So Kentucky schools are actually great, it's just that Gates paid somebody a lot of money to say they're not?

So let's not have a standard that sixth graders should be able to write a logical argument, because it is possible that some teachers might not agree on whether it's a logical argument. Really?

The direction for grading has been so confusing teachers can't even agree on how to grade a 1st grader's work with an ES or P. They have not received adequate training and our kids are their test subjects while they figure out what they are doing, while they are writing a curriculum on top of our children. I expect more from an educational institution than to make it up on the fly.

A report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, gave Kentucky’s old math and English standards a D. Only 11 other states were rated as poorly or worse in both subjects.

What basis did Fordham use for evaluation in their The State of State Standards—and the Common Core—in 2010 paper? They used the Common Core for comparison because they are PAID to promote Common Core.

Follow the money trail... obtained from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes-schneider/gates-money-and-common-co_3_b_3986424.html?utm_hp_ref=@education123

Gates Buys Select Major Ed Organizations and Think Tanks

Let us now consider major education organizations and think tanks that have accepted Gates money for the express purpose of advancing CCSS:

American Enterprise Institute: $1,068,788.

American Federation of Teachers: $5,400,000.

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: $3,269,428.

Council of Great City Schools: $5,010,988.

Education Trust: $2,039,526.

National Congress of Parents and Teachers: $499,962.

National Education Association: $3,982,597.

Thomas B. Fordham Institute: $1,961,116.


From the list of organizations above, I would like to highlight a few particular Gates purchases. First is this one, paid to the Fordham Institute:

Date: January 2011
Purpose: to track state progress towards implementation of standards and to understand how what students read changes in response to the standards
Amount: $1,002,000 [Purpose emphasis added.]

Even though CCSS was never piloted, Gates and Fordham want to watch state “progress” in implementing CCSS, and they even want to know how the untested CCSS shifts the curriculum– even though reformers are quick to parrot that CCSS is “not a curriculum.” This “tracking” tacitly acknowledges CCSS is meant to drive curriculum.

Next is this Gates purchase of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):

Date: June 2012
Purpose: to support their education policy work in four distinct areas:
Exploring the Challenges of Common Core, Future of American Education Working Groups, Innovations in Financial Aid, and Bridging K-12 and Higher Ed with Technology
Amount: $1,068,788 [Purpose emphasis added.]

Gates is paying AEI to promote educational policy that bolsters CCSS. And Gates is getting his money’s worth from AEI “scholar” Frederick Hess, who offers these two articles advising “Common Core’ites.”

Third is the Gates purchase of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT):

Date: June 2012
Purpose: to support the AFT Innovation Fund and work on teacher development and Common Core State Standards
Amount: $4,400,000

Even though AFT was not invited to the CCSS table until the “standards” had already been drafted by the CCSS Inner Circle noted above, and even though CCSS has not been piloted, AFT only called for a testing moratorium and not for a cease-and-desist of CCSS altogether. It appears that accepting $4.4 million in order to “work on teacher development and Common Core Standards” precludes “just saying no” to what amounts to the CCSS Colossal Education Experiment.

Fourth is the Gates purchase of the National Education Association (NEA). In July 2013, NEA officially endorsed CCSS, and in July 2013, Gates paid NEA for its support in the form of two grants totaling $6.3 million:

Date: July 2013
Purpose: to support the capacity of state NEA affiliates to advance teaching and learning issues and student success in collaboration with local affiliates
Amount: $2,426,500

Date: July 2013
Purpose: to support a cohort of National Education Association Master Teachers in the development of Common Core-aligned lessons in K-5 mathematics and K-12 English Language Arts
Amount: $3,882,600

NEA was not at the CCSS birthing table with NGA, CCSSO, Achieve, and David Coleman’s Student Achievement Partners. However, after the establishment of CCSS without teachers, now Gates is willing to pay a teachers union to create curricula that in the end do not really matter since the CCSS power is in the assessments that are completely out of NEA’s control.

I have saved my favorite CCSS-Gates purchase for last, this one to the Council of Great City Schools (CGCS):

Date: June 2011
Purpose: to promote and coordinate successful implementation of the new common core standards in major urban public school systems nationwide
Amount: $4,910,988

Date: March 2010
Purpose: to support the development of a cross-sector proposal to pilot test the new common core standards in a set of selected cities
Amount: $100,000 [Purpose emphasis added.]

It seems that Gates paid CGCS $100,000 to propose a pilot study of CCSS in 2010 (not to conduct a pilot study– just to draft the idea for a pilot). Fifteen months later, there is no mention of a “proposal” much less a pilot study materializing; instead, Gates pays CGCS to “just go ahead” and “coordinate successful implementation” of the untested CCSS.

Anonymous wrote:Opinionated teachers are people--one person's logic is another's fruitcake opinion.

So let's not have a standard that sixth graders should be able to write a logical argument, because it is possible that some teachers might not agree on whether it's a logical argument. Really?

Opinionated teachers are people--one person's logic is another's fruitcake opinion.

You think "organize" and "logically" and "support" are meaningless buzzwords? You don't think it's possible to tell if an argument is logical and supported by data?

If this is the kind of stuff your sixth grader is doing, I say, "Hooray for the Common Core!"

Anonymous wrote:
Which standards, specifically, are crap with lots of buzzwords thrown in?

Here's an example of the kind of crap my 6th grader is being exposed to in English Language Arts:

1 Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
a Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
b Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic or text, using credible sources.
c Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
d Establish and maintain a formal style.
e Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

The meaningless buzzwords! They burn!

"Organize", "logically", "Support", "cohensio"... I have no idea what this crap means.

And how can you even tell if an argument is... logical? Supported by ... data? This hurts my head.

Anonymous wrote:
Every state where students have taken the tests have had the same failure rates. NY, Kentucky and now North Carolina.

Every state will have the same results once the kids take the tests next year.

Where did you buy your crystal ball?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But I think that a likelier explanation is that the schools in Kentucky need to improve.

Yeeeah! That's right it has to be the teachers fault that they are not teaching Common Core based curriculum properly.

From what little I could find Kentucky is right about the middle or upper as far as educational scoring. So they would be a great test case to examine

Not quite the case. Actually Kentucky's old standards were ranked near the bottom of the US. About 11th from the bottom.

It's not that the teachers are bad, but the standards they were given to hold kids to just weren't that high. Now that the bar has been set at a higher level, it is understandable that it will take the kids several years to meet the higher standards.

For Kentucky, the standards represented an opportunity to aim again for a long-time goal. Educators had hoped for years to compete with states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, the country’s education elite. Two decades earlier, the state had undertaken an ambitious education overhaul, the Kentucky Education Reform Act, which introduced new standards and assessments. But the reforms failed to catapult the state to the top. Kentucky students continued to be mediocre on national exams. A report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, gave Kentucky’s old math and English standards a D. Only 11 other states were rated as poorly or worse in both subjects.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/what-kentucky-can-teach-the-rest-of-the-us-about-the-common-core/280453/

Every state where students have taken the tests have had the same failure rates. NY, Kentucky and now North Carolina.

Every state will have the same results once the kids take the tests next year.

Anonymous wrote:

But I think that a likelier explanation is that the schools in Kentucky need to improve.

Yeeeah! That's right it has to be the teachers fault that they are not teaching Common Core based curriculum properly.

From what little I could find Kentucky is right about the middle or upper as far as educational scoring. So they would be a great test case to examine

Not quite the case. Actually Kentucky's old standards were ranked near the bottom of the US. About 11th from the bottom.

It's not that the teachers are bad, but the standards they were given to hold kids to just weren't that high. Now that the bar has been set at a higher level, it is understandable that it will take the kids several years to meet the higher standards.

For Kentucky, the standards represented an opportunity to aim again for a long-time goal. Educators had hoped for years to compete with states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, the country’s education elite. Two decades earlier, the state had undertaken an ambitious education overhaul, the Kentucky Education Reform Act, which introduced new standards and assessments. But the reforms failed to catapult the state to the top. Kentucky students continued to be mediocre on national exams. A report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, gave Kentucky’s old math and English standards a D. Only 11 other states were rated as poorly or worse in both subjects.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/what-kentucky-can-teach-the-rest-of-the-us-about-the-common-core/280453/

Speaking of Maryland and the PARCC Assessments -- I am on the PARCC mailing list and just got this announcement:

Maryland Takes on PARCC Fiscal Agent Role;

States Gear Up for Spring 2014 Field Test

Washington, D.C. - The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers announced today that Maryland has committed to taking on the role of the assessment group's fiscal agent, in which the state will play a leading role in managing the finances of the state-led consortium starting on January 1, 2014.

Florida previously held that role within PARCC, which is made up of 18 states plus the District of Columbia. Florida and Maryland are working closely together to ensure a smooth transition of responsibilities.

Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Lillian Lowery said Maryland educators and policymakers are committed to their new role as fiscal agent for PARCC.

"Maryland is strongly committed to the success of PARCC, as demonstrated by our willingness to take on the role of fiscal agent on behalf of all the PARCC states," Lowery said. "The PARCC assessments will help support Maryland students, allowing educators to measure student learning facilitated through the Maryland College-Ready and Career-Ready Standards compared to other states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards."

Meanwhile, fourteen PARCC states, plus the District of Columbia, are preparing to conduct field tests of the PARCC assessments, beginning in March 2014, to ensure the tests are of the highest quality and can be administered smoothly when rolled out statewide in the 2014-15 school year.

"We have excellent participation from states and are moving forward expeditiously to field test the PARCC assessments starting with more than 1 million students in thousands of classrooms across 14 states plus the District of Columbia next spring," said Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell Chester, who chairs the PARCC Governing Board.


In addition to Washington, D.C., the states conducting PARCC field tests are: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.

"We are pleased to be participating in the Spring 2014 PARCC Field Test - and have asked PARCC to expand the sample of our students involved because we believe that this experience will be good for children in Burlington and across the state," said Eric Conti, Superintendent of Burlington Public Schools in Massachusetts. "The Burlington Community has generously provided us with the technological resources to expand our Field Test to include all students. We are also lucky to have talented people working in the district who are willing to learn from this experience and to share this knowledge with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and across Massachusetts."

"Colorado is moving forward with its plans to conduct PARCC field testing," said Colorado Commissioner of Education Robert Hammond. "We believe that the field testing will be a good opportunity for students and teachers to get a first-hand look at how the new tests will work before the official tests begin."

PARCC also has released sample test items across the grades in reading, writing and math and is encouraging parents and educators to review them online here.

For more information about PARCC, please visit www.parcconline.org.

Anonymous wrote:

But I think that a likelier explanation is that the schools in Kentucky need to improve.

Yeeeah! That's right it has to be the teachers fault that they are not teaching Common Core based curriculum properly.

From what little I could find Kentucky is right about the middle or upper as far as educational scoring. So they would be a great test case to examine.

Look I've been here a long time, and we all live in great areas and all love our schools, I think we are a little sheltered thinking everything will be allright, the kinks will work out by the time they get around to Maryland.

That is not going to be the case, there is no curriculum, the standards are crap with lots of buzzwords thrown in and once it starts its going to be impossible to stop, and they are going to blame YOUR teachers and YOUR schools and YOUR kids, because well after all they aren't as smart as you think they are and your schools are not as good as you think they are.

Which standards, specifically, are crap with lots of buzzwords thrown in?

But I think that a likelier explanation is that the schools in Kentucky need to improve.

Yeeeah! That's right it has to be the teachers fault that they are not teaching Common Core based curriculum properly.

From what little I could find Kentucky is right about the middle or upper as far as educational scoring. So they would be a great test case to examine.

Look I've been here a long time, and we all live in great areas and all love our schools, I think we are a little sheltered thinking everything will be allright, the kinks will work out by the time they get around to Maryland.

That is not going to be the case, there is no curriculum, the standards are crap with lots of buzzwords thrown in and once it starts its going to be impossible to stop, and they are going to blame YOUR teachers and YOUR schools and YOUR kids, because well after all they aren't as smart as you think they are and your schools are not as good as you think they are.

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, the naive Maryland parents, who have their heads in the sand about the Common Core testing sledgehammer about to hit their kids next year.

In every state where they have started with Common Core testing, the children are failing miserably. In Kentucky, that's been year after year. Yes, they've been taught Common Core for more than two years, and more than half the kids can't pass the tests.

That's what's in store for you and your kids.

I'm not a naive parent. My kids already take tests every quarter in their public school in Language Arts, Math and Science; designed to look exactly like the (former) MSA tests; they already take plenty of unit tests every couple of weeks. They seem to survive. My son has been a part of a PARRC pilot testing program. He said it was "fine"... no big deal. It was a test.

I KNOW that the kids in our school district will fail the PARRC if there is any expectation of writing. I do expect that writing instruction is going to be much more heavily emphasized in the next few years.

I expect we'll see even less instruction in Social Studies and Health in elementary school, than we do now, because these subjects are not measured at all on any PARRC Test. That bothers me.

Kids in Kentucky are failing their tests because the tests are bad, and because the schools aren't doing a great job of teaching.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, the naive Maryland parents, who have their heads in the sand about the Common Core testing sledgehammer about to hit their kids next year.

In every state where they have started with Common Core testing, the children are failing miserably. In Kentucky, that's been year after year. Yes, they've been taught Common Core for more than two years, and more than half the kids can't pass the tests.

That's what's in store for you and your kids.

Year after year, in Kentucky? You mean the spring of 2012 and the spring of 2013? I guess that is literally year after year.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/what-kentucky-can-teach-the-rest-of-the-us-about-the-common-core/280453/

Also, you can interpret half the students failing as a sign that the Common Core standards are bad. But I think that a likelier explanation is that the schools in Kentucky need to improve.

Keep that thought in mind when your children fail next year.