Peg seems to be concerned with the money trail involved in the implementation of Common Core. The first question that comes to mind for me would be a curiosity regarding how she felt about No Child Left Behind. One can argue very persuasively about the fears of a money trail, but if one was silent about the money trail during the Bush Era education reform, I would find their concerns regarding Common Core suspicious. Any education reform will generate a specific need for advice and consulting. The question should be, is this money trail more extensive or more corrupt than the Republican-led effort was. It seems to me that there is always money being spent on education and, therefore, someone is always making money. The question would need to be is this money more wisely spent?
In her argument I see a shade of anti-federalism. She believes that teachers will have less autonomy and control in their classroom. This is a question with two sides. For example, consider Jeff Bliss' video rant:
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It might be that this teacher is the type of teacher you get when you have a teacher who must teach to the test. She has no autonomy and no control over her classroom because her job and the children's promotion might be tied to test performance. (This is the concern raised in Peg's post.) If that is the case, then the situation Peg worries about already exists. It may be then worthwhile to wonder if Common Core will make this problem worse. Do we have anything more than gut-instinct to work with?
Peg goes on to consider the high stakes tied to Common Core. Making teacher's dependent on their performance on standardized testing could seem to make a teacher more than a little uncertain. Especially, the sort of teacher Jeff Bliss complains about above. On some level, it seems to me, we do want to measure the results of a teacher's performance in order to get rid of the teachers who are not adequately performing their job. On another level, we do want to give students a reason to be motivated to take their education seriously. Holding the teacher accountable for test scores but not the students puts the teacher under the thumb of the students. Doing the opposite punishes the students for a teacher's lack of interest in doing her job (see teacher above). The question we need to be asking here, is how do we achieve a healthy balance?
To be honest, the stakes for a child's education are really pretty high to begin with. This is their future. This is their hope. This is the type of job they can have and the kind of place they can live. Some mechanism for tying a teacher's employment to the actual education the students receive seems prudent. The stakes should not be only high for the students when two parties are involved in the process. And, to be honest, there are teachers who need to be fired so a means, mechanism, an excuse for doing so isn't such a bad idea.
Peg circles back to finance, suggesting that publishing companies will make money by stepping in to save the day. Really, I don't so much care about companies making money so long as the education of our children is improving. Publishing companies already produce textbooks and worksheets. You'd have to establish that Pearson making money from helping to implement Common Core standards wasn't a good use of money.
But what about teacher autonomy, Peg complains. Consider the videos above again. Does that teacher really need autonomy? Does her autonomy actually benefit the students? That said, I will be respectful enough to try and understand Peg's concern. Some of it must come from anti-federalism or some similar fear of Big Brother watching. I do not thing many of us really enjoy being micro-managed in our work. It is stressful and leads to poor job satisfaction. We do want teachers to have enough autonomy to enjoy their work and find it rewarding. However, think to the videos above again. If this teacher only hands out packets and possesses a dispassionate attitude, her kids will not learn as well or as quickly. Jeff is correct in that some kids don't learn that way and this woman isn't reaching them. She will find her students not performing as well on the tests and if she values her employment, she will be motivated to do something different. That teacher doesn't really need autonomy. Contrariwise, a teacher who is able to motivate their students and "touch his heart" will find her students learning more quickly. As such her class, doing better on their tests, will have more time available with which to express their desire for autonomy.
Think about the Classroom. Some students in a given class progress more quickly than others. The teacher must teach at a rate limited to the slower students in the class. Therefor, the students who perform their required tasks more quickly enjoy more time to.. say, flirt or check text messages on their cell phones. In a school system at the teacher's level, we have another organized group much like the individual classroom. The standards have to be aligned so as to be achievable by the lesser quality teachers as well. Therefore, a better quality teacher will achieve their goals more efficiently and have more leeway. The process will continue at the school administration level.
Accountability is a good thing.
Peg's feelings regarding standardized testing certainly seems balanced. To teach a student, as Jeff Bliss tells us, you have to touch his heart. Constantly teaching to the test seems likely to be boring and lead to student lack of interest, burn out, or drop out. Peg says that some schools spend 5 1/2 months of the school year on testing. (Aside: an link to a source would be nice, a certain degree of skepticism is healthy in the reader. We wouldn't want to be falling for someone "cherry picking" their data, and that's what the formulation of this sentence sounds like. By saying "some schools," a person criticizing your assertion musts check every school to reject your assertion. It would have been better for her to give statistics for "most schools" and then point to a source for those numbers.) I don't want this heavy testing to be the case with our students. Memorizing facts and spitting them back out is not very useful in the long run. I'd rather have some way of working towards students comprehending information presented to them. Changes were made to the public school system during the days of No Child Left Behind's implementation. I would like to see the emphasis on excessive testing rolled back.
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Peg provides a link when discussion the standards and their appropriateness for the level of development where they apply. I'm going to suspect that teachers were consulted in the drafting of the Common Core standards, so this may be question about teacher's disagreeing with the level of development where certain materials are appropriate. At this point, we must digress into the link she provides in order to have some understanding of her perspective. Our current focus is on Peg, so we want to address the link as an aside to be given a lighter treatment.
http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/standards
"New research points to the indivisibility of physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. The core standards are based on a narrow and flawed focus on subject matter in isolation, overemphasizing cognitive skills at the expense of all others."A pointer to this research might have been nice to see. Seems reasonable, however. Even so, we would want to know what the general consensus is, not a minority opinion of a group performing new research. "New research" could also show the opposite and the authors of this page might be cherry picking their data.
"The core standards do not provide for ongoing research or review of the outcomes of their adoption. The entire K–12 standards initiative is flawed by this omission, which is especially egregious in relation to the youngest students."Again, this criticism could be levied at No Child Left Behind as well. To selectively demand such a process for the new education reform while not having the same criticism of the previous administration's push seems somewhat politically motivated. In fact, this isn't a reason to reject Common Core insomuch as it is something people might ask to be added to it.
"Tell your own governor, chief state school officer, and state early childhood specialists about the need to promote play and play-based learning in Kindergarten and the need to protect young children from testing."
I am entirely behind that.
I also checked the sites' "About Us" link. Again, I cannot verify the details listed under their link for "Partners" but it seems consistent with their style of writing and general level of apparent thoughtfulness and concern for the welfare of children. I cannot engage in background checking everything, and I don't want to venture into the territory of being one of the Conspiracy Theory nutjobs. I will now return to Peg's blog post.
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Peg discusses what "history shows us quite clearly." Now, this is very similar to other bold assertions made. "As very one knows..," "it needs to explanations...," "common sense dictates." Not to needlessly question Peg's honest intent, but this isn't a sort of phrasing I like. She does go on to point to a blog by a Chinese educator. His "Vita" link provides credentials. Even so, Yong Zhao, does not appear to be an educator in China, as seems implied by Peg's blog. (He is referenced after she alludes to China moving away from test mentality.) Reading through the Vita, we can discern that he appears to have come from an education background in China sometime around 1992, subsequently, he appears to have held a number of appointments at various American colleges. (The level of detail he provides about himself is very comforting and does lend to him credibility.) Indeed, his writing seems worthy of additional attention and will be added to my "to do" list.
http://zhaolearning.com/2013/01/02/five-questions-to-ask-about-the-common-core/
I like reading things written by people smarter than I am.
"But the Common Core, by forcing children to master the same curriculum, essentially discriminates against talents that are not consistent with their prescribed knowledge and skills."So does the current education system. I suspect you know that. I would like to see more emphasis on solutions than problems. However, I am finding his clarity of thought comforting.
http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/AASA_Journal_of_Scholarship_and_Practice/Winter_10_FINAL.pdf
"When we looked at the underlying theories of mandated statewide testing from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (No Child Le ft Behind [NCLB PL 107-110], 2002), Common Core State Standards, and the proposals put forth in the Race To The Top program, we found them driven by behaviorism and rational choice theories. Those types of theories produce policies based on power relationships focused on efficiency and monitorial control. The fundamental idea of policies based on behaviorism and rational choice is that some policy body (e.g., State Education Agency (SEA) or U.S. Department of Education) develops a set of expected education outcome measures, monitors the relationship between the measures and school processes through a monitoring device (e.g., high-stakes test), and then implements rewards or sanctions to attempt to change behavior through external force to maximize performance on the monitoring device."I include this paragraph for two reasons. Yong has, in fact, addressed No Child Left Behind. The second reason to include the quote involves thoughts that occur to me as I read it. It can lead one towards having anti-federalist thoughts. I mean, it can do this in a way that makes sense as opposed to seeming paranoid. One of the advantages a system of governance like America enjoys is a diversity of perspective. A consistent education could be a good thing, but could also limit diversity of perspective. A lot depends on how the matter is accomplished. Perhaps that autonomy Peg mentions can help ensure some variability which may well be helpful. Nature does not know which variations will be helpful, but by chance some variations are found to be helpful and worth being retained by Natural Selection.
Yong has said elsewhere that we cannot predict what the jobs will be in the future. This may be a very valid reason for wishing to retain a diversity in our education system. Perhaps, even though we cannot foresee the future, some individual variability of teaching mechanism could produce certain individuals well-suited to some heretofore unexpected advance in technology.
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Returning to Peg, she also earns some respect by the implication that she reads from sources like Yong Zhao. It further supports her status as it seems unlikely that anyone who is not a teacher and an education advocate would be likely to know of Yong's writing.
Peg's sixth problem seems to have already been addressed when I touched on Pearson publishing and making money previously.
Peg's seventh problem involves local control. This is rather blatant anti-federalism. You only have to worry about a loss of local control if the federalism generates a less well functioning system. Local control, in and of itself, is only a good thing if the local region is best suited to control the particular problem. For example, the federal government probably isn't the place to go if you want to ensure that the lawns in your neighborhood are all trimmed and adequately maintained.
Peg engages in a play on words regarding Common Core by asking you want your children to be Common. This is both manipulative and poorly reasoned. A Common (uniform) set of educational standards does not necessarily produce Common (base or poor quality) children. A loss of diversity might be a problem if one believes in the lessons to be learned by life science and ecology. However, for people who don't believe in evolution and who do not value diversity, this seems at best a questionable line of reasoning. Surrendering control to a local jurisdiction which is very Conservative and does not value diversity may be a more certain way of generating Common children.
Here, Peg inserts a link and a suggestion that Common Core was not written by educators. This would further serve to frighten people who are afraid of bureaucrats and federalism. However, the link she provides is from 2009. I mention this because I am prepared to believe she is cherry picking her data. This is 2013, should there not be an article regarding who actually, in the final assessment wrote the Common Core? Someone's fears about who is going to be writing Common Core from 2009 is not, perhaps, the best and most accurate source to go with.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2009/07/national_standards_process_ign.html
"So who makes up the two Work Groups? Of the 25 individuals on the two teams, (four people are on both) six are associated with the test-makers from the College Board, five are with fellow test-publishers ACT, and four are with Achieve. Zero teachers are on either Work Group. The Feedback Groups have 35 participants, almost all of whom are university professors. There appears to be exactly one classroom teacher involved in the entire process, on one of the Feedback Groups"Might it not be, if you are hoping for a college educated work force seeking white collar jobs of tomorrow, that one may well be biased in their thinking towards preparing children for a college career? Might your classroom teacher be not entirely well versed in that ultimate goal? Might he be unable to see the forest for the trees? The question would be, do you trust teachers to do what is going to be ultimately necessary for the children or to focus on the short term. The teacher in Jeff Bliss' video does not seem to be highly motivated in the long term picture. Would you want her sitting on the task force for Common Core?
This is how Common Core suggests citing the work:
Authors: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers
Title: Common Core State Standards (insert specific content area if you are using only one)
Publisher: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington D.C.
Copyright Date: 2010
So, I guess I would not expect a lot of teachers on such a governmental board. And if the standards are out of touch with the advice of professional educators, this might be a concern. However, the above we see reference to 9 people who would probably have access to people qualified to advise them with regards to education practices and standards. (Five from ACT and four from Achieve.) The Common Core site does not say they were written by local individuals, parents, and teachers. It only says that "Teachers, parents and community leaders have all weighed in to help create the Common Core State Standards." So, it may be a lie that the Standards were written by "hundreds of teachers" (Peg) it would not be a great stretch to say they were created with teachers depending on how one accounts for feedback and "weighing in."
Peg transitions to her eight point and seems to be getting flustered. She devolves even more into an anti-federalist perspective and then transitions to a deeper level by suggesting corporations are the power behind the throne as it were. It would be hard to know better without having read more of Peg's blogs, but a little bit of anger and paranoia seem to be found here. She also insists: "Romney and Obama’s education policies differed on one count – Romney supported vouchers and Obama did not – just food for thought." Apparently this assertion is deeply partisan and does not appear to be factually accurate. Vouchers were one area in which Romney and Obama differed, but represents a rather large policy shift between the two. (At least according to the source referenced above; but there others 2 3 4.)
Peg's next issue would seem to be that Common Core has never been field tested. That would be a really important point if field testing of education reforms was something we had come to expect. Generally speaking, reforms are made which one has reason to expect will be beneficial and results are seen. If the quality of education seems to decline, then people are politically motivated to vote for politicians who will change or roll back those reforms. This complaint seems like the NRA complaining that criminals won't follow gun laws so we shouldn't have any. Do we have credible reason to believe that the advice fo the National Governors Association will be better or worse in the long run? Time should tell us if we watch carefully. Unfortunately, there is no clear way of prognosticating the future.
At the tenth point, Peg continues the fear of Big Brother idea. She doesn't like the idea of children's data being collected and used by corporations to create materials with which to make profits. Um, if the data helps a publisher identify areas in need of improvement and they provide materials to fill this need.. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing. I make money in my job, too. I do something that people need and am compensated for doing so. I'm trying to figure out how Peg is working because she is sounding very socialist and I thought the conservatives were busy accusing Obama of that.
Peggy Robinson, at the end of her piece, does admit her bias. She is one of the founders of United Opt Out National. Her mind is probably rather set on the issue. I do not, however, mean to disrespect her in any way. She is certainly better reasoned than some of the opinions that I've read on this subject. Unfortunately, the farther into the article she wrote, the more and more she seemed dominated by a fear of government and corporate interests to a degree that seems, perhaps, excessive.
Good insights to come from this reading is a reasonable skepticism towards bureaucrats meddling too greatly in public education. We do want to see educators being set in charge of education. People with Ph. D's in the matter, I would expect. Most Ph.D's in Education to be unlikely to be considered classroom teachers. We were also encouraged to ask about field tests and it would seem wise to have ongoing research concerning the outcomes of implementation. This seems like a fair request to make. We have a great concern about the loss of local control, which might be more weighty for me if local control hadn't been the means by which people previously had hoped to perpetuate racial segregation.
All and all, still a process of learning and we have a new link for future investigation. Yong Zhao.
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