Imagine what would happen if our decisions in education were actually made with the well-being of students in mind. This is only appropriate considering that the students are the reason for education. Such policies and reform should center first and foremost on what is best for them.
However, with the roller coaster of the Common Core Standards over the past year, we’ve seen what happens when children take a back seat to ideology. Right now, I’m afraid. Afraid that we’ve taken a huge step forward with Common Core in the past few years, but that we’re about to take a huge step backwards as well. Most importantly, I’m afraid for what it means for our kids and their future.
In 2007 Tennessee came under fire for inflated test scores and subpar standards when it received an “F” in advertising. We were telling our kids that they were “on track” when the reality was that they continued to fall further behind. And we took action to move forward. The Department of Education and legislators worked together to “raise the bar” and adopt new standards and assessments.
However, it wasn’t enough. Improvement was slow and data still showed that only 18% of graduates were college ready which meant that we were still losing ground.
In the spirit of the Volunteer State, Tennessee lead the way and dove into the Common Core State Standards. Modifications to the math and English/language arts standards made their way into the classroom, followed by the talk of a new rigorous assessment that would finally push us to the next level.
We worked hard on it on the implementation side as well. The TN Department of Education formulated and executed a historical plan on an unprecedented scale to train almost 30,000 teachers on how to implement Common Core all in one summer and throughout the next school year.
In Summary, while the standards were still being debated in other states, Tennessee was already preparing for the change in assessment and evaluating teachers on Common Core aligned teaching methods.
And unlike the first time, our volunteer spirit paid off. We were number one across the nation in student growth on the NAEP test. Teachers who understood the shifts required to teach the Standards reported that their students made higher gains on the TCAP test. A feeling of “this just might work” seemed to replace the hesitation and frustration we’d seen in the past with the hasty process of implementation.
This transformation is also personal for me, because as a Common Core Coach for Tennessee, I underwent a pedagogical reformation of my own. As I implemented the new standards in my own classroom, I noticed that students were more engaged and willing to work. I became much more intentional about the content in our reading passages and spending time going deeper into topics and discussion. Eventually, students led group and class activities and watched their words turn into charts and work samples on the walls of the classroom. I could see that the change in me was a catalyst for a change in them. As I transformed my education, my alternative students transformed their own learning! I wasn’t just being told that this was working by a far off government bureaucrat; I could see it with my own eyes!
Given my experiences, imagine how frustrating it has been to see the war against Common Core gaining momentum. After testifying several times before Tennessee legislators, I realized that those who are making these decisions for “our students” are not people who have taught in a classroom. They are not people who spend time in schools and they have never worked with the standards themselves. They are politicians, business leaders, and social representatives who have been easily swayed by the outcry against the standards because the homework is “too hard” (even though much of what they see is not truly common core) and they have been told this is the beginning of a federal takeover of education (which it isn’t). This movement is too often driven by irrational fears based on fabrications and faulty ideology.
We raised the standards, showed the other states that we could rise to the competition, and have seen them start to pay off in the classroom and in student learning. And now, we declare it is just too hard or too unacceptable from an ideological perspective, and that we need to pull them out.
This movement has only snowballed in recent months. After legislators pulled us from the PARCC testing consortium to make a Tennessee-appropriate test, Governor Haslam announced that we will review the standards to decide if we need to make them more Tennessee-appropriate standards. The implication is disturbing; that Common Core might be TOO hard for Tennessee.
It says that in order to protect our students from failure, we must make our own test that will be relevant for them. In order to protect our students from failure, we must withdraw them from testing that will measure them against other states and allow us to compare ourselves to others. And in order to protect our students from failure, we must re-write our own standards to fit the needs of the Tennessean economy.
We don’t know what will come of this review process, but in the end, the message is clear. Tennessee lacks faith in its teacher and students when we have already shown we were ready to face the challenge and were already improving. Because of these actions, I am afraid that we will slide backwards to where we were in 2007 when our Tennessee minded testing and standards were ranked as failing. We can’t afford this to happen, for our state, for our cities and most importantly, for our students.
What we must do is continue ahead with the Common Core standards and the PARCC assessment. The public needs to hear from teachers like myself who see that the shifts in instruction and how we teach are helping students meet the rigor of the standards. Districts must keep training teachers in more complex reading strategies, writing higher-level questions, and engaging students in taking responsibility for their own learning. Tennessee must communicate to parents that the assessments will be more challenging but that we are all committed to helping our students rise to the expectations and compete on a national level. Student achievement will be gradual but the end results will be a more productive work force of students who hold a diploma that carries its weight in gold. We owe it to our students to demonstrate commitment to a plan that took guts to implement and will bring glory if we do not give up!
By Casie Jones
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Sorry, Casie, but your argument here is baloney. I’ve seen Common Core up close and personal, and it’s why my kids are now being homeschooled.
BTW, the great Peter Greene took you to school:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/11/tn-core-apologist.html
What specifically do you dislike about the common core? Name calling doesn’t tell us much.
Be careful what you ask for; the answers may alarm you.
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/david-coleman-2-years-ago-we-were-a-collection-of-unqualified-people/
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/david-coleman-2-years-ago-we-were-a-collection-of-unqualified-people/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxH1rJxR4gA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html
http://teachersletterstobillgates.com/
The list goes on and on and on…..
Please point out where I name-called, and I would be more than happy to take it back. Characterizing an argument as baloney is not name-calling.
What specifically do I not like? Where to start? Here’s a few:
– Developmental inappropriateness, especially of the early childhood standards
– Hardwired mandating of New Math
– De-emphasis of literature
– Emphasis on the sorts of skills that are easily measured on standardized tests, rather than the skills and knowledge kids actually need
– Overemphasis on standardized testing, period
I could go on, but that’s a good start. And yes, I am aware that Common Core fans claim that none of the above are actual issues, but I have seen it first-hand in my kids’ old schools, and people across the country are seeing the same things in their districts. These are very real concerns, and happy-talk is not going to make them magically go away.
A little bit of serendipity:
When I got home this afternoon, my wife told me that she had given our first-grader a couple of tests today. In the middle of one of them, he looked at her, unprompted, and said: “I’m so glad I’m being homeschooled. I hate taking tests, and in kindergarten last year, we took tests almost every day.” So sad what we have done to our young ones in the name of “reform.”
“Imagine what would happen if our decisions in education were actually made with the well-being of students in mind.”
Here’s the thing: Common Core was NOT created with the well-being of students in mind. As far as I can make out, it was created with $$$ in mind.
And I love love LOVE this gem: “After testifying several times before Tennessee legislators, I realized that those who are making these decisions for “our students” are not people who have taught in a classroom. ”
So you think for a single moment that the creators and funders and pushers of the Common Core ARE “people who have taught in a classroom”?!?!? Arne Duncan has never taught in a classroom, doesn’t have an education degree. Neither does David Coleman, widely regarded as Common Core’s “chief architect;” in fact, he went so far as to call his workgroup “a collection of unqualified people” (see here: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/david-coleman-2-years-ago-we-were-a-collection-of-unqualified-people/).
THAT is where Common Core came from. NOT from teachers, not from educators, not from practitioners who work or ever DID work with children. The K-3 standards are egregiously developmentally inappropriate because Early Childhood Educators were not consulted when Coleman simply backward-mapped from graduation expectations.
As for “This transformation is also personal for me, because as a Common Core Coach for Tennessee, I underwent a pedagogical reformation of my own. As I implemented the new standards in my own classroom, I noticed that students were more engaged and willing to work. I became much more intentional about the content in our reading passages and spending time going deeper into topics and discussion,” that’s great that you’re seeing better pedagogy in your own teaching – but what was stopping you from reflecting and improving your pedagogy before Common Core came along? As an aside, I’m guessing you don’t teach early elementary; I’ve not met many K-3 teachers who feel similarly enthused about where their pedagogy has had to go since the advent of CCSS.
I’m sorry, but IMO you’re giving credit to the wrong people and assigning benefits to Common Core that simply aren’t inherent to the standards.
Actually, it’s the very people who created, funded, and “sold” the CCSS who are the ones without any real knowledge or experience of actual classroom teaching within the past 15 or 20 years, or maybe ever! Think Bill Gates, David Coleman, CEO’s, business execs. Not exactly confidence-inspiring. It’s why so many teachers do NOT support CCSS, along with follow-the-money, of course.
Funded and sold to what end? I keep hearing these common core conspiracy theories, but they never seem to lead to any logical conclusion about why someone would want to “sell” the common core. The simple fact that an education initiative is funded by one or two wealthy benefactors does not in and of itself make something bad. Would you classify thousands of our nation’s public libraries as “bad” and refuse to attend them because they were funded by billionaire philanthropists? Hopefully not.
Do you think it’s OK that a single private citizen – that would be Bill Gates – has so much influence in a public common – especially in an area in which he has ZERO experience or expertise? If Common Core is worth the billions he’s put into it, why do his children go to a posh private school that doesn’t use it? If it’s so wonderful, then why do so many of the proponents and pushers send their children to private schools, or live in states that don’t have Common Core (Arne Duncan’s kids go to public school in VA, which is not a Common Core state).
If the “wealthy benefactors,” as you call them, really wanted to help America’s children and schools and teachers, why were teachers largely excluded from the creation of the standards? Why are their voices unheard when they suggest and beg and plead for money to be spent directly on STUDENTS instead of being drained and diverted primarily to Pearson (publishers of both tests and aligned curriculum materials)? Why is the expertise of teachers in classrooms ignored in favor of Bill Gates’ grand experiment on America’s children on a completely untested mandate? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/09/27/bill-gates-it-would-be-great-if-our-education-stuff-worked-but/
Are the libraries funded by philanthropists damaging young children? There is increasing evidence that Common Core IS damaging young children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxH1rJxR4gA . That really is not a valid comparison.
“Would you classify thousands of our nation’s public libraries as ‘bad’ and refuse to attend them because they were funded by billionaire philanthropists?”
Pro-CCSS arguments are chock full of bad analogies such as this one. Is anyone required by law to use a library? Because kids are required to go to school, and since public school is the only viable option for most families, they are stuck with what is delivered to them. There is simply no valid analogy you can draw here.
But just for kicks, let’s look at that library analogy from another angle. What if, instead of simply building local libraries, a philanthropist swept in with his money and took over the running of existing public library systems that people used and loved. And let’s say that he brought together a board of people with no particular knowledge or experience in running libraries, and that the leaders of said board, despite having precious few qualifications, were on record as wanting to completely overhaul the way libraries work. And let’s say this board announced sweeping operational changes by, for instance, mandating the types of books the libraries must stock and the types of books no longer allowed. Furthermore, this board mandated certain rules that, in effect, required the libraries to be run a certain way so that the librarians no longer had as much say in the process.
Would we view the person funding said libraries as a true philanthropist, or as a control-freak with an agenda?
(Yes, I know CCSS does not mandate certain books. That is not what I am saying. But the core of libraries is books, and the core of school is pedagogy. By severely limiting teachers and school systems on pedagogy, CCSS does essentially the same thing as someone dictating book-related decisions to a library.)
Thanks, Ben – my comment is awaiting moderation still (I guess it’s to be expected because I used links too), but your comparison to libraries is far more exhaustive than mine.
I’ve gotten tired of lame comparisons like that one so I’m glad you put it to bed so handily.
I think your article was spot on. Students are getting better at problem solving and thinking. It is new, it is hard and it does require perseverence. All good traits and qualities we should be instilling in our students. I’m also tired of the general public who knows very little about CC to be so adamently against it. My parents have told me for years they couldn’t do their child’s math. It’s just now they have something to blame it on.
Why are kids getting better at problem-solving? I will re-ask a question that has been asked many times: What, exactly, does CCSS allow you to do in the classroom that you couldn’t do under the previous standards?
BTW, your complaint about parents is absurd. I am sure there were parents who couldn’t help their kids with math before, but I doubt many of those parents had degrees in science or engineering. These days, almost no parents have a clue what their kids are doing in math. What they do know, however, is that their kids are mostly miserable with school. Heckuva job.
Michelle – *I* can do my kids’ math. The thing is, I’m an adult and my youngest, at 9YO, is only just now beginning to really understand some of the stuff shoved down her throat in math and LA the past 2 years. That’s a lot of time wasted, and that was a long time that she felt she was a failure in math – when math is generally her “thing.” 1/4 of the way into 4th grade, she’s finally healing from last year; third grade Common Core was nothing short of brutal for her.
I can still do her homework with her – but an entire year has been lost, and so has much of her self-confidence. Those aren’t traits I would want instilled in the children of my worst enemies. :'(
Thank you both to Crunchy and Ben for your thoughtful commentary. I hadn’t heard the David Coleman quote before, and rather than shoot off a quick response I want to take some time to explore some of the other articles further. I would contend that while the standards may have been written by Coleman and a few others, they were reviewed and vetted by thousands of people across the country in multiple states.
I am always interested in having a thoughtful exchange about what people like and don’t like about common core and other education policies, because even if we disagree that’s how we come to better solutions.
As a follow up, I would pose this question to you both; if not common core, what then? We clearly have a wide variety and quality of standards across different states, what would you propose as an alternative to ensure that we have a set of high quality of standards guiding instruction in every school everywhere?
Since you asked “If not Common Core, then what?” my first response is THANK YOU for asking. It’s rare that anyone thinks to ask the people who actually have contact with the students. Had teachers been truly involved from the start – and although they were involved in the review part of the process, we have no way to know if their input was truly taken on board except for a teacher I read about who spoke up and claimed credit for a particular thing (this was on Anthony Cody’s old blog on EdWeek) – the standards would probably look very very different.
I would start with elementary teachers and Early Childhood professionals first and foremost, starting at the beginning, the K-3 standards and expectations. Start with where these kids are neurologically and developmentally, what they can realistically be expected to learn when, and how, while still having plenty of time to play (which they’re also hard-wired to learn from, just not in a structured easy-to-evaluate way), and go from there. Try it out. Tweak it. Improve it. (CCSS comes with a trademark and a limit of 15% added to them but NO other changes to the standards at this time.)
Can we improve on what *was*? In many cases, sure we can, no denying it. But Common Core, this set of standards created in this way, is not the way to go about it. A bunch of people in ivory towers and offices who’ve barely if ever set foot in elementary classrooms where foundations are laid mandating that children WILL learn X in Year Y? Who on Earth thought THAT was a good idea? (Oh, yeah, Bill Gates….and David Coleman… and apparently Arne Duncan….the list goes on, and NONE of them are teachers!)
The wheel has been invented and is rolling well in Finland, whose test scores we hold up as exemplars but whose method for obtaining them we find excuse after excuse NOT to even TRY…but there are teachers here who are up to the task.
The problem I see there is that when teachers (and not businesspeople) create the standards, the corporations don’t make the money from them…and so it goes, to the detriment of our kids.
Sorry, feeling philosophical tonight, spending the evening with my kids. *happy sigh* But I hope that is a starting place for the answer to your question. Go on, give us some more.
“What would you propose as an alternative to ensure that we have a set of high quality of standards guiding instruction in every school everywhere?”
I wouldn’t, because I reject the entire premise of the question. First of all, education is properly a state and local issue. What might be dandy school policy in Modesto may not be so hot in Nashua or Brownsville. Having a variety of standards across the country does not bother me; having a national set of standards so detailed that it actually dictates pedagogy bothers me greatly.
Second, even if we could come to some sort of agreement on national standards, it’s snake oil that will do nothing to improve education. There is this pervasive bit of received wisdom (article of faith, really) among pro-“reform” folks that higher standards will result in higher achievement, but this is just magical thinking. Brookings showed pretty conclusively using empirical data that standards have no impact on outcomes:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2012/02/16-brown-education
Furthermore, Brookings came back earlier this year and buttressed that argument by showing that states with Common Core-like math standards have not shown any more improvement (slightly less, actually) than states with very un-CCSS-like math standards:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2014/03/18-common-core-loveless
When it comes down to it, Common Core is a bipartisan attempt to “fix” everything that is wrong with society by “fixing” the schools. If every child got a great education and attended a great school, there would be egalitarianism and an end to “achievement gaps,” which would thrill liberals. And it would prove that meritocracy works, which would thrill conservatives. But you cannot fix society through the schools, because the problems aren’t really in the schools.
Generations ago, most kids came to school not knowing much. Rich kids were the only ones whose parents had the time, money, and resources to devote to early childhood education and enrichment activities as the kids got older. Lower-class kids in this country have not fallen behind where they used to be — Rather, what has happened is that the educated, upper-middle class professionals in our society now act more like the wealthy, investing in their children at every turn and ensuring they have the advantages needed for academic success. It is folly to believe we can change the standards and “fix” this.
There are also other problems with education in America that standards will either not fix or will only make worse. Just to name one: English lit classes have been dumbing-down literature study for years now, reading fewer and “more accessible” novels (that is, easier books, more modern books and fewer classics). Part of this was PC multiculturalist stuff, part of it was an attempt to artificially reduce racial achievement gaps, and part of it was because with the internet, any kid who doesn’t want to read a book probably doesn’t have to.
But now we have Common Core coming along saying that the only thing kids really need to know how to read are the sorts of short, boring, context-free passages that are found on standardized tests. And yes, I know the standards don’t explicitly say this, but when you take the standards and then add in the cudgel of the high-stakes standardized testing, that is what you end up with. Even if teachers are trying to avoid it for now, once the “accountability” hammer falls, you can bet that is what many English classes will concentrate the most on.
“If not Common Core, what then?”
How about educational sanity that isn’t based on magical thinking? That would be a good place to start.