Common Core

Each new day brings news of a new and harmful education fad.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported on the latest one: letting students pick the books they read during school.

The eighth grade class that leads the story ditched To Kill a Mockingbird in favor of James Patterson and “plenty of young-adult chick-lit novels.” The Times breathlessly declares that the class represents “a movement to revolutionize the way literature is taught in America’s schools” that is “catching on.” Thankfully, school districts in Massachusetts are bucking the trend and adopting reading lists.

Take another look at the numbers in Still at Risk. We found that our nation’s 17-year-olds know next to nothing about some of the most important works ever written, including The Canterbury Tales, Invisible Man, and 1984. How will the reading workshop approach affect those numbers? We know where we’re placing our bets.

James Elias

New York City’s Osmond A. Church School won a three-year, $784,000 reform grant ten years ago. Many students’ parents are immigrants; nearly all of the school’s students qualify for free lunch.  

Despite these obstacles, student performance is skyrocketing. Why?

Well, rather than chase the latest fads, administrators decided to implement the rigorous, content-rich Core Knowledge curriculum as the centerpiece of the school’s reform efforts. Students have responded to the challenges of the CK curriculum by outperforming their peers in NYC.

Stacy Teicher Khadaroo of the Christian Science Monitor suggests that school administrators expecting stimulus money might want to take a look at what Osmond A. Church School has done. We heartily agree.

We’ve been thinking about Richard Rothstein’s commentary published two weeks ago in EdWeek. We’re particularly happy that Rothstein restated our concerns about the sampling in the 2008 NAEP arts assessment and that Rothstein believes, as we do, that an education that leaves out the full range of liberal arts and sciences simply isn’t an adequate education.

What struck us most, though, are the statements Rothstein unearthed from then-candidate Obama about schools narrowing their curriculum to boost student scores on standardized tests.  Rothstein quotes Obama lamenting the plight of today’s students:  “All they can do is just study math and reading every day, all day long. They’ve eliminated recess, they’ve eliminated art and music.”  He goes on:  “So part of the solution is changing No Child Left Behind, so that the assessment is one that takes into account all the factors that go into a good education.”

Clearly candidate Obama believed that detrimental curriculum narrowing had already taken place and should be addressed.  But does President Obama?  Not according to the priorities and policies of his Department of Education.  We’ve not heard a word of concern about curriculum narrowing from Arne.  And the only mention of curriculum at all in the proposed Race to the Top Guidelines is STEM (it is listed as a competitive priority).  But students need more than STEM and reading.  Candidate Obama knew that.  Maybe President Obama should review some of his stump speeches and share them with Arne.

James Elias and Lynne Munson

If ever there was a reason to make sure all students receive a well-rounded education (that includes history, geography, civics, the sciences, and the arts), here it is. Jay Leno’s compilation of past man-on-the-street interviews provides a laughably sad picture of the state of education.  Sneak peek:  To the question “Who wrote Handel’s Messiah?” a young man explains:  “I don’t read books.”

Advanced Placement (AP) courses have been hailed as rigorous college-preparatory program classes coupled with quality assessments of content mastery. Unfortunately, access to these courses has really been limited to academic student stars, typically middle- and upper-middle class white students who live in suburbs. We’ve heard of some inner-city high schools offering no AP courses at all.

Four years ago, the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices launched an initiative to expand low-income and minority students’ access to AP courses.  A report out this month found promising results – showing not only an increase in students taking AP courses, but also an increase in the number who pass:

• The number of students taking AP courses rose 65 percent over two years, and the number of minority and low-income students taking AP exams more than doubled.
• The percentage [of students] scoring at mastery in the pilot sites increased from 6.6 percent in 2005–2006 to 8.3 percent in 2007–2008. During this same period, the national average rose from 14.8 percent to 15.2 percent.
• With 55,000 students, together the 51 pilot high schools are large enough to be thought of as a state. If taken as a “state,” the NGA Center pilot schools outperformed similarly sized states, which only saw performance grow from 6.2 percent at mastery to 6.5 percent at mastery during the same period.

In part, the above results were accomplished because individual states made policy and program changes that improved access, built capacity, and offered incentives. The report highlighted states (both those that were pilots and those that weren’t) that are implementing strategies to achieve those goals.  For example, Arkansas and West Virginia requires every high school to offer at least four AP courses. Maryland has become a model state for vertical curriculum alignment, ensuring that middle school students are able to access rigorous courses so that AP courses are less daunting.  And, in Florida, former Governor Jeb Bush started an incentive program that gives schools $50 for each student that scores at the mastery level–with 80% of that money then allocated for more AP teachers to continue expansion. 

We thank these states for making high quality, content-rich education a priority for all students.

Diane Ravitch has an oped in the Los Angeles Times in which she lists the characteristics of a good school, starting with a comprehensive, content-rich curriculum:

“Our schools should have a well-rounded curriculum that includes the arts, history, science, geography, literature and foreign languages, as well as basic skills. Teachers should be well-educated and treated with dignity. Principals should be head teachers, who can capably evaluate and assist their teachers. School buildings should be well-maintained. Class sizes should be reasonable, making it possible for teachers to give extra attention to students who need it. Schools should have a firm and fair disciplinary code.”

Read the rest here.

As regular readers know, the first public draft of the NGA/CCSSO Common Core State Standards for college and career-readiness was to be released August 17th. Well, we got news this morning that the release has been delayed until mid-September. Our hope is that the core standards movement will take this time to add rigorous and specific content to the ELA standards. The full text of the letter is below:

Colleagues:

Due to your interest and involvement in the Common Core State Standards Initiative, we wanted to provide you some updates on the work.

In July the first draft of the college- and career-readiness standards were shared withthe common core project feedback groups, governors, and chief state school officers. They submitted their feedback on the standards to CCSSO and the NGA Center last week. We received a large volume of good feedback from states and other experts, which the Standards Development Work Group, composed of content experts from Achieve, ACT, and the College Board (click here for membership), is beginning to review now. The work group will make modifications to the standards documents based on research or evidence that such changes reflect what students need for success in college and careers.

In order to accommodate a thoughtful and thorough review of the feedback, CCSSO and the NGA Center have made adjustments to our internal work plan in order to consider feedback on the first draft of the standards. We plan to post the revised public draft of the college- and career-readiness standards on the Initiative’s site www.corestandards.org in mid-September. Instructions will be posted on the site regarding how to submit feedback on the standards, and a 30-day comment period will be available.

If you have any questions, please visit www.corestandards.org or e-mail commonstandards@ccsso.org.

Regards,

Gene Wilhoit, CCSSO

Dane Linn, NGA Center

Last month Common Core attended the AFT QuEST Conference and spoke with lots of teachers about their experiences in the classroom. An overwhelming majority stated that they, themselves, have had to cut back on teaching subjects and/or topics that are not tested or they have heard about it happening in their schools. Here are a few of the comments we heard:

• One Illinois teacher stated that if students didn’t score well the previous year, they are pulled from their social studies and science courses to review math and reading skills.
• A second grade teacher from New York reported that she has not been able to teach much social studies and science because they must ensure they are ready for the 3rd grade math and ELA tests.
• An art teacher in Georgia was told he has no budget for next year for art supplies, but he does have 500 students.

For their recent report on Federal and State accountability in Washington State, the Center on Education Policy interviewed a number of teachers who corroborate stories of curriculum narrowing as a result of test-driven accountability. Teachers indicated that because of time needed to prepare for tests, there was less time for non-tested subjects or activities. Further, some also noted that they were unable to teach much more than the topics within their subjects that would be tested.

It is clear that students are missing out on a well-rounded education. Can’t we make sure that students receive an education that encompasses the full range of liberal arts and sciences without testing every subject?

Common Core co-chair Diane Ravitch comments on NCLB, Race to the Top, and other items at John Merrow’s “Taking Note” today.