Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Conflicted on Common Core
Recently, Troy Senik suggested that Common Core has the potential to be the sleeper issue in the 2016 Republican presidential primary race. Common Core, which effectively establishes uniform educational standards for English and math on a national level, is deeply unpopular among elements of the Right and it certainly has the potential to be a major factor in the selection of the next Republican presidential candidate.
Honestly, I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to the issue until now. I don’t have children, my own education was largely private, and is, in any case, completed. That said, Common Core is going to be a major issue facing our nation as a matter of both politics and policy. Consequently, I’ve been trying to determine my own position on the matter.
I have to say I’m conflicted. I have serious principled concerns about the extension of federal involvement in the education, but at the same time I have to say that I find it hard to believe that a program which is both opposed by the NEA and supported by education reformers such as Michelle Rhee is an unambiguously bad idea.
As a matter of general principle I’m skeptical Common Core on grounds of both limited government and federalism. I don’t really think the state should be providing education at all, but if it’s going to do so it seems to me to be a matter constitutionally left to the states. Since Reagan, the GOP has fantasized about doing away with the Department of Education and the establishment of a national curriculum via Common Core is certainly a step away from the realization of that goal. On a more practical level I’m concerned the Common Core will lead to less accountability on the part of educators, as it will inevitably entail greater layers of bureaucracy and less responsiveness to the concerns of local constituencies and parents. I also disapprove of the way Common Core is being used as a Trojan horse to achieve a national curriculum when there is no political mandate for one.
As far as the substantive elements of Common Core go, I’m not sure where I stand. Criticism of the Common Core standards has come from both directions. Some critics claim that Common Core standards are not stringent enough and that will lead to a dumbing down of American public education. Others assert, just as strenuously, that the standards are unreasonably high, placing impossible expectations upon already overburdened students. Based upon my own cursory research it seems as though neither criticism is wholly valid or wholly without merit. The expectations set by Common Core appear to be less stringent than those found in our high-performing public schools, but dramatically more demanding than those found in low-performing schools.
This brings me to where I see the potentially positive arguments for Common Core. Setting aside my principled objections to public education in general and and federal involvement in education specifically, there is a very practical question of how we best educate our nation’s children.
America’s public education system is nowhere near as good as it should be, but neither is it the unmitigated disaster that many people claim to be. We don’t stand atop the PISA rankings, but we’re not at the bottom either. Compared to his peers in comparable countries the average American student is mediocre.
However, evaluating American education based on average PISA scores masks the true problem with our educational system. The problem is not that the average American student is mediocre when compared to his peers around the world. It is that our lowest-performing students fare much worse than their international peers. American education isn’t uniformly bad, it’s just that where it is bad it is spectacularly so. It is in its potential to improve the education of our poorest performing students that I think Common Core has merit.
Two of the most frequent criticisms of Common Core which I have encountered are 1) that it eliminates the ability of local school boards to tailor their educational approaches to best fit their students’ needs, forcing them instead to “teach to the test”; and 2) that it diminishes teachers’ accountability to the parents of the students they are educating. I don’t find either of these criticisms particularly compelling.
I simply do not see why locally-established curricula are necessarily preferable to national standards on a practical level. As I see it, the more relevant question is whether the standards applied are appropriate and the curricula effective. One of the major reasons so many of our schools, particularly in the Democratically-controlled inner-cities, perform so poorly is that the standards set in place by the local school boards are simply too low. Imposing the higher standards established by Common Core would seem to me to be an improvement.
I also don’t find much merit in claims that local educational authorities need flexibility to tailor their curricula to their particular student bodies in order to educate them effectively. It’s undeniably true that we live in a vast and diverse country, but the techniques needed to successfully teach children to read, write, and do sums should not vary dramatically based on locality. (There is not a particularly Southern Californian method of long division.) Furthermore, I have genuinely never understood the objection to “teaching to a test.” If the goal is to teach children to read, write, and do sums what is wrong with teaching to a test of a student’s ability to read, write, and do sums?
I am more sympathetic to concerns that Common Core will reduce accountability to parents. Parental involvement is crucial to the successful education of children. That said one of the main problems with our low-performing schools is that they are in impoverished communities where the level of parental involvement is low and teachers face little accountability in practice. In such cases, federal accountability, though by no means ideal, is preferable to no accountability at all.
As you may have noticed, most of my analysis of Common Core has been focused on its effects on low-performing schools. This is because I think the practical effects of Common Core will largely be on low-performing schools. In middle-class and affluent communities with comparatively high quality public schools I do not think the effect of Common Core will be particularly significant.
It’s true that the standards established by Common Core will often be lower than those currently in practice at quality public schools, but that will not necessarily lead to a lowering of the caliber of the education those schools provide. As things currently stand, high-performing schools provide an education which exceeds the standards established by state and local authorities. I think it likely that where Common Core standards fall below those currently in place they will have little effect, much the way the minimum wage has little effect on the income of doctors or lawyers.
Similarly, I think Common Core will have little effect on teacher accountability to parents in high-performing schools. Accountability is largely a factor of parental involvement and I don’t think parents who currently taking an active role in their children’s education will cease to do so as a result of Common Core.
So here’s where I’m at:
I think the Common Core is likely to improve the education of students in our lower performing schools while not having much effect on their peers in better performing schools. I’m rather ambivalent about the practical merits of local control of education, but I have a strong principled inclination to favor it and I strongly disapprove of the extra-democratic means by which Common Core is being implemented. I’m still not sure where I ultimately come down on the issue.
Can anyone on Ricochet help me out?
Published in General
Not a bad list, but To Kill A Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, The Metamorphosis and Joy Luck Club are all summer beach reads- strictly stuff I did on my own time in high school and college.
The bottom line is that the only tests that count in this world are ACTs and SATs.
Please so me where http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/3/introduction/ there is a reference to “Social Justice” in the actual standards. I am not talking about the viral video that is going around. I mean the actual standards.
Could you point me to where “social justice” appears in the link you provided. I can’t find it and I’ve read through it twice. (I’m not being facetious. I’ve had a long day and it’s entirely possible that I missed it.)
Sal, I used Ctrl F and couldn’t find either social or justice on that page, much less the two word “social justice” together. Perhaps he meant another page?
Well I’m at least relieved to know that my reading comprehension isn’t completely shot, but then, I wasn’t subjected to Common Core.
My whole point was that there was no reference to social justice in the entire document. Though I did mean to type “Show” and not “so”
My answer was a response to the very first respondent to your post.
Sorry for my confusion. Apparently my reading comprehension does leave something to be desired. We seem to be on the same page.
I’d just like to note that the picture above my piece has now been changed twice; once upon being moved to the Main Feed and again when it was moved above the Most Popular Box. I don’t object to either change (I think each was an improvement), but I am curious to know how the process works. Did the same editor do both?
FYI, I teach in NY and we have gone all-in on CC
OK, I’ve gone through some, but not all of the comments here and I plan on thinking and writing a more detailed response, but a few quick thoughts. 1.) For all the talk about textbooks, CC is (in part) about making it easier to mass market classroom materials since you’d have common standards. 2.) Yes, CC is about standards, not curriculum specifically, but standards drive curriculum, especially when you tell teachers that 20% of your review is based on the one test at the end of the year based on those standards. 3.) Pearson has almost total control of the CC aligned materials here and their tests have been abysmal (See the pineapple with sleeves) 4.) The district I work in is poor and underserved and I know conservatives dont want to hear this because they think its teachers and unions making excuses, but poverty matters and its not the material poverty, but the culture that goes along with it that is truly destructive. The breakdown of the family along with other social issues have done more to harm education than any policy or union.
P.S. The English CC Standards aren’t bad, but the devil is in the details and how you are going to align existing curricula with these. For example. the list that Sal provided for 9th and 10th grade has multiple pieces of American Lit/Speeches on it. Too bad we don’t teach US History until 11th grade here in NY. 9/10 are both World History. Aligning these with the NYS History courses is a simple thing, yet they ignored it. Then again, our illustrious commish John King has said that this whole process is going to be like ” Putting a plane together in the air” His kids also attend a Montessori school, which if you know anything about, its NOTHING like CC standards.
Several points, then personal experience:
First, parents are responsible for the education of their children. Period.
Second, the primary problem with education is departments of education at colleges and universities. No offense to any teachers out there (my mother was one), but an education degree/certification is the most ridiculous thing ever dreamed up. Education departments are like political bodies: They have to constantly dream up theories of education to justify their existence just like politicians (from city councils on up) have to dream up problems to fix to justify their existence.
Third, you parents who have kids in what you think are good private schools (Christian, secular) watch out because this Common Core mess is infecting them as well. Here’s our recent experience:
Last year, our third grader came home jabbering about Cesar Chavez. On and on about Cesar Chavez. I mean, on and on and on about Cesar Chavez. Finally, I got tired of all the adulation about this communist rabble rouser and asked her why she was going on and on about him. I learned that in social studies they were learning about him and other “great” Americans. This list of “great” Americans included: (next post)
Math on the other hand, is a trainwreck waiting to happen and will lead to another mathematically challenged generation. Not exactly those 21st century skills I keep hearing about.
Thanks. Your perspective is particularly valuable. I look forward to reading your more comprehensive response.
Have you encountered any of the increased politicization and social justice indoctrination that many fear will accompany Common Core?
I’d appreciate it if you could elaborate on this a bit. As I stated in the OP, I am genuinely conflicted about Common Core. I’ve principled opposition to it, but my understanding was that as a practical matter the standards are pretty good. Getting some knowledgeable criticism of the standards would help a lot.
I really appreciate your information too, Michael.
Michelle Malkin has an article out today that also discusses privacy concerns. Apparently part of the CC plan is to have a national database of students, family info, health, etc. Creepy.
That is troubling.
Paul Revere, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Mary McLeod Bethune, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, Lyndon B. Johnson, and César Chávez.
This is the state standard for these people: “SS3H2 The student will discuss the lives of Americans who expanded people’s rights and freedoms in a democracy.”
I am in no way opposed to kids learning history. Indeed, I think it is crucial. However, look at the context in which these people were to be understood. Do you think for an instant that the kids were taught the full context and consequences of these historical figures actions and ideas? Of course not. I’m not talking about Revere, Douglass, Anthony, Bethune, or Marshall. My problem with them being focused on by third graders is that they are of lesser importance. Learn about them and their contributions, sure, but in high school.
Anyway, as part of my kid’s class assignment, they had to be part of a living history museum where parents would come and stand in front of a kid who would then “come to life” and recite something interesting about the character the kid was portraying. I told my daughter she could be…
…Paul Revere. So she dressed up like Paul Revere and memorized some facts about him.
At the designated time, I went to the living history museum and upon opening the classroom door, I was confronted by twenty Paul Reveres. Even the little black boy in her class was paul Revere…
And if you want to see idiocy in action, take a look at how they are teaching multiplication and division. It is so complicated (it involves drawing boxes and diagrams) it brought my daughter to tears. I showed her the way I learned, she understood it, and I told her she never had to do that nonsense again. That brought tears of joy.
This was in a private Christian school.
We will be homeschooling next year.
I completely agree with you about the sorry state of History education in American schools, but this isn’t a result of Common Core (CC only deals with Math and Language Arts). When I was in (private) grade school in California we spent an excessive amount of time learning about Cesar Chavez. This is a problem of our larger educational system. Common Core may well be a horrible idea, but its opponents would do well to distinguish their criticisms of Common Core from their dissatisfaction with the general state of our current educational system. It obscures the real issues with Common Core when any and all shortcomings of American education are invoked whether or not they are directly connected to Common Core.
NY has not fully released their CC history standards yet, but they’ve sent out early drafts and they don’t look terrible, but again devil+details. Finding problems with the CC math isn’t hard. Take a look at Louis C.K.’s rant/tweets, though there are more serious critiques out there. My issue is that CC is just going to build on NCLB’s destruction of history since it isn’t tested, so therefore isn’t taught. That’s why there is such the emphasis on math/English scores. As a history teacher, I feel my subject gets far too little attention and I think people are playing on the same fear we had in 1957 after Sputnik (Obama keeps calling all this “our Sputnik moment” for a reason). We have had English teachers here who because of CC are teaching a lot of history content in their classes (and doing a bad job so I have to play clean up, both in terms of content and writing skills, what they should be teaching better!). Its a giant mess and is leading a lot of the good people I work with to look for greener pastures.
As far as the data collection goes, NY was insistent that this would all go to inBloom, which just recently folded. So, I am not sure where the NYSED is going next with all that.
This mess enters language arts and history through the “literacy” standards. See this:
Why are the Common Core State Standards only for English language arts and math?
Link is here http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/#faq-2313
They are, I think, trying to get back the humanities approach which can be good, but I do have issues with it. All history majors can write, but all English majors certainly do not learn enough history.
An aside:
One perk of being married to a math geek twice your age is hearing tales about how math education happened back in those idyllic days before even “New Math” was on the scene (at least if you lived in a conservative district). If my husband’s stories are accurate, the math education he got in his old-fashioned public school in his Mayberry town was pretty lame, too.
The drills were fine. But his teachers’ understanding of how math actually worked was very limited. (“Words and numbers don’t go together”, “If I haven’t seen it before, it’s not math,” etc.) If Mr Rattler hadn’t been an independent learner tutored by educated parents, who knows what would have happened?
We all know from history that some kids can become amazingly proficient at math at an early age with an individualized course of study. One-size-fits-all math instruction does seem harder to do well, though.
That’s really true Midge. Some things can be taught to all students at once–history can for example–but math is totally different. Reading and language arts too. Writing especially needs special attention beyond certain basics. That’s why I’m somewhat skeptical of CC and other standards. They are merely guidelines. The goal should be to allow students to learn at their own pace to some degree, which involves some grouping and the like.
Micheal, I will say that when I taught history to undergrads at a high-level university, their writing skills were mostly unimpressive to terrible. Writing is hard. That’s why it’s so cool that we have so many fine writers here on Rico!
This is a good post, Sal. Thanks for bringing it up.
Thanks. It’s been something I’ve been mulling over for a while and I figured I should just write about it.
Sal, as a teacher currently wrestling with implementation of CC, like Michael, I’d really like to chime in, but in a longer response essay. However, since I am a teacher, and the end of the semester is pressing and the papers are piling up, it will have to wait until Saturday. You’ve done a really good job of being fair to this issue, and I certainly appreciate it. CC has truly become the bogeyman for everything wrong with education, and you’ve resisted falling into that trap.