Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Saturday, March 8, 2014

The Lie That "Many Educators Support The Common Core Standards"

Newsday has an article reporting parents protested the CCSS outside of State Senator John "I Love The Common Core Because Michelle Rhee Loves The Common Core!" Flanagan's office yesterday.

Flanagan makes pains in the article to say that he supports the CCSS, just thinks the implementation of the standards has been weak (a point which I posted about last week), then says this:

Flanagan (R-East Northport) said later Friday that he supports the tougher standards, which are backed by many educators.

"The basic thing is that every major educational organization -- teachers, superintendents, school administrators, school business administrators, the PTA . . . They all support Common Core standards," Flanagan said. "The frustration has been over the implementation, which has been suspect and flawed in many different ways."

Newsday reports the same lie later in the article (emphasis mine):

The controversy over the Common Core standards comes amid outrage from many parents and educators statewide. The tougher standards, adopted by the Board of Regents in 2010, were created with the aim of helping students better compete with their counterparts in other countries. They have been adopted by 44 other states and the District of Columbia.

In New York, which is among a handful of states in the forefront of Common Core implementation, the reforms have brought ire from school administrators and teachers, in addition to parents.
Many educators support the higher standards, but say changes in curricula and testing have been far too hasty and made more difficult because the state Education Department did not provide all curriculum guides needed to teach the more challenging concepts and course material.


A commenter calls out both Flanagan and Newsday on the "Many Educators Support The Standards" jive:

The article says "many educators support the higher standards". That statement is flawed as stated. It is stated as fact and there a two flaws with it. First, there is no evidence that "many" educators support it. There are a handful that might but they are overwhelmingly central office administrators and not classroom teachers. Second, they are not "higher" standards. They are more onerous, not more rigorous. To hold all students to the same standards based solely on their chronological age is not educationally sound. This whole movement is a scam backed by those looking to make a buck under the guise of helping children. I for one, do not believe the Common Core Standards descended from the throne above to bring educational salvation to our children. The laws of math, science and literacy have not changed. Our Long Island schools are the best in the nation and there is plenty of evidence to back that up, though it is hardly ever reported. Just another example of Reagan's famous quote of the nine most feared words in the english language, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

Now I know that both the Gates Foundation and the unions have financed "polls" which purport to show overwhelming support for the CCSS from teachers.

I can tell you that in my school building, there are very few still on board with the CCSS reforms.

In the ELA department, there is not one teacher who supports the CCSS.

Not one - and I work in a very large school with a lot of teachers.

I can tell you that when the standards were first announced years ago, there was support and excitement from quite a few ELA teachers over the standards (not from me, but that's because I'm a cynical old man who looks skeptically on all reforms that emanate from the Gates Foundation, Pearson, the Obama administration, et al.)

But all of those teachers who once spoke excitedly about Common Core have either turned against CCSS with a vengeance or quit teaching totally.

I know this is anecdotal evidence and I in no way will extrapolate the lack of support for CCSS in my school to educators across the state of New York or the nation as a whole.

But I will say this - we need a poll done by some outfit that is not being paid by the pro-CCSS groups to ask teachers around the state of New York about CCSS.

That means a poll not conducted by the Gates Foundation or the NEA or AFT leaderships (which are on the Gates Foundation payroll and thus are being paid to shill for the CCSS.)

I would bet you two artifacts from my Danielson framework that poll does not find "many educators support the higher standards."

Not in NY State anymore - not after the CCSS tests, not after the SED modules, not after APPR, not after Danielson and all the other reforms that have been shoved through all at once and overwhelmed students, parents and teachers.

The politicians and the press continue to preach the Gospel of the Common Core even as the public begins to largely turn against the Core.

Poll after poll shows the public as a whole mixed on the Core, but those polls are asking everybody about the Core and many people do not have personal experience with it yet.

But those who do have personal knowledge and experience with the CCSS - students, parents, and teachers - are turning in large numbers against the Common Core and the rest of the testing/data/accountability reforms that have gone with the new standards.

You can see it in schools like mine and in the CCSS forum townhalls NYSED Commissioner King tried to cancel and in the protests parents are holding outside the offices of politicians.

Frankly this is all crystallized in the movement of some states to change the name of Common Core to something else in order to fool an increasingly anti-Common Core public that Common Core State (sic) Standards are no longer the standards of their particular state.

Support for CCSS was never more than a few miles wide and an inch or two deep (other than from the people making money off it.)

As more and more people become familiar with the Core, more and more people are coming to oppose the standards - and I believe this includes teachers too.

Now we just need an honest and fair poll to ask teachers around the state about CCSS and see if I'm right.

28 comments:

  1. For the anecdotal evidence from across the Hudson, I am in complete agreement. The former NJ standards had more rigor.

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    1. And yet, the lie goes on in the media. I have another piece on the supposed "rigor" of the CCSS today:

      http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-new-york-state-education-department.html

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  2. Perhaps this will finally get approved

    http://www.uft.org/news-stories/bill-seeks-2-year-moratorium-using-commo...

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    1. To me, the moratorium is not good enough. I want a stake through the heart of the CCSS and I want it cut and quartered and buried at various crossroads around the state so that it can't rise again when we're not looking.

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  3. Morale in building is at all time low in my 20 years of experience in various schools...and from what Ive heard, teachers from illustrious places like Bklyn. Tech and moaning bout the micro managing, and the new assessments...at least those over 35 who have some critical thinking capacity intact...So...the commodification, monetization, de humanization, of the human spirit is well underway in every school building....Welcome to the Widget Kingdom...

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    1. Yup - if the Brooklyn Tech people are being micromanaged, then we're all being micromanaged.

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  4. I'm sure at some point even people's internal organs, body parts, will be commodified, and made into a financial bubble...the only way for these maggots to survive is to constantly create new business bubbles...education now being the bubble du jour..

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    1. It's true - they keep creating bubbles and bubbles and bubbles...

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  5. What a valuable article! Another lie exposed. Thanks for spreading the word.

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  6. On target. Here on Long Island teachers and principals are overwhelmingly against the peculiar - but oh so cleverly named - Common Core Standards.

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    1. Lohud has a bunch of pieces out today showing teachers and district leaders mostly in support of the CCSS, just pissed about the implementation. Would you say this is the experience of teachers on L.I. too? My experience has been, many teachers have turned against it in NYC.

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    2. We have abut 125 regular and special education teachers at my LI school. Not one of them thinks CCSS are worth a darn or are in any way rigorous - just odd. I would say that all of them ALSO think the entire rollout was ridiculous. Of course, many are in subjects that are not yet CCSS but they are not blind. My principal is a strong supporter of Carol Burris (as all of the LI principals seem to be). I suppose a clever CCSS supporter would try to obscure the issue with the nonsensical (and non- rigorous) CCSS standards by blaming all the backlash on the implementation. The teachers at my school actually laugh at that nonsense.
      On a separate issue our faculty council president has informed us that the whole mess has resulted in a completely arbitrary APPR rating scheme that is just as likely to protect a weak teacher as condemn a strong. I would agree with her there.

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    3. Yes, APPR rollout was a mess too. Shoved through with little thought, Sheriff Andy threatening anybody who says there are flaws. I can't wait to see the SED release of APPR from 2012-2013. The sheer number of lawsuits could snowball the whole system under...

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  7. ...Common Corporation Standards...

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  8. What was the expressed mission of the Common Core standards, and the rush to implement these standards in the public schools?
    If the point of Common Core was to ensure that all public school students were receiving the same education in all subjects across the nation, on the face of it, Common Core seems to be a good idea.
    However, in reality, Common Core has been used basically as a massive test prep machine, enriching only the manufacturers of standardized tests, at the expense of teaching subjects in depth, and sacrificing knowledge for single one word answers on a bubbled sheet.
    Once again, the road to hell was paved with good intentions- witness NCLB and RTTT. Common Core falls into that category as well.

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    1. Good intentions my ass. Anyone with good intentions might have consulted a few educators formerly known as teachers.

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    2. Consult with TEACHERS?????

      You MUST be joking, what do WE know about education??????

      Or so that's what these corporate types would have people believe.

      Wonder what it's like to live in Canada? Seriously considering becoming an ex-pat here.

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    3. Let me know. I am on the verge of losing my job in Newark.

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    4. Common Core combines the worst of intentions with the worst of products with the worst of implementation. I hesitate to point out the horrors of the awful content to my non-teacher friends because I risk implying the intentions were good. Or the worst of the implementation and the testing gobbley-gook because I risk implying that the content is good. It is possible to be awful in several directions at once: The Common Core Curriculum is a stereophonic and ambidextrous train wreck.

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    5. I agree, the intentions were never good - this was always meant to dumb down a generation of children so that they'll passively accept getting screwed in the globalized economy.

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  9. I live in his district and knew his father (from whom he inherited his seat, more or less). His father was a nice, decent, moral person....I can tell you that none of my neighbors support Flanagan and he will have a tough time getting reelected if the Democrats put a credible candidate against him. In my district, he is really disliked.....

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    1. It would be great to see Flanagan seriously challenged and knocked off.

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  10. Flanagan $upport$ common core because he is GREEDY! He was blinded by money and couldn't careless what parents, students, teachers and administrators have to say. Unfortunately, his children aren't exposed to this BS same as Commissioner John King and the rest of the "educational experts". Our children are going to suffer as well as their teachers all in the name of GREED! Shameful!!

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    1. He takes an awful lot of money from the privatizers, doesn't he?

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  11. Poll the teachers directly and specifically...no names or districts attached to get a realistic view. Many are leery of having names attached to petitions, surveys etc. due to negative consequences in workplace. Many of our voices are silenced!

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    1. Yes, that's important too. In the LoHud pieces on CCSS published today, there are names attached. Some teachers are critical of the standardized nature of the CCSS, how kids are all to be assessed the same way, etc. Some praised the standards (though many of these people were district types.) But you wonder if there were no names attached, would the teachers be as kind as they were to CCSS in the papers?

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