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In 2013, Gallup reported that 62% of Americans had never heard of the Common Core. The anti-Common Core documentary “Building the Machine,” released a few weeks ago, begins with a narrator intoning, “Before the fall of 2012, very little was known about the Common Core. The media wasn’t covering it. It wasn’t part of the national discourse. It wasn’t even on parents’ radar.”Democracy deficit.
If true, that’s a significant claim. The Common Core state standards are no small change. Forty-five states and D.C. adopted the K-12 reading and math standards, and promised to modify their tests, textbooks and teaching accordingly. In hot pursuit of federal Race to the Top funds, states hurriedly agreed to what proponents celebrated as a landmark change. The New York Times termed the Common Core “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” and Duncan said it “may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown vs. Board of Education.”
Change of this magnitude are typically hashed out in robust public debate. The Common Core was not.
In a recent study, we used the news search engine Lexis-Nexis to track media coverage of the Common Core during its five-year history. The results show just how little attention the Common Core received when it was being unveiled and adopted. In 2009, the year the draft standards were first released, there were 453 mentions of the “Common Core.” For comparison’s sake, that year, there were 2,185 mentions of Disney actor Zac Efron. Not a single reference to the Common Core mentioned “controversy,” “critic,” “opponent,” “supporter” or “defender.”
[snip]
By 2013, the issue exploded into the national consciousness, with 26,401 mentions. Of course, by that point, most states had been implementing the standards for years. Some criticism of the Common Core has been hyperbolic and rife with dubious claims. But today’s seemingly “misinformed” pushback may be mostly a case of frustrated citizens waking up to a fait accompli.
What does this all mean?
First, it’s hard to look at these numbers and not conclude that the mainstream media dropped the ball. The standards were rarely covered even as states planned to alter instruction for tens of millions of students.
Second, these results reflect a strategy of supporters seeking to stay below the radar in 2009, 2010, and 2011, while relying on the helping hand of the federal Race to the Top program. The thing is, stealth is a dubious strategy for pursuing fundamental change in 100,000 schools educating 50 million children.
Third, the democratic process relies on information. A lack of familiarity has proven to be fertile ground for all manner of rumor and uncertainty. Ultimately, informed consent is the key to policy durability.
The Common Core was foisted on students, parents and teachers with precious little open debate
BY FREDERICK M. HESS , MICHAEL Q. MCSHANE
The profound indifference to parents and taxpayers on the part of the people who run public schools has always amazed me. Their indifference amazes me so much so that in the last couple of years I've taken to saying I'm amazed by my capacity to still be amazed.
This go-round our policy elites here in New York state decided -- consciously decided -- to give kids hard tests most of them would fail. Intentionally giving kids tests you know they will fail is an appalling idea, but our policy elites were free to make and execute that decision on their own recognizance. They didn't have to check in with John Q. Public first.
And when John Q. Public checked in with them, they didn't have to say they were sorry.
My favorite moment here in my own district -- this was pretty funny, actually -- was the standing-room-only Common Core confab at which the curriculum director told us that parents "watch TV" and "read the internet" so they don't understand Common Core.
Then she showed us a TV show about Common Core. A TV show that's on the internet.
After we watched the TV show, one of the building principals stood up and told us that her sister doesn't understand Common Core because her sister watches TV and reads the internet.
I was amazed.
28 comments:
Like every "school reform" before it, from "The Common School" to NCLB, it's a government power grab.
The object, in John Taylor Gatto's words, is to "dumb us down" even farther than the previous generation.
It's been working for well over a century.
Wait, so anonymous is saying the object is to dumb us down, but Catherine is saying the tests were too hard. Which one is it?? Too hard, too easy. The conservatives say this is a plot on the part of teachers and educators. The teachers say they don't want it because they can't do what they want any more. Which one is it???
The reality is that most kids are graduating appallingly unready for college. I get students all the time who had A's and B's in high school, and reasonably, if not sky high, SATs. And yet they can't parse the language in a textbook, can't write anything but "I feel" papers, and do not understand the math they memorized for years. Common Core may not be perfect but it is at least trying to address the problems. People have claimed for years that they want to improve education, but when educators actually try to do it, the howling begins. It's a government plot! It is too easy! It is too hard! It takes away creativity! We can't do arts and crafts any more! It is too liberal! Too much testing! It gives the teachers too much power! It gives them too little power!
And that is the reality. No one really WANTS to improve the schools. Little Johnny is perfect and if he takes a test that shows otherwise, well, that test must be a government plot. Or a corporate Wall Street plot, depending on your politics.
And for the record, my kids took those Common Core tests last year and said they were much more interesting than the old tests. They said they enjoyed them. Our school's scores dropped, but not that badly, and I suspect we will start climbing back up as instruction adjusts. The quality of instruction is far better than it was 10 years ago. My oldest son, in first grade, spent all his time drawing pictures of simple addition facts. My daughter who was in first grade last year, had real math instruction, and now loves math. My oldest son taught himself all his math because he had to; my daughter has the benefit of a real math curriculum.
I am in Westchester County, just like Catherine. Different district.
It's both. Remember, today the classrooms are fully included. There are many children who find the material too hard..and it will always be too hard because they have special needs that science hasn't figured out how to address effectively enough that they can keep up with nonspecial needs students. There are many others who find the classroom too easy.
THere are many schools that prefer to game the test, spending all the classroom time on the basic material and ignoring half of the Regent's standards. When those children don't get privately tutored, the school's scores go down.
The reason that nobody had heard about Common Core in 2009, and that everybody has in 2014, is that curricular issues are not "sexy" or attention-grabbing. They mostly generates yawns. Therefore, while the information was out there for anybody paying attention, it was not making the front pages.
As CC became more controversial, it made for more exciting, link-worthy news stories.
There is no conspiracy here.
I think the fate of CC depends entirely on how they are interpreted and implemented. Some districts will try to use it as an excuse to sneak in more bad math, and others will use it to get better math into the schools.
Common Core was being covered at least since 2009, which is when I first heard of it. The NYTimes and WNYC have been covering it for about 3 or 4 years. I noticed because I am always interested in stories on education and curriculum, but I realize most people do tune that type of topic out. But it was there.
Here in Westchester, and indeed, across the state, the teachers are wildly against Common Core. They say it is developmentally inappropriate but when you push them, they don't like it because it leaves less time for arts and crafts projects and other amorphous projects that teaches so love. I think they also don't like that they are going to be evaluated on the test results (and I do sympathize with that). They think that focusing more on nonfiction and more analytical writing will take away from creativity.
The parents that I know who are against Common Core mainly complain about the testing (even though we have the exact same number of test days as before) and that their kids can't do as many arts and crafts projects. Some of them don't understand the way that the math is taught, but really, most of the complaint I hear while waiting for the schoolbus is that school isn't as much "fun" any more.
This is why I have become very cynical about Americans desire to actually improve education. As long as most parents want school to be fun, and to have lots of craft projects, we aren't going to improve things.
There are some of us who want real, phonics-and-grammar, traditional, content-heavy, teacher-centered, homogeneously grouped by subject school, complete with kids working independently instead of in groups. I want kids to be taught art/architectural history and music appreciation. I want real book reports, science reports and history reports; expository writing not stories. That's why I HATE the one-size-fits-all public school obsession - and that's before the issue of spec ed and gifted ed arise. Have lots of different kinds of schools and let parents choose. However, in areas like Westchester County and the affluent DC suburbs, I'm betting that an ES like the one I described above (the classical curriculum with Latin andtath) would have its kids so far ahead of the "fun", "arty" school kids by middle school that there would be riots. It probably wouldn't take that long, either. Removing all of the time-consuming artsy projects, Writers' Workshop
and "discovery" would leave plenty of time for real education and recess.
Oops - that was supposed to be Singapore Math - on which Scarsdale schoools have seen the light
froggiemama,
Do you know if Common Core was given a trial run anywhere before it was rolled out nationwide? I haven't been able to find out (even at the common core website).
-Mark Roulo
MomOf4, from talking with local parents, they would riot before putting their kids in a school with the curriculum you describe. The vast majority WANT discovery learning and craft projects. You couldn't get a school like you describe off the ground here because nobody would enroll.
Though from my POV, one of the best things about Common Core is that the school had to cut back on craft projects. The second grade lost the whale project. Yes, yes, yes!!! Now if they could just get rid of the 5th grade hotspot project, I would be a happy mom
The first state to roll out CC was Kentucky. I think NY may have been number two. Keep in mind that Common Core is a set of standards, NOT a curriculum, so there isn't anything really to test drive.
I am in higher ed. There was a fair amount of input from higher ed on the Common Core, which is part of why it was on my radar for a long time. I can recall standing with the head of the ACM at a conference in 2009, talking about how we had to get computer science content into the standards.
What *is* the fifth grade hotspot project, out of curiosity?
Is it wrong that the more I hear about Common Core, the more I like it?
If it can help get us back to where we have schools like momof4 describes, it's a good thing.
froggiemama; I agree that it might be a hard sell,at first, at least in some places - until it becomes obvious that kids from a serious-content school are significantly ahead. In my old neighborhood, it wouldn't take long, since so many kids do extracurriculars with kids from other schools. Also, Scarsdale's switch to Singapore Math, a few years ago, was driven by parent pressure.
My town borders Scarsdale. Not only have we not switched to Singapore (nor has any other bordering town), but our parents generally say that they do not want our district to be like Scarsdale. Scarsdale is generally seen as a pressure cooker district, a place where "kids can't be kids". They also spend far, far more money per pupil than we do.
Interestingly, the move to Common Core has meant that our district is adopting a math curriculum which is closer to Singapore in some ways. It is mastery based rather than spiral, and does a lot of the same mental math. Parents mainly think it is too hard. I suspect our parents would hate Singapore.
Parents here are divided. In the past (pre full-inclusion, when it was available) 1 of 6 would ask for the high expectations elementary classroom. For ex.: They would switch their child out of the 2nd grade classroom where the kid was supposed to bring in a coloring book and into high exp.
However, there is also the parent who is thinking competition. WHen his child is in the high exp classroom, and he's not the top 10%, all of the sudden fears of no scholarships, no honors placements, etc come in and they advocate publicly for less work in the classroom...meanwhile they scurry to the tutor to keep their child on top.
I'm not in Westchester, but two counties up with a lot of people who have fled the city to make sure their child has no competition from the 'country hicks'.
Implementation may also vary a lot by state. In California, Singapore math isn't an approved curriculum (in part because there isn't a Spanish language version and in part because it moved too fast). But we are having plenty of parent meetings on how Common Core requires that students draw pictures of basic addition facts well into second grade, and that students who can "justify" their answer will get credit for 5+5=12
So some of the opposition to Common Core is because in SOME areas it is displacing older (I'd argue better) standards and being used as an excuse to reintroduce Reform Math. I can argue (as many here would) that it isn't required by Common Core, but I guarantee you it is being used to justify the change.
Wow, Common Core is what has gotten us AWAY from the drawing pictures math curriculum. When my oldest was in first grade, that is what math consisted of. This was around 2006. Every day, they learned a math fact: 3+1 = 4, drew a picture, and wrote a story. Horrible. My daughter just went through first grade, shakily Common Core aligned, and I didn't see even one whit of that.
momof4 said...
There are some of us who want real, phonics-and-grammar, traditional, content-heavy, teacher-centered, homogeneously grouped by subject school, complete with kids working independently instead of in groups. ... Removing all of the time-consuming artsy projects, Writers' Workshop and "discovery" would leave plenty of time for real education and recess.
Amen! Our 6th grader just spent FOUR science classes writing a children's book about a wacky weather event--it had to be "wacky" and couldn't be based on food. (He did his on a hurricane that developed in his bedroom.) He begged the teacher to be able to write a fact-based paper instead, and she said no, it had to be creative. He hated the project with a flaming passion, and ended up with nothing written after those four completely wasted class periods. He ended up doing it as homework as well.
There was a fair amount of input from higher ed on the Common Core, which is part of why it was on my radar for a long time
Haven't read all yet, but I wanted to pick up on this.
At this point, I don't see that literary scholars had any influence on CC standards at all. None.
They did ask Mark Bauerlein & Sandra Stotsky to validate. Stotsky famously refused; I don't know whether Bauerlein formally refused to sign off on the standards but he is quite critical.
Moreover, from what I can see thus far, the CC understanding of reading is wrong.
Stotsky says that the CC writers essentially invented a whole new subject that doesn't exist & in fact can't exist: 'high school reading.'
As to the tests, the fact that one bright child liked them is easily parried by one bright child who didn't like them.
We need to see the tests.
I can't tell what's going on in K-5 ELA in my district. The district is a black box.
Engageny math has been a disaster, but that's the district's fault. They could have adopted Singapore Math (engageny is a quasi-knockoff of Singapore math that has run into trouble); failing that, they could have waited a year until engageny math had actually been written and the teachers had time to study it.
Instead the district went from Trailblazers to engageny math without skipping a beat, then told parents their kids have 'gaps.'
Though from my POV, one of the best things about Common Core is that the school had to cut back on craft projects. The second grade lost the whale project. Yes, yes, yes!!!
I'm laughing!
I would kill for Momof4's school.
Froggiemama --- I'm interested in your experience of parents there....I wonder if young parents here feel the same?
My generation would definitely go for Momof4's school SO LONG AS it wasn't Scarsdale.
Not wanting Scarsdale is a big theme in my district (I agree with that view, btw. I can't stand Scarsdale -- I have a friend there & have tutored a student there; I'm reasonably familiar with Scarsdale.)
I do think the 'not-Scarsdale' theme trips people up when it comes to what they **do** want.
It's hard to have an image of a humane and fun school that is serious.
In fact, humane and serious schools are lots more fun than frivolous, time-wasting schools --- but unless you're seeing that option on the menu, you don't envision it.
"WYSIATI": What you see is all there is. (Best part of Daniel Kahneman's book.)
I get students all the time who had A's and B's in high school, and reasonably, if not sky high, SATs. And yet they can't parse the language in a textbook, can't write anything but "I feel" papers, and do not understand the math they memorized for years. Common Core may not be perfect but it is at least trying to address the problems. People have claimed for years that they want to improve education, but when educators actually try to do it, the howling begins.
Very true - but there is good reason for 'howling.'
Number one: disciplinary standards should be written and vetted by disciplinary specialists.
Number two: public schools belong to the public, and the democratic process has been and continues to be completely circumvented.
Number three: the ELA standards look to be wrong in some profound ways that I'm only now coming to grasp, and that I am beginning to think will be quite damaging.
I can't tell whether high-ability kids will be harmed by the CC ELA standards, apart from the fact that they will continue to take English classes that aren't English classes, but that's not a new kind of harm.
Wait, so anonymous is saying the object is to dumb us down, but Catherine is saying the tests were too hard. Which one is it??
The answer can easily be 'both' (although I've never known what to make of John Taylor Gatto's dumbing-us-down theory, as much as I like Gatto. There are times when I wonder, I have to say. But that's a subject for another day.)
When you give children work that's too difficult for them to do you produce less-educated people.
More is less.
The Common Core Mathematics standards were written by disciplinary experts. I see lots of mathematicians among the list of people who wrote the math standards. The team leader for the math work group, William McCallum is a professor of math at University of Arizona, as are quite a few of the team members. Yes, there are also K12 math teachers and education professors on the team. I would certainly hope so. But to say that discipline specialists weren't involved, at least for math, is simply untrue
Names of those who wrote the Common Core standards
http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/2010COMMONCOREK12TEAM.PDF
The names on the math list include not just "math professors" but "highly respected math professors."
Have you read the math standards? They are remarkably good.
What some schools are doing with the Common Core standards? Misguided and maddening.
I've read the list of standards writers several times.
They include no literary scholars.
I'm now realizing that the "ELA" standards also needed historians.
English teachers shouldn't be 'teaching' historical documents, and if they **are** going to be 'teaching' historical documents, they need standards written by historians.
Will try to get to that at some point ... and I may have to badger Ed into writing something about it.
One of the really great things about the Common Core literacy standards is the increased emphasis on informational texts, something that is sorely needed. I deal constantly with students who have no idea how to read or think about a text that conveys technical information. Years and years of K12 ELA have simply not prepared them for the type of reading they need to do in college. College students spend much of their time reading nursing texts, psychology studies, computer science texts, pharmacy research papers, physics lab manuals, and art history books. Reading and extracting information from these texts is very different from reading novels, and needs to be taught before college. We simply don't have them long enough to teach them these skills, especially with all the pressure today to get students through in 4 years.
Therefore, Common Core quite rightly has shifted *some* emphasis to informational text. The problem is, who develops the standards? If the students are going to be reading scientific text (and I hope they do), should scientists be on the team developing literacy standards? Maybe, but I think that scientists in higher education have very little expertise in how to teach students to read. Maybe we need a whole new discipline of STEM literacy?
I have long believed that ELA as taught in K12 is really two different subjects. We expect students to learn to read and write - literacy - in ELA. We also teach literary appreciation in ELA. These are two separate subjects! I would like to see them formally separated. All kids need to learn to read (all kinds of texts) and write effectively. They need to be able to write, not just essays or poetry, but also technical or scientific reports. That type of ELA would of course be mandatory in K12. The second component, though, literary appreciation, *might* be mandatory or not. Personally, I think that art appreciation, music appreciation, and dance appreciation are just as valid as literary appreciation. But that could be for school districts to decide.
If the two components were separated, we would then have literary scholars developing standards for the literary appreciation component, and literacy experts developing the standards for the literacy component. It is the conflation of the two that leads to confusion.
In my field of computer science, careful reading skills are especially important. One of things that a computer science must be able to do is to read a problem description in English (or other natural language), and translate that to a very precise solution. Students tend to overlook distinctions such as the number of digits in a number vs the value of that number,or displaying one task vs a list of tasks, distinctions that may be critical to writing an assigned program. They simply aren't used to being that precise when they read. I am hoping that the increased focus on close reading and informational text will help the next generation of students.
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