The current strong backlash to the Standards is completely predictable. Any time there is a major push to reform an institution there will be a backlash. As we saw with Obamacare, the flaws become magnified and politicized; the supposed benefits seem to many not worth the hassle and the flaws – and it gets heavily politicized (i.e. people lie about the harm of it).
The Common Core suffers from two additional problems: 1) there is no major group of august leaders in varied fields serving as a lobbying group attached to the effort. It all feels like a faceless bureaucratic thing so hated by Americans – akin to the IRS; and 2) the Standards are easy to conflate with standardized testing (and accountability systems based on them) which naturally seems like a step backward, not forward, in improving education nationally. (I eagerly look forward to the teacher lawsuit concerning her weird VAM score from the state of NY.)
However, for me there are two far bigger problems with the Standards themselves – errors that arguably caused the bulk of the current backlash. The writers of the Standards (especially in Math) did a terrible job of 1) justifying the Standards as appropriate to college and workplace readiness, and 2) explaining in detail what the Standards imply for educational practice. The documents simply fail at communicating the kinds of changes the Standards demand locally.
And most state education departments should be viewed as co-defendants in this mess. (One notable exception is math in Georgia – the most forward-looking state curriculum in the country – built, ironically, with RTTT money). This has naturally led to total confusion at the local level as to what counts as valid Common-Core-Based schooling. [NOTE: I had the wrong link to the GA materials; it has been fixed]
1. No important heavyweight groups are lobbying for this cause in the Standards; no data is presented to justify the Standards. Where, oh where, in the Standards’ introductory materials are quotes and data from University Presidents talking about woeful remediation rates and the dumbing down of college courses necessitated by unprepared admittees? Where are quotes and data from the key people from tech, bio-medical, media, and manufacturing companies standing together to plead for better prepared workers? Without hard data (or a human face) to this document the Standards will die. Worse, then the Standards can be made to mean anything – including dumb local homework viral tweets – in the absence of a strong initial and ongoing PR effort to explain what the Standards are and what they are not.
2. We don’t know what the Standards imply. This latter oversight is particularly important since it makes it far more difficult to understand how the Standards do not dictate specific curricular or instructional practices. In short, the Standards mean little without models to support them. And without models of instruction, curriculum and assessment that propose a great vision, the Standards are just ambiguous words, able to mean whatever friend or foe wants them to mean.
There is no reason why a highly innovative curriculum could not meet the Standards: the all-elective system I taught in 40 years ago would have met the Standards, given its rigor; and modern-day Problem-Based Learning systems such as at High Tech High and the completely problem-based math curriculum at Exeter [click on Teaching materials] easily meet the Standards.
In the absence of seeing such innovative approaches to addressing the Standards, many if not most schools are doing the opposite: making education more test-prep, less imaginative; more depressing, timid, retrograde – dreadful. And so, of course, people naturally blame the Standards for this ugly turn.
But standards need not have this effect and in other fields do not have this effect; Standards do not mean standardization, as I wrote 25 years ago. The Building Code does not prevent architects from designing imaginative and client-pleasing house designs; the FDA rules on freshness and nutrition do not undercut the ability of farmers and food producers to offer consumers wonderful new food choices. And the same can be true with educational standards. There are as many ways to meet them as there are educational visions. Alas, visions are in woefully short supply.
The Standards should have provided them. Concretely what this means is two things:
- The Standards Documents should have contained dozens of scenarios and case studies of classrooms, schools, and districts where the curriculum, instruction, and local assessment are addressing the Standards validly in interesting and exciting ways.
- The documents should have clearly and thoroughly stated which time-honored practices would address the Standards validly and which time-honored practices would not – with explanations as to why. This is truly where the state departments of education are derelict: there are no real guidelines for judging the work underway locally to determine if local educators are on track to meet the Standards – especially in the key area of local assessment and grading.
Yes, I have read the Appendices in ELA; Yes, I have noted the ways in which the Math Standards discuss (very briefly) how Practice and Content Standards might be woven together. All far too little and vague. Consider this meaningless paragraph in the introduction to the Math Standards:
These Standards are not intended to be new names for old ways of doing business.They are a call to take the next step. It is time for states to work together to build on lessons learned from two decades of standards based reforms. It is time to recognize that standards are not just promises to our children, but promises we intend to keep.
In short, the Standards ironically fail to help their own cause by the absence of a good argument, based on good evidence, to support them and their implications – despite the constant highlighting of the value of arguments in the Standards!
When the whole thing collapses and devolves back to the states and consortia of states, as it likely will, it may satisfy the critics but it will leave us right back where we were before: with no clear vision of a modern education; an absence of clarity about how to address our longstanding problems vis a vis student engagement, instructional depth, assessment rigor, local tactics that violate best practice, and too many schools that deceive its students into thinking that they are college and workplace ready.
PS: I made a small edit to point #1 since it didn’t stress the point I was making – that PR in the original document was needed. All current PR is reactive as a result.
40 Responses
Well stated, Grant. American history does seem littered with problems that are ignored until they are at a disaster like scale. (Or is that just recent history?)
It seems far too many are overly concerned with what is immediate. My wife and I believe most of the world’s major problems are due to a lack of long term thinking.
Next generation standards all seem to be future minded; too bad most of America is only worried about the present, or worse- the past!
Agreed with you and your wife. A 10 year plan to do anything? Unlikely in our lives. A far cry from getting to the moon…
The approach a school takes to organize instruction is a huge deal, and you’re right that the CCSS doesn’t give schools that vision of how instruction and curriculum could be organized to be relevant, engaging, and modern! If the school or district is lucky enough to have forward thinking leaders, learning might just become more relevant to kids. However, the standardized tests we are drenched in, that act both as a carrot and a stick for money and rankings, will continue to see the organization of curriculum and instruction stuck in the dated structure it’s in. The other issue is that school leaders are so buried under piles of documentation and reporting to fulfill mandates, they often don’t have time to lift their heads and look at how we can change and improve what we do as a school. We have to ask ourselves if we’re preparing kids for our past or their future!
The other big mistake with the APPR and teacher evaluation plan is that most of the discussion that’s going on in schools is focused on the ADULTS. “What does this do to my HEDI score?” “What do I have to do to improve MY growth score? Mostly the adults are disgruntled and angry.
It’s hard to focus on how the students are doing when I’m worried about how I look as the adult, especially since that’s where the the light is being focused.
It’s hard to not see the problems we face as insurmountable… and this may well be the intention of some of the mandates.
The third reason, is shear arrogance and lack of democratic principle in their creation. ( Watch a David Coleman video about teaching a Letter from a Birmingham Jail) It would have been nice to have actual teachers writing them not ambitious testing company leaders like Coleman. Who made this guy God?
The fourth reason is self interest of companies like Pearson and the College Board that are more interested in sorting children than creating excellence. High stakes testing is the arch villain of education progress. Standards will always lead to standardization if we don’t confront it and eliminate or greatly reduce it. These companies need think more of their mission and less about their shareholders.
The fifth reason is a failure to ask What are Schools for?
Note: Provinces like Nova Scotia have wonderful standards that are written by teachers and full of classroom ideas.
These are places where testing companies make far less profit.
Here a protest song I wrote about it Real education is an act of love. https://barrylane.bandcamp.com/track/none-of-the-above
The reason no one outside the usual suspects is pushing the Common Core, is that they are so long and impenetrably written than only those who are immersed in educational policy read them. You can get industry and college professors to support a short policy statement that they can read and understand, but getting them to put their reputations on the line for foot-thick pile of bureaucratic noise? Not likely.
There may be good work in Common Core standards, but to most outsiders, it looks like edubabble.
Which ELA standards are impenetrable?
In fact, I find that the standards are so clear on ELA I see no reason for testing. States could simply ask parents the standards and whether their child has met them.
For example this standard:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.1 “Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.”
Could be prefaced with “Can your child…” Asking 4-5 these every quarter would be enough to know whether one’s child was reaching the standards.
I would love to see which particular ELA standards you see as Edubabble
I don’t disagree with what you suggest, but would note that Achieve is now trying to provide resources for #CCSS implementation and touchstones for quality control through the EQuIP Review Panel. Lessons and units that meet the #CC writer’s criteria are being reviewed and offered for public use. Like you, I know that the rigor and content of lessons I created and taught in the 1990s and early 2000s would meet today’s high standards. As a new member of Achieve’s Review Panel, I intend not only to serve as a reviewer of submissions but also an active creator of multi-day CC lessons that can be scrutinized by objective & knowledgeable reviewers for the benefit of teachers nationwide. I would invite you and others to do the same.
Additionally, I would ask colleges who have bemoaned the intellectual state of incoming freshmen to stop sitting back waiting to see how politics plays out. K-12 Schools around country are asking what value the standards have for college admittance. I implore state colleges & universities to get off their hands and support more rigorous standards through movements like those in Washington state which will use SBAC assessments as means for determine enrollment in credit bearing courses: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/educationlab/2014/10/07/common-core-tests-now-a-ticket-out-of-college-remedial-classes/?syndication=rss
Vigor not Rigor.
Hi, Grant, nicely thought and written.
1. No teachers who work with young people everyday were part of the initial group. These were pie-in-the-sky hopes, as I see them. I seriously doubt if they could have written the scenarios/etc. that you suggest!
You are correct that there is no one influential group to add weight and credibility to the standards although some national professional organizations, such as NCTE, did have some fairly early input and added their support, without much explanation or rationale, I might add.
2. The influence of the State superintendents and the State legislatures was not very transparent. It is still almost impossible for a citizen to discover who someone in her State is who actually has the “final” influence over these decisions. In IL, the legislature did its voting, as far as I can detect, shortly before the holidays; news coverage was scarce to non-existent. “Who knew?” becomes not a jest, but a truth.
The Race for the Top applications and States’ perpetual greed for Federal monies enticed legislatures to leap.
3. Ah, electives! I suspect you and your colleagues, as I did, designed your own courses, chose any texts and set about seeing how things worked. Even with these Standards, I see no reason for teachers and administrators to moan about having no materials. They should be in teachers’ heads or in their research capabilities.
Would love to know what you think of California frameworks that support implemantation of ccs
I’ll take a closer look at resources from a few key states soon.
“In the absence of seeing such innovative approaches to addressing the Standards, many if not most schools are doing the opposite: making education more test-prep, less imaginative; more depressing, timid, retrograde – dreadful. And so, of course, people naturally blame the Standards for this ugly turn.”
Indeed. On paper, there is little “wrong” with the standards in and of themselves. In the ecology of public education as it exists, they do not function as they might. We can blame schools and teachers, or we can turn to models and “big picture” learning design.
“In short, the Standards mean little without models to support them.”
Yes, yes, yes.
“When the whole thing collapses and devolves back to the states and consortia of states, as it likely will, it may satisfy the critics but it will leave us right back where we were before: with no clear vision of a modern education.”
The lack of clear vision is the cause, not the effect IMHO. The standards are one-sided–an academic index that fails to see the human side of learning not because they’re “bad,” but because that’s not what they’re designed for. Yet in schools, they are the prime movers. First cause and last call.
That’s also how they’re different than building code. People–laypersons–don’t look at buildings and think code. No one reports on how closely the building was designed to code because no one cares but the architects. The focus is on the building–design, function, beauty, etc. In education, the “product,” as designed, marketed, published, is the alignment between the code and the result. It’s clinical and sterile and awful and only makes sense to those that seek “improvement” and “efficiency” instead of those seeking to understand what learning should do and be, and as a result, how we might design its parts.
I don’t see your analogy of a Building Code and educational standards being in line here. It would be one thing if the CC standards were minimum standards, but they are not being used that way in practice.
They are being set out of reach for many – here in North Carolina I think half the kids flunked the 3rd grade CC reading test. In my view, they were set as backdoor averages, and now people are dumbfounded that they can’t bring all students up to an average level (which of course, is statistically impossible).
Building code is tough here in NJ – most initial inspections fail. I think the analogy is apt. “Being set out of reach for many” misses the whole point of what standards are. if the aim is college and workplace readiness, the whole point is to make the tests criterion-referrenced, not norm-referenced. That is what a Standard is. That said, it doesn’t follow that students should have only one opportunity to meet the Standard. In any mastery-based system, the point is to have no arbitrary timelines and no single-shot tests. Blame NC policy, not the Standards in other words.
I know! I read that. These are the old math frameworks put in place several years ago. I could never get teachers to teach them. They just turned up their noses and dug out the old math books. > > (One notable exception is math in Georgia – the most forward-looking state curriculum in the country – built, ironically, with RTTT money). >
If he knew the real story… Terry Stevenson
tersteve@epbfi.com
>
Not a very helpful comment – what is the ‘real’ story? The fact that teachers ‘wouldn’t’ teach them is precisely the problem, BTW. That’s why change isn’t happening: people want to stick with their habits, whether or not they work. And admins. let them…
Hi All,
The link embedded in the post is indeed to the old GPS units. Here’s the link to the newest units, which are based on CCSS. https://www.georgiastandards.org/Common-Core/Pages/Math.aspx
Thanks so much, Grant, for mentioning the units. They represent many hours of work by a very dedicated group of teachers and math coaches, and will continue to be revised as we grow in our own understanding.
Our collective hearts skipped a beat when your post came to our attention!
Best,
The GADOE Mathematics Team
Sorry I put the wrong link in. This is great work – you guys should be proud!
I wonder what you (all) think of the lessons on Better Lesson, Share My Lesson, and Achieve the Core that are connected to CC.
IOW, though lessons have not been front and center in the build up to CC, with the Internet as it is (even without the aforementioned sites) one has more access to lessons that meet CC than any previous state standards. And then with the lessons on sites such as these as well as other places, for instance, in history classes SHEG, or the Smithsonian, et.al have all accessible lessons at the distance of a keyboard, Internet access, and where necessary, a printer. The problem to the interested educator is selecting which of the many lessons that meet the standards to choose from.
I think these sites are fine, but there is no clear set of criteria by which the work is to be vetted and no independent review as to whether the units meet criteria and standards. I have always favored the standards for just the reasons you suggest: a wider array of resources becomes possible. But Caveat Emptor! Just because someone claims the units meet standards doesn’t mean they do.
A more significant problem is that these are isolated units, not complete coherent courses – an arguably huge problem being overlooked by the focus on units.
I agree with all your points about CCSS, and wish it were being handled better politically. I’m glad you pointed out that a “highly innovative” curriculum could meet the standards. One fix I’d suggest – make that “Project Based Learning” instead of “Problem Based.” The former is what High Tech High would say they do, and that “PBL” is more widely used in the K-12 world (two sides of the same coin, really; I explain this in my blog here: http://bie.org/blog/project_based_learning_vs._problem_based_learning_vs._xbl) There’s a side note about how problem-based learning might be a better fit for math in some cases, but that’s a long story.
The Buck Institute for Education’s PBL workshops for K-12 teachers focus on design standards-aligned projects, and much of the recent interest is because of CCSS; we trained over 14,000 teachers last year, more this year, and we have several large-district partners in multi-year implementation efforts. PBL aligns well with the standards’ focus on critical thinking, research projects, depth over breadth, real-world applications in math, and the speaking & listening standards, which include making presentations and engaging in collaborative discussions. Our website (bie.org) has several blog posts about CCSS & PBL, plus a library with many, many project examples tagged with the standards they address.
I’m well aware of Buck’s good work, as you know, and did not mean by referencing PBL to exclude you! I confess that I don’t like the phrase Project-Based learning since to me it still carries a whiff of too little rigor – just my linguistic bias, I guess. But, yes,your points are well taken and Buck’s work does NOT yield the lack of rigor I see too often in student projects.Your materials are top-drawer.
I didn’t take it as excluding us, Grant, no problem.
You’re not alone in having that reaction to the term “Project Based Learning” — it has some unfortunate baggage from the past, rigor-wise, which we try to combat. Our model of PBL actually combines both project- and problem-based; the emphasis on a (high-quality) product from the former, with the rigorous thinking processes of the latter. We’ve been writing about the merging of the best of the two PBLs in our recent blog posts on setting a “gold standard” for PBL, such as John Mergendoller’s – comments from all are welcome: http://bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_a_progress_report_request_for_critique
By contrast, the Next Generation Science Standards, designed with a different set of participants and funding mechanisms, appear to have crafted a solid plan for the future. Major corporations and educational institutions are aligned and on-board minus the mindless vitriol and real issues of the CCSS. I would be curious to know your thoughts Grant, and readers on this “other” critical standards document.
I think it is no accident that the politics of this document are therefore different – in spite of the complexity of the standards.
Don’t you think in some ways they took what they learned from the development and release of the CCSS to make these kind of improvements to the NGSS?
I would hope so! Once it all became about David Coleman, the die was cast for failure.
You cannot create a society of philosophers when you treat students and teachers like lab rats. Schools should be talent farms, not behavior factories. Fiddling with the language of the Standards is not the answer. We need to address the issues of power and trust which under-gird them. This is the foundational building code that undermines the best efforts.
This is not a sound argument. We have had state standards for 20 years and we are not the worse for it. Talent is still highly prized everywhere. How this is treating people like lab rats is beyond me – unless you think the IB, AP, and NY Regents programs do the same thing. If we want across the board improvements in student performance and if many students – arguably a third of our graduates – are not ready for college, then higher standards are needed. The alternative is Mississippi and Louisiana, two states in which we worked for years. Leaving it up to locals simply is not going to work, as the 50 years before the Standards movement has shown – and as the results in MASS. also show. None of what I am saying is an argument on behalf of dumb state and local policies in support of the standards, but overall both the laissez faire and the heavy-handed mandates approach to school improvement have not worked. Mandating standards but not the inputs strikes me as a reasonable approach and has shown gains in states with strong standards-based policies.
inputs? Not sure what that term refers to, Grant. I am not against standards, only the mindless high stakes testing that is destroying the learning environment in so many schools today. It bothers me how little thought goes into how these policies effect the experience children and learning. Children are not only treated as data points, they actually feel like data points many places. Benchmark testing turns schools into learning factories that manufacture behaviors. Who cares how good the test is or how high the standards are when schools no longer teach a passion for learning.
Test less. Teach more. Rigor comes from passion. It has no value on it’s own.
But the irony is that “benchmark testing” is a local affair – in fact, almost all the stupid policies we read about these days, blamed on C C, are local. Local policy is derelict: unimaginative, timid, deflating. Passion for learning is completely independent of standards and tests, as any look at athletics teaches. This is an utter failure of leadership in schools.
I see the point you are making,Grant. I think the real problem is we are trying to run the newest software(better standards) on an ancient early 20th century computer with the same crappy hardware. Perhaps that is a model Bill Gates would understand. The only way to update the hardware is to get better engineers making it and create a better vision of what we are doing and why we are doing it.
A great analogy. I strongly believe that far too many people are trying to make the old hardware work at all costs. Case in point: after I praised the new GA math curriculum I heard from 2 supervisors that they could not get their teachers to use it because it was out of their comfort zone. By that standard – am I comfortable with it? – reform is impossible.
Great blog. I agree with what you have said (so cleverly) about the Standards failing to do the very thing they demand (develop an evidence-based claim/argument). I am in my 15th year of teaching high school English, having formerly worked in marketing and logistics before making a career change. All of the money that is frivolously wasted on “the next big thing” in education is astonishing. The number one thing that keeps students engaged in school and engrossed in the class is the teacher. I am confident about this. Simply put, we need highly intelligent, innovative, and creative educators filling the classroom (that is not to say that we don’t already have many). But, I’m talking about the brightest minds. The biggest personalities. Those people that decide to be doctors, or lawyers, or physicists, or financiers because those careers are more lucrative, must be enticed by more than gratitude to become educators. Some people may view this as a sad truth, but in our society it often boils down to dollars and sense [sic]. Raise teacher salaries to be comparable to other fields where as much education is required, where as much expertise is demanded. People will scream and say I’m crazy, but if teacher salaries were considerably higher, we would see the brightest minds migrate toward our profession and the weaker teachers would naturally be “weeded out” by their lack of opportunity. I think this would be more effective (and more cost-effective) than a Common Core for which the “Funeral March” has begun. We certainly couldn’t lose more than we have and will.
Part of the problem is a lack of understanding between standards and curriculum. Using Understanding by Design as our curricular framework, teams of our own teachers have unpacked the standards and created curriculum maps with units of instruction for reading and math at each grade level. The Stage 1 documents may be accessed on our website by students, parents, and the public at this link: http://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/Page/4947. The Stage 2 & 3 documents for each unit may only be accessed by Cabarrus County personnel. This clarity has helped us to implement CCSS over the past 3 years and significantly impact the quality of education for our students in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. I just hope the review and revision to the CCSS authorized by our state legislature retains the bulk of the standards as they currently exist.
So glad to hear about your good work. Indeed, this is just what has to happen locally if the challenge is to be met responsibly and creatively.
Any data to support the effort?
This was helpful. I am a recent graduate of an education program, so standards were a given, like the Earth’s round. I could not understand the issues people had with the standards.
I was taught to use the standards as they were, vague and example-free. It took 3 years to really understand how to write lessons around them and this was as a full time education student. I can’t imagine how the PD is on the Common Core for current teachers.
On another topic, I am a firm believer in teaching our students to be global citizens and, for that to work, we need standards that can stretch across borders. One of my student teaching experiences was at an international school in Spain. While it was based on the American system, the teachers constantly fielded comments and complaints from Spanish parents about the difference between an American 3rd grader’s comprehension-based math and a Spanish 3rd grader’s repetitive fact practice math. They felt their children were not learning at the same level as their Spanish-system peers.
This is not to say that the US needs to be more like Spain, or vise-versa, but more communication internationally would greatly benefit the next globe-trotting (physically or technologially) generation. The Common Core has looked at other national standards from high ranking PISA countries to help keep US students competitive with other foreign students.
Before we can do that, however, the 50 states of America need to come to a consensus internally. Speaking from personal experience, discord between states, and even counties, can be harmful to a student. I moved 4 times in 4 years and never learned the names and capitals of all 50 states, the Civil War, and had earth science twice and no biology.