Common Core question for proponents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's some pretty contorted reasoning you got going on there. Don't twist your brain into knots there, Sparky.

???

The fact that you have somehow surmised that Duncan or Gates are deliberately circumventing Common Core. I'd bet you dollars to donuts that they chose where to live and where to send their kids long before Common Core emerged on the scene - and remember, neither Duncan nor Gates were the ones to come up with Common Core, it was a STATE initiative.

The fact that you've somehow concluded that they are putting something on to others that they wouldn't themselves be subjected to is thus unfounded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's some pretty contorted reasoning you got going on there. Don't twist your brain into knots there, Sparky.

???

The fact that you have somehow surmised that Duncan or Gates are deliberately circumventing Common Core. I'd bet you dollars to donuts that they chose where to live and where to send their kids long before Common Core emerged on the scene - and remember, neither Duncan nor Gates were the ones to come up with Common Core, it was a STATE initiative.

The fact that you've somehow concluded that they are putting something on to others that they wouldn't themselves be subjected to is thus unfounded.

But Arne Duncan should have known in January of 2009 that in June of 2010, Virginia would decline to adopt the Common Core standards that began to be developed in May 2009! Or, um, something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The following excerpts are from this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

Tom Loveless, a former Harvard professor who is an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said the Common Core was “built on a shaky theory.” He said he has found no correlation between quality standards and higher student achievement.

“Everyone who developed standards in the past has had a theory that standards will raise achievement, and that’s not happened,” Loveless said.

Jay P. Greene, head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, says the Gates Foundation’s overall dominance in education policy has subtly muffled dissent.

“Really rich guys can come up with ideas that they think are great, but there is a danger that everyone will tell them they’re great, even if they’re not,” Greene said.

. . .


The speed of adoption by the states was staggering by normal standards. A process that typically can take five years was collapsed into a matter of months.

“You had dozens of states adopting before the standards even existed, with little or no discussion, coverage or controversy,” said Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, which has received $4 million from the Gates Foundation since 2007 to study education policy, including the Common Core. “People weren’t paying attention. We were in the middle of an economic meltdown and the health-care fight, and states saw a chance to have a crack at a couple of million bucks if they made some promises.”

The decision by the Gates Foundation to simultaneously pay for the standards and their promotion is a departure from the way philanthropies typically operate, said Sarah Reckhow, an expert in philanthropy and education policy at Michigan State University.

“Usually, there’s a pilot test — something is tried on a small scale, outside researchers see if it works, and then it’s promoted on a broader scale,” Reckhow said. “That didn’t happen with the Common Core. Instead, they aligned the research with the advocacy. .?.?. At the end of the day, it’s going to be the states and local districts that pay for this.”

. . .


While the Gates Foundation created the burst of momentum behind the Common Core, the Obama administration picked up the cause and helped push states to act quickly.

There was so much cross-pollination between the foundation and the administration, it is difficult to determine the degree to which one may have influenced the other.

Several top players in Obama’s Education Department who shaped the administration’s policies came either straight from the Gates Foundation in 2009 or from organizations that received heavy funding from the foundation.

Before becoming education secretary in 2009, Arne Duncan was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, which received $20 million from Gates to break up several large high schools and create smaller versions, a move aimed at stemming the dropout rate.

As secretary, Duncan named as his chief of staff Margot Rogers, a top Gates official he got to know through that grant. He also hired James Shelton, a program officer at the foundation, to serve first as his head of innovation and most recently as the deputy secretary, responsible for a wide array of federal policy decisions.

Duncan and his team leveraged stimulus money to reward states that adopted common standards.

They created Race to the Top, a $4.3 billion contest for education grants. Under the contest rules, states that adopted high standards stood the best chance of winning. It was a clever way around federal laws that prohibit Washington from interfering in what takes place in classrooms. It was also a tantalizing incentive for cash-strapped states....

...


Bill and Melinda Gates, Obama and Arne Duncan are parents of school-age children, although none of those children attend schools that use the Common Core standards. The Gates and Obama children attend private schools, while Duncan’s children go to public school in Virginia, one of four states that never adopted the Common Core.

This is a great article and it tells how Common Core, a wolf in sheep's clothing, was brought into our states. The states were desparate for money, so they bought in -- most of them before the standards have even been written. Because how bad could they be, right?

To the Common Core supporters, you have repeatedly failed to show how this will help our students one iota. This package of standards is completely unproven, and yet you are on your knees worshiping it as though it was brought down from the heavens on stone tablets.

[Anonymous]

Tom Loveless, a former Harvard professor who is an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said the Common Core was “built on a shaky theory.” He said he has found no correlation between quality standards and higher student achievement.

This is the key to the whole problem. Common Core is based on a false premise: high standards will result in high achievement.

[Anonymous]

This is the key to the whole problem. Common Core is based on a false premise: high standards will result in high achievement.

If you start on the wrong path, you are not likely to arrive at your chosen destination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is a great article and it tells how Common Core, a wolf in sheep's clothing, was brought into our states. The states were desparate for money, so they bought in -- most of them before the standards have even been written. Because how bad could they be, right?

To the Common Core supporters, you have repeatedly failed to show how this will help our students one iota. This package of standards is completely unproven, and yet you are on your knees worshiping it as though it was brought down from the heavens on stone tablets.

Nobody is worshipping the Common Core standards.

Meanwhile, the Common Core opponents have repeatedly failed to explain what "proven" would entail, and whether any other standards are "proven" at a level that meets their approval.

Also, it's a myth that the states adopted the standards before they were written. If you want to prove your claim, please provide the dates that each Common Core-adopting state adopted the Common Core standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is the key to the whole problem. Common Core is based on a false premise: high standards will result in high achievement.

If you start on the wrong path, you are not likely to arrive at your chosen destination.

So what is the correct relationship between standards and achievement? Low standards result in high achievement? No standards result in high achievement? High standards result in low achievement? There is no relationship between standards and achievement? Please explain, with supporting evidence.

[Anonymous]

So what is the correct relationship between standards and achievement? Low standards result in high achievement? No standards result in high achievement? High standards result in low achievement? There is no relationship between standards and achievement? Please explain, with supporting evidence.

How about you provide evidence that there is a connection?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So what is the correct relationship between standards and achievement? Low standards result in high achievement? No standards result in high achievement? High standards result in low achievement? There is no relationship between standards and achievement? Please explain, with supporting evidence.

How about you provide evidence that there is a connection?

No, that's not how it works. You're the one who made a claim (although I'm not sure what the claim is, exactly). So you're the one who should support that claim with evidence.

[Anonymous]

Tom Loveless, a former Harvard professor who is an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said the Common Core was “built on a shaky theory.” He said he has found no correlation between quality standards and higher student achievement.

here you go.

[Anonymous]

This is a great article and it tells how Common Core, a wolf in sheep's clothing, was brought into our states. The states were desparate for money, so they bought in -- most of them before the standards have even been written. Because how bad could they be, right?

To the Common Core supporters, you have repeatedly failed to show how this will help our students one iota. This package of standards is completely unproven, and yet you are on your knees worshiping it as though it was brought down from the heavens on stone tablets.



Nobody is worshipping the Common Core standards.

Meanwhile, the Common Core opponents have repeatedly failed to explain what "proven" would entail, and whether any other standards are "proven" at a level that meets their approval.

Also, it's a myth that the states adopted the standards before they were written. If you want to prove your claim, please provide the dates that each Common Core-adopting state adopted the Common Core standards.

+1. Also, CC opponents have failed to show that the standards will *not* help our students. They also seem to be under the false assumption that in the absence of CC, there will be no standards or high stakes testing.

[Anonymous]

So what is the correct relationship between standards and achievement? Low standards result in high achievement? No standards result in high achievement? High standards result in low achievement? There is no relationship between standards and achievement? Please explain, with supporting evidence.

The honest to God problem is that we are sitting here arguing about standards at all. The relationship between standards and achievement doesn't mean a hill of beans in the total picture. If we could drive achievement by changing the "standards", well we would have had success a LONG time ago. Has anyone shown that states with "higher" standards had more success (before the CC)? If so, why don't the pro CC people use those states as evidence for changing to the "higher level" CC standards? That would make their argument a lot more iron clad.

Why do we keep trying the same solutions to our problem? You want to know the answer? It's because doing what it really takes is not something that cannot be directed by the federal government and international publishing companies (and they know it).

[Anonymous]

^that can be directed by

[Anonymous]

From:

http://www.alternet.org/education/corporations-profit-standardized-tests

The corporations encourage new standards, to make new tests, to make new money.

One of the best ways a standardized testing corporation can make more money is by coming up with new standards, which is why it’s not surprising that Pearson has played a role in crafting the new Common Core State Standards, a new set of standards set to be implemented in most states this coming school year. Advocates argue these new standards will increase but not improve testing —which will now be done on computers many schools don’t even have.

Its website states: “Pearson’s close association with key authors and architects of the Common Core State Standards ensures that the spirit and pedagogical approach of the initiative is embodied in our professional development.”

Assessment experts and academics were the main writers of the Common Core standards, while few of its consultants were classroom teachers, and parents played no role. The tests are expected to be much harder than current tests. They are supposed to be able to determine “college readiness,” although many realize — including Pearson researchers — that testing this is a complex matter.

But whether or not these new standards are well designed, effective or useful doesn’t matter much when schools get more points from the federal Race to the Top program for implementing them. Pearson, then, acts as a national aid, ready to assist in the new profitable standards by developing the curriculum and assessments.

Peter Cohen, CEO of Pearson's K-12 division, said: “It's a really big deal. The Common Core standards are affecting literally every part of the business we're involved in."

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, estimates implementing the new standards will cost the nation between $1 billion and $8 billion. Nearly all the profits will go to book publishers and test creators like Pearson and CTB/McGraw-Hill.

Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer of New York City schools, has warned: "There's lots and lots of books that have got fancy, pretty stickers on them saying 'Common Core,' but they actually haven't changed anything in the inside."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So what is the correct relationship between standards and achievement? Low standards result in high achievement? No standards result in high achievement? High standards result in low achievement? There is no relationship between standards and achievement? Please explain, with supporting evidence.

The honest to God problem is that we are sitting here arguing about standards at all. The relationship between standards and achievement doesn't mean a hill of beans in the total picture. If we could drive achievement by changing the "standards", well we would have had success a LONG time ago. Has anyone shown that states with "higher" standards had more success (before the CC)? If so, why don't the pro CC people use those states as evidence for changing to the "higher level" CC standards? That would make their argument a lot more iron clad.

Why do we keep trying the same solutions to our problem? You want to know the answer? It's because doing what it really takes is not something that cannot be directed by the federal government and international publishing companies (and they know it).

So don't. Stop arguing about the Common Core standards, and start working for the solutions you want to see.