study is important, its role should be explicitly addressed in the standards. Nobody actually believes that you can or should teach students to analyze character development without them understanding genre. It is absurd. Go look at your copy of “How To Read a Book.” What’s rule #1 of analytical reading? “Classify the book!”
Genre!
Classify the book is not the same as genre study in my mind. I can know it is a philosophy book or a piece of fiction without an intensive study of the genre. But you know what? This is a dispute over very little. We no doubt both agree that students should do close reading and be able to understand author purpose and that’s invariably a genre-related issue. I just don’t see the need to make it an in-depth technical study of the genre in K-12.
“Kids are entitled to a great education that prepares them for achieving their dreams. Kids are entitled to consistency across teachers and schools – and in transition from schools to colleges. Kids are entitled to teachers who focus on outcomes not merely good intentions or coverage. Without a tighter alignment between each student’s experience and the wider world we are hurting their dreams and limiting their options.”
In my opinion, you could have just wrote this portion as the entire post. It says it all! I have tried to really understand the backlash against Common Core and the assessments. While I see their point, I keep going back to this question, “What is best for kids?” Their arguments just doesn’t include what is best for kids. Underneath what appears to be an argument for kids is really a protection against any type of change.
I agree. A great deal of the rhetoric has much to do with aggrieved adults.
“What is Best for Kids” has been argued since we began this experiment with compulsory education. The job market is constantly changing and preparing students to be successful in life is difficult to define and unique for the individual. Claiming that the CCSS will now prepare students better than in the past is a ridiculous claim as we have no idea what the future holds. What we do know is that standards have been not correct in the past, hence we keep updating/changing, and so logic tells me that this is not our best effort either. Now that the majority of states have signed on, we will have a system wide failure instead of a local failure (Mississippi). Parents and the local communities need to determine the outcomes of their kids, the government is not the parents as much as it tries to be.
I admit – I was angry before I even saw the standards. It took me some months and a somewhat careful look at the h.s. standards to realize that there’s not that much room to complain.
What I was angry about was the way all this happened! And the Chamber of Commerce influence. And Bill Gates’ money. And the difficulty of discovering who in my professional community helped write and negotiate the LA standards. And, why had so few of us – even those who more or less keep current – known what was going on? Then, David Coleman said some of the things he said, and he was not particularly “nice,” and the discussion heated.
Adults who thought they should have been in the room were locked out for awhile. Also, teachers famously like “nice.”
There is no proscription against genre; in fact, to teach writing, writers and readers need to know non-fiction genre. Isn’t interpretation/criticism part of “close reading?”
Everyone has a pet area of expertise/religion. I am not sure kids were worse off in the old days, but they probably have been for the last 10 years.
Like many things, the standards themselves aren’t inherently good or bad (although I think they’re slightly broader and less particular than the Indiana ones we’ve been using for the last decade or so.) What’s not great is the ties to standardized assessments that are being developed. Give me some professional development time to collaborate with my fellow professionals on who to introduce, evaluate, and assess the standards, and we’ll find a way to make them work. But let that happen on a local level.
I agree. I think when all is said and done some of this will shake out to permit greater flexibility – in part because like other commentators I think the consortia are not long for this world, and it will again devolve to the states.
Please let me know how you think some of this will “shake out”? We have a huge political push for more of this. We are rolling out Common Core in FL starting Aug. 2014. We have testing absolutely every single day of our 4th quarter in schools. We have “black out” dates from Feb. 1st to the end of school where no student is allowed to go on field trips or miss class for any reason (except illness, death in the family or serious illness in immediate family). There is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel, no “shaking out” that I can see. We all need to say “Enough!” of this. And even then I think the powers that be will still insist this will improve education. Ugh.
It should devolve even farther to the local districts. If the state DOE wants to manage and implement some type of portfolio system, by which students can demonstrate their mastery of CCSS through the work they have done in a classroom, great. But don’t pretend that the assessments in their current form, or really, any test that is written at a national level assesses anything as completely as it does a student’s ability to take a test. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that anything a student does in two 55-minute and one 40-minute period in front of a computer is a better indicator of the student’s learning,achievement, and qualification for graduation than the composite record of four years of schooling.
If you want to use the standards to put a little more accountability into the process and remove a district’s ability to rubber-stamp a student’s graduation credentials because “the kid works hard,” OK. But allow me to use the entirety of my classroom and all the teaching tools at my disposal, and all the wonderful learning we’ve done about the vastly different ways that some kids’ brains work with and process information to show you why they deserve that diploma — not the results of a single test.
If you could see the students in my 9th grade Special Needs classes — with or without IEPs — and the way they can demonstrate their knowledge of complex texts in my classroom, you would easily be able to differentiate between those who are demonstrate college and career readiness. If you looked at their scores on their state assessments, you’d get a vastly different impression. True, most of them will eventually pass their state tests — after 3-5 disheartening failures that, despite my efforts to encourage them through often lead to despair and eventual resignation to the fact that they are “not smart”, some of which lead to giving up the attempt to try altogether.
Then come look at the remediation class for those facing their 6th and final attempt to pass the exam. In our school, it largely consists of students who are in self-contained classrooms, who have issues that place them at the fringes of functional on the autism spectrum. Students who have been prepared wonderfully by our MI/MH life skills program to hold a functional place in society, but who won’t receive a diploma because they can’t answer test questions very well.
Show me that THIS is where the CCSS movement is going, and maybe I’ll get on board.
Grant,
“I lived through an earlier time of no common standards; I taught in an era when you could pretty much do what you wanted. It was fun for teachers but not so great for average or struggling learners. (Hard to believe, but in 1960 only half of Americans graduated from high school.) ”
“To have everyone in the country studying the same subject at the same time makes it easier for families to cope with school changes and makes it far easier for teachers to find colleagues and gain expertise.”
My reflections:
“Building codes”…yes, but there might never have been a Monticello.
I generally enjoy your thoughts, but today I disagree with your assertions concerning Common Core . Variety is good. Ask Nature or any Biology teacher. Diversity is a core concept in strengthening community and in fostering artistic expression. Teaching is art, as coaching is art. There is no standard pathway to artistic and professional expression, collegiality, or expertise.
As I read your thoughts today, I was tempted to start this response with a reference to painting kits that I enjoyed when I was very young…. paint by number. The product was consistently the same across all consumers. Studying the same subject at the same time is neither a productive nor innovative national strategy, and such “ease” is certainly not conducive to artistic practice for any new or seasoned educator.
Teaching practice, like learning practice, must be simultaneously free and orderly process. Successful teachers are flexible and receptive practitioners, capable of responding to and shaping unique environments while massaging individual talents and gifts present in diverse learners. Was it Thomas Jefferson who suggested that liberty required discipline? Yes, teachers are disciplined artists.
Standardization works well for a society that seeks only replacement parts for a mechanistic orientation driven by a capitalistic zeal. Creativity is often stifled by a standardized approach. I do not appreciate a ” locked step” environment where all practitioners are forced into a narrow cast or timeline.
To further the analogy and to celebrate your coaching background, one is reminded that athletes do not respond to the same coaching techniques. Athletes are physically and emotionally complex. They respond to unique motivation in both individual and team settings. Success requires a creative and seasoned coach who knows not to press the ” one size fits all ” buttons as athletes develop .
My parents’ generation appreciated the success and unique attributes of Seabiscuit, one of the greatest horses of all time. This phenomenal race horse outperformed all peers; an innate brilliance in an unconventional body whose athleticism could not be trained conventionally.
There is limited space for artistic autonomy and individuality in a profession nationally restricted by “same subject, same time” pseudo-egalitarianism.
Which teacher will survive or enter such a stilted and “cookie cutter” new professional era? Brilliance in individual practice results in brilliant performance. Every coach knows that killing zeal is the predecessor for mediocre performance. Applaud teachers for diverse practice. Applaud teachers for vision and responsibility. But, do not cripple the profession by imposing standardized mediocrity and strained evaluation systems on the catholic and creative spirit that has inspired generations of highly productive individual American teachers and learners.
Standards permit fire hoses to work in every hydrant in the country – Baltimore burned to the ground because hoses from other cities couldn’t fit. Standards made DOS and Apple computers possible. Standards protect our food. You are confusing the standards with the use of the standards. Variety is neither undercut by the standards nor unwanted. The rules of the game are the standards, to go back to your look at coaching.
In light of this blog, wondering what your thoughts are in regard to The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: State guidance for enhancing the rigof of K-12 civics, economics, geography, and history?
Amen, Grant! Thank you, thank you for writing this post. When I first started getting to know the ELA standards, my early thought was the following: Wow, this is just what we did at _________” (the independent school where I taught for many years). That program was not based on any state or national standards but rather on some essential ideas about what prepares kids to become highly skilled readers, writers, and thinkers. I know there are many factors that contribute to kids’ success at school, but in the ideal world all kids would get what this independent school offered to its students, and the CCSS seem to at least clarify what some of these things are. Also, thank you so much for moving the focus onto kids. There is no school whose mission is to create a comfortable workplace for adults; rather, the mission of schools is to educate kids so they can lead productive, engaging, and meaningful lives. Excellent reading skills are absolutely essential for having any hope of fulfilling that mission. Thank you!
“To have everyone in the country studying the same subject at the same time makes it easier for families to cope with school changes…” Wait a minute. I have heard over and over again that the standards were not supposed to drive a standardized curriculum. Students will not be covering the same content much less at the same time.
I wonder….given your earlier rant against algebra, how will the students be expected to meet the common core standards in mathematics? Will there be a new set of courses created by districts (because standards don’t mandate curricula, right?) so that the students can get the rich and meaningful mathematical experiences that ostensibly are intended by the standards?
Or will the existing algebra/geometry/algebra 2 curricula (sold by the 2 or 3 remaining large educational publishers) simply be tweaked slightly, certified as “Common Core Ready”, and purchased by districts big and small, leading to cosmetic change only? Of course, once PARCC and SB assessments are up and running, the curricula based on the standards will focus more and more on test prep and PARCC/SB “readiness” – leading to little more than a big assessment-driving-curriculum mess.
I know where I’m going to place my bets.
When I look at each CC standard independently, there’s little to disagree with. And who can dislike an overarching goal like “college and career ready”? Not me. Sure, we can fear Big Brother is taking over Small Local Schools, but I see it more as common sense–what each of us would teach students if we strove for the goal of preparing our charges for the future.
and I would add that if you take each standard, and strive to break it into learning objectives (and most of the for sale stuff I’ve seen doesn’t do this — it just has a billion “aligned standards” listed at the top of the materials); then set about building curriculum, I think it would readily be apparent that there is enormous room to make the program your own, to differentiate your instruction, to do innovative and creative things in the program, to have engaging and meaningful assignments, to use a variety of assessments, and to be beginning with the end in mind and designing backwards AND all the while, going after the standards. Truly.
I agree with much of what you say—I too see a need for accountability and reasonable standards to replace the very low standards currently in use. But I’m not sure I agree with you on “Kids are entitled to consistency across teachers and schools – and in transition from schools to colleges.”
I would rather see a diversity of teaching styles and orders of presentation. Both physics-first and biology-first science curricula make sense, for different students. Some students would be better served by a curriculum that focused on tech writing and non-fiction reading, while others would be better off with literary analysis and poetry. I want a diversity of different good outcomes for students, but what little I’ve seen of the Common Core (mostly 2nd and 3rd hand) seems to stress uniformity of results, which worries me—we already have schools working much too hard at producing identical results, rather than teaching each student to make the most of their strengths.
I wish we had this conversation at my middle school.As I said, I have 15+ houres listening to the CCSS authors. The staff in my building has now seen the “flat list,” plus 20 minutes of video/conversation. The warning by some is that if we do not grasp the “soul” of this new tree we will be just where we are..Deep discussion at the beginning stage of implementation, without it we loose. Ray
My question is if we always compare individual state standards to the NAEP test, “a long-time harbinger of standards,” why don’t we use NAEP for all testing? My two biggest complaints with Common Core are it’s been developed by corporate interests and it puts tons of money in the pockets of the big publishing companies. Since when did it become beneficial to sell our kids’ souls to the Pearson/Gates devil?
It’s a good question, but I think it will never happen because many people fear that the objectivity and quality of NAEP would be threatened in such a move and we would lose this important barometer of where things stand. I well recall the fears of this when NAEP went to state by state results (I happened to be involved in a cursory way with NAEP and sat in on a few discussions). Remember that NAEP is a sampling test (like a poll) and does not test each student. The money, logistics, and infrastructure do not exist for NAEP to be a national student test; so, the consortia exist to plan for such an event.
As for the publishing companies: they have long dominated testing in the state tests. Only a few of the very large states design their own tests. Most of the state tests have been farmed out to the companies.
Just because teachers are failing students and have “been unaware of what college work demands” doesn’t mean we need a cookie cutter approach to education so your company can profit. We need better teaching for teachers. After getting a MS degree in biochemistry I went back to school to get a degree in special education. I was shocked at the lameness of the courses. It was all fluff, there was absolutely no meat to any of the courses I took. When I complained about a course that was suppose to meet 3 hours a week for 16 weeks and only meet 1.5 hours for 6 weeks I was punished by having by requirements to be a special ed teacher changed, requiring me to take more fluff classes. Education needs to get rid of the dead weight. All of us have had, and know, teachers that did not teach anybody anything and that has gone on for decades. If education would hire people passionate about education and have expertise in a field of study, we as a society would be much better off. Too many in education simply don’t do the job they are paid to do, including college level instructors.
Agreed on the lameness of teacher preparation courses and the criteria and standards for a degree in general. Getting rid of “dead weight” is precisely what the reforms of the last 20 years have in part been about but as you can see this is much easier said than done. Your “dead weight” is someone else’s union; my “dead weight” is someone else’s longstanding programs and lobbyists, etc. i do agree, though, that the hiring process is the key link in the chain. Get hiring right and many things take care of themselves. See my blog post back a few months on this issue.
And Many, many educators are dedicated professionals who put in hours far beyond the “minimal” hours they spend in the building during a 180 day school year. Yes, bad teachers exist. Maybe I’m fortunate, but in my professional experience, it’s a handful in nearly 20 years of teaching that “did not teach anybody anything . . .that has gone on for decades.” I have been far, far more likely to find my colleagues to be exactly the “people passionate about education and have expertise in a field of study” you say we should be hiring.
I agree that a lot of educational MS and MA degrees are less rigorous than they should be. But it’s tough to do tough, challenging, graduate level work and still have the energy to grade and plan for six high school classes every day. I felt (and probably everybody feels) that I worked much harder to get more out of my graduate work than a lot of my classmates who were clearly just going through the motions. But I understand why some chose to do things that way. There’s only so much time and energy available to anyone, and it’s not realistic to dedicate your self full-time to your students, your family, and graduate study. Maybe we should spend some of the money going into CCSS implementation and assessment on giving schools the ability to reduce teacher workload enough to allow meaningful graduate study to occur.
“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Big minds and a new economy thrive on diversity and the CCS, for the most part, seem to promote diversity of approach and inquiry learning, especially in the rhetoric surrounding the document, i.e. the sales pitch.
Why then are their so many little minds running schools, benchmark testing weekly, eliminating art and music, micromanaging teachers, investing in dummy assessment programs and firing librarians. We have many well fitted fire hoses and they are putting out the wild fires of deep learning daily in the name of standards. This is not making students college and career ready. Rather, it is just making children jump through hoops of the same size.
And thus it has always been, for reasons that remain unclear to me.
First things first which is to begin with the end in mind. The end in mind, children learning. Thank you Susan!
Hello Grant.
I agree with you that common standards are just common sense. Many of the frustrations that are expressed are misdirected at the standards. There are real problems in administration, teaching, assessment, and generally in education; however, those problems are not about having standards. I say this as someone who is a parent and was a teacher and an education consultant who trained teachers. Too many times standards were blamed for poor administration, lack of resources, and in some cases (not all!) poor teaching.
While standards are important, instruction needs to be student-centered and even individualized as much as possible. We are still dealing with children and individual human beings. Standards don’t say ignore that, but they do say we have a responsibility to children to not just make excuses (i.e. “these” kids are from poor backgrounds, “those” kids have learning difficulties). Standards hold us accountable for all children.
A few years ago, I was fortunate to have attended one of your workshops on Understanding by Design. It was very helpful to me as a consultant in developing curriculum. However, I only now, as a parent of a child who needs individualized instruction, fully appreciate that training. In using some kindergarten curriculums, the ones that work best for reaching my child and other struggling learners, are the ones I found from Pearson that are based on Understanding by Design (the science and social studies ones are great!). Thank you for the influence on this.
Standards doesn’t lead to poor teaching; it requires even higher levels of teaching and engagement, and demands more than letting textbooks teach students (which I saw a lot of as a consultant).
Where we are failing in education is in training teachers and funding education in a way that shows teachers they are valued and important. Teaching is one of the most important professions, yet we don’t put the money or the resources into it. Common standards should help to provide resources that teachers can use across the country. That is a key benefit; why should teachers in various states constantly reinvent the wheel for teaching the same concepts?
Again, good post, and thank you.
Sincerely,
Dee
Thank you so much, Dee, for what you say here. I agree with you that these standards have become a kind of distraction that enables people to move away from what the real challenges are. I agree wholeheartedly w you that teaching is one of the most important professions. It also enables the most incredible innovation and creativity. However, it is also one of the hardest things to do well and requires enormous intelligence, commitment, energy, and motivation. I would love to see far more celebrating of the people who are excellent, which also would provide examples of what good teaching is and what it requires, as well as resources allocated to enable the kind of education and experiences that would allow teachers to thrive and to develop and grow and improve over the course of a career.
I would put my one Advanced Writing class up against all the “methods” classes I was required to take. We used a book called The Art of Reading. The Concordia prof. was excellent. This experience was definitive. Grant, I sometimes share the ST. Johns reading list with staff.
Teacher training is………
My 6th grade class recently read Narcissus. I asked them if they knew of anyone like this. One student responded, ” Franz Liszt.” When I shared this with staff, the response was, “who is that?”
When I appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed I know we are in trouble. Ray
Always good to read some common sense thinking – Thanks, Grant.
Regarding the 40% remediation rate: the following paragraph is from my blog post located here: http://wp.me/p2P7lN-aq
Annalise Winkle and I have been interested in the topic of CSU EAP testing for the past several years. We attended training and information sessions for three days on this subject several years ago. This year Assistant Principal Kirk Kennedy and I attended an informational meeting on the CSUF campus regarding the EAP and EPT. When I found out that 95% of all students pass the EPT after taking a three week course on their campus I raised my hand and asked, “Can you please distribute the curriculum of this course because I would like to see how you get students prepared to pass this test in three weeks with a 95% pass rate when we have students for four years and can only achieve a 55% pass rate.” This question was met with stony silence. I then asked a follow-up question, “Can you at least show us our student scores disaggregated by multiple choice section and essay component so we can see what we need to work on at the high school level.” This question was answered by an emphatic “No we are not going to do that.” I found this shocking since the college board does this for the AP and SAT test and the entire purpose of the EAP test as stated by the CSU system is to help students see what they need to work on senior year to get ready for the CSU system, but yet they won’t tell the schools where the students need more assistance.
Something smelled rotten.
If the CSUs don’t really care to give us the information we need to prepare our students for college-readiness and success on the EAP and EPT, then perhaps they don’t want students to succeed, and instead want them to take an additional class to generate more revenue. The remediation class costs several thousand dollars.
CSU claims “Those who need extra work will have their entire senior year to prepare further. They can pinpoint individual strengths and weaknesses by using the CSU Diagnostic Writing Service on the web or the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project.”
http://www.calstate.edu/eap/documents/eap_program_description.pdf
It appears that the EAP is intended just as a binary pass/fail warning, and there they have a separate diagnostic instrument. I have no idea whether there is an correlation between their diagnostics and the EAP.
I like that that standards are national-based standards. I enjoy the opportunity to use Twitter and other Social Media solutions to work with teachers from other states on creating curriculum and learning activities. Per economy of scale we should be able to use a national-based standards system to drive new learning curriculum and effective teaching practices.
As a MA English teacher, I’m not impressed; the CCSS are not so different from the old MA frameworks, and all of these standards leave out the main thing students need in order to get better at reading: reading a lot. Anyone who reads a lot and discusses what they read in depth will do end up meeting all the specific standards. The problem with specifying them in such detail is that then teachers think they have to explicitly teach these particular skills, when really all you need to do is make sure kids are reading a lot and analyzing closely. Unfortunately the idea of high-volume reading is lost in all this discussion…
I agree that the C Core are not appreciably better than the MASS standards, but the framing of the anchor standards is a worthy prioritization. I also am not sure about your assertion about a lack of attention to independent reading. It is mentioned repeatedly in the appendix materials.
As a parent, I have seen how standards have sucked the fun out of reading. Kids need to read. Period. Specifying a certain book, compartmentalizing target skills, and demands for amount of time spent with a book all sound good but end up making it not so fun to read. What works? There are fabulous teachers who do things like allow wiggly students to walk around the classroom as long as they are reading, have a special bean bag reading area as a reward for good behavior, framing the reading as a type of puzzle to be solved with a contest as to who can solve it first, and creating lessons based on what interests the students are all ways that reading is encouraged. Trotting out more standards will not improve how much reading takes place (or doesn’t) in a classroom. In fact, I think it reduces it.
I’m confused. The CCSS are to be implemented in such a way that everyone everywhere teaches the same topic at the same time? This seems to contradict the way the framers of the CCSS describe them. I quote from corestandards.org:
“These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. For example, just because topic A appears before topic B in the standards for a given grade, it does not necessarily mean that topic A must be taught before topic B. A teacher might prefer to teach topic B before topic A, or might choose to highlight connections by teaching topic A and topic B at the same time. Or, a teacher might prefer to teach a topic of his or her own choosing that leads, as a byproduct, to students reaching the standards for topics A and B.”
Before I read this, I had a deep and principled objection to high school geometry standards, specifically HSG-GPE.A.1, HSG-GPE.A.2 and HSG-GPE.A.3 . They specify that the equations of parabolas and ellipses should be derived from their definitions (I assume from their locus-of-points definitions, one of many possible). This seem clearly to belong in an Algebra II class, after an in-depth study of quadratic equations and their solutions. But once I read the above passage, my objection went away. All the standards really say is that the derivations should be done at some point, not necessarily that it should be done within a geometry class.
Moreover, if I understand the point of the above passage, it would even be acceptable to construct a curriculum in which geometry and algebra topics are integrated, not separated out as they are so commonly. But if this is so, there’s no reason to suppose that everyone everywhere would do the same thing at the same time.
The problem though, is when you have a test based on the CC. When you have a test that covers a certain amount of standards- then you must teach them prior to that test. When the test is in March, you must cover all the standards for the year prior to March. Then scope and sequence becomes top down mandated. It’s the high stakes part that makes this horrendous- not the standards themselves.
I am highly in favor of the Common Core curriculum; however, it is indeed far from perfect. Critics, especially within my local districts, do have a legitimate complaint. Common Core is not for every student because every child is not, nor should they be, a potential college student or graduate. Within my local high-school alone, we have a 25% special education population. Our minority percentage was 1%. The 25% of special education students are aptly placed and require long hours of individual attention to even pass the curriculum under NCLB, which should have been named “No Child Can Fail No Matter What”. You compare us to other countries where there is significantly more pressure and rigor, but you fail to mention that most countries utilize tracking or have a career/trade path set aside for students either incapable of, or simply not interested in, being an academic. There in lies the major problem with common core. Though it is not politically correct, mainstreaming has been a disaster in most schools, particularly where the special education population is severe. It is hard for the average student to concentrate while another student attempts to masturbate, bangs his or her head against the wall, or throws a temper-tantrum because the 8th grade work being completed in a 10th grade class is too hard. I experienced all of these scenarios in my first two weeks of teaching. It is within schools like my own where CC is receiving huge resistance. They are not advocating for a dumb-downed curriculum, but they are terrified of a curriculum that will crush them due to the abilities of the students that they have. If we are indeed going to compare ourselves to other countries who outperform us, shouldn’t we model them in how they offer a variety of paths other than just a college or professional career path. This would indeed be a compromise that would cause more educators to embrace CC knowing that all their students, regardless of abilities, had chance to succeed. We cannot compare ourselves to Europe’s college-entrance exams; they are only testing a select few who pursued the college track, while we seek to test everyone in the same fashion and expect the same results. My kids read The Scarlet Ibis last year, and they actually compared the older brother’s drive to make his disabled brother “normal” to the Common Core desires to create a Utopian class of professionals. Many of them wanted to get a trade like welding in which they can earn at least twice, if not four times, a teacher’s salary. I do indeed agree with the arguments in your article. In fact, I just posted a rant on Facebook that stated almost your sentiments exactly. I don’t normally post my feelings and opinions in such a frivolous place like Facebook, but I am so tired of all the posts that potentially state that all our kids cannot function under common core. In my opinion, they are subtly patronizing the future generation by saying they are too dumb for hard-work and too sensitive to be held accountable. Nevertheless, I feel that so many are not seeing one of the major flaws in common core when tenth graders can so equally recognize the BS that children, or adults, are not capable of the same exact educational goals. After all, Doodle paid a heavy price because his pride wanted his brother to be perfect when in fact Doodle could succeed, he just needed a different path.
Thank you for tasking the time to explain what the C Core looks and feels like from within your school and situation. It’s a poignant reminder that no matter how well intentioned as policy (or law) might be, there are always unforeseen and unseen consequences on some individuals. The dilemma is real and will remain long after the current noise: we want to educate everybody, but not everybody will meet very high standards of academic performance, so there need to be smart and tactful options for kids that are empowering and not defeating. Actually the model in some European countries is very smart, where the non-college options are of high quality, typically leading to high-quality jobs in the workplace.
As I have long argued, ‘rigor’ doesn’t mean everyone needs to study calculus or read King Lear. If all classes were rigorous, whether on literature or culinary arts, more kids would be better served.
Louvenia- I completely agree with the overall message you offer. Thank you! We need to speak up for those who are not going to be served by more “rigor” in their school days. And that includes more than just our ESE children.
I have to take you to task a bit on this quote you offer:
“Though it is not politically correct, mainstreaming has been a disaster in most schools, particularly where the special education population is severe. It is hard for the average student to concentrate while another student attempts to masturbate, bangs his or her head against the wall, or throws a temper-tantrum because the 8th grade work being completed in a 10th grade class is too hard.”
I believe you lived through this “interpretation” of mainstreaming. This is an incorrect interpretation of “mainstreaming” though. I’m not sure why this child continued to be placed in an environment that caused them so much stress. Clearly, this was not a positive placement for the child nor for the other children in the classroom. Mainstreaming does not mean you dump all the ESE kids in a remedial leveled class.
Just as you describe the need to have individual focus with Common Core, children with special needs require this same focus with placement- that’s why they have IEP’s. The guiding principal is the Least Restrictive Environment where the child can learn. Clearly, this placement for the child in your example, is not the best environment and does not present with enough accommodations to work. This child may be able to be in that classroom placement but requires more accommodation at a minimum. I hope that after this display of “behaviors”, an IEP placement meeting happened right away so that this child could either get more support in that environment, or be moved to a more appropriate placement.
I realize there are reasons this happens- from parents insistence to lack of other placement opportunities. None of those reasons are relevant though. The only relevant placement criteria is the least restrictive environment that they child will be able to learn in.
Just like there is so much misinformation about Common Core we should all clear up as we are able, I want to continue to clear up misinformation regarding “mainstreaming”. When done properly, it is beneficial to all. It has been a success for many, many students who have special needs. It’s been life changing for them. I’ve seen that.
I agree; however, mainstreaming is often not done properly in the south, in rural schools, or with schools with a high percentage of special education students. It also doesn’t help when schools cannot afford to give every child an aide, much less a qualified one for that matter. It also is painful to watch when the football coach is also the special education teacher and is more concerned about plays than students. You are right, there are other factors that contribute to the success of mainstreaming as well. For example, parents with children with severe disabilities threatening to sue if their child doesn’t receive a standard diploma. However, I witnessed so many people, especially teachers, abuse the purposes of an IEP and special education services that is hard for me to supportive of mainstreaming or IEP’s for that matter. There are websites telling parents what to say to qualify their children for extra test-time and accommodations. I am sorry; I know we probably disagree, but the school system should not a replacement for nursing care or a psychiatric facility. Often, it is. I am not saying that special education should be done away with just remedied. I feel we have generally lost the ability to apply common sense to what is best for all children in lieu of what is best for ourselves. Nevertheless, I know what you mean by other factors that create immense problems with mainstreaming. One of my favorite high school students had a severe disability. The student performed on a third grade level in the eleventh grade. I did everything that I could, and was not supposed to do, to pass the student. Because the parents were so blindly motivated to have their child graduate with a standard diploma; the child was consistently crushed. I am not ashamed of the fact that I did everything I could to pass her. Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to operate on family members because they are so blinded by emotion; they make mistakes. The same logic applies here. Though their intentions were well-meaning, the harm done to their child was tremendous. I know we probably disagree, but I am used to it. Most of my family are special education teachers : ).
I don’t think that ESE students should be in nursing homes or psychiatric facilities because the adults around them don’t understand about proper mainstreaming. So, yes, we disagree on that point.
I completely agree with you that mainstreaming and IEP’s are abused by parents, teachers, etc. The websites that you talk about are there because of this. Parents and teachers need more education and information on how to individualize programs so that mainstreaming can work. Most teachers and parents are truly well meaning- they just lack the information or do have a tough time handling their emotions. And this problem is not just located in the South.
However this is not a problem with mainstreaming. It’s a problem with the adults who make the decisions about mainstreaming. There are good solutions to this problem and none end up putting children in nursing homes nor psychiatric hospitals.
In response to Grant . . . On a more positive note . . . I was told from a Texas teacher that Tyler, Texas does a micro-model of what is done in Europe. Children who are adamantly in favor of pursuing a trade and children who cannot cope with harder academic expectations are allowed to pursue a career(trade) focused diploma. They learn valuable job skills and are allowed to intern at local business instead of reading Shakespeare. A business English is substituted for British Literature and the like, and they are graded rigorously. They simply have a different educational path where they can flourish and not feel like a failure. Often, this program provides an opportunity for individuals with disabilities. Instead of falling into the staggering statistic of unemployment within the disabled population, they often have a job right out of high-school. Programs like these don’t just benefit the disabled; they benefit all children by giving them educational choices. After all, I had a two students who were incredibly advanced. They were a bit intimidating at times. Neither wanted to go to college; they were smart enough to know that they would make more money than I am by pursuing a trade, and they also didn’t want the debt that came with that degree(smart kids). Parents and teachers who are convinced that Common Core originated from Satan would be greatly comforted by simply having an alternative option in place for their children. Children who are just as important to the economy as the educational elite.
I did not propose placing children in facilities; I am simply saying that it should not be the school’s responsibility to provide the care that should be set aside for a nurse or properly trained medical staff.Asking that of a school is incredibly unfair and dangerous to the child, and it is asking too much of an aide with no medical background who is often working for a salary not far from minimum wage. It is also asking a great deal out of the taxpayer to spend the equivalent of the cost of a new science lab on one student. Additionally, I don’t believe schools should be responsible for providing services to children with extreme and sometimes dangerous emotional and behavioral problems simply because they have an IEP, nor should schools have to accept students with violent records or ankle bracelets. I believe in fairness and equality and special education services, but I don’t believe anyone has the right to infringe on the freedoms and safety of others, particularly other children who are they to learn not be monitored. I was simple saying that there is line in the services that a school can be expected to provide. After all, the ADA was created to promote equality not the alternative.This is merely my opinion, and I am aware that unpopular opinions make few friends.
I hear you but what you are saying doesn’t make sense to me. On the one hand, you support ESE services and ADA accommodations but then you put a dollar figure on that to limit the services and a list of behaviors that are simply not acceptable. How much is acceptable to spend on one student? And how much can a student interfere on another? If a student has too many questions of the teacher, for example, should they be asked to go home since others can’t get their questions in? Where is that line and who should draw it?
And here is your statement about the nursing care, etc. You say: “I am sorry; I know we probably disagree, but the school system should not a replacement for nursing care or a psychiatric facility.” You seem to be saying that certain kids should be at a nursing care or psychiatric facility rather than a school and then here you say you don’t think that. I’m confused with your point.
Here is what I do know. Children with special needs, just like adults, have legal protections. They have a right to a free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment just like any other child. This is not limited by how much their special needs cost the school or impact others. Many used to say that children with special needs should not even be at school at all since their very presence would impact “normal” children. I’m very happy we have those laws now since there are those, like you, who think that certain children are too expensive or difficult to teach. I disagree with that and I think that has nothing to do with the arguments Mr. Wiggins is making.
So, I am getting back to the point of the post. I think I’ve made my point.
I am currently watching Arne Duncan explain his “clumsy” statement about mom’s like me. Yikes!
It is related to the Common Core debate as are many sub-topics in education. Teachers are caught in bureaucracy that is often neither fair nor balanced for teachers or students. Furthermore, as I previously stated, schools that have an unusually high percentage of children who are special education are often where there is fanatic and vehement resistance to the Common Core curriculum. I simply expressed that mainstreaming, accommodations, and special education has gone too far. Advocating for balance and fairness for ALL students, not just a small percentage, is neither cold nor anti-ADA. Although old, here is an article that better articulates my point. In addition, it is still highly relevant to education. For the record, I now work with disabled adults helping them find employment. It’s truly amazing despite being in special education for their entire educational career how many people I serve cannot count, cannot read, and have no marketable job skills even though they were perfectly capable of obtaining these goals. Instead of learning basics they can utilize at an actual job, they were pushed in classes like American Lit. where they either failed or were graciously passed. To satisfy bureaucracy, unbalanced special education advocates, and the pipe dreams of parents, a child’s future was jeopardized, if not sacrificed, because reality and limitations a.k.a. a balanced approach) were never taken into consideration.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9906.worth.scandal.html