This Teacher's Ninth Graders Show Contempt For The Common Core

A reader at Perdido Street School blog:

Last week, one of our guidance counselors came in to one of my 9th grade classes to talk to the students about the importance of maintaining their grades, securing letters of recommendation from teachers, exploring career opportunities which would interest them, and making sure they meet their deadlines regarding tests, college applications, as well as financial aid.

The conversation between students discussing careers turned to teaching, at which one student said she always wanted to be a teacher. One of the other student visibly expressed her opinion, and then asked her why she would want to do that...also asking her if she heard of the Common Core. At that point, other students became involved in the conversation and the consensus became apparently clear...their literal hatred and scorn for Common Core, even mocking it as anti-American and the stealing of public education money by those seeking to get rich at the expense of tax payers and public schools.

Mr Gates...I wish you could have been there to hear what high school freshman that are young teenagers think of the "standards" that you have pushed onto America's public schools...

And Ms Elia...it would have been wonderful for you to be there...this conversation in class was student-initiated....student-driven...and student-resolved...a slap in the face to the privatization movement that your Soviet "commisariat" would most certainly have frowned upon.

If the ninth graders get it, so do their parents....and so do many, many more New Yorkers.

And last but not least, Mr Cuomo...you take time out of your busy schedule to preach Success Academy and charter politics...at the behest of your corporate masters...I wish you could have been there too.

Please come to Queens, New York, to discuss your Common Core standards, the three of you...and bring the news cameras...

I know you won't, because the students would make a mockery of the three of you in a public forum.

The newspaper article might read, "Ninth Grade Public High School Students explain why they do not support Common Core to Gates, Cuomo, and Elia".

I get similar reactions from students when I have asked them about their feelings for the Common Core or the EngageNY modules they've been doing for the past two+ years (which, given how Common Core fuehrer David Coleman feels about non-"evidence based" feelings, was a very un-Common Core teaching thing to do, but oh, well...)

How do your students feel about Common Core?

Do some feel that they're getting a well-rounded education writing argumentative essays in every class, spending three weeks on one short story or answering text-based minutiae over and over and over for days on end?

New York's Assembly Line Teaching

A serious of tweets with Arthur Goldstein, Tim Farley and Randi Weingarten on the state of teaching in New York today:

@rweingarten @JudithMalys #CommonCore is a big part of why they don't feel respected. Teacher autonomy is gone in this country.

— Tim Farley (@tfarley1969) June 28, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @tfarley1969 @rweingarten @JudithMalys Top-down imposed curriculum comes w/ it in many schools.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) June 29, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @tfarley1969 @rweingarten @JudithMalys Coupled w/ constant Danielson eval, like Lucy on assembly line.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) June 29, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @tfarley1969 @rweingarten @JudithMalys Or the Little Tramp in Modern Times - https://t.co/IqThFflvm9

— rbe (@perdidostschool) June 29, 2015

Truth is, teaching in many New York schools these days is EXACTLY like the Little Tramp on the assembly line in Modern Times, especially when the EngageNY curriculum is used:

Close read incomprehensible piece, ask text-based questions about excerpt, close read same incomprehensible piece (sometimes same incomprehensible excerpt!), ask text-based questions about it, repeat ad nauseam until final assessment that tests retention of said material.

Have a lesson plan printed out with EVERY step, EVERY activity timed to the second, EVERY question asked of students with expected (and necessary) responses under them, EVERY activity ending in an assessment, EVERY do now activity text-based and "rigorous" (drill-and-kill starts from the very beginning of class and goes right to the end) - this is the daily experience of many teachers in New York's schools.

And God help you if you're slated for a Danielson drive-by observation on the day when you decide to deviate from the above assembly line teaching - you're almost guaranteed a "developing" or "ineffective" evaluation for the lesson in many schools.

Randi Weingarten says teachers feel disrespected and need to be respected?

Respect starts and ends with the autonomy to write curriculum, teach that curriculum as one sees fit, assess students as one sees fit, have the freedom to deviate from teaching methods and lesson plans imposed from above, and not be forced to teach from a lesson plan so completely controlled and rote that it sucks the life and soul out of the learning and the classroom.

Alas, Randi Weingarten and union leaders, through their collaboration with education reformers, have brought us the current assembly line teaching mess.

Randi Weingarten thinks teachers need to be respected?

Great - she should start respecting teachers herself by ceasing to "collaborate" with reformers on reforms that strip teachers of autonomy, creativity, and professionalism.

End the assembly line teaching and evaluations.

The Farewell Speech NYSED Commissioner John King Should Have Given

Here is the "emotional" farewell speech NYSED Commissioner John King gave yesterday according the Capital NY morning education email:

“Last night … I was thinking about those moments in fourth, fifth and sixth grade, when my father was so sick and my mom had passed, and I didn’t have hope,” he said. “But hope came in school. Hope came in Shakespeare. Hope came in The New York Times. Hope came in the capitals that we memorized in every country in the world. Hope came in knowing that tomorrow I would go to class, and I would learn something, and it would be engaging and challenging and interesting. You bring your students hope. This community brings me hope. It has been a tremendous honor to work alongside our team at [the State Education Department] and … the Board of Regents and every person in this room. I’m very grateful. I look forward to our work together, and I look forward to closing that gap between what is and what ought to be together.” [PRO] http://bit.ly/1wFi6uc

Given how destructive King has been to the public school system and the children and the teachers in that system, how arrogant he has treated parents and teachers, how much creativity and joy he has sucked out of education, this is the speech he should have given:

I was thinking about all the hope and joy I was given in school when I was a child, all the hope and joy that my children are given in the Montessori school I send them to, and all the hope and joy I took out of the public schools in New York by pushing the rote learning of Common Core, the test-based teacher evaluations of APPR, the soul-sapping redundancy in the EngageNY learning modules.  To be frank, my job as NYSED Commissioner was to prove that public schools are failures so that charter schools could flourish.  I was hired for that job, that was the job I worked very hard to carry out.  I wasn't quite successful at destroying the public schools or the children and teachers in those schools, but I came close.  It is my hope that my successor can finish that job so that New York State will be a land of innovation and choice, just like they have in the New Orleans school system.

I went into education because a teacher helped me greatly when I was at one of the lowest points in my life.  I had some very grave family issues and, like many children, I was bringing the emotions I had around those issues to school.  A teacher at my school noticed this and talked to me about the problems I was facing. He gave me hope, he showed me some one cared.

In the school system I have helped to create here in New York State, I wanted to make sure that no teacher can have that opportunity to help a student in emotional need because there is no time for that kind of help.  There is only time for test-based learning, endless professional development, useless focus groups, and all the other mind-numbing, soul-killing corporate drivel we at NYSED have pushed on schools and school staff.

If I were a child today and needed the help that I needed from my teacher, I might not get that help because the teacher would say "I'm sorry, John, I'd like to talk but I have to run off to my daily focus group to talk about my target students. Then I have to keep going on the EngageNY curriculum because every teacher in this school needs to be on the same lesson every day or they risk getting an 'ineffective' on their next Danielson drive-by observation.  Good luck, John..."

So much of what King talked about getting from his own teachers - hope, optimism, honor - is the opposite of what King himself brought to the New York State public school system.

Like many reformers, King is a hypocrite, of course.

He makes sure his own kids are given the nurturing they need by sending them to a Montessori school - this way, they don't have to experience the Reign of Error King and his merry men and women in reform have thrust on public school children.

I wasn't expecting him to acknowledge any of this publicly in his "farewell" remarks.

That's why I did it for him.

A Friendly Reminder On Lesson Planning In The Age Of Common Core, Danielson And EngageNY

Dear Staff,

The administration has come to understand that many teachers are feeling the need to address current events in their lessons these days.

It is understandable that children want to talk about some of the stories that are in the news, like the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri, or the Eric Garner case in New York City.

Please understand that no matter how much children need to talk about these stories, all lessons must be Common Core-aligned and fully compliant with the "effective" or "highly effective" lines on the Danielson rubric.

Current events lessons must be built around a piece of complex text that is the centerpiece of the lesson.  While we want students to grapple with the complex events that are occurring around us in the world today, we must ensure that they are also grappling with complex words and language they don't understand - otherwise we are not doing our jobs as educators.

Current events lessons may not be open-ended discussions that go where the intellectual or emotional needs of the children lead - they must be fully-planned out ahead of time, with teachers having a rigorous set of close reading questions developed for the complex current events reading text and the responses students are expected to give to those close reading questions.  As always, close reading questions should focus mostly on the language choices and tone of the author, be repetitive in nature, and allow for no thought about the actual event itself.  When in doubt, always remember that in the Age of Common Core and EngageNY, we are teaching skills, not content.

In addition, current events lessons must end with an assessment so that teachers can see what students have learned and what they still need to learn - we cannot lose sight of the importance of endlessly assessing students no matter what is happening outside our school. Please ensure that your Common Core-aligned, Danielson-approved current events lesson contains formative and summative assessments along with the appropriate rubrics so students will know what the instructional expectations are and how they can best achieve them.

The complex current events text, the close reading questions, the expected student responses to those close reading questions, and the formative and summative assessments must be fully developed and documented in the (suggested) lesson plan format you received at the beginning of the Fall 2014 term and aligned to both a specific, measurable instructional objective and the Common Core English Language Arts standards.

Lesson plans should be available for the perusal of classroom observers.

These are interesting times we live in and, as was said before, we understand why children might want to break from their EngageNY lessons to talk about some of the things that have been happening in the world.

But as always, in order to be professional educators in the Age of EngageNY and the Danielson rubric, we must make sure that every lesson that is taught is Common Core-aligned, rigorous in language, complex in text, rife with assessment and 100% planned out beforehand as evident in the (suggested) lesson plan format.

Thank you and have a rigorous day.

NOTE: Informal, unannounced Danielson observations will be ongoing this week

NYSED ELA Lesson Module - 17 Days On One Short Story

As I posted earlier this week, the teachers who have had the misfortune to have to use the Common Core lesson modules provided by NYSED at a website they call Engage NY have found that the material is so full of mind-numbing, soul-sucking drudgery that they had lost the interest of students by the second week of school.

I have heard many complaints from teachers about one module that has students read and re-read one short story over and over and over and over for 17 straight days...

Here is an overview of that 17 day lesson module:

Lesson    Text    Learning Outcomes/Goal    

1    St. Lucy’s (p. 225: title, Stage 1 epigraph, and paragraph 1)    Students will begin the curriculum learning to read closely as they examine an excerpt from Karen Russell’s short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.” They will explore the structural complexity of this as they examine the epigraph, a description of Stage 1 of Lycanthropic Culture Shock.     

2    St. Lucy’s (pp. 225–235: Stages 1 and 2)    Students will listen to a read-aloud of the first half of the story. This lesson provides important fluency support and introduces students to some of the text’s central concerns. Students are introduced to the narrator, Claudette, and the rest of her pack, as they begin to consider the narrative arcs of the main characters.       

3    St. Lucy’s (pp. 235–246: Stage 3 to the end of text)
    This lesson concludes the read-aloud of the text and ensures students have sufficient familiarity with the arc of this story to engage fully in the close reading activities in subsequent lessons. The lesson assessment asks students to identify one of the text’s central concerns and practice marshalling textual evidence to support their thinking.       

4    St. Lucy’s (pp. 226–227: From“‘Ay caramba,’ Sister Maria de la Guardia sighed.” to “Neither did they.”)    Students will return to the Stage 1 narrative to uncover connections between the Stage 1 epigraph and the Stage 1 narrative. Students will look more closely at Claudette, Mirabella, and Jeanette—the three main characters in the text—and consider how Russell’s precise language helps us understand both the girls and their experience at St. Lucy’s.       

5    St. Lucy’s (pp. 225–227: Beginning of text to “Neither did they.”)     This lesson introduces students to text annotation and reinforces the value of rereading a text multiple times. Students will consider the reason the girls are at St. Lucy’s while practicing using their annotations as a tool to find evidence.       

6    St. Lucy’s (pp. 227–229: Stage 1, from “That first afternoon, the nuns gave us free rein of the grounds.” to “It can be a little overstimulating.”)    Students will continue to learn the close reading skill of annotation as they begin, for the first time, to interrogate Russell’s text by considering the accuracy of the Stage 1 epigraph. This serves as an introduction to a key tension in the work and establishes a foundation students will use to challenge this and other texts in lessons and units to come.

7    St. Lucy’s (pp. 229 –231: from “Stage 2: After a time …” to “… cocked her ears at us, hurt and confused.”)    Students will continue to develop the skill of answering text-dependent questions through writing as they analyze Stage 2 of Lycanthropic Culture Shock more deeply. This lesson introduces students to the NY Regents Text Analysis Rubric. In this and subsequent lessons, they will refine their understanding of text analysis by using this rubric to assess their work.

8    St. Lucy’s (pp. 231–235: from “Still, some things remained the same.” to “This was a Stage 3 thought.”)    This lesson deepens students’ consideration of the developing rifts at St. Lucy’s. Through Claudette’s eyes, they examine the experiences and development of the three main characters. Here, students will refine their ability to marshal textual evidence by learning how to paraphrase and directly quote evidence in their writing as they prepare for the Mid-Unit Assessment.

9    St. Lucy’s (pp. 235–239: from “Stage 3: It is common that…” to “Jeanette got a hole in one.”)    Students will continue to read closely and answer text-dependent questions as they begin a deep examination of Stage 3. Here they will consider some of the difficult choices Claudette makes, deepening their understanding of how Russell develops this character. In this lesson, students will prepare the Mid-Unit Assessment through collaborative discussion.

10    St. Lucy’s (pp. 239–241: from “On Sundays, the pretending felt almost as natural…” to “…how the pack felt about anything.”)    Students will demonstrate their understanding of the text they have read by writing a formal response to the Mid-Unit Assessment prompt. After the assessment, students will continue their examination of Stage 3, practicing their annotation skills. 

11    St. Lucy’s (pp. 239–245: from “On Sundays, the pretending felt almost as …” to “… that was our last communal howl.”)    In this lesson, students consolidate their understanding of Stage 3 and move toward an exploration of the text’s climax in Stage 4. Students will review their reading annotation from Lesson 10 by participating in a Text-Dependent Questions Gallery Walk that will continue students’ work with text analysis through an evidence-based discussion. Students will again dip into a subtle interrogation of the text by considering the veracity of the Stage 4 epigraph for the characters.

12    St. Lucy’s (pp. 245–246: from the Stage 5 epigraph through the end of the text)    Students will work collaboratively with a partner, using the NY Regents Text Analysis Rubric to revise their Mid-Unit Assessment. Students will conclude their analysis of Stages 4 and 5 and consider Claudette’s assimilation process.    

13    Entire Text    This lesson begins students’ analysis of the St. Lucy’s text as a whole. Working in groups, students will analyze the different stages of Lycanthropic Culture Shock. This work supports the final unit assessment that asks students to look critically at Claudette and make a claim about her ability to assimilate into human culture.      

14    Entire Text    This lesson continues students’ exploration of the key ideas, characters and central ideas in Russell’s text. Student groups will present their analysis of one of the stages of culture shock in the text. Students will use the annotations and information they learned from the presentations to write a response to a prompt that asks students to analyze the how Russell develops a central idea and use multiple pieces of textual evidence.

15    Entire Text    Students will learn how to revise their Lesson 14 writing response by adding an introduction and a conclusion, preparing students for the End-of-Unit Assessment.     

16    Entire Text    Students will prepare for the End-of-Unit Assessment by discussing and engaging in a class debate about the prompt. Students will consolidate their understanding of the text by considering and interrogating its fundamental premise—the value of assimilation.       

17    Entire Text    Students will exhibit the literacy skills and habits developed in Unit 1 by writing a formal evidence-based essay addressing the assessment prompt.   

Here is how students have received the genius that is this EngageNY lesson module that uses one short story for three and a half weeks of lessons:
 
The first day, they're excited to start a new lesson and read a story that seems to be about werewolves.

By the third day, they're bored by reading and discussing the same story for three days straight and starting to get antsy.

By the sixth day, they're outwardly hostile to the lessons and the teacher for teaching the lessons.

By the ninth day, they're totally disengaged from class and talk openly about how much they hate English.

By the twelve day, they no longer give a shit about anything - not the class, not the story, not the teacher, not the "assessment" (i.e., "test" for those of you who aren't fluent in reformy geekspeak) that is coming up on Day Seventeen.

By the seventeenth day, students complete the "assessment" with little regard to how they do on it because they stopped caring about the entire process somewhere between the end of Day Four and the beginning of Day Five.

Many people I know think that NYSED Commissioner John King and his merry men and women in reform at SED are diminished and humorless human beings, but I don't think that is so.

Any group of people that could call a website full of lessons that manages to completely disengage children from school "Engage NY" surely have a sense of irony somewhere beneath those nineties goatees and glasses.

A commenter on another Perdido Street School post who has taught this very 9th grade Engage NY module thinks he knows what the NYSED and Regents are trying to do with the Common Core lessons and tests:

As a 9th grade ELA teacher following the Engage NY Curriculum, I have seen first hand how destructive it really is. For three weeks we have been close reading one story! For the first time, my 9th grade students are completely disengaged. How many times can you annotate the same passage?

I also believe now that these units are actually lowering the rigor of my class. We are now into the second marking period and have read one story and written zero essays (other than the usely MOSL exam). At this point last year my 9th grade class had written two essays, read 5 short stories, and were halfway through their first novel, and we were having fun doing it.

The end of the opening unit has students reading (only key scenes) from Romeo and Juliet and then showing the Baz Lerhman film to supplement. How is reading 5 scenes from Romeo and Juliet, rather than the whole play, more rigorous?

Indeed, more and more people are coming to see the claims of increased "rigor" in the Common Core math and ELA standards as hollow promises or out-and-out deception.

The Common Core State Standards are meant to dumb down children, strip them of their creativity and passion for learning, and show them that their future lives will be full of mind-numbing, soul-sucking regimented tasks and standardized work that they will do over and over and over again.

In short, the Common Core revolution is meant to resign children to their hopeless future as a member drone of the 99%.

You can bet the children of the elites are not stuck reading 20% of Romeo and Juliet or spending a month on one short story.

The pushback against Common Core critics from the likes of College Board President (and ELA standards architect) David Coleman and NYSED Commissioner John King is that the increased rigor in these standards will help students to be college and career ready.

It seems to me having students read one scene in every act of Romeo and Juliet (approximately 20% of the text), then watch the film to fill in the narrative gaps or read one short story over and over and over in order to practice annotation will not get students college and career ready in any way, shape or form.

It will have them ready to drop out of school by the 10th grade, however, or just completely disengaged from their own education.

The Common Core - the perfect tool for the corporate and political elites to grow a generation of numb, compliant children into numb, compliant adults.