Common Core, ‘dubious causality’
Report cites flaws in new ed directions
The horse race of international rankings in education is based on misconceptions that can lead countries such as the United States to consider sweeping reforms that probably won’t improve academic achievement, according to a new report. The 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education released yesterday by the Brookings Institution makes a case against Common Core standards – arguing that California’s current standards are superior – and cautions against placing too much weight on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and international comparisons.
“We have to be careful when looking at test score data; it’s not the same thing as how many points did the New York Giants score versus the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. These tests have to be interpreted very carefully,” said author Tom Loveless in a video accompanying the study.
Loveless is especially critical of using international exams, such as PISA, to rank countries’ educational systems. The United States tends to score in the average range on the test, behind top performers including Shanghai, Finland, Singapore, and Canada.
In what Loveless calls a flaw of “dubious causality,” lower performing countries mistakenly look for a single policy to explain the success of top performers. One of those dubious connections he’s referring to is Common Core standards. He said advocates of Common Core often point out that the top ten countries all have national standards. But, said Loveless, “if you look at the bottom ten nations in the world, they all have national standards too.”
The report cites arguments by two outspoken critics of Common Core in California, Ze’ev Wurman and Bill Evers, who “conclude that the math standards, in particular, are inferior to existing standards in Massachusetts and California.”
Wurman was a member of the Mathematics Curriculum Framework and Criteria Committee that developed California’s 1997 mathematics framework, and Evers served on the 1996 California State Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance. Both were members of the California State Academic Content Standards Commission and, as TOP-Ed reported here, their fellow commission members overwhelmingly rejected their efforts to rewrite the Common Core standards to look like California’s earlier math standards.
One of those other commissioners is Scott Farrand, a math professor at Sacramento State University. He questioned how California’s standards can be considered the highest in the country when two-thirds of elementary students score advanced or proficient on the California Standards Test, but that falls to less than a quarter by eleventh grade. What that says to Farrand is that merely setting a high bar doesn’t improve achievement.
“What sets the Common Core State Standards apart is not the level of the standards, however one might measure that. It is their focus and coherence, and their insistence on student understanding,” said Farrand. He’d like to see the “my standards are higher than yours” posturing end so the people responsible for implementing Common Core standards in California can spend their time understanding “what standards can and should do,” rather than engaging in “silly bickering” that detracts from that progress.
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Standards are a floor. The future may prove me wrong, but I think the pros of having a set of common standards (which, incidentally, California still does not have because of the modifications we made) FAR outweighs the cons. The benefits of a common set of standards include clear communication of the minimum that should be learned by ANY child in this country, availability of a nationwide professional learning community for teacher, a chance for a greater pool of higher quality of learning tasks aligned to a common schema thereby making them accessible to students on their own, parents, teachers, and other school supporters AND to the Brookings point…. a clear starting point for applications, problem solving, and projects that provide depth and complexity on grade level or acceleration beyond it. Instead of bickering, those interested in education could be:
- saving teachers time by publishing independent TIGHT alignments to the common core so that teachers can shift time from selecting learning tasks to actual teaching and feedback for students
- increasing the probability that all students will learn at least at common core level by insisting that vendors provide multiplatform resources so that every child with whatever device or connection they have can access high quality learning tasks
- improving the social milieu for learning, making the point that nearly everyone in this country needs to learn more, not just school age children
- designing and providing learning experiences on TV, in museums, libraries, ads, tv, commercial products that support learning of the common core
-activating grass roots by growing what Bob Moses calls the demand side for public education
- strengthening our country by getting back to the belief that we will (though we haven’t yet) provide free, high quality education for all students, that we will build on what we have in common, and that we can make true the axiom that working hard and learning a lot will build a better future for ourselves and the next generations. I’m just sayin’
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With the combination of Brookings’ finding that new standards do not offer the panacea we’ve been sold, Evers’ and Wurman’s critique of the CCS math standards, and the high quality of the current CA ELA standards, it will soon be politically untenable for CA to commit to $1.7-$2 billion for CCS. It’s hard to see how Jerry Brown, astute as he is, could fail to see this freight train coming at him and his Ed. Board.
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The implication that those who seriously question the CCS standards are those who just don’t want standards or evaluation – is a sideshow. The argument is not about the worth of standards.
Standards,Frameworks, Goals, Behavioral Objectives of learning, using a hierarchy of developmental concepts and skills, and factoring in sequential developmental skills – have been around for quite a while! Those who had pre-service training to use these, realize the value. Those who have not been so prepared are the ones who are causing an inordinate amount of money to be spent on in-house “professional development” for basic teaching/learning strategies. PD should not be remedial; this is a waste of taxpayer money. PD should be stimulating, elevating and connected to research from respected educational research institutions. This would be one avenue to keep the education business relevant and honest.
Yes, the tainted follow-the-money part of CCS development,implementation and assessment is discouraging. Yet, there are people of integrity who question the CCS for educational reasons, and this is where the conversations should meet.
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Kudos, Doug. Succinctly stated!
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Lets hear from teachers! Some districts have already implemented parts of these and I know some teachers in those district have strong opinions about how they compare to their predecessors. Lets hear how that rubber hits the road!
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Kathryn This is good but….that report also noted the nonsense of ranking by tiny fraction of scale scores. This where the “horserace” nonsense makes California look like below average but statistically be within the range of the top 5 nations. That is an area for you to investigate. I asked John to do it long ago but it is too tedious for his active mind.
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I think this is a case of common core standards being necessary but not sufficient. I do believe the national standards in ELA and math are leaner and more focused than what we have now. However, standards don’t in and of themselves change teaching and learning in the classroom. There also needs to be a significant effort to build the infrastructure to support such initiatives as continuous improvement efforts and team building at the school centered around implementing those standards, professional development for teachers and principals, a serviceable feedback mechanism and assessment system to give timely and useful information to the school, and an accountabilty system which encourages effective implementation of the standards. Such a comprehensive approach seems to be what separates highly successful districts, states, and countries from the mediocre ones. Unfortunately, much of this supportive infrastrucure has been dismantled in this state in recent years.
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@Bill Honig: I will follow John Mockler and say “this is good, but …” (smile).
I agree that standards are necessary but insufficient. Bad or unfocused standards make high achievement hard to impossible, while very good ones rather than excellent ones won’t make much difference. In such case what is happening in and around the classroom in terms of implementation is what will make the difference.
But … we already have excellent standards. You say national are leaner and more focused. I (and Fordham) disagree, but in a sense it doesn’t matter for this discussion — all of us agree that our current standards are quite good, and that the national standards are not terrible either. So let us ignore the issue of federal takeover of the curriculum and just focus on implementation. We are 14 years and untold billions into implementation & infrastructure: aligned textbook availability; professional development for teachers; teacher certification and evaluation programs; standards for teaching profession; assessment; RICA; elementary math specialists; etc., etc., etc. Our own CDE testified a year ago in front of a joint SBE/CTC session that we are “finally more or less complete with implementing the 1998 standard.” Why do you support going “national” for the rather meaningless change (either way) in standards quality but effectively restarting this multi-billion infrastructure work? And in a time of budget cuts?
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I’m a NYC Special Education teacher and we use the Common Core Standards. My problem with these standards is that my students are multiple handicapped. Many of the students are non-verbal, orthopedically impaired, and mentally retarded, but we are expected to teach them using the same standards. We are told that we need to use the standards that match the students age/grade level and not their functioning level. Many of these students are not on and will never be on grade level. As a teacher I feel that not all students are created equal. They have different learning styles and abilities and the Common Core Standards don’t take that into account.
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“With the combination of Brookings’ finding that new standards do not offer the panacea we’ve been sold, Evers’ and Wurman’s critique of the CCS math standards, and the high quality of the current CA ELA standards, it will soon be politically untenable for CA to commit to $1.7-$2 billion for CCS. ”
I’ve been wondering this for a while. Even if the standards were superb, I can’t see why California would spend the money. Given that they are weaker than ours and, as Brookings says, standards are irrelevant anyway, what idiot would fork out the funds?
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Ze’ev: We agree that the test of any reform movement is how well it helps improve instruction in the classroom and thus the learning of students. I just don’t think it is accurate to say that this country and this state have been emphasizing and investing in the translation of standards into improved teaching and learning. The predominant strategy has been standards, accountability, and rewards and sanctions.
During the past years because of budgetary constraints California has been disinvesting in professional development for teachers and principals, backed off efforts to build school site teams that continually improve instruction, eliminated career ladders for teachers, and refused to pay for tests that go beyond multiple choice. It is true that very good English Language Arts books were recently adopted but most districts could not pay for them and so they were not widely adopted.
When you examine world class scoring places such as Massachussets., or Ontario, Canada they have adopted a comprehensive strategy of reform aimed at improving curriculum, teaching, and learning and have made significant investments to support such efforts. The one time the Feds and the state invested substantial funds in implementation efforts was in the early 2000’s in Reading First which provided standards, materials, professional development, coaching, and accountability. California, which prioritized the program (whatever you think of it) and developed a comprehensive initiative to support it, made appreciable gains in early reading scores. Recent Federal initiatives such as Race to the Top have not stressed implementation or insisted on investing in proven methods of improving school and district capacity.
You can also visit highly successful districts such as Long Beach, Sanger, or the Aspire charter school network to see how a comprehensive approach works. These jurisdictions set high standards, use excellent materials, demand site team building aimed at continous improvement, offer substanital professional development and have devised an accountability system which feeds back useful information to the school with spectacular results. This is the model for reform we all should be using.
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Bill: I agree with many of your sentiments, even if not with all of them. But even if, for the sake of this specific discussion, I will accept everything you say, where does it logically lead us to? To invest in effective teacher and principal development. However such effective development is defined, you clearly don’t seem to think that somehow, magically, the national standards will make a big difference by themselves.
So, again, please explain why should we throw away much of what we’ve developed with past investments and restart? How will we suddenly have more money to invest in whatever you think is necessary if we have to spend an extra couple of billions on just re-aligning stuff with different, but essentially equivalent, national standards?
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