Pondiscio's support for the Core, and the heart of much of his edu-philosophy, boils down to 57 words:
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.
When he says (as he did in the comments section of the above-linked piece) that his support boils down to those 57 words, he's not kidding-- here he is way back in 2012, in front of a not-particularly-core-friendly audience making his case for the Core, based on those 57 words.
So where did those 57 words come from? And what do they have to do with anything? And why are they so rarely referenced as part of anybody's clolege-and-career-standards song and dance?
Those 57 words come from a slightly longer paragraph. Let's look at the whole thing.
To build a foundation for college and career readiness, students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts. Through extensive reading of stories, dramas, poems, and myths from diverse cultures and different time periods, students gain literary and cultural knowledge as well as familiarity with various text structures and elements. 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. Students also acquire the habits of reading independently and closely, which are essential to their future success.
You'll see that context doesn't change the point of Pondiscio's 57 words-- it just strengthens the call for rich content. Where does that come from? Well, from the Common Core, sort of. Right here on the page of CCSS ELA anchor standards, you'll find this graph at the end as "Notes on range and content of student reading."
Did you know that was in there? Don't feel bad. Many folks don't.
I actually agree with Pondiscio on this one, and in fact think the entire paragraph is an important one. So why is it that the vast majority of CACR standards skipped right past it?
First of all, they aren't standards. They're kind of an idea meant (or tacked on) to supplement the standards. And if like most people who just went directly to the list of standards for your grade to see what you were dealing with, you sailed right past the 57 words. They only appear on the anchor standards page; there's no hint of them on the actual standards pages.
That means that if you are using a handy digital software frame for aligning and organizing your lessons like, say, eDoctrina, then the handy pull-down menu that you use to tag your lessons and units with the various standards that you've met-- that pull down menu has only the state standards and no hint of the 57 words.
It's even worse if you're in a state like mine, where officials repudiated the Core Standards and replaced them with pretty much the exact same thing under a different name. If you check through your list of standards, you'll find pretty much the same standards with different tag numbers. But you know what you won't find? "Notes" about how to best approach or reinforce the standards. You won't find the 57 words-- not even in the Big Goals section. (It's only fair to note that I haven't checked every single set of Faux Core Standards-- but I'll be really surprised if any of them include the 57 words).
And in all cases, the Big Standardized Test does not address the 57 words at all.
In fact, the BS Tests runs away from the 57 words. Because the Core itself and the Core tests as well assume that reading is a set of skills that exist in a vacuum, independent of any background knowledge or context, test selections are set up to "level the playing field." How do you level the playing field? By choosing selections for which close-to-zero students have background knowledge. So third graders get test reading selections about Turkish tribal trade practices because nobody will have the unfair advantage of knowing what the hell the selection is talking about (we can also level the playing field by choosing selections that are so uniformly boring that no student will actually be engaged or interested-- because that would be unfair, too).
It's my shortest answer to the question "What's so bad about the common core standardized tests?" What's so wrong is that the very best way to truly prepare my students for the test would be to throw out all the textbooks, all the short stories, all the novels, even all the non-fiction works and do nothing all year except a daily drill of reading one-page excerpts from random sources and answer multiple choice questions about each. That's what's so bad about the common core standardized tests.
The 57 words appear next to the Core standards, but they are not part of the standards, and the vast number of people, from those implementing the standards to those manufacturing tests for the standards-- all those people have ignored the 57 words completely. Those 57 words (and their host paragraph) appear like nothing so much as a compromise that someone included to make somebody happier, but with no mechanism or intent to implement. Like a party platform that the party adopts to make some folks happy, but to which the candidate never, ever refers again.
I have always maintained that the rich content crowd has made a fundamental error in their embrace of the Core, what I call the "Well, surely they don't mean it" fallacy. Your colleague says he's going to punch you in the face and you think, "Well, surely they don't mean it" because you believe that a face punch wouldn't make any sense and so surely your serious-looking determined-sounding colleague doesn't mean it. You keep thinking that right up until you're holding a cold compress on your nose.
The argument that the Core calls for rich content is mostly people saying, "Well, of course it is meant to include rich content, because if it didn't, then it would be stupid."
They have pointed to those 57 words, but there's no sign that anyone anywhere takes those 57 words seriously, and the writers of the standards deliberately did NOT include the requirement for rich content as an actual standard. And the very existence of the paragraph, the 57 words, means that somebody in the room knew what the right thing to do was-- and then they didn't do it. They stuck the paragraph right where it could be easily overlooked, easily ignored, easily dropped. And it has been all those things. Keep that paragraph and we can easily dump the entire rest of the standards. But ignore it, and the Core standards are just as dull and dumb as some of us have always claimed.
Pondiscio's support for the Core, and the heart of much of his edu-philosophy, boils down to 57 words:
ReplyDelete"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 problem with this 57 word statement was that it was built on a false assumption that best practices "within and across grades" would trump the damaging federal policy of tying teacher evaluations to Common Core test scores. Whoever plugged this into the "notes on range of student reading" might as well have included 57 hieroglyphs instead. In the context of the RTTT/NCLB Waiverpalooza, these 57 words became less than an after thought. Rob Pondiscio would have been much better off using his bully pulpit to reject the entire federal extortion package and simply call for implementation of E.D, Hirsch's Core Knowledge curriculum. Opponents argue that CK was too prescriptive, failing to recognize that it was meant to cover only 50% of content knowledge.
Unfortunately these 57 words did much more harm than good when they morphed into one of the lamest pedagogical failures in the history of educational standards. Many school districts thought that they could enrich their ELA curriculum by including the reading of purely random excerpts in history and science in elementary and middle level ELA classes. This was done while simultaneously putting real, properly sequenced science and history classes on the back burner (with the flame turned off).
When the smoke cleared we are now left with the opposite of what Pondiscio hoped that Common Core would bring to the classroom. Instead of enriched curricula that help to improve reading comprehension, we have eliminated much and narrowed the approach to reading and writing. By putting all our efforts into teaching the skill of finding text-based evidence, just about everything else (except bad math standards) was put out on the curb.
<<<So why is it that the vast majority of CACR standards skipped right past it?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, they aren't standards. They're kind of an idea meant (or tacked on) to supplement the standards.
I read it differently. I read it as a pre-condition, e.g., if this isn't in place, you've misinterpreted Common Core. And I've been *tediously* consistent on this point.
I hope the readers of your blog aren't too jaded not to see the opportunity this presents. Want to see a rich, well-rounded education for our children. Then demand that we START with these "57 words." I earnestly hope this could be the source of some common ground.
<<<So why is it that the vast majority of CACR standards skipped right past it?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, they aren't standards. They're kind of an idea meant (or tacked on) to supplement the standards.
I read it differently. I read it as a pre-condition, e.g., if this isn't in place, you've misinterpreted Common Core. And I've been *tediously* consistent on this point.
I hope the readers of your blog aren't too jaded not to see the opportunity this presents. Want to see a rich, well-rounded education for our children. Then demand that we START with these "57 words." I earnestly hope this could be the source of some common ground.
Those 57 words contain some noble sentiments, but pointing to them in favor of Common Core is like pointing to the preamble to the Constitution to argue in favor of closing public schools - see, we're promoting the general welfare. Well, no, what you're actually doing is the exact opposite. If Pondiscio really does like those 57 words so much he should be adamantly against Common Core.
ReplyDeleteHow about we start with those 57 words and then write some standards that actually do those things first & foremost rather than aiming at so many discrete skills.
ReplyDeleteRight now, THIS is what's happening (I hope I got the link right - fussy laptop this morning): https://www.facebook.com/emily.platts.77/posts/10156855540720092?fref=nf
<<< If Pondiscio really does like those 57 words so much he should be adamantly against Common Core.
ReplyDeletePondiscio really likes those 57 words so much. Pondiscio really doesn't like like being told what he should think. I know this is the way of it with blog comments, but would it be ok if we tried reason and persuasion? If you give it half a chance, you might find there's room for a bit of common ground here.
Hey, I'm not telling you what to do. If you want to go on supporting Common Core even though it does exactly the opposite of what you say you want, that's your business.
DeleteThe "exact opposite" of a content-rich (what I want) is no education whatsoever. Honestly, the hyperbole and unthinking dismissals are tedious.
DeleteI don't think that Dienne was giving a command with the conditional statement in question. Rather, I think it was the first premise in an argument that looks like this:
Delete1) If Robert Pondiscio really likes those 57 words, then he is against against Common Core.
2) Robert Pondiscio is not against Common Core.
3) Conclusion by modus tollens: Robert Pondiscio doesn't really like those 57 words.
In other words, I believe she was accusing Mr. Pondiscio of insincerity.
How is "no education" the opposite of "a content-rich education"? Is "no education" the opposite of "a good education"? If someone asked me what the opposite of a good education was, I would say "a bad education." So, the opposite of a content-rich education is a content-poor education. I believe that Dienne thinks that the adoption of Common Core has, for the most part, resulted in content-poor education for many students. That's basically what she wrote.
Delete<<<How about we start with those 57 words and then write some standards that actually do those things first & foremost rather than aiming at so many discrete skills.
ReplyDeleteIt's politically difficult to be that prescriptive about specific content. I've always thought the battle to be won is helping the field understand the intimate relationship between knowledge and literacy. Once we're clear that comprehension--as well as critical thinking, problem solving, communications and other "skills"--are "domain-specific" (how much you know about a subject determines your ability to think critically about it, read with comprehension, etc.) then teachers, schools districts, et. al. will put content at the center of their literacy work and cease fruitless efforts to directly impart these (non) "skills."
(Please note, ed reform skeptics: I'm advocating teachers operating with a better mental model of literacy and cognitive skills. I am NOT advocating a prescriptive (let alone scripted) curriculum. My article of faith is that if teachers are more expert in how these cognitive processes work, they will make better decisions. I *do* think it's imperative to have a comprehensive curriculum framework to avoid gaps and repetitions in core subjects, and access to first-rate materials. But nothing in this suggests and necessitates "standardized teaching."
"how much you know about a subject determines your ability to think critically about it, read with comprehension, etc."
DeleteAh, but here's the thing: that's not all that determines a student's ability to think critically about anything; a student's (and by extension, a class's or grade's) development is part and parcel of this as well. Ask a 3YO what a city is, and you'll get an entirely different answer from that which a 5YO would give you, which in turn will need a good bit of personal growth, experience, and the ability for higher-order thinking to REALLY get to the nitty-gritty of "what is a city?" The way a 6YO looks at numbers - and learns about them, and learns to manipulate them - is FAR different from how upper elementary, or middle school, or high school kids process numbers, but by backward-mapping, Coleman and the Gang went for process without context, and it makes a difference.
I totally agree that teachers operate "with a better mental model of literacy and cognitive skills," but I don't think it's too much to ask that the creators of the standards do the same (not to mention the creators of the vast array of lousy prescriptive curricula out there and the administrators who only have their checklists to follow, but that's another post for another time). Assuming that Littles will be able to do [X] and [Y] and [Z] because bigger kids did them and now we're doing it a different way assumes all manner of Early Childhood pedagogy that is in fact not Best Practice at all.
<<<Coleman and the Gang went for process without context, and it makes a difference.
DeleteI don't agree. They assumed that states have their own content standards in science, social studies and other subjects. ELA standards are by definition process standards. So not only is it too much to ask that Common Core be content-agnostic, it would have been a political non-starter if they had been prescriptive on content in any way.
Ah, I could have been more clear in my "process without context" wording. I wasn't speaking so much about *curricular* context, but about the context of children's neurodevelopment. Specific standards were decided upon without regard to whether any of those expectations were optimal or even reasonable given the neurodevelopment of students in the given grade levels; although the standards for K-3 look perfectly reasonable written out and looked at discretely, I have yet to see a "total package" of delivery that works. I've been told over and over that "it's all in the implementation," but at the same time, there *is* no good implementation for teaching, say, differential equations or technical writing to 6YO's. Some things could/should wait, or they could/should be replaced with more developmentally-appropriate learning (and not even necessarily academic learning) with some standards simply held off until they could be taught more efficiently and effectively.
DeleteA HUGE developmental shift happens around 8YO, which is why Early Childhood stops there; kids are more able to think abstractly beginning around this age, and to process language differently, so that would be a great time to be doing more complex things in both math AND language, while prior to this, children are more hard-wired to learn the "what" than the "why" and "how" (at least the "why" and "how" as adults generally conceive them LOL), and to be learning and internalizing "soft skills" (or SEL non-academic learning or whatever term we want to use), and for getting comfortable in their own bodies (so there should be MUCH more free play time, both large-motor and small-motor). Failure to understand this demarcation is one consistent shortcoming I find in both EduWonk Reformers (few of whom are remotely versed in ECE) and in administrators making curriculum and scheduling decisions (ditto), despite 2/3 of elementary school falling in the Early Childhood range (more like 3/4 in my neighborhood school, with a 3YO Head Start program and pre-K).
So long story short, I had a different "context" in mind. I should have been more clear.
Robert says "ELA standards are by definition process standards." The ultimate problem here is that the are no commonly held definitions, for "ELA" or "standards" or even "process." Even so, this is obviously incorrect. You can put as much content as you want into ELA standards. You could, unlike Common Core, require students to know and be able to name and apply the definitions of important genres and subgenres in literature.
DeleteYou could argue that "literacy" standards are by definition process standards. The conflation of "literacy" and "English Language Arts" is one of the original sins of Common Core, and more or less unique to it.
The problem here is we never get to "compared to what?" Here are the first two standards of the reviled (by some) NCTE standards:
ReplyDelete1. Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
Clearly, these ideas can be given pride of place within standards, and they were not given such in the Common Core. That's a close comparative reading of the texts tells us.