To Tim Elmore: Here's What You're Missing

At Growing Leaders, Tim Elmore ends his column "The Cost of Bad Teachers," with a question: "Am I missing something here?"

Yes, Tim, I believe you are. I will, as you request, try to talk to you.

You lead off with a pair of questions:

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO's, who can't lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance?

First, before the punctuation nazis get in an uproar, yes-- as punctuated, Tim, you just said that all doctors are pitiful and all CEOs are incapable of leading companies. I'm going to suggest that punctuation nazis relax so we can talk about what you clearly meant.

These questions are really beside the point, but I'm weary of the continued assertion that out in the Real World folks win and lose strictly on merit. Because without using imagination at all, I can take you to a world where hospital staffing has way more to do with politics and connections than quality. And I think we can all imagine a world where executives make choices so reckless and irresponsible and arguably illegal that they crash their company and, in some cases, bring the nation's economy to the brink of disaster, and yet these executives get to keep their jobs, get bonuses, and in some cases, receive appointment to highly lucrative government positions.

Again-- none of this really means a thing as far as dealing with less-than-stellar teachers. But I think it would be useful to stop pretending that all other sectors are humming along in perfectly-functioning meritocracies. Pretending that we have established meritocracies before just adds to the illusion that we can do it for schools. In a sense, this is like opening your argument with "Why aren't schools powered by cold fusion generators?"

You go on to refer to tenure as a "job guarantee," and you put it in quotation marks, which tells me that you know you are overstating your case here. Tenure does not guarantee a job for life. It guarantees a teacher due process, and is still a protection against being fired for reasons from benching a school board members kid in sports to campaigning for the wrong party to speaking up against a school policy that is wasting the taxpayers' money.

Teacher’s Unions have filed an appeal, but parents are not budging. They want good teachers “in” and bad teachers “out.” - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.bwO6UUjJ.dpuf

Teacher’s Unions have filed an appeal, but parents are not budging. They want good teachers “in” and bad teachers “out.” - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Teacher's unions have filed appeals but parents are not budging. They want good teachers "in" and bad teachers "out." 

This suggests that teachers' unions are somehow really devoted to keeping bad teachers in the classroom. I defy you to find me ten union teachers anywhere in public school who would agree with that sentiment.

You go on to cite some stats from the Vergara trial. The "number of bad teachers" estimate turns out to be a fabricated number (as explained by the person who fabricated it). The data about how much money a student loses over a lifetime by having a bad teacher has been debunked many, many times. Here's one example.

You then ask people to reflect on good and bad teachers they had back in school. I agree we can all do this. But as you're drifting back in memory, I want you to take it a step further. Can you remember a good teacher that every single solitary student in the classroom thought was good? Because that's our problem here. One of the teachers cited as grossly ineffective was also a multiple award-winning teacher; follow this link and you can find video of her teaching and students praising her work. But a single student in her classroom has now made this teacher a national poster child for gross ineffectiveness?

That door swings both ways. You and I both can come up with teachers that we thought were terrible. But even though Mr. McDull was uninspiring to me, I'm not so sure that I can swear definitively that he never inspired any other students at all.

My point is not that bad teachers do not exist. My point is that identifying them is far more difficult than you seem to think it is.

You say that often the union won't let schools fire bad teachers. I don't know of any school district in the country where a union has that kind of power. Now, in some large urban districts, the union can certainly make the process and long and costly, and that is absolutely and unquestionably a problem that needs to be solved. But "solving" it by destroying tenure is like solving the problem of ugly drapes by burning down your house.

You invoke supply and demand, and honestly, I have no idea what the heck that has to do with tenure. But you do wheel around to the idea that everybody should add value, and while I would argue that we should not talk about schools as if they were toaster factories, I'll play along for the purposes of this conversation, because even if we use the language of value-added, we come down to a basic problem-- we haven't got a clue how to measure it. Not a clue.

We have folks pitching the idea that we can measure it by looking a student scores on standardized tests. There are (at least) two major problems with that--

1) We don't know how to do it. We especially don't know how to do it for teachers who don't teach the testing subjects or students, but we're now looking at systems that judge teachers based on how students they never had in class do on tests of material that said teacher never taught. IOW, a school where the fifth grade phys ed teacher is evaluated based on third grade reading scores. And even if we want to evaluate the third grade teacher on those scores, are we really prepared to assert that the teacher is 100% responsible for the student scores?

2) Go back to your memory of the great teachers that inspired you. Would you say that getting you to do well on standardized tests really captures what makes you remember them as a great teacher? I didn't think so.

You finish with five statements about human nature that you believe apply here:

1) We are at our very best when we have the opportunity both to succeed and to fail.

I don't disagree. But what happens if we are operating in a system where "success" and "failure" are determined by factors that are completely beyond our control? Does that bring out our best?

2) Without the guarantee of tenure, I will strive to find a job in my strength area.

I'll be honest. I'm not sure what you're saying here. If I don't have tenure, I'll try to get a job matching my certification, because... I don't know. Having tenure in a crappy job that doesn't allow me to excel will somehow discourage me from looking for the chance to have tenure in a great job that suits me perfectly? I'd refer you back to your first point-- I will look for a chance to be my best, and that's a job where my strengths can be used to achieve success. I don't see a connection to tenure here.

3) I have incentive to keep improving when I know I must work to keep my job

And if keeping my job has nothing to do with improving? What if keeping my job means giving the school board member's kid straight A's and the lead in the school play? What if keeping my job means never ever ever questioning my administrators, even when they are making what I believe are professionally irresponsible choices? What if keeping my job means keeping a low profile and being just as bland and boring I can be?

Removing the protections of tenure does not equal "must work to keep my job." In many states and districts, it means something else entirely.

4) I become the best version of myself when I give my very best each day.

Don't disagree. But how is this connected to tenure. Do you really believe that you, personally, would stop doing decent work if you had job security? Because personally, and I try hard to show this to my students, and I think most of them find it true-- doing your best and being your best self is rewarding all by itself. I have just never met the person who I can imagine saying, "Yeah, being my best self feels okay, but not any better than being my most mediocre self, so why bother?"

5) In the end, the students lose and the faculty gains with teacher tenure.

You realize that you didn't really support either of these assertions.

As is often noted, teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. Students benefit from teachers who can keep all their focus on teaching, and not the politicking and CYA needed to hold onto their job in an "at will" setting. Students benefit from a stable school where teachers are not regularly cycled out because they are too expensive. Students benefit from having teachers who are committed to a lifetime of teaching, just as they benefit from maintaining teaching as a profession that is actually attractive to the best and the brightest.

You do not attract the best and the brightest by saying, "We're not going to pay you much-- in fact we'll fire you if we think you're getting expensive. We won't give you much autonomy or chance to gain power and responsibility over your work conditions. And we'll fire you at any time for any reason, including reasons that have nothing to do with how good a teaching job you're doing."

But it's possible that I'm the one missing something. In your vision of a tenureless teaching world, how do you see yourself convincing people to pursue teaching as a career?

Ineffective faculty members get to keep their jobs, regardless of their poor performance in the classroom. It’s a “job guarantee” that takes away incentive for many… - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Ineffective faculty members get to keep their jobs, regardless of their poor performance in the classroom. It’s a “job guarantee” that takes away incentive for many… - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO’s, who can’t lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance? - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO’s, who can’t lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance? - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO’s, who can’t lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance? - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

PARCC Is in Trouble (Updated with Disappointing News)

This story has been emerging in bits and pieces and being reported on as parts of other stories, but it deserves to be mentioned many places, because it has the potential to wreak some serious havoc in this coming school year.

Last year, Pearson won the contract to develop the PARCC test. This may have been because Pearson was the only bidder, and that may have been the case because the contract was written in such a way that only Pearson could possibly bid on it. But although DC-based Americans Institutes for Research did not think they could take on British Pearson in the bidding process, they were ready to take them on in court.

AIR's suit does not just allege that the bidding on PARCC was unfair regarding the test, but that the bidding was rigged to give Pearson an edge for years to come on services that were above and beyond simply providing the PARCC test. Kind of like putting a contract to bid on repaving the driveway in such a way that it also gives the winner a job doing all the building maintenance and cleaning.

A judge agreed to hear the case. More importantly, the judge directed Pearson to put down its pencil and stop working on PARCC until this is sorted out. And that is where things have been sitting since the end of May.

Is it possible that Pearson has some people in a back room somewhere working on a program for training fluffy bunnies that could miraculously turn out to be equally applicable to writing the PARCC, once they're free to do so? That would be the smart move. But do not overlook the possibility that the judge in this case could throw out the entire contract based on a rigged bidding set-up (which, let's be honest, doesn't exactly seem like a huge stretch).

There's a whole other layer of trouble here in that, per Mercedes Schneider's reporting, there's at least one state where some of the Folks In Charge don't seem to grasp what is going on. This means that if you're a PARCC state, not only might you not have a fresh test in place and ready to go, but your leaders may not even have realized that they need a Plan B, let alone started to create one.

Can anybody actually take on Pearson, the behemoth of the education world? That's a good question, but given there is a mountain of money involved stacked high enough to blot out the sun, it's a fair bet that AIR is going to give it the old college try. We've had many attempts to interpret various calls for testing moratoriums; one other possibility is that some folks have looked in their corporate tea leaves and decided it may take us a couple of years just to get a fresh test. In the mean time, the testing system that is the backbone and testicles of the reformster movement is continuing its slow-motion collapse. And that's good news for everyone.

UPDATE As of July 2, it appears that Pearson's Big Bucks Express is back on track. Here's the report of the decision to let them continue.So that's a win. And here's the report of the decision in their favor. And that's the knock-out punch. Pearson's path toward owning all of American education is clear once again.

Duncan on Harris v. Quinn

"Collective bargaining is a fundamental right that helped build America’s middle class. I’ve seen firsthand as Education Secretary that collaborating with unions and their state and local affiliates helps improve outcomes for students. The President and I remain committed to defending collective bargaining rights."

That's not an excerpt. That's the whole thing.

Here's the complete Duncan statement on Vergara.

“For students in California and every other state, equal opportunities for learning must include the equal opportunity to be taught by a great teacher. The students who brought this lawsuit are, unfortunately, just nine out of millions of young people in America who are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students. Today’s court decision is a mandate to fix these problems. Together, we must work to increase public confidence in public education. This decision presents an opportunity for a progressive state with a tradition of innovation to build a new framework for the teaching profession that protects students’ rights to equal educational opportunities while providing teachers the support, respect and rewarding careers they deserve. My hope is that today’s decision moves from the courtroom toward a collaborative process in California that is fair, thoughtful, practical and swift. Every state, every school district needs to have that kind of conversation. At the federal level, we are committed to encouraging and supporting that dialogue in partnership with states. At the same time, we all need to continue to address other inequities in education–including school funding, access to quality early childhood programs and school discipline.”

When you slice baloney thinner, it's easier to see through it.


I ignored Duncan's release on Vergara initially because it seemed so transparently not about Vergara, like a spirited tap dance around a mine. Duncan hits everything except the target, finishing on a quick fade to left field. I would think that he either didn't understand the significance of Vergara, or just didn't want to, but his response to Haris v. Quinn shows he can in fact parse these things.

So Arne, perhaps you could go back and take another look at Vergara and ask what it says about collective bargaining and other employment protections as well as teachers' chance to be represented by a union. Or perhaps you'd like to expand your comment on Harris v. Quinn to explain what you think it means to support and defend collective bargaining rights.

I would hate to think that Harris v. Quinn only woke up the administration because it directly affects unions' ability to serve as a fundraising arm of the Democratic party.

Charter Party of the Year: The Tweet Report

I believe that charter schools were once a viable option, a way to diversify and expand the possibilities available within a public school system. That possibility has all-but-vanished, crushed under the transformation of charter schools from an educational offering into an investment opportunity (thank you, obscure tax law). Modern charter operators care about education no more than millionaires with Swiss bank accounts care about Switzerland.

Nothing quite underlines that transformation like the annual National Charter Schools Convention. It's happening in Vegas, but unlikely to stay in Vegas. It's not over yet, but it has already generated some fabulous news. In one shocking surprise, the Broad folks awarded a butt-load of money to KIPP schools for being totally awesome.

Unlike some actual journalisty types, I was unable to break away for the soiree, but I still have twitter. Let's see what #NCSC2014 looks like.

And of course, there are the celebrities. Last year's charter edupreneur was Pitbull (who presumably was not exhorting his own students to get "face down, booty up" nor conjecturing "slicker than an oil spill, she says she won't but I say she will.") This year, Steven M. Quezada was looking to shelter some of the money he made on Breaking Bad, and appeared as the kickoff speaker.

"There is no war between public schools & charter schools. Charter schools ARE public schools." #BreakingBad actor @StevenMQuezada #NCSC14
— The Broad Foundation (@BroadFoundation) June 30, 2014

It's a nice sentiment, but it appears that many speakers spoke on the subject of "How much public schools suck way more than charters," or how to most effectively market your charter as better than crappy public schools.

#NCSC14 attendees- Join us next year in New Orleans for #NCSC15 !
— Kim Kober (@kimkober) July 1, 2014

Yeah, that should be interesting.

Packed House for the session & multiple elected @ "Effectively promoting Charter Schools to elected Officials." We're in Lagoon IJ #NCSC14”
— Claudia P. Granados (@cagirl80) July 1, 2014

Plenty of elected officials and their representatives were on hand (also, former elected officials like Eric Cantor).

"Nobody is doing more important work than charter school teachers and leaders" @FrankLuntz #NCSC14
— publiccharters.org (@charteralliance) July 1, 2014

Again, many of the presenters seem not to have gotten the "charters are public schools" memo, unless it was suppose to mean "charter schools have just as much right to public tax dollars as public schools." In which case, they totally got the memo.

Doris Hicks: "All struggles are not bad. Just like our city [New Orleans], our schools are back." #NCSC14 pic.twitter.com/haO3G0eZL8
— Aaron Sherman (@Aaron_n_Wndlnd) July 1, 2014

Glad to hear that NOLA schools are doing great, because I was pretty sure the news was that, having gotten everything they ever wanted, the full-on-charter RSD wasn't doing significantly better than the old public school system had. After NOLA has a full year as an all-charter district, there should be a fun conversation at NCSC2015.

Unacceptable! 6,000 kids drop out of high school every day. #NCSC14 pic.twitter.com/DjSGtrV8L9
— DE Charter Network (@DECharterNetwrk) July 1, 2014

This is a ballsy slice of data for charters to throw around. I'm guessing that the next slide was not "Here's how many charter 9th graders actually graduate from that charter school." It's easy to claim superiority on the drop-out issue when you are free to throw away or force out any students you don't want on campus. 

History of Las Vegas sounds like the history of #schoolchoice - the power of possibilities #NCSC14
— Julio Fuentes (@julioflorida) July 1, 2014

Really? Really!? I am not a fan of school choice at all, but even I have never tried to link it to hookers and the mob and  stripping suckers of their money on sucker bets.

If your school or network wants to have a secure, sustainable data plan then we want to talk with you. Say hi at booth 1635! #NCSC14
— Schoolzilla (@Schoolzilla) July 1, 2014

Boy, were the corporate folks out in force. Here's just a partial list compiled by a fellow educator: Broad Foundation, Pearson Foundation , Getting Smart, 50 Can, School Choice Now, PublicCharters.org, CredoAtStanford, ChartersNChoice, Sal Kahn, Schoolzilla, Black Alliance for Educational Options, NoodleEducation, Capital Impact, Hispanic Creo, The Reinvestment Fund, Accelerate Institute, Orrick Public Finance, CharterBoardPartners, and of course, the Fordham. Now, yes, it's basically a trade show, but still- can we pretend a little it's not all about the $$?

"Close reading is not something to do in every class every day. Use close reading about once a month." #NCSC14 #ccss pic.twitter.com/Y3QWUYqrfL
— Aaron Sherman (@Aaron_n_Wndlnd) July 1, 2014

Thomas Newkirk has clued me in to the term "mystification," and I plan to exercise it. It refers to the business of making something seem so technical and special that it is beyond a teacher's capability, and will require some sort of expert, training, or technology to manage it. English teachers, take a look at this and tell me if you need a consultant to come in and explain it to you.

Great insight from @KenCampbell65 of @ntlbaeo: In most communities #edreform is winning in data but losing in emotion. #NCSC14
— Jacob Waters (@jacobwaters) July 1, 2014

The Browns are both on hand. Ken was one of several presenter who covered the PR needs of the charter movement. 

"Parents want to ensure every child is a winner. There are no losers in charter schools." @FrankLuntz #NCSC14
— publiccharters.org (@charteralliance) July 1, 2014

Judging by the tweets, Frank Luntz fired plenty of people up. This particular quote seems like a straight line-- "there are no losers in charter schools because as soon as we spot them, we ship them straight back to public schools where they belong" comes to mind.

There was a lot of this language, an alternation of "here's a great product" with "we are doing God's work." There was acknowledgement of the need for diversity side by side with repeated offers to win mini-ipads by stopping by and texting mystory to a number. Data gathering indeed.

I keep hoping that at some point the profiteers will move on from charter schools and let charters regain their souls. There was a time they showed real promise. But this-- this is like finding one of your old friends, one that you always thought was destined for great things, hunched over a one-armed bandit, eyes blurred, voice slurred, and the last of his savings being pumped into the machine because he's sure he's about to strike it rich while the family he's responsible too waits at home, broke and hungry.

Vegas, indeed. I look forward to more reports from #NCSC2014

Brown Presents NY Lawsuit Talking Points

In the June 24 NY Daily News, Campbell Brown presented the basic talking points for the newly-manufactured NY road show version of the Vergara trial. Here we go.

A Stirring Anecdote

Her story centers on the Williams family

One of their children... felt so strongly about the lack of instruction she was getting at her Rochester school that she wrote an essay about her experience. Instead of getting help, Jada was confronted about it, and her mom received harassing calls from teachers. Subjected to unfair treatment, Jada eventually had to transfer school.

This "ordeal," says Brown, began with a student's "request for sound teaching."

It's a good story because it underlines exactly what is problematic about this sort of narrative as a model of teacher evaluation. This could in fact be the story of a student who made a reasonable request, wrote an essay about it, and was unfairly hounded by multiple teachers. While I'd like to say that I can't imagine that ever happening, it's certainly not impossible (though the harassing phone calls from plural teachers is hard to imagine).

But this could also be the story of a student who decide she knew better than a trained professional how the teacher should do his job, got called on it, and had the whole thing blow up when the school tried to deal with her insubordination and disrespect.

Either version of the story could be the truth. If we put in student hands the nuclear option of ending a teacher's career, we are certainly, as Brown says she wants to, changing the balance of power. But I'm not sure how we get to excellence in teaching by way of a student smiling and saying, "Mrs. DeGumbuddy, my lawyer and I think you really want to reconsider my grade on this essay."

The Three Basic Underminers

Brown's lawsuit (there really is no need to pretend that this is the students' lawsuit) asserts that three policies of the State of New York undermine the presence of quality teachers in the classroom.

Seniority-- "last in, first out" is bad. It's also a sign of how carefully this is all crafted, because for years I never heard the policy called anything by FILO (first in, last out). But since we need to focus on the young teachers unjustly terminated by this policy, LIFO suits us better.

Tenure-- NY makes teachers wait three years and eighteen observations for tenure. This is the most obvious difference between the New York case and Vergara (California was awarding tenure after less time). This is a hard argument to make-- if an administrator can't tell whether or not she's got a keeper after three years and eighteen observations, that administrator needs to go get a job selling real estate or groceries, because, damn!

On the plus side, I look forward to Brown's accompanying argument that all New York schools should be barred from ever again hiring Teach for America two-year contract temps. If it takes more than three years to determine if a teacher is any good, then clearly TFA is a waste of everybody's time. Do let me know when Brown brings that up.

Dismissals-- Too long, too hard. I'm not in New York, so I don't know the real numbers here. This was the weakest part of the state's case in Vergara-- while you can't rush through these proceedings, there's no excuse for dragging them out for months and years. It's not good for either party.

Brown Is Stumped

Brown's clincher is a sign that either she's playing dumb for rhetorical purposes, or she really doesn't understand schools at all.

...last year, nearly 92% of the state’s teachers outside New York City were deemed effective or highly effective. If this is the case, how can 69% of students fail to show they are proficient in math or English Language Arts testing?

The strictly factual answer of course would be the studies indicating that teachers account for 14% tops of student learning. I don't know if I buy that exact number personally, but it's out there. Certainly it can't be hard for Brown to imagine that some students are capable of sitting in a classroom with an awesome teacher and still not learn from her, either because of distraction, personal issues, or simple defiance.

But the other reason that 69% of NYS students came up short on math and ELA proficiency? Because they were supposed to. Because the NY cut scores (the line between passing and failing) were not set by using some scientific study of what a "sufficient" display of skill would be, but by determining distribution ahead of time. By saying, let's draw the pass-fail line so that 30% are above it, and the rest are below it. You can read a pretty thorough run-down of these tests by Carol Burris and John Murphy here.

And nice touch on calling the fail rate 69% instead of the 70% more commonly reported. 69% sound much more inexact and therefor more "real" than 70%, which in its very tidiness reveals its made-up origins.

I feel bad once again for the prop plaintiffs who are shown in the photo looking out at the crowd, shoulders hunched, like they are seeing a huge raging river that they have to cross. But the Vergara prop plaintiffs were well taken care of, and I'm sure these will be as well. But there is a special corner of hell reserved for adults who use children as tools to further their own agenda.

In the meantime, teachers here in the East can now look forward to a PR blitz tearing down teachers in support of a lawsuit designed to dismantle teaching as a profession. We can only hope the ultimate result will be better than the California version of this traveling circus.

A Little Help, Please!

Next week, I'm off to Seattle for a 2.5 day session on PLCs. Our school district is trying to pilot PLCs, and my principal has asked me to attend. He's working his posterior off to get our school on track, so I would probably walk across coals if he asked, but the fact that my daughter and son-in-law just moved to Seattle is definitely a bonus.

Anyway, we have a variety of breakout sessions to attend, so I thought I would see if anyone had any recommendations regarding any of these folks. You can leave something in the comments, find me on facebook or twitter-- whatever works. Here's the list of presenters

Tim Brown
Austin Buffum
Luis Cruz
Rebecca & Richard DuFour
William M. Ferriter
Janel Keating
Shanon V. Kramer
Mike Mattos
Anthony Muhammad
Sara Schuhl

Note: It won't be useful to tell me to avoid the whole thing. I'm going. I'll be there. Any idea of how I can best use my time?

Thanks!

Thomas Newkirk's Superlative Look at CCSS

Thomas Newkirk's Holding Onto Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones was already a book worth reading. In 2009, it was a very thoughtful response to some of the twisting of instruction that was happening in English classrooms. Not a practical strategies book, but a book for thinking about the philosophical foundations of what we do.

Turns out that in 2013 Newkirk added a Postscript to the book entitled "Speaking Back to the Common Core," and it's a great addition to the family of essays laying out clearly why the Common Core onslaught is bad news for education. He makes nine solid points.

1. Conflict of interest

It is a fundamental principle of governance that those who establish the guidelines do not benefit financially from those guidelines. We don’t, for example, let representatives of pharmaceutical
companies set health guidelines, for fairly obvious reasons. 

As far as health legislation goes, Newkirk is perhaps optimistic, but his point is still valid. The Core was built and written by the same people who expected to benefit financially for it.


2. Misdiagnosis of the problem

A central premise of the CCSS is that students are not reading difficult enough texts and that we need to ramp up the complexity of the texts they encounter. I would argue that the more serious problem is that students cease to read voluntarily, generally around middle school—and fail to develop the stamina for difficult texts 

In other words, the CCSS prescription is exactly backwards.


3. Developmental Inappropriateness

By working backwards from the ending goals, creators of CCSS ended up with unrealistic expectations for young students.

4. A sterile view of reading

As a reading guy, Newkirk likes the emphasis on "thoughtful reading." But the directive to "stay within the four corners of the text"-- not so much. "This seems to me an inhuman, even impossible, and certainly unwise prescription." He demonstrates with an example.

5. Underplaying role of narrative

Newkirk offers a great argument that narrative is not some sort of separate animal unto itself, but the root of much work in many disciplines."Biology, for example, is all about process, about action, about events occurring in time, in sequence. Photosynthesis is a story; our immune system is a story; digestion is a story—even “corn sex” is a story..." Again, with examples.

6. A reform that gives extraordinary power to standardized texts

The central question is this: Are standardized tests compatible with the more complex goals of twenty-first-century literacy? Or are they a regressive and reductive technology (ironically, many of the countries we are chasing in international comparisons do not share our belief in these tests)?

And my absolute favorite parable for the testing wave ever--

    It all comes down to the parable of the drunk and his keys, an old joke that goes like this: A drunk is fumbling along under a streetlight when a policeman comes up and asks him what he doing. The drunk explains he is looking for his keys. “Do you think you lost them there?” the policeman asks.
    “No. But the light is better here."

7. A bonanza for commercialism

We are already seeing at work a process I call “mystification”—taking a practice that was once viewed as within the normal competence of a teacher and making it seem so technical and advanced that a new commercial product (or form of consultation) is necessary.


8. Standards directing instruction

Newkirk recognizes that the creators were skirting a line when they chose to create (totally legal) state standards and not (completely illegal) national curriculum. But he says the line between the two was already breached by Coleman and Pimental themselves when they did things like describe how many text-dependent questions should appear in basal readers.

9. Drowning out other conversations

Newkirk is talking about opportunity cost. A great question that he heard asked of a curriculum director-- "Are you taking any initiatives that are not related to the Common Core?" Newkirk wonders what conversations we won't be having.

I have only tried to whet your appetite-- you should definitely click on over and check out the full text. It's a readable, smart, well-supported look at the Core. I would recommend it in particular as a piece to refer to your civilian friends, or people who are just arriving at "So, is there something wrong with Common Core?"