Is America Moving Toward a National Curriculum?!?

[Mike]

Hi All... hope this finds you all well!

As we sit in our various parts of the world and play with school transformation wondering how many of you are aware of this: my comment in ( ).

June 1, 2009


New Jersey Joins 49 States and Territories in Common Core State
Standards Initiative

Governor Jon S. Corzine and Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy today joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a state-led process to develop common English-language arts and mathematics standards.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative will be jointly led by the National Governors Assoc. Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

In addition to New Jersey, the following states and territories have also signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA): Alabama; Arizona; Arkansas; California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; District of Columbia; Florida; Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Montana; Nebraska; Nevada; New Hampshire; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Puerto Rico; Rhode Island; South Dakota; Tennessee; Utah; Vermont; Virgin Islands; Virginia; Washington; West Virginia; Wisconsin; and Wyoming.

In the 26 years since the release of A Nation at Risk, states have made great strides in increasing the academic rigor of education standards.

Yet, America’s children still remain behind other nations in terms of academic achievement and preparedness to succeed. ( I disagree!!)

By signing the MOA, Governor Corzine and Commissioner Davy join their colleagues across the country in committing to joining a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English language arts and mathematics for grades K-12.
( Interesting how our governors are now heading up education more and more in america. In our cities, it is often the mayors. Certainly a trend moving away from local school boards running their local districts.... a trend i do not like to see )

These standards will be research- and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations, and include rigorous content and skills.
( Same old same old language we have been hearing now for over a decade. When i hear this... i think...oh no.... for it seems "harder is always better to these folks"! )

“As Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said, ‘We have to educate our way to a better economy,’” said Governor Corzine.

“Common standards will give us the opportunity to focus our efforts on ensuring that our students are learning the skills that will be required for success as 21st century global citizens and workers.” ( It really bugs me when i see government think our puvlic education systems purpose is to create workers! Does that bug you? )

The Common Core State Standards Initiative will build directly on recent efforts of leading organizations and states ( SEE- ACHIEVE INC, ) that have focused on developing college- and career-ready standards and will ensure that these standards can be internationally benchmarked to top-performing countries around the world.
( America is falling behind...we are doomed... don't know what kids these guys hang around with...but in my world.... we have some very talented and special kids )

The goal is to have a common core of state standards that states can adopt voluntarily. States can choose to include additional standards beyond the common core as long as the common core represents at least 85 percent of the state’s standards in English language arts and mathematics.

The second phase of this initiative is to ultimately develop common assessments aligned to the core standards developed through the process.
( Of course!!! )

“New Jersey’s graduates no longer are competing for jobs against students from neighboring states; the global economy requires that they be prepared to meet the international standards to which students around the world are being taught,” said Commissioner Davy. “Our participation in the common core standards initiative will help us achieve our goal of preparing all children for college and the workforce.”

The NGA Center and CCSSO will coordinate the process to develop the standards and will create an expert validation committee to provide an independent review of the common core state standards, as well as grade-by-grade standards.

This committee will be composed of nationally and internationally recognized and trusted education experts who are neutral to – and independent of – the process. The college- and career-ready standards are expected to be completed in July 2009. The grade-by-grade standards work is expected to be completed in December 2009. States also will have the opportunity to review the standards throughout the development process.

Well.... what do you think?
By the way.... in my pre-K-12 world i am hearing more and more about colleges and universities.... are they next????

Is this the direction you want to go?

WHO GET'S TO DECIDE????
be well...mike

[Mike]

WHY THE STANDARDS MOVEMENT.... WHY NOW...... WHO BENEFITS...

SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.....

The US Census Bureau reports important changes for the coming years in the population share of Hispanics and Asians, which are set to double to 30% and 9% of the total population before the year 2050. Another important change is the ageing of the population: by 2050 one in five residents will be aged 65 or over, up from one in nine today.

LANI GUINIER is speaking to when she says:

In the testocracy, or what some call “the new meritocracy,” privilege is passed on through a new kind of club: a testing system that allows those with resources to show that they too belong.

They belong because they are able to learn the rules of the test through explicit coaching, private school, or an upper class, resource-rich suburban education.

They then successfully play the testing game to their own advantage. Studies show that within each race and ethnic group, aptitude test scores rise with parental income.

The correlation between aptitude test scores and parental income should not surprise us...

In other words, what the testocracy promotes in the name of “merit” turns out to be based on privilege.

What these studies find is that the testocracy tells us more about a student’s past than his or her future.

It soon became apparent that the test-centered approach to distributing opportunity was not meeting its democratic responsibilities.




According to the statistics, people who regard themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will become the majority by 2042 in the United States. Current projections indicate that by 2050, minorities will account for 54% of the population and non-Hispanic whites will number only 46%, down from their current 66% share.

hmmm......

[Connie Weber]

Fascinating stats. Glad to have you unraveling some of them for us, juxtaposing some meaningful equations of our time.

What you posted here is thought-provoking and troubling:

"LANI GUINIER is speaking to this when she says:

In the testocracy, or what some call “the new meritocracy,” privilege is passed on through a new kind of club: a testing system that allows those with resources to show that they too belong.

They belong because they are able to learn the rules of the test through explicit coaching, private school, or an upper class, resource-rich suburban education.

They then successfully play the testing game to their own advantage. Studies show that within each race and ethnic group, aptitude test scores rise with parental income.

The correlation between aptitude test scores and parental income should not surprise us...

In other words, what the testocracy promotes in the name of “merit” turns out to be based on privilege.

What these studies find is that the testocracy tells us more about a student’s past than his or her future..."

Do you have the LANI GUINIER reference?

____________

Along a similar line, should we get a discussion going about Hope and Despair in America: Why Raleigh Has No Bad Schools? Seems to fit into the conversation.

____________

Bring some people over here from Bridging Differences, when you get a chance, ok?

[Connie Weber]

Mike,

Thanks for this discussion. You are good about keeping us attuned to what's really happening, what's going on behind the scenes that will affect everything we do. You saw this coming, and let us know about it long ago. Well, here it is... now what do we do?


Some comments from your post:
( Interesting how our governors are now heading up education more and more in america. In our cities, it is often the mayors. Certainly a trend moving away from local school boards running their local districts.... a trend i do not like to see )

"The second phase of this initiative is to ultimately develop common assessments aligned to the core standards developed through the process."
( Of course!!! )

Powerful big happenings here. And who would have thought that the key players would be government officials? I'm still astonished by that. What would Deborah Meier have to say about moving away from local school districts being able to manage themselves? How about Diane Ravitch?

I've been enjoying reading your comments on Bridging Differences. Now that is one of the best blogs on education any of us could hope to see. Fascinating to hear the different viewpoints, see what happens with ongoing dialog. You're a big part of the mix over there. Proud to know you...

Here's a quote from Deb Meier's current letter, "The Risks of Democracy." (I'm setting the link to not only the letter, but the letter with comments from readers, yours included.)

"Meantime, I believe we are headed in a dangerous direction by ignoring the risks of a national curriculum—which is really what’s at stake. The lure? Higher test scores, or better educated adults, standardization or standards?"

Yours and Deborah Meier's are questions we MUST be asking.

[Mike]

Hey Connie.... thanks for the follow-up....

It is interesting to me....how few people...even in our field no the direction that we seem to be moving toward.......and quickly!!!

Here is some more from LANI GUINIER.....

It is not fair to rely on test scores to fulfill equal opportunity goals when some people are better prepared to do what is expected because of resources they have inherited from their parents and in most cases their grandparents.

Given the intergenerational nature of this wealth transfer, and its relationship to performance on standardized tests, those who are born to middle or upper middle class white parents are more likely to be included and those with black or poor white parents to be excluded for several generations.

That we have only noticed this relationship now reveals how profoundly we have permitted congealed privilege to continue to exclude many, even in the name of objective deserts.

Thus, the testocracy is doing two things inconsistent with an equal opportunity mandate.

It is “credentializing” those who are already quite privileged; and it is (mis)leading us into accepting the educational inequality in the K-12 system as “normal.”

Confusing inherited privilege with inherited aptitude, it makes an inherited resource a pre-condition for opportunity—leaving out many people of color and poor and working class whites as well—based on the unfair accumulation of resources that some others bring to the test.

Find entire article here:
http://www.minerscanary.org/articles/confirmative%20action.pdf

Again we see an interesting link... are we not in danger of seeing merit in this manner in our K-12 systems?

When i read Lani and others and look at data... i start to see what it is she means::

Look......

SAT 2007 DATA-
2007 COLLEGE BOUND SENIORS AVERAGE SAT SCORES
(Approximately 1.49 million test takers)

ALL TEST-TAKERS 502 (Reading) 515 (Math)

GENDER
Female 502 ( Reading) 499 (Math)
Male 504 (Reading) 533 ( Math)
Black 433 ( Reading) 429 (Math)
Hispanic 459 ( Reading) 463 (Math)
White 527 ( Reading) 534 (Math)


FAMILY INCOME:

$10,000-$20,000- 453 (Reading) 472(Math)
$30,000-$40,000- 476 (Reading) 485 (Math)
$60,000-$70,000- 504 (Reading) 511 (Math)
More than-$100,000- 544(Reading) 556(Math)

The scoring on any tests....SAT...ACT.... highschool exit exams..... K-5 testing...

all will line up like this!!!


This is the "testocracy"!

It is what Lani means when she says: "In the testocracy, or what some call “the new meritocracy,” privilege is passed on through a new kind of club: a testing system that allows those with resources to show that they too belong."


We have already moved heavily in this direction.

Is this where we want to go?

be well... mike

[Mike]

AMERICA IS QUICKLY MOVING IN THE DIRECTION OF NATIONAL STANDARDS AND TESTING!

ANYONE HEARING MUCH ABOUT IT......PROBABLY NOT.....

WONDERING..... THE QUESTION IN DEMOCRACY.... WHO GETS TO DECIDE........

WELL......EXPERTS OF COURSE!!!!



Expert Panels Named in Common-Standards Push
By Michele McNeil and Sean Cavanagh

The two national organizations coordinating a push for common academic standards today named the 29 people who are deciding what math and language arts skills students will need to know and when, along with the 35 people who will formally critique the group’s work.

The list of those who will write the standards is dominated by three organizations: the Washington-based Achieve Inc., which works on college- and career readiness; the New York City-based College Board, which administers the SAT; and ACT Inc., the Iowa City, Iowa-based organization that administers the college-entrance test of that name.


But the 29-member Standards Development Work Group also includes seven other representatives, including two college professors, a retired education consultant, and members from school improvement groups such as the Washington-based America’s Choice.

The CCSSO and NGA also today named 35 members of the feedback groups in math and language arts that will critique the standards work, including experts from the fields of math and language arts who have been critical of the process so far.

The feedback group, which will get its first crack at the standards when early drafts are unveiled this month, is a “Who’s Who” of people in their fields.

Among its members: Michigan State University education professor William H. Schmidt, an expert in international comparisons of education systems; Chester E. Finn Jr., the Thomas B. Fordham Institute president and a prolific education reform advocate; and Carol Jago, the president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of English.

The states have an ambitious time frame, planning to release their first set of high school exit standards—what students should know to prepare them for college or work—for states to review this month. Grade-by-grade standards, which the organizers are also calling “learning progression standards,” are set to be done in December.

Bringing more urgency to the effort is U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s commitment last month to set aside $350 million to help states develop common assessments as a result of the new common standards.

DEMOCRACY ...BY DESIGN.... IS SLOW.....

THIS IS MOVING REALLY FAST.........

AS WE PONDER EDUCATIONAL REFORM THIS IS BEING BUILT RIGHT NOW.....

ONCE BUILT....VERY HARD TO UN-DO........

HERE IS THE WEB SITE....AND THE LIST OF "EXPERTS"........
http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.6c9a8a9ebc6ae07eee28aca...


BE WELL...MIKE

[Laura Gibbs]

Mike, I always learn a lot from your posts on this subject, since it is so different from what I experience at the university level, where there is no attention to standards at all.

It's kind of like from on extreme to the other - in pre-college teaching, it sounds like people are positively choking on standards, with millions and millions of dollars being spent on testing that does not seem to be accomplishing very much at all, while stifling creativity and independence of both students and teachers.

Then at the college level, there's practically no evaluation of instruction at all - each professor is the king/queen of his/her classroom castle, an absolute dictator, for better or worse, who may be a genius or may be totally incompetent, but since there are no standards for the curriculum and no evaluations of the teacher's effectiveness, nobody even knows. Grades are given; students advance through the system... but nothing is monitored at all.

The only kind of evaulation done of instructors is by the students themselves, so you can be sure that carries NO weight with the administration at all. All your scholarship is "peer reviewed" (because scholarship is important)... but teaching is not peer reviewed - it is reviewed by students (because teaching is not important). Student evaluations of teaching do not matter for any actual decision-making that goes on at the university.

I work really hard on my teaching and every semester I try to improve my teaching and change my classes so that I can be a better teacher. It matters a lot to me to get good evaluations back from the students - but nobody, literally nobody, even sees the results of my evaluations. They are computer-generated and come to me in a big manila envelope. I gave a big "YAY!!!!" to celebrate some really good evaluations of my teaching from spring semester (I made some good changes in how I taught my courses)... but I am literally the only person who has seen the results of those evaluations, because nobody at the university wants to know what's actually happening in the classrooms - not the good, not the bad, nothing.

Bizarre, eh? Up to college it's testing testing testing, and all this talk about accountability. I can tell you that STOPS, completely, at the college level, at least in my experience teaching at big state universities. Maybe it is different at smaller schools.

[Mike]

Hi Laura... hope this finds you well!

Yes.... your take sure matches my experience as a student in higher education.

It is one extreme to the other.... but what is being put before us in pre-k-12 has taken
around 20 years to get to this point. The standards movement has been slowly unfolding and
it has now taken off big time toward a push for "voluntary" national standards and of course
shortly to follow....tests.

Although it has not hit your world yet.... my prediction.....its coming!!!
States around me are exploring what they are calling the P-16 alignment.
This really is just the very start...and it reminds me of what took place in
my K-12 world at the start of this train wreck.....

Check it out here: http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.5361c0f4fe6e68d18a27811...

Currently the issue is really coming from your world...who continue to claim how ill prepared the kids are for the college level of work. At every meeting i attend with college folks the issue of remedial instruction prior to starting college level work comes up. ( rarely is in mentioned that colleges are getting kids that 10 years ago never thought of going to school )

There are very few other pathways into the middle class in America anymore. College is quickly becoming what most kids will simply do....

No one is talking about the real issue..... why can't you get a decent job.... defined as one that come with medical coverage....with out going to college???

I think are mistake.... we have made college the "gateway" into our middle class for most kids.

It stops now .... actually...in a weird sense your lucky.... i have seen your work here and its great..... i have not seen an example of standards not distorting creative....teaching.......

hope i am wrong.... mike

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Mike, I agree very much: I think it is CRIMINAL that a high school education is not enough to prepare people to get really good jobs; we have taken 12 years of their lives... and somehow have not managed to make them ready for the world of work? Something very wrong there indeed. It is not right to ask students to spend years more of their lives and thousands of dollars in order just to get ready for a decent job.

I see colleges very much like vampires: they are feeding off the needs of these students to sustain their own growth agendas. My university has been in a very strong "growth mode" for the past ten years, as if bigger were inherently better. Why is that???

What's interesting is that while the colleges want more and more students, they do indeed complain about the remedial students who show up REALLY needing an education. What colleges want are students who are content to pay their money and jump through the hoops, enjoying the social aspects of college (which are very important for most students), without requiring too much effort on the part of the professors, who often have little time for teaching.

I don't think learning outcome standards will ever make real inroads at research universities, like the one where I teach: teaching is simply not a big part of the university's mission. Professors are supposed to spend 40% of their effort on teaching - and of course some people spend even less than that, realizing that there are ZERO external rewards for the effort you put into teaching (the only rewards are intrinsic). Since professors spend, literally, the majority of their time (60% of their time) on research and administration (so-called "university service"), teaching outcomes will never be decision for them in their work.

Admittedly, there are more and more people like me working at the universities, instructors without tenure, not professors, and with no job security. I would actually welcome some kind of system of learning outcome assessment so that I could have some position from which to attain some job security, demonstrating the effectiveness of my work... but since such outcome assessments would probably be viewed as threatening by the professors, I doubt such outcomes will ever be imposed on us non-professors, at least at the research universities. Again, things could evolve quite differently at community colleges, liberal arts schools, etc.