(Part 3 of 3: Part 1 and Part 2 are not required reading, but it all sort of fits together)
When we talk about the need for standardization, we inevitably come back to the issue of bad schools.
"If we don't have educational standards and high-stakes test accountability," goes the argument, "then over in Palloohkaville they'll be teaching about the flat earth and Jesus riding dinosaurs and how America is really a fascist country and that 2+2 equals Dog. And the Palloohkaville school board will keep denying necessary resources to Other Peoples' Children High School. We need standards and stakes to force them to Do the Right Thing."
I agree that all of these problems are real and serious problems. I just don't agree that standards will do anything to fix them.
Some are fixed by law. Equitable distribution of resources doesn't require Common Core or ed reform-- it requires enforcement of the laws that say "Thou shalt not screw over one set of citizens to the benefit of other sets of citizens." When some school is falling down around the students' ears, the problem is not educational standards-- it's the political will to Do Right.
For human beings, standards have one function-- to get other people
to act as if they share your values. Most classroom teachers, for
example, have rules that boil down to "You may not respect and care
about every other person in this room, but you will by God at least act
as if you do."
Standards for human behavior work better
in the negative than in the positive, and better for behavior than for attitude. Our most successful human
standards, right back to the Ten Really Famous Ones, have been Thou
Shalt Not Do's. School Reformy types have taken to comparing the
implementation of their regime to the Civil Rights Movement, and that
movement had its greatest success in imposing a standard that said you
can't treat non-white folks as if they are lesser beings than you. It
has had less success in imposing a standard that says you must treat all
non-white people as if they are your friend (and be happy that a Black
man was elected President). It is easier to make people stop doing bad
things than to make them start to feel like doing good things. And it is particularly difficult to enforce rules that they think and feel certain ways.
So to the extent that educational standards want to impose positive behaviors and attitudes on young people, they are doomed to failure. To the extent that they want to impose positive behaviors on institutions, they are hopeless, because the best you can ever hope for is "going through the motions" and "going through the motions" is not an education.
We know what happens when you give people a punitive bad test-- they learn how to go through the motions that the test requires. That's it.
So what happens if we impose standards on Palloohkaville?
We already kind of know. We've been trying to force districts to drop creationism and teach actual science. What happens is they fight the rules, ignore the rules, and escape the rules. In extreme cases, they commandeer the rules (one of the great fallacies of those who believe in centralized standards is the believe that such centralized control will always stay in the hands of The Right People).
But I will bet you dollars to donuts that we can't find one person who was talked out of creationism and into the scientific view because their high school science teacher was required to teach one and not the other.
Using rules to force people to Get With the Program doesn't work. And it does worse than not work, because when you hand out mental handcuffs and tell everyone they have to slap the cuffs on, the people who will comply are the people who are already with the program-- the people you didn't intend the rules for in the first place. Meanwhile, the people who you really intended the braincuffs for have already figured out how to get around your rule. You didn't stop your bad actors, but you did hamstring your best and brightest.
What happens if we don't impose standards on Palloohkaville?
Palloohkaville becomes known for lousy schools. People don't move there. People don't locate their businesses there. Maybe they raise the will to do something about it; maybe they just change their name to "Mississippi" and decide they're happy with the barrel-bottom view. I'm okay with that. This is America, and the people who should get to decide the fate of Pallohkaville are the Palloohkavillians, who, as it turns out, are the same people who have to live with the consequences of their choices and attitudes. Maybe after they have to live out their values, some folks have an epiphany and say, "Hey, I think maybe education is actually important."
Here's the thing-- I don't believe anybody can step in from outside and apply force in a way that will fix any of that. Sure, you can force them to go through some education-ish movements, but what will that actually change?
You cannot improve a community from outside that community. It is one of the bitterest social and political ironies ever that you can, in fact, wreck a community from outside that community, but you cannot fix it from outside. Every successful model of community uplift ever involves being part of the community. If you want to fix Palloohkaville Schools, you will have to live there (and probably for more than two years). Drive-by do-gooders don't help, and there's a name for the business of moving into an area and forcing the locals to do as you say, for their own good-- it's colonialism.
Outside fixing only diverts attention. Instead of worrying about local school problems, we're worrying about That Damn Federal Test. Our schools don't have a problem, the new mantra goes-- we're just being crushed by a big gummint thumb.
It frustrates me too, that so many Americans don't really value education, but you don't make people value education through centralized standards any more than you make them love hamburgers by turning every restaurant into a McDonalds.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Paul Bruno's Advice for CCSS Supporters
Paul Bruno is a science teacher who writes a blog of his own while occasionally contributing to This Week in Education over at Scholastic. He calls himself a CCSS agnostic and generally writes about the standards with a fairly even hand.
After spanking CCSS supporters for abandoning an affirmative case for the standards, Bruno was asked by Morgan Polikoff to provide a positive suggestion, and so today Bruno responded with four suggestions for Core supporters. If you're a regular reader, you know I find value in the perspective of people beyond the usual dichotomy of Hate CCSS With A Blinding Passion and Pushing CCSS With Feverish Intensity. So let me take a look at Bruno's three suggestions, and why I don't think anybody's going to listen to him.
1. CCSS supporters need to acknowledge that they overestimated the potential for standards per se to improve curriculum and instruction.
Here Bruno and I are seeing something different, because I don't think CCSS supporters ever really believed that standards alone would raise anything. I think people who have espoused this view have always used "standards" as short-hand for "standards backed up with some kick-evaluations and sanctions so that people will by gum meet those standards or else." I think this is one of the reasons that The Core arrived in the states with high-stakes punitive testing programs already welded onto them. But Bruno gets this next part right:
Teachers already think their pedagogy is about right for whatever learning objectives you want to establish; if you want them to think differently you need to convince them directly. It is also increasingly apparent that you can’t avoid nasty battles over curriculum by saying “standards are not a curriculum”.
2. CCSS supporters should acknowledge that the new standards are not really as unambiguous as they had thought.
Bruno correctly notes that CCSS fans aren't really doing themselves any favors by repeatedly responding to criticism with "But that's not what the CCSS say." But Bruno tracks the issue back to peoples' pre-existing edu-confusions. I don't think it's that simple. I think this is an insolvable problem inextricably linked to CCSS by virtue of the top-down creation of the standards.
One of the built in problems of top-down reform is that only the people who were in the room for creation know what they really meant-- and in a top-down program, that's a small group of people, none of whom are going to be directly involved in the implementation of their ideas. And so the battle over what the Original Text really means is endless (as endless, say, as the centuries of interminable battle over what that Jesus guy actually had in mind).
Add to that the suspicion in some quarters that the writers of the Core didn't even really mean what they said in the first place, either because they didn't know what they were talking about (particularly applicable to the all-amateur-hour ELA standards) or they were just writing standards with an eye on the billion-dollar pot of testing gold at the end of the Common Core rainbow, and not trying to write true standards at all. And then the Founding Fathers of Common Core simply released their creation and dispersed, back to their real jobs or to new cash cows.
Add all that together and you have a "movement" with neither a strong controlling text nor a group of active involved leaders. Which opens the door for all manner of vendors, profiteers, and power-hungry reins-grabbers to declare, "Why yes-- what I want to do totally belongs to this package."
I don't think we're seeing peoples' pre-existing confusion so much as we're seeing the built-in confusion of CCSS (some of which is deliberate). It's an ambiguity that makes the CCSS regime profitable, and it's an ambiguity for which no correcting mechanism exists. The few die-hards saying, "But-but-but this isn't what the standards really say" carry no more weight than Leon Trotsky declaring, "You're doing my revolution all wrong."
3. CCSS supporters should focus more on Common Core-aligned assessments.
What the CCSS “really” mean will be determined in large part by the tests used to hold teachers and schools accountable. So while it’s all well and good to assure us that, e.g., the CCSS “require” a “content-rich curriculum”, that won’t really be true unless the eventual assessments require a content-rich curriculum.
Bruno is correct, though the real answer is that "content-rich curriculum" won't happen until we're facing "content-rich assessment," and that will be happening never (aka "the same day the assessment includes collaborative performance tasks").
The assessments are the curriculum and the tests are the standards.
4. CCSS supporters should spend more time highlighting “good” Common Core-aligned lessons.
Bruno is correct in noting that CCSS is losing in the court of public opinion in part because it is solidly linked to all manner of dopey lessons (including many that aren't really Common Core lessons). But people talking about CCSS "success" always face the same problem.
Let's say we're discussing the oft-made much-beloved assertion of CCSS-fan teachers that the Core now lets critical thinking into their classroom. The problem is that from this assertion we can only conclude one of two things:
1) The teacher either didn't know or wasn't able previously to include critical thinking in her classroom. The only explanation for this is that the teacher is a dope.
2) The teacher was not previously allowed to include critical thinking in her classroom. From this we must conclude that the school administration is a dope.
Neither of these problems requires a multi-million-dollar retooling of the entire American public education system. When someone shows me a good CCSS lesson, my first question is always "How did Common Core make this possible?" (My second question is usually "Who wants me to pay them to use this?") It only highlights for me that the CCSS have always been a solution in search of a problem.
They are the educational equivalent of a salesman at my door telling me, "For only a few thousand dollars a month, we will install equipment that will guarantee that there is air inside your home." I'm in favor of air-- a huge fan, in fact. But it's not clear to me why I should give you my money, or free reign of my home, and I'm pretty much waiting for you to break into a chorus of "Trouble" right here in River City.
So it's not that I think Bruno's advice is wrong, exactly. I just don't think there's anybody in a real position to take it.
After spanking CCSS supporters for abandoning an affirmative case for the standards, Bruno was asked by Morgan Polikoff to provide a positive suggestion, and so today Bruno responded with four suggestions for Core supporters. If you're a regular reader, you know I find value in the perspective of people beyond the usual dichotomy of Hate CCSS With A Blinding Passion and Pushing CCSS With Feverish Intensity. So let me take a look at Bruno's three suggestions, and why I don't think anybody's going to listen to him.
1. CCSS supporters need to acknowledge that they overestimated the potential for standards per se to improve curriculum and instruction.
Here Bruno and I are seeing something different, because I don't think CCSS supporters ever really believed that standards alone would raise anything. I think people who have espoused this view have always used "standards" as short-hand for "standards backed up with some kick-evaluations and sanctions so that people will by gum meet those standards or else." I think this is one of the reasons that The Core arrived in the states with high-stakes punitive testing programs already welded onto them. But Bruno gets this next part right:
Teachers already think their pedagogy is about right for whatever learning objectives you want to establish; if you want them to think differently you need to convince them directly. It is also increasingly apparent that you can’t avoid nasty battles over curriculum by saying “standards are not a curriculum”.
2. CCSS supporters should acknowledge that the new standards are not really as unambiguous as they had thought.
Bruno correctly notes that CCSS fans aren't really doing themselves any favors by repeatedly responding to criticism with "But that's not what the CCSS say." But Bruno tracks the issue back to peoples' pre-existing edu-confusions. I don't think it's that simple. I think this is an insolvable problem inextricably linked to CCSS by virtue of the top-down creation of the standards.
One of the built in problems of top-down reform is that only the people who were in the room for creation know what they really meant-- and in a top-down program, that's a small group of people, none of whom are going to be directly involved in the implementation of their ideas. And so the battle over what the Original Text really means is endless (as endless, say, as the centuries of interminable battle over what that Jesus guy actually had in mind).
Add to that the suspicion in some quarters that the writers of the Core didn't even really mean what they said in the first place, either because they didn't know what they were talking about (particularly applicable to the all-amateur-hour ELA standards) or they were just writing standards with an eye on the billion-dollar pot of testing gold at the end of the Common Core rainbow, and not trying to write true standards at all. And then the Founding Fathers of Common Core simply released their creation and dispersed, back to their real jobs or to new cash cows.
Add all that together and you have a "movement" with neither a strong controlling text nor a group of active involved leaders. Which opens the door for all manner of vendors, profiteers, and power-hungry reins-grabbers to declare, "Why yes-- what I want to do totally belongs to this package."
I don't think we're seeing peoples' pre-existing confusion so much as we're seeing the built-in confusion of CCSS (some of which is deliberate). It's an ambiguity that makes the CCSS regime profitable, and it's an ambiguity for which no correcting mechanism exists. The few die-hards saying, "But-but-but this isn't what the standards really say" carry no more weight than Leon Trotsky declaring, "You're doing my revolution all wrong."
3. CCSS supporters should focus more on Common Core-aligned assessments.
What the CCSS “really” mean will be determined in large part by the tests used to hold teachers and schools accountable. So while it’s all well and good to assure us that, e.g., the CCSS “require” a “content-rich curriculum”, that won’t really be true unless the eventual assessments require a content-rich curriculum.
Bruno is correct, though the real answer is that "content-rich curriculum" won't happen until we're facing "content-rich assessment," and that will be happening never (aka "the same day the assessment includes collaborative performance tasks").
The assessments are the curriculum and the tests are the standards.
4. CCSS supporters should spend more time highlighting “good” Common Core-aligned lessons.
Bruno is correct in noting that CCSS is losing in the court of public opinion in part because it is solidly linked to all manner of dopey lessons (including many that aren't really Common Core lessons). But people talking about CCSS "success" always face the same problem.
Let's say we're discussing the oft-made much-beloved assertion of CCSS-fan teachers that the Core now lets critical thinking into their classroom. The problem is that from this assertion we can only conclude one of two things:
1) The teacher either didn't know or wasn't able previously to include critical thinking in her classroom. The only explanation for this is that the teacher is a dope.
2) The teacher was not previously allowed to include critical thinking in her classroom. From this we must conclude that the school administration is a dope.
Neither of these problems requires a multi-million-dollar retooling of the entire American public education system. When someone shows me a good CCSS lesson, my first question is always "How did Common Core make this possible?" (My second question is usually "Who wants me to pay them to use this?") It only highlights for me that the CCSS have always been a solution in search of a problem.
They are the educational equivalent of a salesman at my door telling me, "For only a few thousand dollars a month, we will install equipment that will guarantee that there is air inside your home." I'm in favor of air-- a huge fan, in fact. But it's not clear to me why I should give you my money, or free reign of my home, and I'm pretty much waiting for you to break into a chorus of "Trouble" right here in River City.
So it's not that I think Bruno's advice is wrong, exactly. I just don't think there's anybody in a real position to take it.
CT Makes New Strides in Grittology
Sandwiched in the midst of a puff piece about Connecticut's new elite cadre of Common Core teacher shills is this important paragraph:
Getting on the list was competitive. According to a news release from the Department of Education, teachers "were chosen through a competitive statewide application on the basis of their content knowledge, grit, and understanding of the Common Core State Standards. Each educator demonstrated the commitment and ability to “scale their impact” beyond their classroom."
I'm going to let the confusing quotation marks slide and focus in on the most exciting news just kind of dropped into this PR bonanza--
...chosen through a competitive statewide application on the basis of their content knowledge, grit, and understanding ...
You see?!! The State of Connecticut knows how to measure grit!!!!
I am sure that all of us, all around the country, want to know how this is done. I am sure that phones are ringing off the hook in CT DOE offices as other educational thought leaders call to ask for the secret of grittological measurements.
Was it a physical test? Did they make teachers do the worm for a thousand yards? Did they make teachers peel onions and sing "memories" while watching pictures of sad puppies, all without crying? Did they have to compete in three-armed wheelchair races? Were they required to complete a season of the Amazing Race as participants? Did they have to stand stock still while being pelted with medium-sized canteloupes?
Or perhaps it was a study of their personal history. We know that grittologists have determined that people who have tended not to quit things in the past probably won't quit things in the future (who knew?) So maybe the state looked for people who didn't quit things, like lifelong members of the Columbia Record Club or folks who actually finished an unfinishable sundae or who stayed in a bad marriage. Maybe the state only accepted cancer survivors or acid reflux sufferers or folks with chronic halitosis.
Or maybe Connecticut has a special computerized grit test. Take a PARCC exam on a computer with a bad internet connection or using a keyboard on which some eighth grader has previously moved around all the keys. Create a word document on a computer running Windows 3.0-- no swearing at the blue screen of death. Play HALO with a six-year-old on your team. Is there a grit praxis?
Or maybe grit is linked to the third item on the list-- understanding of the Common Core State Standards. Maybe you have to explain the CCSS as interpreted and implemented by the CT DOE without actually laughing out loud or sneezing the word "bullshit." Or maybe they had to convince someone that they really are excited to attend something called "Teachfest" being run by a company called "LearnZillion" (what a dumb name choice-- if people aren't calling those guys "Learnzilla" behind their backs I will eat my copy of the standards).
All I can say is-- the state of CT has a goldmine here. If they are able to test teachers for grit, they need to monetize that and franchise the process, because this is a mine of inexhaustible riches. This will make a far better monetary stream than the business of having teachers employed by public schools create lessons and materials for a for-profit company (maybe grit has something to do with easily silenced scruples).
Plus, CT has the jump by having a Dream Team of 97 highly grittified teachers, which means they can be dispatched on all sort of tough commando raids. I can see the T-Shirts now-- a Sylvester Stallone looking guy with the words "We Are Here To Punch Dumb in the Face!"
You know, my uncle taught history in Connecticut for fifty years, and was much-beloved in his district. It was actually a bit of a surprise when he retired. I suppose he didn't have enough grit for Connecticut.
Getting on the list was competitive. According to a news release from the Department of Education, teachers "were chosen through a competitive statewide application on the basis of their content knowledge, grit, and understanding of the Common Core State Standards. Each educator demonstrated the commitment and ability to “scale their impact” beyond their classroom."
I'm going to let the confusing quotation marks slide and focus in on the most exciting news just kind of dropped into this PR bonanza--
...chosen through a competitive statewide application on the basis of their content knowledge, grit, and understanding ...
You see?!! The State of Connecticut knows how to measure grit!!!!
I am sure that all of us, all around the country, want to know how this is done. I am sure that phones are ringing off the hook in CT DOE offices as other educational thought leaders call to ask for the secret of grittological measurements.
Was it a physical test? Did they make teachers do the worm for a thousand yards? Did they make teachers peel onions and sing "memories" while watching pictures of sad puppies, all without crying? Did they have to compete in three-armed wheelchair races? Were they required to complete a season of the Amazing Race as participants? Did they have to stand stock still while being pelted with medium-sized canteloupes?
Or perhaps it was a study of their personal history. We know that grittologists have determined that people who have tended not to quit things in the past probably won't quit things in the future (who knew?) So maybe the state looked for people who didn't quit things, like lifelong members of the Columbia Record Club or folks who actually finished an unfinishable sundae or who stayed in a bad marriage. Maybe the state only accepted cancer survivors or acid reflux sufferers or folks with chronic halitosis.
Or maybe Connecticut has a special computerized grit test. Take a PARCC exam on a computer with a bad internet connection or using a keyboard on which some eighth grader has previously moved around all the keys. Create a word document on a computer running Windows 3.0-- no swearing at the blue screen of death. Play HALO with a six-year-old on your team. Is there a grit praxis?
Or maybe grit is linked to the third item on the list-- understanding of the Common Core State Standards. Maybe you have to explain the CCSS as interpreted and implemented by the CT DOE without actually laughing out loud or sneezing the word "bullshit." Or maybe they had to convince someone that they really are excited to attend something called "Teachfest" being run by a company called "LearnZillion" (what a dumb name choice-- if people aren't calling those guys "Learnzilla" behind their backs I will eat my copy of the standards).
All I can say is-- the state of CT has a goldmine here. If they are able to test teachers for grit, they need to monetize that and franchise the process, because this is a mine of inexhaustible riches. This will make a far better monetary stream than the business of having teachers employed by public schools create lessons and materials for a for-profit company (maybe grit has something to do with easily silenced scruples).
Plus, CT has the jump by having a Dream Team of 97 highly grittified teachers, which means they can be dispatched on all sort of tough commando raids. I can see the T-Shirts now-- a Sylvester Stallone looking guy with the words "We Are Here To Punch Dumb in the Face!"
You know, my uncle taught history in Connecticut for fifty years, and was much-beloved in his district. It was actually a bit of a surprise when he retired. I suppose he didn't have enough grit for Connecticut.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Making a Difference
The Reformy Creed
With proper standards alignment, it should not make any difference whether a student learned math in Tennessee or Kentucky.
If the teacher is doing a proper job, it should not make any difference whether a student comes from a privileged, enriched background or a poor one.
If a school has implemented a good teacher-proof program (like engageNY), it should not make any difference whether a student has an experienced teacher or a brand new one or a non-teacher with five weeks of training.
If the students have been exposed to the proper educational training, it should not make any difference whether they are developmentally disabled or not.
And if they are developmentally disabled, it should not make any difference in how The Test is given.
If the teacher is properly following the script, it should not make any difference which particular students are in the class.
In fact, if the teacher is properly following the script, it should not make any difference how many students are in the class.
The problem?
If there is one thing that people are motivated by, dream of, long for, strive in pursuit of, cherish, relish, desire more than even an ice cream sundae with a cherry on type it is this--
To make a difference.
People want to know that they matter, that their presence in every situation made a difference. Kafka's Metamorphosis (a non-informational text) resonates with horror because it speaks to one of a person's deepest fears-- that he will pass through life making so little difference that he might as well have been a bug.
The Reformy movement (aka The Status Quo Formerly Known As Reform) is Kafkaesque and dehumanizing because precisely because its dream, its goal, is an education system in which no individual makes any difference at all. Any student, any teacher, should make no more difference to The System than any other.
The Reformy Ideal is a human nightmare-- a system where anyone could take your place and nobody else would notice. It's not that your individual needs, strengths, weaknesses, personality or spirit are erased-- this is a system that renders all these elements so unimportant that erasing them isn't even necessary.
Every human being has a right-- in fact, an obligation-- to make a difference. The Reformy Ideal is not just a bad way to run a school system-- it's a bad way to treat other human beings.
With proper standards alignment, it should not make any difference whether a student learned math in Tennessee or Kentucky.
If the teacher is doing a proper job, it should not make any difference whether a student comes from a privileged, enriched background or a poor one.
If a school has implemented a good teacher-proof program (like engageNY), it should not make any difference whether a student has an experienced teacher or a brand new one or a non-teacher with five weeks of training.
If the students have been exposed to the proper educational training, it should not make any difference whether they are developmentally disabled or not.
And if they are developmentally disabled, it should not make any difference in how The Test is given.
If the teacher is properly following the script, it should not make any difference which particular students are in the class.
In fact, if the teacher is properly following the script, it should not make any difference how many students are in the class.
The problem?
If there is one thing that people are motivated by, dream of, long for, strive in pursuit of, cherish, relish, desire more than even an ice cream sundae with a cherry on type it is this--
To make a difference.
People want to know that they matter, that their presence in every situation made a difference. Kafka's Metamorphosis (a non-informational text) resonates with horror because it speaks to one of a person's deepest fears-- that he will pass through life making so little difference that he might as well have been a bug.
The Reformy movement (aka The Status Quo Formerly Known As Reform) is Kafkaesque and dehumanizing because precisely because its dream, its goal, is an education system in which no individual makes any difference at all. Any student, any teacher, should make no more difference to The System than any other.
The Reformy Ideal is a human nightmare-- a system where anyone could take your place and nobody else would notice. It's not that your individual needs, strengths, weaknesses, personality or spirit are erased-- this is a system that renders all these elements so unimportant that erasing them isn't even necessary.
Every human being has a right-- in fact, an obligation-- to make a difference. The Reformy Ideal is not just a bad way to run a school system-- it's a bad way to treat other human beings.
Bill McCallum, CCSS Author & Sad Scientist
When movies present us with science-related disasters, we generally involve one of two sciency types-- the mad scientists and the sad scientist. The mad scientist is the one genetically engineering giant gerbils to take over the world (cue maniacal laugh). The sad scientist is the one who believes that he is Doing Great Things, like creating no-leak ice cream cones for poor children everywhere, only to discover that his patron, whether its an evil millionaire or an evil businessman or an evil military leader, plans to use his great creation for Evil Purposes!
"No!" cries the Sad Scientist as the villagers approach his genetically modified lima beans with pitchforks and torches, "You don't understand! They won't harm you! They're really quite yummy!!" And when the Sad Scientist discovers that his GMO ferrets have actually burned down an orphanage, he still sticks up for them. "They're just misunderstood."
I was thinking about the sad scientist as I was reading up on Bill McCallum. McCallum describes himself as someone who was “born in Australia and came to the United States to pursue a Ph. D. in mathematics at Harvard University, a professor at the University of Arizona, working in number theory and mathematics education.” He's also one of the creators of Common Core, having represented Achieve on the 2009 panel that created the College and Career Ready vision of what a high school grad should look like, and then serving as one of the three lead writers on the math standards.
I encountered him when a click-pursuit led me to isupportthecommoncore.net, a website that McCallum and Jason Zimba (another math CCSS writer) started last August. McCallum does most of the blog writing on the site, assisted for stretches by his colleague Aubrey Neihaus. The lead post started like this:
The Common Core State Standards present a rare opportunity to advance the way we teach our children mathematics, reading, and writing. But change is hard, especially as forces amass to tear the standards down. This blog is for those who want to see the standards succeed and are willing to receive the occasional call to action in support of them. I recognize that you are all busy and not everybody can respond all the time. But if there are enough of us that won’t matter.
Well, almost a year later, it appears there aren't enough. The site has 323 subscribers and many fairly silent comment sections. There are a smattering of short, supportive comments; many of the comment sections are closed to comment. There are some resources, most from October 2013 or earlier, including items such as the Hunt Institute videos about CCSS. Links to "Share Your Story of Support" and "Stand Up and Be Counted" both lead to big empty nothings. A link to "Voices of Support" garners a "page not found" message.
But just as the few sad furnishings in a big empty house can tell you something about the owner, I found the website revealing. Well, sad, but revealing, too.
We have a tendency to characterize all CCSS backers as evil geniuses, malignant mad scientists, or greedy underhanded businessmen. But I've characterized CCSS regime supporters as three groups
1) People who make a living/profit from CCSS
2) People who see things in the CCSS that aren't actually there
3) People who haven't actually looked at the CCSS yet
I think Bill McCallum is part of group #2.
I've read most of what he posted here, some interviews, material he posted at his other website. Bill McCallum is no David Coleman. He appears to have a sense of humor (prior to the launch of the support site, he promised that there would be jokes, and the site includes a link to one of Colbert's CCSS bits). He is by and large respectful of CCSS opponents; he occasionally engages their argument as if it's worth talking about (at one point he wishes that the new Diane Ravitch had been around twelve years ago to fight the influence of the old Diane Ravitch). He does not, a la Coleman, suggest that he is a gifted amateur who is just making a WAG that should be fine because he's so damn smart.
Like the typical sad scientist, he seems to truly not grasp how his creation is actually being used and harnessed in the real world. In the midst of the one conversational thread on the site, he writes this:
My vision of CCSS is consensus about what we want kids to learn but not a rigid script for how they should learn it.
He says many things like that. It's not that we haven't heard a version of the point before, but I'm struck by how he frequently uses the simple language of someone who's sincerely trying to explain a truth, and not the convoluted jargonny blather of someone who is trying to hide a truth.
Searching his writing, I found more of that vision. CCSS should provide standards that can be interpreted locally. The infamous Appendix is meant as a suggestion or example of how to extend the standards, not a directive or guide. Curriculum and assessment should be based on the standards, but created by local entities.
McCallum is baffled a bit by some opponents; last summer and fall he saw them as only as wackos on the far right, and he linked to a post suggesting that CCSS is neither panacea nor Satanic, but simply a better way to focus teachers, who remain the backbone of instruction. His frequent argument against CCSS opponents is that what they are complaining about isn't really the Common Core at all.
Like a writer who has sold his novel to Hollywood, McCallum seems not to grasp that he no longer gets to define what the CCSS are or mean. Coleman appears to have fully embraced the complete CCSS regime and has moved with gusto to cash in on the whole complex. But McCallum keeps insisting that his CCSS is simply standards, and no standardized curriculum nor tests nor teacher evaluation nor school evaluations are any part of it. It is also true that a communist leader shouldn't look like a Stalin or a Mao, but reality is just a bitch some times.
I actually feel a little sad for McCallum. I imagine that some of the atomic scientists who thought they were developing an awesome power source, not a new way to immolate hundreds of thousand of people, might have struggled as well. But the corporate profiteers and data overlords and anti-teacher public school haters have found in his work a perfect tool for their agenda, and McCallum's intentions, no matter how noble they may have been, no longer matter.
I don't know how well the real Bill McCallum matches my mental picture. Maybe he's a huge jerk, and I just don't see it in his writing. I do wish he would wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. Because when I say his intentions for his creation no longer matter, that's not entirely true. His repeated statements about his intentions for the Core help feed the CCSS machinery, allow the profiteers and the rest to publicize the Core based on what its creator says and not what's actually happening. And if McCallum were ever to look at any of the anti-education crap that has been welded onto his creation and say, "This is not what I meant at all. This is wrong. This is exactly the opposite of what was supposed to happen"-- that would be a powerful force for sweeping the crap away, and making it possible to do some of the things he apparently meant to do in the first place.
It's tough for the sad scientist to come to terms with he reality of what's been done to his creation. Sadly, right now, we're left with the sad image of Bill McCallum trying to rally support for CCSS on a ghost website by hawking buttons.
"No!" cries the Sad Scientist as the villagers approach his genetically modified lima beans with pitchforks and torches, "You don't understand! They won't harm you! They're really quite yummy!!" And when the Sad Scientist discovers that his GMO ferrets have actually burned down an orphanage, he still sticks up for them. "They're just misunderstood."
I was thinking about the sad scientist as I was reading up on Bill McCallum. McCallum describes himself as someone who was “born in Australia and came to the United States to pursue a Ph. D. in mathematics at Harvard University, a professor at the University of Arizona, working in number theory and mathematics education.” He's also one of the creators of Common Core, having represented Achieve on the 2009 panel that created the College and Career Ready vision of what a high school grad should look like, and then serving as one of the three lead writers on the math standards.
I encountered him when a click-pursuit led me to isupportthecommoncore.net, a website that McCallum and Jason Zimba (another math CCSS writer) started last August. McCallum does most of the blog writing on the site, assisted for stretches by his colleague Aubrey Neihaus. The lead post started like this:
The Common Core State Standards present a rare opportunity to advance the way we teach our children mathematics, reading, and writing. But change is hard, especially as forces amass to tear the standards down. This blog is for those who want to see the standards succeed and are willing to receive the occasional call to action in support of them. I recognize that you are all busy and not everybody can respond all the time. But if there are enough of us that won’t matter.
Well, almost a year later, it appears there aren't enough. The site has 323 subscribers and many fairly silent comment sections. There are a smattering of short, supportive comments; many of the comment sections are closed to comment. There are some resources, most from October 2013 or earlier, including items such as the Hunt Institute videos about CCSS. Links to "Share Your Story of Support" and "Stand Up and Be Counted" both lead to big empty nothings. A link to "Voices of Support" garners a "page not found" message.
But just as the few sad furnishings in a big empty house can tell you something about the owner, I found the website revealing. Well, sad, but revealing, too.
We have a tendency to characterize all CCSS backers as evil geniuses, malignant mad scientists, or greedy underhanded businessmen. But I've characterized CCSS regime supporters as three groups
1) People who make a living/profit from CCSS
2) People who see things in the CCSS that aren't actually there
3) People who haven't actually looked at the CCSS yet
I think Bill McCallum is part of group #2.
I've read most of what he posted here, some interviews, material he posted at his other website. Bill McCallum is no David Coleman. He appears to have a sense of humor (prior to the launch of the support site, he promised that there would be jokes, and the site includes a link to one of Colbert's CCSS bits). He is by and large respectful of CCSS opponents; he occasionally engages their argument as if it's worth talking about (at one point he wishes that the new Diane Ravitch had been around twelve years ago to fight the influence of the old Diane Ravitch). He does not, a la Coleman, suggest that he is a gifted amateur who is just making a WAG that should be fine because he's so damn smart.
Like the typical sad scientist, he seems to truly not grasp how his creation is actually being used and harnessed in the real world. In the midst of the one conversational thread on the site, he writes this:
My vision of CCSS is consensus about what we want kids to learn but not a rigid script for how they should learn it.
He says many things like that. It's not that we haven't heard a version of the point before, but I'm struck by how he frequently uses the simple language of someone who's sincerely trying to explain a truth, and not the convoluted jargonny blather of someone who is trying to hide a truth.
Searching his writing, I found more of that vision. CCSS should provide standards that can be interpreted locally. The infamous Appendix is meant as a suggestion or example of how to extend the standards, not a directive or guide. Curriculum and assessment should be based on the standards, but created by local entities.
McCallum is baffled a bit by some opponents; last summer and fall he saw them as only as wackos on the far right, and he linked to a post suggesting that CCSS is neither panacea nor Satanic, but simply a better way to focus teachers, who remain the backbone of instruction. His frequent argument against CCSS opponents is that what they are complaining about isn't really the Common Core at all.
Like a writer who has sold his novel to Hollywood, McCallum seems not to grasp that he no longer gets to define what the CCSS are or mean. Coleman appears to have fully embraced the complete CCSS regime and has moved with gusto to cash in on the whole complex. But McCallum keeps insisting that his CCSS is simply standards, and no standardized curriculum nor tests nor teacher evaluation nor school evaluations are any part of it. It is also true that a communist leader shouldn't look like a Stalin or a Mao, but reality is just a bitch some times.
I actually feel a little sad for McCallum. I imagine that some of the atomic scientists who thought they were developing an awesome power source, not a new way to immolate hundreds of thousand of people, might have struggled as well. But the corporate profiteers and data overlords and anti-teacher public school haters have found in his work a perfect tool for their agenda, and McCallum's intentions, no matter how noble they may have been, no longer matter.
I don't know how well the real Bill McCallum matches my mental picture. Maybe he's a huge jerk, and I just don't see it in his writing. I do wish he would wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. Because when I say his intentions for his creation no longer matter, that's not entirely true. His repeated statements about his intentions for the Core help feed the CCSS machinery, allow the profiteers and the rest to publicize the Core based on what its creator says and not what's actually happening. And if McCallum were ever to look at any of the anti-education crap that has been welded onto his creation and say, "This is not what I meant at all. This is wrong. This is exactly the opposite of what was supposed to happen"-- that would be a powerful force for sweeping the crap away, and making it possible to do some of the things he apparently meant to do in the first place.
It's tough for the sad scientist to come to terms with he reality of what's been done to his creation. Sadly, right now, we're left with the sad image of Bill McCallum trying to rally support for CCSS on a ghost website by hawking buttons.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
John White Has LA Teachers' Backs
Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana had barely finished joining the crowd of politicians dancing rapidly away from various aspects of Common Core when State Superintendent of Education John White continued his streak of bad wrong no-good comments by sticking up by the people who will be most hurt by something as wild and crazy as dumping the PARCC testing. White wanted to speak up on behalf of the people whose interests have always been at the forefront of his policy decisions in the past.
Teachers.
White had previously offered the fanciful notion that the PARCC test would be a money-saver, or at least break even. Did he not know that the PARCC tests are not free? Mercedes Schneider told him.
But in today's Advocate, White is quoted expressing his concern over the probable ship jumpification of Jindal.
Just from a teacher’s perspective, it is deeply confusing and probably troubling that they now go into the remainder of the school year with leadership across state government not giving them the clarity they need and deserve and they have had for several years.
White's education training comes courtesy of a stint in TFA and training from the Broad Academy, so you know he really gets where teachers are coming from. He worries about teachers getting what they deserve, and clarity has always been his guiding principle, and does my internet connection now access some alternate universe, because from out here in the cheap seats it has been clear for years that Louisiana is one of the poster children for how the Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools can get pretty much everything they want and yet have no actual success to show for it.
White jumped into the Core a year sooner than needed, and rolled out PARCC practice without actually saying that's what was up. He got caught lying about the exposure of student data, and he presided over a busticated version of VAM even worse than the "original." And then there's the ongoing loot-and-pillage by charter interests going on under his watch.
But he is worried about the poor confused teachers, God bless them.
It's an impressive pivot. The more standard MoRONS move is to invoke the children and how they will suffer without the benefits of the super-duper awesome tests, tests whose magical powers automatically cause knowledge to bloom within the brains of even the dullest young person.
But no. White doesn't want to make things confusing for the teachers.
“I think it is just a shame from the teacher’s perspective,” White said of the debate over test plans. “You really have no idea whether to go right or go left.”
Yes, that's sweet. Because I am sure that the teachers of Louisiana have known exactly where they were going previously, much like Thelma and Louise knew exactly where they were going at the end of their adventure.
But reading this article, I don't so much smell as I catch the faint whiff of panic sweat.
“What would we do? We don’t have a test for next year. We have been planning for years, it is no secret, to purchase this test,” he said of PARCC.
I had plans. I had backers. I had money lined up. I made promises to people who are expecting me to deliver.
No, White is not sounding like someone who at long last is worried about the care and feeding, the health welfare and safety of teachers. He sounds like a guy who is in to his bookie-- his big, burly bookie with the enforcer with arms like tree trunks and a pierced eyeball-- for a whole bunch of money, and he just saw snake eyes roll up on his last big bet.
But I wouldn't worry about him. He's Bobby Jindal's boy, his pushed-for-hire, and I'm sure that even if Jindal queers White's PARCC deal, he'll still have White's back. Just like White is looking out for all of Louisiana's teachers.
[with a big hat tip to the reporting of Mercedes Schneider and Crazy Crawfish]
Teachers.
White had previously offered the fanciful notion that the PARCC test would be a money-saver, or at least break even. Did he not know that the PARCC tests are not free? Mercedes Schneider told him.
But in today's Advocate, White is quoted expressing his concern over the probable ship jumpification of Jindal.
Just from a teacher’s perspective, it is deeply confusing and probably troubling that they now go into the remainder of the school year with leadership across state government not giving them the clarity they need and deserve and they have had for several years.
White's education training comes courtesy of a stint in TFA and training from the Broad Academy, so you know he really gets where teachers are coming from. He worries about teachers getting what they deserve, and clarity has always been his guiding principle, and does my internet connection now access some alternate universe, because from out here in the cheap seats it has been clear for years that Louisiana is one of the poster children for how the Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools can get pretty much everything they want and yet have no actual success to show for it.
White jumped into the Core a year sooner than needed, and rolled out PARCC practice without actually saying that's what was up. He got caught lying about the exposure of student data, and he presided over a busticated version of VAM even worse than the "original." And then there's the ongoing loot-and-pillage by charter interests going on under his watch.
But he is worried about the poor confused teachers, God bless them.
It's an impressive pivot. The more standard MoRONS move is to invoke the children and how they will suffer without the benefits of the super-duper awesome tests, tests whose magical powers automatically cause knowledge to bloom within the brains of even the dullest young person.
But no. White doesn't want to make things confusing for the teachers.
“I think it is just a shame from the teacher’s perspective,” White said of the debate over test plans. “You really have no idea whether to go right or go left.”
Yes, that's sweet. Because I am sure that the teachers of Louisiana have known exactly where they were going previously, much like Thelma and Louise knew exactly where they were going at the end of their adventure.
But reading this article, I don't so much smell as I catch the faint whiff of panic sweat.
“What would we do? We don’t have a test for next year. We have been planning for years, it is no secret, to purchase this test,” he said of PARCC.
I had plans. I had backers. I had money lined up. I made promises to people who are expecting me to deliver.
No, White is not sounding like someone who at long last is worried about the care and feeding, the health welfare and safety of teachers. He sounds like a guy who is in to his bookie-- his big, burly bookie with the enforcer with arms like tree trunks and a pierced eyeball-- for a whole bunch of money, and he just saw snake eyes roll up on his last big bet.
But I wouldn't worry about him. He's Bobby Jindal's boy, his pushed-for-hire, and I'm sure that even if Jindal queers White's PARCC deal, he'll still have White's back. Just like White is looking out for all of Louisiana's teachers.
[with a big hat tip to the reporting of Mercedes Schneider and Crazy Crawfish]
Insulating the NEA
How is it that NEA becomes so insulated from its members? After all, we are the union, right?
My first big lesson in representative democracy came courtesy of the United Methodist Church. In the church structure, local churches are grouped into districts, and districts are grouped into larger regions, and on and on to the national level. Theoretically all these levels are responsive to the concerns of local churches, but as it turns out, not so much. The problem, as one wise man once explained to me, is that the district/regional/national body becomes the representatives' local church.
When they start out, reps say "we" when they mean the local they come from. But after a while, "we" means the regional coneference.
The EAs, like many large-scale representational bodies, use this process deliberately. When you go to a regional gathering of local reps and officers, business is always mixed with fun and parties and socializing. The energy is kept high and for newer local reps, it can be like being invited to sit at the lunch table with the very coolest kids.
In this day and age, there's little practical need for most of these gatherings. Information on issues could be sent out over the net, votes could be taken over the net, and at the very least the full-weekend gatherings could be reduced to a Saturday afternoon. Likewise union training sessions that could be a single day are often stretched into at least one overnight so that participants have the opportunity for a big social dinner followed by a dance or social event. And gathering locations are still picked based on what fun things there are to do.
While it's true that none of these training or governance events need to be dry, dull and painful, there's another purpose served by wrapping union gathering in so much socializing-- it bonds the local person to the larger group. I go back to my local school and when a co-worker talks to me about "that dumb-ass decision that those state level jerks made," I'm thinking, "No, that state-level jerk is my good friend Chris who is a great person, so I'm sure that decision is peachy swell."
For teacher-reps who have spent enough time at the state or national level, "we" means "union leadership" and "they" means "those guys who work at local schools."
This is not unique to NEA; most large groups involve switching loyalties from the local to the large group (e.g. too many Congressmen). This bonding in turn facilitates one of the most common, but toxic, principles of all political activity-- the ends justifies the means.
When we arrive at the outcome of this strategy, it will be really good for the members, so it's okay if we manage the rank and file in order to get them to support what we're doing. We'll tell them just what we need them to know. We'll stack the vote. We'll guarantee that we get the outcome we want, even if we have to totally trash any semblance of democratic process to do it, because we are pursuing a Worthwhile End. It's for the members' own good.
Believe me-- I totally get how leadership fosters a...well, crankiness...about members. If you've been a union officer for more than a week, you've heard all the classics: "My principal is yelling at me for leaving an hour early every day. Make him stop." "Why didn't you get us a contract with free ice cream every Tuesday?" "Do you mean to tell me they can discipline me just because I came to school drunk five or twelve times? Protect me!!"
And informing the members? You can try to explain something 147 times to members who blow you off more thoroughly than a sleepy fifth period class of low-function juniors, but a week later some of those same members will be angrily complaining that you made a decision on that same matter without consulting them. People don't want to be involved, but they still want veto power.
So I get it. I get how easily the rank and file can get under leadership's skin. I get that union leaders are like assistant principals-- dealing mostly with the problem children. But here's the thing-- that's the job. Complaining about how much work your members create is like complaining that the students in your class are all children. That's the job. If you don't like the job, get another job.
And none of this justifies the NEA's insulated insular behavior. None of it justifies the Us vs. Them mentality with the members, nor does it justify "managing" the rank and file because only leadership really knows what's good for them. Shut up and fall in line, because, unity. NEA is so bad at communicating. SOoooooooo bad.It is so corporate and bureaucratic that most days it seems no different than the USDOE. Have DVR and Arne ever been seen together?
Can it be changed? I doubt it.
Even if we could somehow nominate and elect outsiders to represent us, they would face the same problem all outsiders face when entering an insular system-- they wouldn't be able to get anything done, because they would need the cooperation of the Old Guard (and in fact, the Old Guard carefully watches over the path to any offices of significant power-- ain't nobody storming that castle).
But we should still pay attention. We get ballots to vote on state reps and RAs and all manner of associationy stuff and most of us barely pay attention to who is going to what. We should start paying attention. We should start making sure that our representatives are actually representing us, and we should ask about sending them just for the sessions of substance and skipping the social hour. I don't really need to have my dues dollars spent on events designed to show my representatives that hanging out with the union leaders is so much cooler than spending time with the local rank and file. I don't want being a union rep to be a terrible chore, but I also don't want union reps to forget where they came from, and these days I don't think NEA leadership could find its way home with a GPS and a hundred days to make the trip.
My first big lesson in representative democracy came courtesy of the United Methodist Church. In the church structure, local churches are grouped into districts, and districts are grouped into larger regions, and on and on to the national level. Theoretically all these levels are responsive to the concerns of local churches, but as it turns out, not so much. The problem, as one wise man once explained to me, is that the district/regional/national body becomes the representatives' local church.
When they start out, reps say "we" when they mean the local they come from. But after a while, "we" means the regional coneference.
The EAs, like many large-scale representational bodies, use this process deliberately. When you go to a regional gathering of local reps and officers, business is always mixed with fun and parties and socializing. The energy is kept high and for newer local reps, it can be like being invited to sit at the lunch table with the very coolest kids.
In this day and age, there's little practical need for most of these gatherings. Information on issues could be sent out over the net, votes could be taken over the net, and at the very least the full-weekend gatherings could be reduced to a Saturday afternoon. Likewise union training sessions that could be a single day are often stretched into at least one overnight so that participants have the opportunity for a big social dinner followed by a dance or social event. And gathering locations are still picked based on what fun things there are to do.
While it's true that none of these training or governance events need to be dry, dull and painful, there's another purpose served by wrapping union gathering in so much socializing-- it bonds the local person to the larger group. I go back to my local school and when a co-worker talks to me about "that dumb-ass decision that those state level jerks made," I'm thinking, "No, that state-level jerk is my good friend Chris who is a great person, so I'm sure that decision is peachy swell."
For teacher-reps who have spent enough time at the state or national level, "we" means "union leadership" and "they" means "those guys who work at local schools."
This is not unique to NEA; most large groups involve switching loyalties from the local to the large group (e.g. too many Congressmen). This bonding in turn facilitates one of the most common, but toxic, principles of all political activity-- the ends justifies the means.
When we arrive at the outcome of this strategy, it will be really good for the members, so it's okay if we manage the rank and file in order to get them to support what we're doing. We'll tell them just what we need them to know. We'll stack the vote. We'll guarantee that we get the outcome we want, even if we have to totally trash any semblance of democratic process to do it, because we are pursuing a Worthwhile End. It's for the members' own good.
Believe me-- I totally get how leadership fosters a...well, crankiness...about members. If you've been a union officer for more than a week, you've heard all the classics: "My principal is yelling at me for leaving an hour early every day. Make him stop." "Why didn't you get us a contract with free ice cream every Tuesday?" "Do you mean to tell me they can discipline me just because I came to school drunk five or twelve times? Protect me!!"
And informing the members? You can try to explain something 147 times to members who blow you off more thoroughly than a sleepy fifth period class of low-function juniors, but a week later some of those same members will be angrily complaining that you made a decision on that same matter without consulting them. People don't want to be involved, but they still want veto power.
So I get it. I get how easily the rank and file can get under leadership's skin. I get that union leaders are like assistant principals-- dealing mostly with the problem children. But here's the thing-- that's the job. Complaining about how much work your members create is like complaining that the students in your class are all children. That's the job. If you don't like the job, get another job.
And none of this justifies the NEA's insulated insular behavior. None of it justifies the Us vs. Them mentality with the members, nor does it justify "managing" the rank and file because only leadership really knows what's good for them. Shut up and fall in line, because, unity. NEA is so bad at communicating. SOoooooooo bad.It is so corporate and bureaucratic that most days it seems no different than the USDOE. Have DVR and Arne ever been seen together?
Can it be changed? I doubt it.
Even if we could somehow nominate and elect outsiders to represent us, they would face the same problem all outsiders face when entering an insular system-- they wouldn't be able to get anything done, because they would need the cooperation of the Old Guard (and in fact, the Old Guard carefully watches over the path to any offices of significant power-- ain't nobody storming that castle).
But we should still pay attention. We get ballots to vote on state reps and RAs and all manner of associationy stuff and most of us barely pay attention to who is going to what. We should start paying attention. We should start making sure that our representatives are actually representing us, and we should ask about sending them just for the sessions of substance and skipping the social hour. I don't really need to have my dues dollars spent on events designed to show my representatives that hanging out with the union leaders is so much cooler than spending time with the local rank and file. I don't want being a union rep to be a terrible chore, but I also don't want union reps to forget where they came from, and these days I don't think NEA leadership could find its way home with a GPS and a hundred days to make the trip.
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