Anonymous wrote:

As for being concerned about who write the standards and who is benefiting from them -- honestly I don't care. If the standards are better, I'm all for them.

Good for you. I think they are terrible. You think they are good. However, I am still waiting for data to support your argument.

What proof do you have that the old state standards were any good, exactly?

I teach. The old MD standards were bad. Do you have any proof that they were good? The writing standards (and the MSA test that tested mastery of the standards) were useless -- almost non existant. What proof do you have that they were good? Show me!

Hopefully these will not dictate instruction from the top down. Hopefully these will just be guidelines, because if they aren't, there will be lots of complaining and more teachers leaving and more people deciding not to go into teaching. If they just use these standards to write tests and start a new round of bean counting that will not prove much, they are a waste of time and money (a lot of money). If students cannot be described through a more narrative process and can only be data points on spreadsheets, we have left a whole lot behind. No teacher left and students who have some sort of "common core" that someone else thought was important for them.

They have already started from the top down. What do you expect when no classroom teachers were on the development committees?

The devil will be in what they do with the standards (and this is true for any standards---good, bad, or whatever).

Hopefully these will not dictate instruction from the top down. Hopefully these will just be guidelines, because if they aren't, there will be lots of complaining and more teachers leaving and more people deciding not to go into teaching. If they just use these standards to write tests and start a new round of bean counting that will not prove much, they are a waste of time and money (a lot of money). If students cannot be described through a more narrative process and can only be data points on spreadsheets, we have left a whole lot behind. No teacher left and students who have some sort of "common core" that someone else thought was important for them.

As for being concerned about who write the standards and who is benefiting from them -- honestly I don't care. If the standards are better, I'm all for them.

Good for you. I think they are terrible. You think they are good. However, I am still waiting for data to support your argument.

WOW!! Great find. I read this:

"Smarter Balanced is a state-led consortium with a transparent, consensus-based governance structure. Members include both Governing members and Affiliate members. Washington is the Lead Procurement State and oversees all financial procurement on behalf of the Consortium."

HURRAY!!! It's great to read that the states want to do this themselves and get the "for profits" out!! We need to make this cheaper and better. Pearson might have to work on the Mars landing.

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, if the PARCC doesn't gain support, there may be another company involved with creating CC tests and states may jump to those tests. That would make sense in a competitive market.

There actually is another company that is already involved: the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/

(But probably Pearson is pulling the strings on that too. Also, I heard that there was somebody named Pearson on the grassy knoll in Dallas in 1963.)

Yes, if the PARCC doesn't gain support, there may be another company involved with creating CC tests and states may jump to those tests. That would make sense in a competitive market.

Anonymous wrote:Another GED article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/09/375440666/a-sizable-decrease-in-those-passing-the-ged

Now that's an interesting article -- including the part where there are actually two alternatives to the GED, offered by 16 states. So much for all-powerful Pearson.

Another GED article:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/09/375440666/a-sizable-decrease-in-those-passing-the-ged

After implementation of the Pearson GED, pass rate went way, way down (and cost of test went up). Statistics are horrendous and many are giving up (plus who wants to keep paying to take the test---but that's a win for Pearson):

http://restoregedfairness.org/latest-news

Anonymous wrote:

We were clearly not going to get better, common, state standards by any other means. The US Dept of Education would have been unable to do it.

Maybe a clue should have been taken from that. Look at what is happening now.

And giving Pearson responsibility for the new GED isn't going so hot either.

What is happening now?

We were clearly not going to get better, common, state standards by any other means. The US Dept of Education would have been unable to do it.

Maybe a clue should have been taken from that. Look at what is happening now.

And giving Pearson responsibility for the new GED isn't going so hot either.

Anonymous wrote:

As for being concerned about who write the standards and who is benefiting from them -- honestly I don't care. If the standards are better, I'm all for them.

The ends justify the means.

We were clearly not going to get better, common, state standards by any other means. The US Dept of Education would have been unable to do it. As it is, we will never, ever, EVER be able to manage anything like common standards on science and social studies (the whole evolution thing, and how we teach history being FRAUGHT with divisiveness across this great land of ours).

Anonymous wrote:

As for being concerned about who write the standards and who is benefiting from them -- honestly I don't care. If the standards are better, I'm all for them.

The ends justify the means.

That saying is actually about morality. What is the moral issue here?

As for me, I'm with the PP. I'm more concerned with the sausage than the sausage-making.

As for being concerned about who write the standards and who is benefiting from them -- honestly I don't care. If the standards are better, I'm all for them.

The ends justify the means.