“President Obama and Secretary Duncan pushed the reform envelope as far as they could be expected with these waivers….We remain skeptical, however, of the storyline that says we are a nation filled with states chomping at the bit to do the right thing for children but which are hamstrung from doing so by federal bureaucrats and paperwork.” — Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform on states receiving waivers from compliance with No Child Left Behind (via This Week in Education)
I remain equally skeptical of the storyline that says schools are dysfunctional purely as a result of adult indifference or self-interest.
I see no reason to believe that failing schools are filled with tenured layabouts refusing to teach and not getting fired. In my experience, such schools are mainly filled with decent people trying their best and failing. And with depressing regularity, they are failing despite doing exactly what they were trained to do–even because they are doing exactly what they were trained to do.
The entire edifice of accountability assumes that American education is essentially a sound product, but it’s delivered poorly. I see no evidence to suggest this is true. I see much evidence to suggest it’s not.
Amen Robert.
Unfortunately those waivers, when you peel through the redefinitions that shift the assumed meanings by 180 degrees, solidify what will not work because it never has.
What I am especially worried about are these administrators who have 2 years at most in the classroom. A nonacademic ed leadership degree where they learn nonsensical things like “We now know what you know is not as important as what you feel.”
Right. But they are the new bosses of what can go on in the classroom.
Comment by StudentofHistory — February 10, 2012 @ 8:35 pm
“…American education is essentially a sound product, but it’s delivered poorly. I see no evidence to suggest this is true. I see much evidence to suggest it’s not.”
The question in my mind is whether the passage of (“federal”) Common Core Standards and their accompanying assessments will do the trick. Some believe the new standards in 46 states will be beneficial. They will, only if the new standards are rigorous/demanding enough.
Folks in Massachusetts I have talked with insist the new federal standards will be fine, that this “common” body of knowledge will be an enormous improvement over the fraudulent standards many states developed originally in their attempt to satisfy NCLB. While I’m all for one set of standards for all fifty states, my concern here is whether we have sold our souls to the devil merely for compliance and federal dollars; that we will actually be lowering the bar we set originally in 2003.
Think back for a minute, pre-NCLB. No education plan – ANYWHERE!!! People refuse to believe this when I tell them. A September, 2005 New York Times editorial stated our schools were being run by “DEFAULT” by local school boards and textbook publishers because there was no (common/federal/national) plan – ANYWHERE. All those tax dollars at the local, state, and federal level, and no freakin plan. In-bloody-comprehnsible.
At the turn of the twenty-first century (think about that for a minute) NCLB comes along and suddenly every state develops their own standards. Fifty states now have a plan but they’re all going in different directions. Now, in 2010-2011 we have 46 states seemingly going in a common direction. GOOD.
We ARE progressing folks but Boston Latin, the first publicly supported school in America was founded 377 years ago. It’s taken almost FOUR CENTURIES for us to get to this point. Where have all those tax dollars gone; trillions to the nth power in taxes??? Where’s the outrage?
Remember also, these “reforms” have not come from the educational establishment. NO. The establishment has been fighting these reforms kicking and screaming every step of the way. If it weren’t for outliers, the business community and state legislatures, we’d still be schooling our kids with no common plan, again, ANYWHERE. We’d still be pouring untold dollars into a vacuum, an abyss of nothingness, nowhere.
Don’t even get me started on RttT’s allowance for “proficiency” standards to be developed by each state. If that doesn’t put us back at square one, I’m not sure what will.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 11, 2012 @ 10:51 am
@Paul “The question in my mind is whether the passage of (“federal”) Common Core Standards and their accompanying assessments will do the trick.”
Well, no. Of course not. Standards in and of themselves can’t do the trick, because they are silent on what must be taught. Standards describe the finished product, not how to create it. It’s like saying “all children must eat three healthy meals a day.” OK, so what should I serve for dinner? CCSS doesn’t say.
The value of the standards lies not in the standards themselves, but the clarity with which the authors state that standards won’t be met — can’t be met — in the absence of a coherent, cumulative curriculum. CCSS calls for ELA teachers to stay on topics within and across grades, and build knowledge systematically across subjects from grades K-5:
“Building knowledge systematically in English language arts is like giving children various pieces of a puzzle in each grade that, over time, will form one big picture. At a curricular or instructional level, texts—within and across grade levels—need to be selected around topics or themes that systematically develop the knowledge base of students.
By reading texts in history/social studies, science, and other disciplines, students build a foundation of knowledge in these fields that will also give them the background to be better readers in all content areas. Students can only gain this foundation when the curriculum is intentionally and coherently structured to develop rich content knowledge within and across grades.”
The new standards also stress the importance of building a foundation of knowledge within and across grades. The authors of the Common Core State Standards clearly “get it” on curriculum. But they are taking an enormous leap of faith that schools will do the work of “intentionally and coherently” developing rich content knowledge. They are saying, our job is to set standards. The curriculum is your job. But if you don’t have a curriculum that builds knowledge—coherently, sequentially–it won’t work.
That might be as good as we’re ever going to get.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 11, 2012 @ 11:11 am
Oh boy. Here we go again with the semantics. Standards versus curriculum. Maybe that’s why it’s taken four hundred years for public education to get to this point. Perhaps by 2412 we can all be truly on the same page. Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long.
The two TOGETHER are the plan for our schools, a plan, as I eluded to above, which has been absent from our schools for too long. If we’re ever mindful, hopefully someday we’ll be able to discuss the important issues regarding the reform of public education in America, and put the semantics aside.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 11, 2012 @ 12:19 pm
@Paul I’m speechless. For an educator of your experience, knowledge and depth of understanding to say that the difference between standards and curriculum is “semantics” might be the most depressing comment I’ve ever read on this blog.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 11, 2012 @ 12:46 pm
There is clearly a difference between the two. The difference between them is simply not that important to me. What’s important is that they constitute a plan and part A of the plan is finally in place in our public schools. Up until ten years ago, we didn’t even have that. Curriculum revision/reform will be a slow, painstaking process, unfortunately. It will eventually show up, but for kids in a number of states, just like standards, it won’t be high quality and therein lies the problem.
While curriculum is very important, it alone will not reform our schools. As you’re more than aware, there are a number of other variables that are also critical; pedagogy, poverty, teacher preparation/quality, funding, pedagogy, research and development, value to our consumers. And did I mention, pedagogy, you know, how teachers actually operate their classrooms? Addressing all of these variables and others will be what eventually improves our schools.
Discussing these topics, not the difference between standards and curriculum, are what is important to me in the education reform dialogue. I believe I defined the difference between these two quite clearly on page 25.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 11, 2012 @ 1:19 pm
It’s remarkable how a-historical this dialog is. The Regents set standards during the US Civil War, for goodness sakes, and the Massachusetts Ed Reform act merely updated one state to another in 1992. To ascribe “standards” to a Bush Bill demeans an entire intellectual history, and to ascribe the the entire measurement of those standards to a technology invented for World War I ignores not only history but the technology we’re using for this dialog.
A common core reflects both some shared, larger, community (ala common) justification, and thereby returns to the Horace Mann roots of public education. Shared standards allows for much more diversity in methodology, to engage each student on his or her own terms, both in language, culture, approach, and even illustrative content: using science or math or history or architecture to illustrate quantitative relationships, for just one example. There is absolutely no reason why common standards require a single, unified sequence of data, particularly in an online culture to a multicultural and multi-class diverse population who regularly and positively teaches each other while sharing.
Comment by Joe Beckmann — February 11, 2012 @ 2:48 pm
The organization of Massachusetts public education (historically) suggests an educational plan. All you have to do is think about the names of the schools. Take the city of Lynn (Lynn Trade, Lynn Classical, Lynn English). These names suggest a plan, probably an inequitable one, but a deliberate plan. The formerly robust Catholic system in Massachusetts had its own organization that everyone involved understood, and so did the New England system of prep and boarding schools. I agree with Mr. Hoss about the importance of operation at the classroom level, but I have to join the group of people who just don’t believe him that there was no educational plan, anywhere.
Comment by Richard Cathcart — February 12, 2012 @ 8:53 am
Richard,
No one believes it. So, where/when was the plan, any plan, other than locally or through the major textbook publishers? The NYTimes was not just whistling “Dixie” with its 2005 editorial.
Locally, the variance could be exponential from one district to another. Major textbook publishers were primarily concerned with three markets only; California, Texas, and New York, for obvious reasons ($$$). While they made every effort to satisfy these three constituents, the other states be damned.
If there was a plan (and there wasn’t) why did the business community prompt state legislatures across the country to finally develop one, and make the focus of NCLB, standards based? FINALLY some direction had materialized. Again 2000 back through 1635 and no plan? To say it was an oversight is the understatement of public education in America.
In retrospect, I really don’t fault anyone from the educational establishment. In a non-pejorative light, they were too myopic, too focused on what was directly in front of them; for teachers, it was their students, their lessons; for administrators and school boards, it was their district. Who among them would have had the wherewithal, the foresight, to think outside the box, to view the system nationally or even across their own state? Save Horace Mann and/or Thomas Jefferson, NO ONE DID. I’ve read and reread. From Cremin to Angus, to Mirel, to Ravitch, et. al. It simply never happened until NCLB.
Who would ever have thought a less than brilliant George W. Bush would have led in this effort to develop a direction, a plan for public education in the US?
Some will point to the NEA and their Committee of Ten (1892) or their Cardinal Principles (1918), but both of these were for high schools only. Nothing for K-8? How can it be considered a plan if the first 8-9 years of school were never included? And there were no strings attached to either of these two initiatives, no carrot urging districts to climb on board.
I’ll admit, it took me several years in the classroom and a number of graduate courses before any of this crossed my mind. I was at a regional South Shore Conference (Massachusetts) and we were supposed to bring our district’s curriculum document with us. Thanks to me, my district had a K-6 plan, only. The other fifteen to twenty districts had nothing. They were somewhat taken aback by our meager effort; quite defensive, insisting their textbook adoptions were their guide/plan. I was embarrassed we had nothing for our secondary level and these other districts had nothing, period. I couldn’t believe it.
Then I extrapolated this across the state and the US. Nothing. Holy cow, Phil Rizutto, but it was true. Talk about an embarrassing revelation/reality for my profession, for the country.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 12, 2012 @ 10:47 am
As always, the talk is about what educators do, have done, and should do, and the academic work of students is ignored. The new standards talk about texts, but no one seems willing to consider that all students could benefit from reading at least one good complete history book each year—whatever the teachers and other educators are doing in the meantime.
fitzhugh@tcr.org
http://www.tcr.org
Comment by Will Fitzhugh — February 12, 2012 @ 12:03 pm
The comments by very experienced educators on this blog confirm my layman’s skepticism about the K-12 world: there is almost zero chance that meaningful curriculum reforms will happen anytime soon, likely not soon enough for babies born in 2012, certainly not for my youngest child who is in 6th grade.
This blog is read by people throughout the United States. Is anyone aware of even one traditional public school district located in a major metro area that is even considering changing its K-8 curriculum to Core Knowledge or something similar? Where I live, the top local AFT leader is very aware of Core Knowledge, has met E.D. Hirsch, and overall agrees with the CK philosophy. But based on very cordial emails I’ve had with her, curriculum reform is way down on her list of priorities, far behind preserving the existing rigid tenure and seniority systems and supporting Democratic candidates in the 2012 elections.
CK is being done well in some traditional public schools; having a great curriculum in no way depends on the legal structure of the school. But as we CK folks know, K-12 is dominated by CK opponents. That’s why parents like I am will fight to the (metaphorical) death to preserve charter schools, which along with some private schools seem to be the only schools open to the CK philosophy.
Comment by John Webster — February 12, 2012 @ 12:31 pm
@ John. Earlier this week I had the pleasure, along with my colleague Alice Wiggins, of speaking to the Norwalk, CT school board, which is considering adoption of CK:
http://www.thedailynorwalk.com/schools/norwalk-school-board-considers-curriculum-changes
But to your point, whole district adoptions are rare. Given student mobility, however, it would make a lot of sense.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 12, 2012 @ 12:36 pm
Standardization won’t solve the problems of America’s K-12 schools. I view it as akin to restaurants. Chain restaurants will never be as bad as the worst mom-n-pop joints but they’ll never be as good as the best mom-n-pop ones either. The adoption of state standards have already hurt good schools over the past decade. Heavy-handed administrators are telling teachers that if something isn’t specifically listed on the standards for that particular grade, it cannot be done, no matter how educationally worthwhile it is.
One of the few things I actually remember about pre-high school science was a field unit we did on ecology down at the local pond for a few months in the spring of 5th grade. The school no longer does that unit because, you guessed it, it isn’t listed on the science standards.
Comment by Crimson Wife — February 13, 2012 @ 6:11 pm
@CW You’re probably right. Standardization won’t solve the problem. It would be like expecting food safety standards to solve hunger.
The problem is the disconnect between the goals (standards) and any clear consensus, or even sense on how to get there. If we took an education approach to the restaurant industry, restaurants would be engaged in all manner of curious activities. This one would help you plant crops. That one might focus on caring for livestock. A few more would focus on foraging (let’s call it discovery eating), while others still would learn to make gunpowder, melt lead and track and hunt on an as-needed basis (project based eating). Maybe Khan Academy could post a few old school how-to fishing videos online, and you could go to your local seafood restaurant the next day to try it out (“well sure, we could give you a fish. But it would be so much better forr you if we taught you to fish”)
I suppose someone might just open a hot dog stand. But, geez. Totally not authentic.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — February 13, 2012 @ 6:35 pm
There is no political consensus on school standards because there is no cultural one, either. Much as I agree with CK and its ideals, the vision of mandatory, universal, substantive standards that are politically palatable to all is simply untenable. All four factors are mutually exclusive.
The reality is the U.S. is as divergent in its educational ideals as in its politics. Let us have voluntary, meaningful common standards without the compromising, and let the “discovery eating” (read: Alfie Kohn) schools offer their silly wares as well. In other words, let the public schools specialize in different brands of education and let them compete with each other to boot. Competition tends to clarify things in ways that consensus simply can’t.
Comment by James O'Keeffe — February 13, 2012 @ 7:11 pm
@ Mr. Hoss:
I must respectfully dissent again. The era of NCLB will go down as one of the most barbaric times in U.S. public education, precisely because of these futile pursuits of absolutes. Total equity throughout all our schools ain’t gonna happen. Ever. Let me know when you’ve got a plan for total economic and social equity; then maybe we’ll talk.
Comment by James O'Keeffe — February 13, 2012 @ 7:31 pm
James,
Call me naive, but I’m a strong believer in, “…all men are created equal”; an egalitarian if you please. We may never get there, but to abort the mission would be the travesty, not the failure to succeed.
We’ll also never get everyone to “proficient” by 2014 or even 3014 but we can never stop trying. You you want one of your children abandoned, given up on? It’s who we are, the United States of America, man, and hope in general. Again, I’m a bit naive.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 13, 2012 @ 8:40 pm
I speak not of abandoning kids but of the greater travesty that results when the state is granted authority over the academic disciplines themselves. What is science? What is math? What does it mean to be literate? Thanks to NCLB, these questions are now, more than ever, the purview of cutthroat politicians and fussy bureaucrats (Or is it vice-versa?). Teachers are just another subset of “stakeholders,” and an increasingly marginalized one at that.
Here in Texas we’re about to adopt yet another “rigorous” language-arts test that, among other things, misapplies the term “expository writing” and also requires students to squeeze three “fully developed” compositions into one twenty-six-line box each.
This—mark it—will be the only tangible legacy of NCLB: in order to claim success for every last student, we will only have muddled, politicized, and compromised the very meaning of “education” for the sake of vapid, state-run efficiency. A pyrrhic victory indeed.
Comment by James O'Keeffe — February 14, 2012 @ 11:36 am
What I think we probably could come up with is a reasonable consensus on the kinds of skills that we expect someone who has completed each stage of schooling (primary, elementary, jr. high, sr. high) to have mastered. A general framework, but not a rigid “all students in grade X should be studying topic Y” approach. I very much like the CK sequence as a tool for this in our family’s homeschool, even if I choose to tweak it to meet our needs.
Comment by Crimson Wife — February 14, 2012 @ 5:03 pm
Texas politics sound as bad as anywhere USA, 2012.
What is science? That’s quite a question emanating from Texas. More appropriate might be; should we teach science or theology? Do we teach Darwin’s Theory of Evolution alongside creative design, or one and not the other? Somehow, I thought the Scopes-Monkey trial settled all that almost a century ago.
With folks like Tricky Rick Perry at the helm, you Lone Star State folks are going to need all the help you can muster.
Cheer up James. It’s about that bad politically in a number of other states as well. Education has indeed become the political football of a number of State Houses nationwide. Between Massachusetts and Illinois it’s become quite difficult to keep track of which state has had the most state legislators indicted/prosecuted over the past decade.
Comment by Paul Hoss — February 14, 2012 @ 5:10 pm