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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/06/how-to-start-cleaning-up-the-common-core/
Even the strongest supporters of the Common Core State
Standards would likely admit if asked that the initiative has not so far
turned out as well as hoped. Implementation of the standards has been
severely troubled, the testing regime that is supposed to be aligned
with the Core is falling apart and increasingly people from different
parts of the political spectrum have distanced themselves from the
enterprise.
So now what? Where does the Core go from here? In the
following post, award-winning New York Principal Carol Burris offers
three first steps toward cleaning up the Core mess. Burris has been
writing about problems with the controversial school reform efforts and
the Core for some time on this blog. (You can read some of her work
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.) Last month she participated in a debate about the Common Core, which
you can read about here. She
was named
New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School
Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of
Secondary School Principals, and in 2010, tapped as the 2010 New York
State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of
New York State.
By Carol Burris
Joey Garrison
of The Tennessean
recently reported that after three years of implementation, support for
the Common Core among Tennessee teachers has dramatically dropped. If
Common Core familiarity breeds contempt, the proof can be found in the
Volunteer State.
Garrison reported on a Vanderbilt University
Peabody College of Education and Human Development survey which found
that only 35 percent of the teachers “believe that teaching to the
standards will improve student learning — compared with 60 percent who
said the same last year.”
What was even more surprising was that
this was not a case of “we need more assistance with implementation”—56
percent of the 27,000 who responded wanted the state to walk away from
the Common Core. An additional 13 percent wanted implementation slowed.
The Tennessee survey mirrors a national trend. An Education Next poll found a drop of 30 points among teachers in one year. Even
a Scholastic/Gates Foundation sponsored poll, the only one that finds a majority of teachers still support the Common Core, shows that support has declined.
Those
who dismiss this trend as political pushback are wrong. Many teachers
are not only the deliverers of the Core, they are the indirect
recipients of Common Core instruction as well. They see its effects on
their own children, and their frustration with the Common Core is real.
Here
is an email I received from one of my teachers whose young children
attend a neighboring school district that heavily relies on the Engage
NY modules. Commenting on
my Answer Sheet post, she wrote:
“Carol,
This
is excellent. Thank you for hitting the nail on the head. I went to my
daughter’s back-to-school last night. On the board was the day’s
schedule. Other than going to music and lunch, the entire day was some
form of either reading or math instruction. When science and social
studies were discussed as other curricular items in third grade, the
parents were told that they would be covered essentially through reading
passages as part of the ELA prep. Ugh.”
This email
captures one of the many consequences of the Common Core—teachers narrow
curriculum as they push students to reach unreasonable “proficiency “
cut scores, which, in New York,
were benchmarked to SAT scores that total 1630.
And
yet we are told we must forge ahead. The most recent argument given by
Common Core supporters, such as the Fordham Institute’s Mike Petrilli,
is that “the chaos in the classrooms will be great.” And therefore we
must “
follow through on what we started.”
I
remember hearing the same rationale when parents and teachers
challenged Whole Language. Luckily, Whole Language was a reading program
that districts could modify or abandon. Even so, damage was done. Two
of my assistant principals whose children experienced purist Whole
Language, still lament the difficulties their now adult children had
learning to read. And yes, even as with the Common Core, there were
staunch Whole Language defenders. We were told that all teachers needed
was the right professional development.
No matter what
investments in time or materials have been made, here is the bottom
line. The Common Core is a lemon and no amount of professional
development will make it run right. As Mike Schmoker recently wrote
in an Education Week commentary,
“Nothing
could be more futile than doubling down on training, testing, and
lesson planning based on the still-bloated, misconceived lists of
standards.”
The question that states face, then, is
what should they put in place of the Common Core. The logical option of
going back to former standards and gradually revising them will earn
the wrath and punishment of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as Oklahoma
found out after it
pulled out of Common Core
this past summer and the Education Department decided that the state
would lose its waiver from No Child Left Behind. Ohio lawmakers
have put forth a bill
to adopt the former Massachusetts standards; whether Duncan will
approve what were considered the most challenging standards in the
United States is anyone’s guess. Logic has not distinguished the Duncan
Department of Education.
That does not negate the moral and
ethical obligation of state lawmakers and Chief School Officers from
doing what is right by students and taxpayers. If I were charged with
the task of cleaning up the Common Core (and thankfully I am not), this
is how I would begin. While there would be more work to be done,
especially in mathematics, these are three relatively simple first
steps.
Step 1: Insist that the State Education Department translate each standard into clear language that the public can understand. If the standard can’t be written so that the average parent can understand it, throw it out.
To see what clarity looks like, read the mathematics standards of Finland. You can
find them here
beginning on page 158. They are clear, concise and jargon free. They
explain what students should know, while refraining from directing
instruction. These standards are a fine model that has produced
outstanding results.
English Language Arts standards also need review. Consider this Grade 8 standard
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.6, which Schmoker points out in his commentary:
Analyze
how the points of view of the characters and audience or reader (e.g.
created through the use of dramatic irony) create effects like suspense
or humor.
What does it mean and why does it matter?
Step 2: Ask experts on childhood development to review the Pre-K to 3rd grade standards. Standards should be rewritten based on their consensus.
The
Common Core has pushed down topics traditionally taught in later grades
because of its backwards design approach. States should recruit early
childhood learning researchers, psychologists who specialize in early
cognitive development, and pediatricians to review the standards and
recommend any needed revisions. Children deserve standards that respect
their cognitive growth.
Step 3: Reduce the emphasis on informational text, close reading and Lexile levels.
There
is no evidence that reading informational text in the early grades will
improve reading. Informational text in primary school should be read as
a one means of delivering content or included based on student
interest. Ratios of 50/50 (informational text/literature) in elementary
schools and 70/30 in high school are based on nothing more than
breakdowns of text type on National Assessment of Educational Progress
tests, not on reading research. The force-feeding of informational texts
in the primary years is resulting in the decline of hands on learning
in science and projects in social studies, as my teacher’s email
attests. At the high school level, literature is being pushed out of
English Language Arts to make room for informational text. For example,
take a
look at the readings of Common Core Engage NY curriculum modules for 9
th
grade. Literature is minimal, replaced by texts such as “Wizard of
Lies,” a biography of Bernie Madoff, and articles that include “Sugar
Changed the World,” “Animals in Translation” and “Bangladesh Factory
Collapse.”
And then there is the overemphasis on close reading in the standards. As Professor Daniel Katz
in his carefully developed critique of the Common Core English Language Arts standards notes, “in Common Core, all literary roads lead to close textual analysis.”
According to Professor Katz,
“What
Common Core does is take reading literature and purpose it entirely to
close textual reading, which is a tool of literary criticism, especially
for the New Criticism school of analysis. In New Criticism, the text
is treated as self-contained, and it is the job of the reader to
investigate it as an object to be understood via the structure of the
text and without reference to external resources such as history,
culture, psychology or the experiences of the reader.”
There
should be a variety of strategies in the readers’ toolbox and students
should have varied experiences with text—including (horrors!) reading
for pleasure.
Finally, let’s put Lexile levels in perspective.
Lexiles are measures of sentence length and word frequency, as
determined by a computer program. They do
not measure the literary quality and depth of a text. The Common Core obsession with grade level reading is unwarranted. According to lexile level,
The Grapes of Wrath and
The Sun Also Rises should be read in third or fourth grade. But please wait until 5
th grade to read
Bubble Homes and Fish Farts.
Enough said.
Correction: Earlier version had incorrect first name of Professor Katz. It is Daniel.
Valerie Strauss covers education and runs The Answer Sheet blog.
