Who’s Lying to Whom? Duncan, Bloomberg, and the Rotted Common Core

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/09-3



Yesterday Mike Bloomberg called the new test score basement that all NY schools have rushed into “very good news,” and he blamed the media for noticing that it was happening. With State and City schools–at least the ones with poor kids–once more crushed under the boot (Rochester had 5% of kids passing reading and math) of new tests and new cut scores, the Prince followed up with this: “We have to make sure that we give our kids constantly the opportunity to move towards the major leagues.”

Really? Is that what you are making sure of, Mike? Or are you not really making sure that poor kids and poor schools that have been sawed and savaged for a dozen years at least stay right where they are? That is at the bottom, where the racist and classist standardized tests place them, except that from here forward these poor kids, re-demoralized by yet another round of failure assurance, will be taken housed in the segregated corporate reform schools that the charter traders and hedge fund managers on Wall Street are so heady about. Isn’t that what you know is really going on, Mayor?

Arne Duncan tried yesterday to swoop in to help rescue Bloomberg from those reporters reporting the news and finally asking questions, but all the the lead lummox could manage was to parrot his own voice recording that, in the present context of the new Common Core testing-delivery system, sounded even more hollow from an even hollower man: “Too many school systems lied to children, families and communities. . . .Finally, we are holding ourselves accountable as educators.”

So it is the school systems, made up of teachers, students, principals, and support staff, who are the liars? Is that right?

[Igel]

1. Common Core isn't the enemy.

I like standards. Sometimes they're incredibly badly written or impractical, but better with bad standards than with no standards.

The standards are too high. They are an educated liberal college professor's dream of what things should be combined with a conservative soccer mom's ideal for what her genius sprogs can do. We must have a cookie-cutter approach because the non-cookie-cutter approach led to inequity and inequality in the educational system.

There's a lot of inequality. Sometimes I wonder about the level of inequity, however.

Bloomberg's glad because we have good data. We *know* that these kids learn very little. The tests are tested for cultural allusions and are closely tied to the standards that everybody says "all kids can learn anything", ruling out physical limitation or cognitive deficiencies. They were instated to correct classism and racism. But when all the magic bullets and miracle cures for K-12 ed didn't pan out--and, seriously, if you institute a reform that actually takes hold in 6 years you should see 6th grade test scores show if that's a winning reform or not--it's easier to decry the messenger. We simply don't want the data. We'd rather be ignorant and, to achieve that, insult those trying to do good.

We still can't talk about most of the real problems and limitations. Just those that serve the right political goals and reflect the right political views in any discussion group.

[LWolf]

2. Are you under the mistaken impression

that, before the "standards and accountability" movement, that we had no "standards?"

We did. We called them "frameworks," and rather than a too-long laundry list of isolated skills to be tested, they were a more integrated outline for what each grade level should learn.

We also had scope and sequences to make sure skills were taught in a logical sequence.

There has not been a time, in your lifetime, when we did not have some kind of "standards," so how could you have experienced "no standards?"

Common Core...it's not the standards themselves, except those that are clearly developmentally inappropriate, and some that refocus content that I'm uncomfortable with. It's the underlying goals.

Like ANYTHING ELSE, it's about implementation. The best ideas, the best programs, the best policies, will result in mediocre results or even harm when implemented badly.

When the underlying goal of all reforms is to privatize public education for profit, and to degrade the teaching profession along the way, thus increasing potential profit, it doesn't matter whether CCSS is the best thing since sliced bread or a poison pill. It will be used to further harm public education and the nation.

[KittyWampus]

3. I live in NY and the Times posted some new questions from Common Core> they require more figuring

to arrive at the final answer.

I fully support this.

MY PROBLEM IS WITH DISPARITY IN SCORES.

60% Asian kids passed, 50% White passed….. guess how many Black/Hispanic kids passed? Around 15%!

It is appalling.

My problem is that the kids at a scholastic disadvantage need help now.

Edit- and I think a huge part of the problem with disadvantaged kids, besides the economics (which is huge) is the parents or lack there of and the push to get the kids interested in learning.

Full bellies, safe environments, involved parents and high expectations.

[LWolf]

4. We certainly asked questions

requiring critical thinking long before we created high-stakes tests.

As a matter of fact, if you read some of those old frameworks, you'll find critical thinking there. The high-stakes testing movement, along with the "back to basics" movement, has coincided with finding less and less time and focus on thinking. It's true that the common core changes that; to teach to the test, some thinking skills are going to have to be added back in.

Which is beside my point: it doesn't matter whether CCSS is the best thing since sliced bread or a poison pill. It will be used to further harm public education and the nation.

When the underlying goal of all reforms is to privatize public education for profit, and to degrade the teaching profession along the way, thus increasing potential profit, it doesn't matter whether CCSS is the best thing since sliced bread or a poison pill. It will be used to further harm public education and the nation.

To "like" CCSS because it asks harder questions is to support the underlying goals of the ed deformers.

[KittyWampus]

5. I can definitely see the testing industry profiting from all the agita, that's for sure.

don't like Common Core… okay we'll design another test… and another and another and another.

[LWolf]

6. Here's an interesting perspective:

http://teachersletterstobillgates.com/2013/08/09/live-from-new-york-is-participating-in-common-core-asking-children-and-teachers-to-commit-educational-suicide/

[KittyWampus]

7. Will read later, however for now can we agree that "failure" on the test take for the first time

should not be any kind of permanent tick against any child taking it or teacher forced to administer it?

[LWolf]

8. Failure on the test

at any time should not be any kind of tick against any child taking it or teacher forced to administer it.

Why? Because, as we've known since before the "reformers" instituted high-stakes standardized testing, the greatest predictor of standardized test scores is not the effort of the child or teacher, but parent SES. Socio-economic-status.

That's still true today. The best way to improve the system of education today is:

1. Back the authoritarian testing army out of public education and empower actual educators to educate.

2. Re-build the social safety nets, and the working people's economy, to close the economic gaps. Close the economic gaps, and you'll close the achievement gaps.

[bvar22]

9. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ AMEN ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

We are observing another attempt to Privatize our Commons,
and bust another Union.

I have no problem with Private (Charter) Schools,
as long as they do NOT receive a single Penny of Public Money.

We already have a Public School System.
Where it is broken, it is our responsibility is to FIX it,
not steal the money from it.

WE can begin to FIX IT with the suggestions posted above.

Repeated from the post above by LWolf

1. Back the authoritarian testing army out of public education and empower actual educators to educate.

2. Re-build the social safety nets, and the working people's economy, to close the economic gaps. Close the economic gaps, and you'll close the achievement gaps.

[LWolf]

10. Thanks.

You've nailed it:

We already have a Public School System. Where it is broken, it is our responsibility is to FIX it, not steal the money from it.

Educators have the understanding and drive to fix things. We just don't have the power.

[woo me with science]

11. Outstanding post.

Thank you.