Public Education continues from transition to transition in response to the perception that we as a nation are in crisis because we are not properly educating our children. And the Obama Administration's adoption of Race to the Top--and along with it the Common Core Standards--continues the federal government's general approach to public education: it's all about assessment--of students, of teachers, of schools--that paves the way for specific outcomes whether or not those outcomes are actually achieved. It's the "looks good on paper" approach that has so often proven to be less than expected.
And much has been written in recent months about the involvement of the major publishing companies in all of the above. Alan Singer writes an illuminating article about the world's most profitable textbook and test publisher and its contracts with departments of education, particularly in New York.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
And of course Pearson promotes the CC, promotes evaluation models that are now being used, promotes textbook series and assessment, and wines and dines public officials.....all in the name of profits but at the expense of teachers and students.
The Common Core standards were created in isolation from the real world of schools, students, and teachers and they operate in isolation from one another. They read like prescriptions for scripted teacher presentations and scripted student responses as if the only thing that matters in an educational environment is assessment, assessment, assessment (of students and teachers, often at the same time). There have been a multitude of criticisms of the standards, and it's just possible that at some point in the future, public education will settle into a way of presenting them to students so that real learning takes place. Even supporters of CC will admit that a period of "adjustment" is inevitable, but this period entails that: students and teachers will experience stress and anxiety; that all students will be "assessed" based on the standards regardless of their potential abilities; that administrators will push for implementation and make demands on outcomes (test scores); and that good teachers and students, good classrooms and classes, good lessons and projects will be pushed aside so that CC lessons can be taught--and in this "testing" period, perhaps not taught well--to the exclusion of all of the old ways of constructing experiences for students in a classroom. What this means for public education is unknowable at this point.
But already, the stress signs are showing in classrooms all over the nation. I'm a public school teacher with 27 years in the classroom and I see this as a turning point for public schools where acceptance is uncertain and resistance is building. But the major concern is how resources will be allotted, what will be cut, and how will our students--our children--come out at the end of the process. Will they continue to see benefit in the education that is supposed to be serving their needs? Or are we, in the end, shortchanging our students by inundating them with the types of "lessons" that school districts believe the CC requires?
Yong Zhao, Presidential Chair for Global Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon is one of many passionate proponents for stepping back from and reviewing the merits of a public school curriculum that stresses--even though it professes to do the opposite--student success on standardized tests.
http://worldobserveronline.com/...
And of course, this website is a great online repository for information about these issues, with discussions on the Common Core, standardized testing, how students are reacting, and studies that are starting to demonstrate why balanced, nuanced approaches are necessary (and why lack of funding in working class and poor districts makes it that much more difficult for them to adopt balanced/nuanced approaches--because money is required).
But I'm biased in favor of the general p.o.v of this particular site:
http://www.fairtest.org/
For a more balanced view of the merits of the Common Core Standards:
http://www.amle.org/...
And yet another site that presents PROS and CONS of standardized testing: not the fact that we are assessing our children, but how states and school districts operate in response to assessment outcome requirements, particularly poor school districts with higher populations of special needs and lower-skilled students:
http://standardizedtests.procon.org/...
A large number of districts will accept the general package from the textbook companies--webinars on Common Core, reading, math, and language arts series that address the Common Core with unit tests and computer testing that mimics the state mandated tests to be taken later--and this packaging is what replaces more creative, student centered, out of the box lessons in the classroom because teachers feel the pressure to meet the outcomes that the district and state would like to see. These outcomes are now directly tied to teacher evaluations despite the facts about the student populations that many of these districts serve.
Sun Feb 17, 2013 at 2:12 AM PT:
Read Diane Ravitch's wonderful blog on assessment-centric public education policy and its effect on the the teaching profession:
http://dianeravitch.net/...