The Ethan Rediske Act: Another Update

Andrea Pratt Rediske is taking a hard-earned weekend break, so this seems like a good time to update folks on where things stand.

Ethan Rediske is the eleven year old boy who was required by the state of Florida to bring a note from his doctor proving he was profoundly disabled and dying before the state would excuse him from The Test. After Ethan's death. his mother Andrea thought it would be a good idea for the state of Florida to pass some legislation so that no other family would be put through such bureaucratic foolishness (the Florida state education head thought it would be a good time to berate parents who wanted to deprive their children of the privilege of taking a state test just because the child might be exceptionally disabled or sick). You can read my previous updates on the story here and here. The most recent update direct from Andrea Rediske is here.

The language of Ethan's Law has been folded into a new larger bill (one which for various reasons is not so popular). Originally it was pretty strong language-- the local superintendent could issue a test waiver for a seriously ill or disabled child. Now THAT language has been "tweaked" so that, according to an aid of Rep. Karen Castor Dentell, there will now be three options:

The first is a one-year exemption which can be approved by the district school superintendent. The second is a one-to-three year exemption coming from the Commissioner’s office, and the final one is a permanent exemption, also to be approved by the Commissioner, and directs the Dep. of Ed. to devise rules to implement.

Senator Andy Gardiner and Senator Kelli Stargell are the powers behind these new amendments, which unnecessarily complicate the new law; ironic that the whole point of the law was to make things easier for parents. There are tons of politics in play here. Having Ethan's name on a bill is not a possibility presently; politicians only like to commemorate victimized children when they didn't do the victimizing, and part of the tricky calculus here is that Florida politicians probably don't want to announce that they previously abused sick kids. Gardiner himself is the father of a child with Downs syndrome, so it would be a mistake to dismiss him as an insensitive jerk who doesn't know what special needs parents go through. But he is also a 44-year-old head of Florida Senate Republicans who just barely survived a coup attempt last December, so he has some political angles to work.

The bottom line is that these Florida politicians need to hear from people about the need to reduce the testing burden on parents of extraordinarily sick and disabled children. Here's Andrea's request:

There are a lot of ugly politics at play here, but we don't have to stoop to their level.  Please be civil when contacting these individuals -- we need to help them understand what a tremendous burden it is to care for a severely disabled and medically fragile child and ask them to make one small part of this burden lighter.  Please feel free to forward this information to family and friends who might be willing to help.

In the twitterverse and in blogsylvania, things move quickly and that, combined with the American tendency toward short attention spans, can make us forget that most of these battles are marathons, not sprints. Ethan Rediske and his family represent a real example of how just senseless this testing juggernaut has become. Florida needs to pass a law, and it needs to be the right law. Please don't forget, and do please pass the word.

Contact information:

Senator Andy Gardiner

20 Senate Office Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL   32399-1100

Phone: (850) 487-5013

gardiner.andy.web@flsenate.gov

Senator Kelli Stargel

324 Senate Office Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL   32399-1100

Phone: (850) 487-5015

stargel.kelli.web@flsenate.gov

Dear WaPo: Opt Out Is NOT the Wrong Answer

Why? Just.... why??

When the media need somebody to comment on modern surgical techniques, editors do not bark out, "Find me a surgeon with a super-high mortality rate who left the profession in disgrace!" ESPN bosses do not holler, "Find me a failed t-ball coach to do commentary for pro football!" And yet, time and again, media outlets call on the queen of mediocre mouth-taping TFA classroom temping, the sultaness of testing shenanigans, a woman who has never done anything successfully in education (except make money), she-who-must-not-be-named, to provide expert commentary on the education issues of the day.

Today it was the Washington Post providing column inches so that she could tell us that Opting Out of Standardized Tests is the Wrong Answer. Regular readers know that I am drawn to this kind of towering pile of wrong like a fly to poop, and yet I am sworn not to give That Woman more bandwidth. So as a compromise with my principles, I will attempt to deconstruct today's exercise in columnar ridiculousness without giving her a name check. Boy, that'll show her.

Let's start with false analogies, shall we:

No, tests are not fun — but they’re necessary. Stepping on the bathroom scale can be nerve-racking, but it tells us if that exercise routine is working. Going to the dentist for a checkup every six months might be unpleasant, but it lets us know if there are cavities to address. In education, tests provide an objective measurement of how students are progressing — information that’s critical to improving public schools.

Except that the current crop of Standardized Tests are not like stepping on a scale or going to the dentist. They are like trying to find out a child's weight by waterboarding him. They are like having your teeth checked by a blind blacksmith. Because, in education, tests NEVER provide an objective measure of anything, because tests are made by people. Yes, tests are useful-- but only good tests. And do you know what good tests are useful for? They are useful for providing information critical to helping further the education of students.

I am not a Systems True Devotee. STDs believe that we just have to create a well-oiled precision machine and it will spit out Smarterer Student Products like toasters off an assembly line. I would stop to further develop the point, but we're only one paragraph in. These woods are dark and deep, but we have miles to go.

From this diving board, That Woman proceeds to register her stunned amazement that in various places, there's a movement that is convincing parents to pull kids out of these tests! Really!!! These marvelous tests that will tell us how schools are doing!! What in the name of God are they thinking!?!?!!?

This makes no sense. All parents want to know how their children are progressing and how good the teachers are in the classroom. Good educators also want an assessment of how well they are serving students, because they want kids to have the skills and knowledge to succeed.

Allow to help you comprehend this, O She. You are correct that parents and educators do want to know these things. Your mistake is in believing that they can only know this by looking at standardized test results.

Yes, the Great and Powerful Woman Who No Longer Has a Curtain To Hide Behind imagines a world where parents sit at home after eight months of school, wringing their hands and saying, "Oh, jehosephat, I wish we knew how Janey was doing in school. But we have no idea." Meanwhile, at school, teachers sit and the lounge and say, "Yeah, I've been with this kid for eight months but I just don't know how he's doing. Thank God we're going to be giving a high stakes high pressure badly written unproven standardized test soon so that I'll know how it's going."

In That Woman's universe, parents and teachers (sorry-- public school parents and teachers) are dumber than dirt. In fact, the list of People Standing in the Way of Educational Excellence gets longer and longer. Parents, teachers, democratically elected school boards-- reformy fans have an enemies list that keeps lengthening.

What’s next: Shut down the county health department because we don’t care whether restaurants are clean? Defund the water-quality office because we don’t want to know if what’s streaming out of our kitchen faucets is safe to drink?

This is She Who Shall Not Be Silenced's specialty-- the argument to refute things that nobody actually said. A direct rebuttal to her would be simply to point out that, no, nobody has suggested either of those things. A counter-thrust of equal sarcastic weight would be, "No, what's next should be couples who take a standardized test to find out if they're in love, or people standing in the rain waiting for the government to tell them whether they're wet or not."

She would also like you to know that these students of today will be competing with Indians and Chinese for the sweatshop jobs of tomorrow. Also, we are getting beat on taking standardized tests, and everyone knows that world supremacy depends on standardized test results. Everyone remembers when Hitler gave up WWII in shame when his SAT scores were revealed to be far below Roosevelt's.

Why do people do this crazy opt-out thing? She gets the concern about over-testing:

My daughter came home from public school one day and said class was a breeze now that “the test” was over. And I thought, “Geez, what are we communicating to our kids if they think the test is the most important thing — and once it’s over, learning ends?”

My cynical side wonders if "one day" is the exact number of days that Her child came home from a public school, but okay, maybe not. She agrees that over-test-happy schools must be reined in, but a new study by Teacher Plus (one more of these hydra-headed pro-reformy groups), testing takes up a minuscule amount of time. Also, getting punched in the face takes up a split second of a twenty-four hour day, so it should not bother you if someone does it.

She Who Must Be Paid observes that your child's grades might not show how she's doing compared to the world, because your child's grades come from incompetent lazy liars.

And now She admits that standardized tests really only provide one small data picture that does not tell the whole story. Can you guess what her absolutely awesome solution is?

We don’t need to opt out of standardized tests; we need better and more rigorous standardized tests in public schools. 

Yes!! When you're doing something stupid and bad and non-productive, do it More Harder!!

We also shouldn’t accept the false argument that testing restricts educators too much, stifles innovation in the classroom or takes the joy out of teaching. That line of thought assumes that the test is the be-all and end-all — and if that’s the perspective, the joy is already long gone. 

Here's a multiple choice test for you, dear, exhausted reader. Select which statement best reflects the meaning of the above excerpt:

1) Do not assume that the test is the be-all and end-all. It will just be-all the way we decide to end-all teaching careers, school existence, and student futures.

2) You cannot claim that this year's testing is sucking up all the joy of teaching, because we actually drained that lake long ago and killed the fish flopping in the mud with fire and big pointy sticks.

The most valuable teachers are those who impart knowledge, not just information, and do so in a way that engages students and makes school interesting.

I wouldn't have stopped for this sentence except for that last bit-- "makes school interesting." Do you know why I don't have a plan for making water wet? Because it's intrinsically wet! Anyone who thinks you have to MAKE learning interesting doesn't get it. Do you know why I teach stuff with energy and excitement and perhaps a certain freakish intensity-- because the stuff I teach IS interesting. Really interesting. I don't have to make it that way. Just saying. Let's move on.

She Who Shall Not Be Named then moves on to the newest Testing Flavor of the Month, Justification #1428B for Why We Give Tests. Not to evaluate students! No, not at all. We give tests to evaluate schools, to make sure the taxpayers are getting their money's worth. Because, like parents and teachers, taxpayers are brainless slugs who know nothing unless the gummint tells them.

“Okay,” the opt-out crowd replies, “what about kids who are stressed out and suffering from anxiety because of standardized tests?” You know what? Life can be stressful; it can be challenging. The alternative is to hand out trophies just for participating, give out straight A’s for fear of damaging a kid’s ego — and continue to fall further and further behind as a country. I reject that mind-set.

No. No, no, no. Those are NOT the only alternatives. Our two choices are not A) punch kids in the face and tell them to suck it up or B) give them ponies and never let them be sad ever. And no, a refusal to choose A does not mean we fall further and further behind in international test-taking supremacy. I am GLAD that you "reject that mind-set," if by "that mind-set" you mean "a mind-set that only believes in two equally stupid possible choices." My God in Heaven, woman-- if somebody gives you a puppy do you look at it and say, "Well, only two choices here. Either I can tie it to the bumper and make it drag along behind the car, or I can feed it caviar and let it sleep on my bed while I go stay on the couch." (See? I can build big fat straw men, too)

How about-- and I'm just talking crazy here-- but how about we give our students reasonable and useful challenges and then we work side by side with them to help them succeed? How about we hire a whole bunch of trained and experienced professionals to personally oversee young peoples' intellectual development and then give them the tools, trust and autonomy to do that job well? We could skip both the part where we subject children to pointless, unproductive, stressful wastes of time that generate next-to-zero useful data (but lots of useful profits) and the part where we raise children in a bubble. We could, I don't know, put the needs of the students first!

She Who Must Be Paid wraps it up:

Rather than encouraging parents to opt out of testing, it would be much more productive for the leaders of this distracting movement to help improve the assessments. Make the exams more rigorous and more reflective of student learning. Ultimately, students and educators need test data — opting out does a disservice to both. And it risks endangering the progress that all of our children need. 

So, what? Tell the children, "Just go in there and get punched in the face, because next year it won't be so bad"? Oh, and stop using that word "rigorous"-- I do not think it means what you think it means. Opting out doesn't endanger a damn thing, and ultimately nobody anywhere at all on God's green earth needs the kind of useless invalid squeezed out of children under stress and duress faux data that these tests are generating.

Damn. All this space wasted and once again, She Who Must Not Be Named doesn't get much of anything right. And she gets space in the Washington Freaking Post while millions of teachers who know better are still trying to get someone to listen to them. What a world, what a world. I'm nobody; just a classroom teacher. Nobody is paying me to write this, and nobody is going to pay me to go speak about education somewhere (and they wouldn't have to do either), but somehow She Who Is The Kim Kardashian of Ed Reform gets a big platform to spew a bunch of Wrong into the universe. I'm no education thought leader or great writer, but I still know education better than to write something so ridiculous.

Bush, FEE, The Chamber & How Not To Tweet

Have corporations learned how to make social media work for them yet? Well......

Last week we noted that Jeb Bush's FEE (Foundation for Excellence in Education) and the Higher States Standards Partnership (a group funded by the US Chamber of Commerce and a few others well explained here by Erin Osborne) were launching a shiny new Common Core promotional blitz. (And by "shiny" I mean "shiny in the same way that artificial turf is shiny.")

And somebody in the launching team apparently said, "Hey, let us use some of the social media that I hear is very hip these days. The social media with the viral things-- we should use some of that, because I hear it is big with the young persons. (Also, with the rap music.)"

To anchor this blitz-ish like sort-of onslaught, the marketing team deployed four teachers as the face of "Learn More. Go Further." The four include a Florida DOE teacher ambassador (and previous virtual school instructor), two charter school teachers, and a pubic school reading specialist recently promoted to assistant principal. Beyond the obvious non-public-school slant, there's the more subtle slant involved in choosing four ladies; no secondary man teachers. The designers of the program did select one apparently-Latina lady; the other three are looking mighty white. I'm not suggesting any of these choices reveal nefarious purposes, but given that they had to be deliberate marketing choices, I find them.... interesting.

More puzzling is the fact that the four ladies resemble each other pretty closely in physical type. Some people have made observations about the type, and I want to be clear that using a woman's body type as a basis for criticizing her is just unacceptable uber-jerk behavior, and those people need to either grow up or shut up. But regardless of what configuration we're talking about, these four women look very much the same. I'm reduced to telling them apart by hair style. If four women look like each other, I don't see that as a sign of dark conspiracy-- but this is somebody's deliberate choice, and the messaging was supposed to be, "Look-- a wide variety of teachers support Common Core," then somebody failed.

At any rate. LMGF has set these four up with their own twitter accounts, because, you know, the social media. I've been following their progress. Let's see how they're doing.

@USTeacherFaye first tweeted in March 15. She has 33 tweets as I type this and each one is a promotional comment. Here's a typical tweet:

My passion for kids is what inspired me to be a teacher. My passion for their success is why I support Common Core: http://bit.ly/1fMIS5g

I can call this "typical" because she has actually tweeted it twice. Ditto for "Students face so many challenges. Academic standards shouldn't be one of them. Support Common Core." She usually tweets once or twice a day, but not on weekends. She has three re-tweets (two from LMGF and one from a Tom Greene at AEI). She has not once tweeted at anyone else, and she has not responded to any of the tweets directed at her, which seem to cover a wide range of Core-related crankiness.

@USTeacherRian lists herself as a government and economics teacher. Her first tweet is also March 15. She has 36 tweets and two retweets (one from LMGF and one from USTeacherFaye inviting people to follow the four spokesladies). She is also a one-or-two-a-weekday tweetress, but she was feeling feisty on April 2nd and responded to two critical tweets (CCSS is not a curriculum, y'all).

@USTeacherBeth is "excited to help more students go further to college and great careers." 33 tweets since March 15. I'll confess that I love Teacher Beth best of all. For one thing, she actually took a break from posting advertising copy with links to throw in an Emerson quote (“The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.”). For another, she has a whopping five posts in reply to others, and one of them is to me. I'd tweeted a variety of more substantive challenges to the ladies and was becoming sad at the lack of response, so I tweeted to all four that I was beginning to suspect that they were bots, or paid interns. Awesomely, Teacher Beth tweeted me the following reply:

"Neither."

So now I have a huge twitcrush on her and her minimalist post-modern sniptweeting.

@USTeacherAngela is the group slacker. With a mere 20 tweets, I think we can agree she's just not trying very hard. No tweets addressed to anyone, no responses to her critics. Come on, Teacher Angela. Step up your game.

Now, I said I'd get back to the ladies' critics, because I think there's important information to be gleaned there.

See, these four accounts are being promoted, as is the initiative and the ads that go with it. If like me you visit some of these materials, you'll start seeing links for LMGF fill your browser ad spaces, and the four ladies will be appearing regularly as promoted twitter feeds. Online marketing allows very carefully directed marketing-- so can we guess at whom FEE and HSSP are aiming themselves?

There are two types of criticism aimed at the ladies. One is from teachers; in many cases, specifically BATS. I suspect that has something to do with some posting I did on the BATs facebook page. But listen to some of the other posts:

"You are communist dupes" (seriously-- I'm not making this up)

"Fell [sic] free to be interviewed by someone like @GerriWillisFBN from @FoxBusiness otherwise this is just propaganda."

"#CommonCore is more engaging & focuses on the Gov. Master. That's why progressives and unions support it."

So, boys and girls, using our context clues, which audience seems to have been the recipient of LMGF's media attention? If you're guessing "conservatives," I'm with you. The freshly scrubbed friendly (mostly) white ladies (who are US teachers!) and an American flag-quoting logo are beginning to suggest to me that Learn More. Go Further is not really concerned with selling CCSS to everybody, but is mostly about trying, again, to get conservatives on board with the Core. After a close reading of the four twitter accounts, I'm concluding two things:

1) The folks behind this think that once you set up a twitter account and pay to promote it, buzz just sport of magically appears, even if you don't really do anything with it or engage anybody.

2) Jeb Bush is really worried that hard right conservatives will kneecap his White House dreams if he doesn't somehow get them to drink the CCSS Koolaid.

Judging from much of what the conservative press are writing (like this recent Michelle Malkin piece), these four ladies and the massive well-funded media machine they are stapled to the front of-- well, they've all got their work cut out for them.

[Update: The folks at Integrity in Education directed my attention to the fact that the women have EIGHT accounts-- each has one as a USTeacher and one as FLTeacher. Not a surprise as many aspects of the initiative still have FL pieces stuck from when this Florida specific program was scaled up to national level.

The FLTeacher accounts are pretty much the same story-- same time frame, same style of tweets, though a bit more chatty tone. Oddest difference-- the FL accounts give the ladies last names.

So my apologies for missing that part of the story. I'll do better faux journalism in the future.]

Five Ways the USDOE Is Full of Baloney

The US Dept of Education blog, Homeroom, recently published a piece by Sara Gast (Director of Strategic Communications at USDOE) entitled "Five Ways Race to the Top Supports Teachers and Students." I keep checking posts like this to see how the administration's level of connection to Planet Earth is doing these days. Let's just see.

Ms. Gast is pretty excited. In the four years since RttT launched, it has "helped spark a wave of reform across the country." Furthermore, "the innovations unleashed by Race to the Top are touching nearly half the nation’s students and 1.5 million teachers in schools across the country." Unfortunately this just reminds me that there is a distinction between good touch and bad touch.

But the intro is always puffery; that's fair. Let's see what those five benefits from RttR could be.


1. Race to the Top Has Provided More Students with Access to Challenging Classes

As an example, Gast notes that Massachusetts has added AP classes, and students have taken them. I know for a first hand, see-it-on-the-ground fact that PA is adding AP courses all over the place. I don't know about MA, but in PA we're being "encouraged" to add AP courses by the new evaluation system.

In this system, every school gets a score, and every person who works in the building gets part of their personal evaluation score from the building score. And one of the ways to raise your building score is by adding AP courses. Whether that improves education at a school or not is arguable, but it's certainly worth noting that the AP courses and tests are not provided as a public service, but are a product sold by the College Board folks. So PA's evaluation system does in fact penalize schools and employees for not buying enough of this particular service.

It's a genius deal for the College Board folks, on a par with having a state say, "This school and its employees will be scored higher if their school buses are all built by GM." The head of the now-more-profitable College Board company? That would be David Coleman, one of the architects of the Common Core Standards.

However, I cannot fault Ms. Gast's first statement. I rule this one

Firmly anchored to the ground


2. Race to the Top Has Supported Hard-working Educators in New Ways

Well, that's sufficiently vague. Ms. Gast offers elaborations here

* In Rhode Island, 440 young teachers took part in a new teacher induction program.

* In Delaware, a new program offers retention awards-- two years of performance bonuses given to highly effective (DOE-speak for high-test-score-producing) teachers who agree to stay put.

Teacher induction programs and merit pay are not new ideas

Floating above the earth, kind of like that house in Up, only there's no dog hiding under the porch because he loves you


3. Race to the Top Has Provided More STEM Opportunities to Students

Maryland and Florida used their grant money to translate STEM units into other languages and to recruit rural students for STEM programs.

I'll give it to you, because "more" is a sufficiently weaselly word


4. Race to the Top is Helping Educators Transition to New Standards

"With the help of Race to the Top, Ohio expanded alternative certification pathways for teachers and principals; developed 800 curriculum resources aligned to higher standards; and trained 24,000 teachers to use those resources. And in an ambitious and comprehensive effort, Tennessee provided 30,000 teachers with intensive summer training as part of its transition to the Common Core State Standards—more rigorous academic standards in English language arts and mathematics. "

Seriously? First, "alternative certification pathways for teachers and principals" is the opposite of support for teachers. I look forward to "supporting" the CCSS by ignoring them and using other standards entirely. Likewise, state-developed curriculum -- aren't we supposed to be pretending that RttR does NOT undercut local control. When the state is writing my curriculum materials, that is the opposite of my having control.

Tennessee has been leading in the teacher-peer training in a voluntary (aka unpaid) week of summer coreness. So that's fine, I guess, except for one thing--

This is RttT giving itself credit for helping to train some teachers a little for the new standards that it imposed in the first place! Praising RttT for this is like Belle falling in love with the Beast because he let her eat and get out of her cell! This is like the government saying, "Everybody must go to work in a building on the other side of the state, and everybody must get there on their own-- except we'll drive 5% of you over. Aren't we great guys for giving rides to the 5%??"

No, no you're not. The administration is proud of itself for replacing the unfunded mandates of NCLB with the barely-funded mandates of RttT.

Orbitting the moon



5. Race to the Top is Supporting States in Turning Around Lowest-Performing Schools

No, mostly RttT is supporting the gutting of schools and turning them over to charter operators. We used to call this approach untried and risky. Now we've been doing it long enough to call it an oft-attempted failure. New Orleans even provided the opportunity to test it on a grand scale, thanks to Katrina (aka "the best thing that happened").

From the reconstructed charter system of New Orleans to the state-commandeered schools of Philly and Newark, charter fans have yet to produce anything that looks much like success. All we know about turning around the lowest-performing schools is that the state and federal government, along with their bosom buddies in the charter business, don't have a clue about how to turn those schools around.

Somewhere out beyond Andromeda


When I read pieces like this (and it seems like I read many of them), it makes me think that it must just be exhausting to work at the DOE. Just spinning and spinning all day, like one of those clown acts with all the balancing spinning plates, only these plates are cracked and chipped and laden with baloney. Ms. Gast's photo shows her as fresh and scrubbed and like she just graduated from Strategic Communications School; I hope this job doesn't take too much out of her.

Keeping up Appearances

The one thing we Americans like better than solving problems is to look like we're solving problems.

Take, for example, our desire for air traffic safety. After 9/11, we had a national rational urge to beef up security, to do something so that we would never experience such a terrible assault on our nation again. But because every national security issue is also a political issue, we had to consider options that would do something about the problem, and we had to consider options that would make it look like we were doing something about the problem.

And so, we invented TSA. Expert after expert declares that TSA is "just a show." It's kabuki theater to make the public feel that we're covered. But we passed up models like the Israeli airport security model which, not unsurprisingly, actually works (when it comes to dealing with people who want to blow you up, shoot you, and generally hurt you, the Israelis are nothing if not experienced). Instead of the most effective security in the world, we get minimum wage workers in uniform bringing us the biggest legislative placebo effect ever.

If you have a little federal-related paranoia, TSA also further acclimates us to having Big Brother watching us and guarding us and making us ask permission to walk over there, please.

We want to look like we're solving problems, whether we're doing any good or not. Balancing the budget is hard; taking symbolic actions is easier. Fixing the medical system is hard; looking like we're fixing it is easier. Losing weight is hard; taking a pill or a program that makes it look like we're trying to lose weight is easier. Just don't ask, ever, whether the "solutions" are really solving anything.

In my neck of the woods, schools and community folks still love the DARE program, despite the fact that it has been shown repeatedly to have no effect at all on student drug use (well, except for the places where there is a correlation with INCREASED drug use). It's a program that makes it look like we're doing something, so hurray!

Common Core State Standards are a very American solution, and they've been met with a very American respnse.

Because the one thing we rarely say is, "Well, that looks pretty. But does it actually do any good?" Mostly we shrug and accept that our trip to Omaha now includes an extra six hours of time spent being searched and stood in line and treated like we might have explosive bomb juice stashed in our underpants.

Here, folks-- we're going to implement these standards that, we swear, are going to make schools stronger and better. Here, Americans. Take this test.

People have been slow to look at these education "fixes" and ask, "Well, that looks pretty. But does it actually do any good?" It is one of the great frustrations of Fighters in the Education Resistance-- if people would just ask a few simple questions:
               * Does it work?
               * How do you know?
Those questions alone would be sufficient to sink the high stakes test-driven corporate status quo.

But people keep not asking. And in the meantime there are flurries of activities and increasing numbers of glossy ads and slick tv spots and lots of Very Important People are acting as if these things work, so it certainly looks as if Very Effective Things are being done to fix Every Education Problem Ever. From the ignoring of teachers to the launching of important sounding acronyms, the reform wave makes sense if you assume that the Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools were trying to come up with something that looks like it will fix education. (This appearances trick also works when you want to look like you're getting rid of CCSS.)

And if you look like you're fixing education, it helps to keep you from looking like you're up to anything else, like looting public education.

Mythbusting the US Chamber

The US Chamber of Commerce is all in on the push for Common Core, and they throwing money at the push for the Core with unbridled enthusiasm. They have created an entire website (well, paid somebody to create, anyway) devoted to their devotion to CCSS. It has many nifty features, including links to some fine video production, but today we're visiting the tab labeled "Myths vs. Facts" because it offers the highest concentration of baloney-per-byte of any other portion of the site.

Myths vs. Facts is set up as a fun quiz, where they present a statement and then we have to decide whether it's a myth or a fact. So we'll look at their mythbusting, and then do our own mythbusting on their mythbusting. Buckle up, because there are many myths to bust.


The Common Core State Standards are owned by private entities which cannot be influenced by the public.

Myth: "The Common Core Standards are owned by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. These groups are both made up of state officials who are accountable to the public." Sort of. The NGA and CCSSO both employ staffs to do the heavy lifting. Otherwise we're talking state governors and top school officials from the states, which is a mixed bag as far as "accountable to voters" is concerned.
Plausible-ish

The federal government will take over ownership of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Myth: The federal government won't do that. The NGA and CCSSO are committed to developing a long-term governance structure.
Which is a pretty thought. Personally, I'm committed to developing more hair on my head. Don't know if I'll ever get around to it.
Busted

The Common Core State Standards were developed by the federal government.
Myth: "These new standards were not Washington's idea and the federal government was not involved in their development." They were totally commissioned by NGA and CCSSO.
I smell flop sweat. See, it should be enough to use the regular weasel-word talking point about the states leading through the oft-cited NGA/CCSSO. But here they had to reach for the big lie that DC had nothing to do with it.
"Look what we did," said the NGA/CCSSO, presenting the standards on stone tablets.
"Woah!" exclaimed the feds. "That is amazingly awesome. I had no idea you guys were up to any such thing. We are totes surprised!"
No, nobody anywhere believes that one.
Busted

The CCSS expose students' private data to the federal government.
Myth: "Data collection is at the state level, based on laws having nothing to do with the Common Core. Implementation of the Common Core does not change current practices."
That, my friends, is some first class baloney. Technically correct, just as it's technically correct that Stalin did not personally kill millions of Russians, this doesn't do a thing to deny the essential truth of this "myth." It just skips over "and sells that data to corporations" or "as they've wanted to do for twenty years."
Busted


The presence of CCSS will result in less innovation in state and local curricula.
Myth: "Because the standards are more focused than previous state standards, teachers and localities actually have more flexibility to be creative and responsive to community priorities and individual students."
Also a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves. I mean, that one doesn't even make sense. By clamping the athletes' ankles together, we will allow them to run faster.
Busted

The CCSS are a national curriculum.
Myth: Oh, you can already write this one yourself. Same old baloney-- the states and local districts and teachers are free as birds in the sky.
Presuming those birds have been wrapped up in binding twine and shot out of a cannon. It makes me sad to think that, this far into implementation, there are people who believe that this is true. I wash my hands of them. I would rather do something more productive, like convince the Flat Earth Society that we live on a globe.
Busted, repeatedly.

The CCSS don't have enough emphasis on fiction/literature.
Myth: Okay, they completely fumble here. This is actually a win for CCSS fans; CCSS calls for certain percentages for fiction/informational through the whole program, not just the English class. But instead the Chamber goes with some waffly business about how they're keeping important American documents and stuff by that Shakespeare fella. Oh, and local control!
Draw

Many states only adopted Common Core Standards to qualify for new grants being offered by the federal government.
Myth:"States across the country adopted CCSS because they recognized the clear need to improve their education systems and better prepare America's students for college." Now they're just making shit up. This malarkey is followed up with the claim that CCSS only made up 8% on the RttR Final Exam anyway. And for some reason, people on both side of the issue like to gloss over the NCLB piece of this. Non-race states still needed a waiver because right now every state in the union is in violation of the No Child Left Behind laws. "Many states adopted CCSS because there was a gun to their heads" is also not a myth.
Busted, and also busted

Private schools, religious schools, and homeschooling will be required to follow Common Core Standards.
Myth: "As they have in the past, private, faith-based, and home schools will continue to have flexibility on how and what they teach, as long as it comports with state guidelines." Perhaps this is a software glitch, because this seems to be the answer to some other question.
Did not respond to prompt

There was only one math content expert involved in reviewing the Common Core Standards, and he withheld his approval for the standards.
Myth: There were eight, and six approved it. 75% is passing, right? Also, seventy experts were on the team. They missed an important lesson here; it's easier to bust myths that are made out of straw.
A Win

Common Core Standards do little more than prepare students for entry-level and low-level jobs.
Myth: "According to a 2011 ACT study, just one in four American students who graduate high school are ready for college. Only 52% of graduates were prepared for college level reading courses, 45% were ready for college level math courses. In fact, only about half of students entering college finish any degree within 6 years." Yes,the only possible explanation for any of those (suspect) statistics is high school education. Oh no, wait--Here's the link to my other explanations.
Busted

The Common Core State Standards are internationally benchmarked.
Oooh! Fact!! "International benchmarking played a significant role in both sets of standards." Specifically, the part of something that people talked about as necessary marketing. Not, unfortunately, the part of a real thing that actually happened. But hey-- have you seen that big appendix at the end of the Standards? That totally proves that benchmarking occurs, just like the works cited page in a freshman English college paper proves the student really read all those sources.
Not Actually a Fact


The Common Core State Standards are not research or evidence based.
Myth:"The standards have made careful use of a large and growing body of evidence. The evidence base includes scholarly research; surveys on what skills are required of students entering college and workforce training programs; assessment data identifying college‐ and career‐ready performance; and comparisons to standards from high‐performing states and nations." There you have it. Evidence! Surveys! Comparisons to the state standards which-- wait-- what? How did we compare them if they weren't written yet? I think somebody confused their market research with other research.
Busted

The Common Core dictates the process for evaluating teachers.
Myth: "Only states decide how to evaluate teacher, principals, and other educators." Fair enough. The Standards themselves say nothing about evaluating teachers. Those instructions came crazy-glued onto the standards when they arrived from the feds. But the states can use any method they want, as long as it's approved by the feds. And Henry Ford offered the Model T in any color, as long as it was black.
Confirmed

The Common Core State Standards tell teachers what to teach.
Myth: "The best understanding of what works in the classroom comes from the teachers who are in them." That's why the CCSS were developed in close consultation with--oh, no, wait. Never mind. Anyway, we won't tell teachers how to teach. We've hired Pearson to do that. 
Busted

Teachers were involved in writing the Common Core State Standards.
Fact! Once again, the Chamber overreaches. They could have gone with the usual waffle-wording that says teachers were "involved" because many got to see and make comments on the finished product. But the Chamber goes in whole hog: " The drafting process relied on teachers from across the country." "Relied"!! But in for a penny's worth of baloney, in for a pound. Lots of experts came together "to create the most thoughtful and transparent process of standard setting." Yes, those secret meeting with non-disclosure agreements to be signed by each participant, and involving no public comment or input-- that's the model for a thoughtful and transparent process. Maybe the theory was that since the non-participation of teachers has been so thoroughly documented, they needed to go with a Big Lie here.
Busted with fire into a million pieces

I hope you appreciate this busting, because this is the closest I've ever come to doing actual work on this blog. The myths are on a random rotation (like those amazing facts on Mental Floss) and I had to look at some of these a zillion times to get to the rest. For all I know there are still some like "The CCSS were found among the bullrushes in a wicker boat" or "The CCSS will make all students tall, slender and attractive." But I couldn't go on.

The US Chamber's devotion to the core is inspirational, but it's worth paying attention to because while these are the folks who believe you can't fix education by throwing money at it, they apparently are all too willing to fix education reform by throwing money at advertising about it.  
 

Five Myths About Tenure and FILO

There's plenty of discussion and argument to be had in the debate about doing away with tenure and FILO. But here are five points that don't need to be brought up any more, ever, because they are bunk.

1. Teachers want to protect bad teachers.

The prevailing myth is that when a bad teacher hits a school, other teachers circle the wagons and do their best to protect that lousy teacher from any consequences.

But when Mr. Dimbulb McSucksalot moves into the classroom next door, you know who suffers 2nd most (right behind the students)? I do. I have to put up with his out-of-control hubub. I have to listen to "Why are you making us work today? Mr. McSucksalot gave his kids a study hall!" Next year, I'll be the one who has to teach his former students when they arrive in my classroom a full year behind. And I'm the one out in the community having my professional standing smeared because Mr.McSucksalot drags down the reputation of all teachers at my school.

You think I don't want him to shape up? Think again. I curse my administrators for hiring him, I curse them for keeping him, and I curse them for letting him do a crappy job without remediation or discipline. Fix him or fire him, help him or counsel him out-- I guarantee you that Mr. Sucksalot's colleagues would love to see somebody deal with the issue.

2. Tenure Guarantees a Job for Life

A zombie argument that won't die no matter how many times it is shot in the head. Tenure guarantees due process. Tenure guarantees that districts can only fire teachers for some good reason. That is it.

Teachers are fired for incompetence all the time. Heck, teachers still get fired for moral turpitude. Here's a coach/teacher who was fired for a photo showing her fiance touching her clothed breast. Here's a teacher who was fired for posting photos from her European vacation that show her holding alcohol. Tenure does not prevent the firing of teachers. Period.

3. Administrators Hands Are Tied

We are frequently led to believe that schools are filled with administrators who would love to get rid of Mr. McSucksalot, but gosh, union rules just keep them from doing so. Baloney.

It is true that in some huge urban districts, officials have allowed the growth of byzantine rules and regulations for firing teachers, but they still have room to move (and with public pressure on their side, they could de-byzantine themselves as well).

The vast majority of districts have no such complicated issues. In most districts, administrators like to say, "My hands are tied" because it's so much more palatable than saying, "I could, but it would be a lot like work and I don't wanna" or "I hired this guy and I'd rather not publicly admit that I blew it."  Or even "Do you have any idea how much work it would be to fill that position?" And they definitely don't want to say, "Turns out some of our teachers aren't very good."

The problem with administrators' hands is not that they are tied; it's that the administrators are sitting on them. Behind every bad teacher who still has a job is an administrator who isn't doing his.

4. Young Teachers Are Being Shut Out of the Profession

Current numbers are hard to find for this issue, but here's what we know.

Something like 50% of all new teachers leave the profession within five years (and only a few leave to become investment bankers of education thought leaders). And between 1988 and 2008 the mode of teacher years of experience shifted from 14 to 1. In other words (if you don't speak statistics), in 1988, it was most likely a child would have a teacher with fourteen years of experience; in 2008, it was most likely a child's teacher would have one year of experience.


It is true that in recent years states have been shedding jobs like my dog sheds hair (that's "a lot," for those of you who don't know my dog). But it is also true that enrollment in college education programs has been dropping; my local sampling finds a decline of around 50% over those years. Young people aren't just leaving the profession; they're avoiding it in the first place.

The anti-tenure, anti-FILO narrative is that our schools are glutted with old, worn-out teachers who need to step aside for young, quality teachers. But in fact we don't have a glut of crusty old teachers; we have a glut of shiny new ones.

5. Teachers Don't Want To Be Evaluated

This part of the narrative says, "Teachers resist all forms of evaluation because they don't want to be held accountable." Baloney.

I don't know a single teacher, locally or across the country, who does not expect to be held accountable for his job performance. But here are the minimum two factors that any accountability measure should include.

First, it should actually measure how well I do my job. If we polled the taxpayers of my district, how many do you think would say, "We hire teachers to have our kids get good scores on standardized tests. That's it. That's all we hire them to do. Nothing else." No, the taxpayers of my district pay me good money to do a large and complex job, and they deserve to know how well I'm doing that job. ALL of that job. Evaluating teacher entirely or in part by student standardized test scores is like evaluating physicians on their prescription handwriting.

Second, it should not be alterable by the whims of my boss. My evaluation should not reflect how well he likes me, how many times I've pissed him off, how often I've flunked a star football player, how regularly I attend church, or how well he approves of my choice in spousal units.

Teachers absolutely recognize the right of taxpayers to know what kind of work they're getting in return for their tax dollars. That's why we think an evaluation system should be used that actually reflects our actual job performance, not one that is about as reliable as a blind man flinging darts over his shoulder at a dart board.