Archives For David Coleman

Diane Ravitch to the Defense of Teachers at the Saturday Reunion at Teacher’s College

March 23, 2014 — 1 Comment

The 86th Saturday Reunion (3/22/14) at Teacher’s College in NYC was decidedly political. Not political as in elections or party affiliation, but political as education is critical to “the public affairs of a country.”

The morning keynote address by Diane Ravitch set the agenda. Ravitch is an education historian and an author who served as Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander under President George H.W. Bush.  She was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University; this Saturday, she returned to speak at Riverside Cathedral.

She began by recalling another political era, calling the cathedral the “sacred space” where William Sloan Coffin had spoken out against the Vietnam War.  This time Ravitch was speaking out against the war on public education.

Screen Shot 2014-03-23 at 9.48.58 AMShe began by alerting the enormous crowd of teachers about the Network for Public Education. This year-old network was established to, “Give the [us] the courage to fight; our motto is ‘We are are many, they are few, we will prevail’,” she claimed.

Screenshot 2014-03-23 19.04.39“I wrote Reign of Error for you to use as ammunition… but, for heaven’s sakes, don’t buy it,” she insisted, “borrow it from the library, but use it to fight back the efforts to undermine education.”

Ravitch has been organizing a defense that is aimed at exposing the corporate take over of education that is endemic to this country alone. She countered that other nations have “no charters and no vouchers,” adding that “charters and vouchers divide communities” in economic funding. She challenged the treatment of teachers in the USA, insisting that other nations respect teachers and do not let “amateurs become principals and superintendents.” 

She spoke of challenges in providing for the inequities in education, detailing that 25% of children today live in poverty, and she demanded to know how our public schools will survive when education reformers push to replace public schools that accept everyone with schools that are privately managed.

She recounted instances of publicly funded charter schools that teach creationism and other “17th century STEM subjects,” and she railed against a push to eliminate local school boards.
“You may want to get rid of members of your local school board,” she quipped, “but there is a democratic process for that; this is an attack on democracy itself.”

“What is the end game?” she asked after the litany of charges against education reform, and then answered her question, “Nothing less than the elimination of teaching as a profession, systematically aided and abetted by the Department of Education.”

Ravitch continued her argument claiming that, “The education reformer narrative is a hoax, and they [education reformers] cannot win if they continue to perpetrate hoaxes.” She noted several indicators that speak to current successes in public education: falling dropout rates, higher graduation rates, higher minority scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test.

“We have an incredibly successful system overwhelmed by a high test prep curriculum,” she declared. “The reformers’ passion is for firing teachers. They suggest, ‘Let’s test every child every year and we’ll see what teachers get low scores, then those are the bad teachers,’ she intoned. “They fire 5-10% of teachers when they should be coming up ways to recruit and support teachers.”

Teach for America was a particular target of her scorn as she argued, “Teach for America is not an answer,” noting that reformers who rail against university and college preparation programs for teachers, and complain that first year teachers are “poorly trained are the same reformers that encourage the placement of 10,000 TFA graduates annually into schools, despite their minimal six weeks of teacher training. “They [TFA] leave in two years,” she continued, “and we have lost so many teachers. We are reducing the status of teachers. Who will want to teach? Many are shunning the profession; they [teachers] are getting rid of themselves.”

More scorn was heaped upon teacher evaluation systems where billions of dollar have been spent. “Many states have added value added measurements (VAM) to rate teacher effectiveness,” she noted. One such VAM is the inclusion of standardized test scores in rating teachers, however, Ravitch asserted, “most teachers do not teach the tested subjects (math and English). To assign [these] scores to all teachers is totally insane.”

Even more scorn was directed towards Bill Gates, as she maintained “The Gates Foundation has paid millions to have these [tests] written.” Gates himself has been touring the country this year in support of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a tour that included an opportunity “to dine with over 80 senators” that did not escape her attention. Neither did his comment suggesting “it might take10 years to see if this stuff works.”
“You have to admit he has chutzpah,” she quipped. Her more salient point was in her statement, “One man has bought and paid for an entire nation’s education program.”

Her objections to the CCSS are rooted in its creation, and in its rapid adoption and implementation in 45 states.
She objected to the lack of educators involved in developing the standards. She reminded the crowd that only four agencies were involved in the creation: the  National Association of Governors; the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO); and two educational organizations, Achieve, devoted to improving the rigor and clarity of the process of standard-setting and testing, and Student Achievement Partners, a non-profit organization working to support teachers across the country in their efforts to realize the promise of the Common Core State Standards for all students. She  specifically called out David Coleman, a non-educator and a former treasurer to the controversial Michelle Rhee’s Student’s First enterprise,who now serves as president of the College Board. (See my previous posts on Coleman here and here)

Ravitch commented also on the language that education reformers made in promoting the CCSS, standards that force schools to”Jump into the deep end of the pool” or standards that “rip off the bandaid” asking, “Why do they use such sadistic language? These are our children!”

“This small group [CCSS writers],” she continued, “was aided by the ACT and presented the CCSS as a fait accompli.” She added that the writing process of the CCSS was not transparent, and that, in violation of the National Standards Institute protocols,“there is no appeals process for standards that are seen as incorrect.” Moreover, although teachers were invited to “review” the CCSS,  the standards themselves were implemented without a field test. Now the two federally funded testing consortiums, PARCC and SBAC, will spend the next two years testing these standards online.

“The tech sector loves the CCSS,” she insisted, “there’s new software and bandwidth” included in already tight education budgets, “along with data analysts and entrepreneurial agencies designed to help with the CCSS.” Finally she returned to her message of academic inequities where targets of 70% failure rates on rounds of standardized tests are predicted. “How is it equitable to give a test they know students will fail?” suggesting that a passing rate is fluid, determined by the test creators who choose the “cut rate.”

During the speech, I was seated only eight rows back with a colleague who echoed to me particularly strong statements made by Ravitch on the effects of educational reform. She obviously wanted these statements included in my notes, so here are a few more “Ravitch-isms”:

We must roll back what we see is a poisonous time….

I never met a child who learned to read because the schools were closed.

No other nation doing this. We are alone in taking punitive action.

They [ed reformers] call it creative disruption, but children need continuity, not churn.

As she came to the conclusion of her speech, Ravitch returned to her message on the impact of poverty on academic performance saying, “What we do know about standardized tests is that they reflect socio-economic status. The pattern is inexorable. Look at charts that align standardized test scores with income and education; they [tests] measure the achievement gap.” Ravitch then turned to Michael Young’s book,  The Rise of the Meritocracy, and cited the following quotes:

If the rich and powerful were encouraged by the general culture to believe that they fully deserved all they had, how arrogant they could become, and if they were convinced it was all for the common good, how ruthless in pursuing their own advantage. Power corrupts, and therefore one of the secrets of a good society is that power should always be open to criticism. A good society should provide sinew for revolt as well as for power.

But authority cannot be humbled unless ordinary people, however much they have been rejected by the educational system, have the confidence to assert themselves against the mighty. If they think themselves inferior, if they think they deserve on merit to have less worldly goods and less worldly power than a select minority, they can be damaged in their own self-esteem, and generally demoralized.

Even if it could be demonstrated that ordinary people had less native ability than those selected for high position, that would not mean that they deserved to get less. Being a member of the “lucky sperm club” confers no moral right or advantage. What one is born with, or without, is not of one’s own doing.

She concluded her address with a list of suggestions, of next steps:

  1.  Salvage the standards to make standards better. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) should review and revise the standards. “Fix what is wrong”and “damn the copyright.”
  2. Decouple the Common Core from the tests;
  3. Teachers: Teach what you love and enrich instruction;
  4. Remember that a decent democracy equals values. 
  5. Do nothing to stigmatize those who have the least.

It should be noted that throughout the speech, Ravitch referred to “children” instead of using the word “students.” Her linguistic choice was noted by a later speaker, Kathy Collins. In refusing to use “students,” Ravitch put the focus back on the purpose for public education, to prepare the nation’s children, and she relayed a critical difference between her pedagogy and the philosophy of the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. “Arne Duncan thinks children as young as five should be on track to be college and career ready. He has said, ‘I want to walk in, look in their eyes, and know they are college and career ready’.”

She paused as if to respond to him, “I see a child. Leave him alone.”

The cathedral reverberated with applause.

In Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Education, Education reform, Professional Development, Teacher, Testing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Literally….David Coleman

August 24, 2013 — 2 Comments

Literally added a new meaning this past month….literally.

A quick look at the Cambridge Dictionaries Online indicates that while the meaning of literally as ” having the real or original meaning of a word or phrase” will now include use of the word “to emphasize what you are saying”. A similar entry from an authority across the pond, Oxford Dictionaries notes:

In recent years an extended use of literally (and also literal) has become very common, where literally (or literal) is used deliberately in non-literal contexts, for added effect, as in they bought the car and literally ran it into the ground. This use can lead to unintentional humorous effects (we were literally killing ourselves laughing) and is not acceptable in formal contexts, though it is widespread.

This chatter about literally and literalness came to mind when I read the Frizzleblog on the Scholastic website ten “takeaways” from a presentation given by David Coleman, an architect of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the current College Board president, to a group of New York City teachers. The blog entry was titled 10 Things Worth Doing in Your Classroom by  Suzanne McCabe, Editor in Chief at Scholastic, and she listed ten summaries from Coleman’s presentation on how to enrich classroom instruction.

Her summary statement #4 stopped me cold…literally.
4. Only draw conclusions that can be substantiated by the words on the page. Scrape away terms like “metaphorical,” and talk as simply as possible. Once you bring up metaphor and meaning, kids are out of the game.
McCabe may be misrepresenting Coleman in this statement, however, the Common Core State Standards promoted by Coleman centers on textual evidence, so the “conclusions substantiated by the words on the page” summarizes his preferred reading strategy.  In addition, his lack of classroom experience at any grade level explains why he may have said something akin to “kids are out of the game” when metaphors are discussed.
To the contrary, children of all ages understand metaphor according to Maria Popova in her post The Magic of Metaphor: What Children’s Minds Teach Us about the Evolution of the Imagination on her Brain Picking’s blog:

During pretend play, children effortlessly describe objects as other objects and then use them as such. A comb becomes a centipede; cornflakes become freckles; a crust of bread becomes a curb.

The combination of life experience and practice with similes (“pancakes are like nickels,”  “A roof is like a hat,”“Plant stems are like drinking straws,”) builds a student’s understanding of metaphors that are more complex (“”I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” John 10:14). 

So why would a teacher want to “scrape” away metaphorical terms at this important stage in developing a student’s understanding of more sophisticated metaphors?
Furthermore, how could Coleman reconcile an author’s choice in using a metaphor if that metaphor is scraped away in order to talk as “simply as possible”? McCabe’s summary of Coleman’s position reduces students to reading “literally”, rendering them unable to appreciate an author’s craft .
For example, if students had to scrape away the  metaphorical ideas in some of Shakespeare’s most recognized literary comparisons, what would they say?

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.” As You Like It

Students may determine through textual evidence that Shakespeare was literally referring to the stage.

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.” Romeo and Juliet

Students may determine through textual evidence that Shakespeare was literally writing about candles.

Smiling sunStudents are more creative than Coleman recognizes in his untested design of the CCSS. From the beginning of their academic careers, they draw their metaphors: smiling suns, hearts in hands, trees with large red dots. They start simply “Freddie is a pig when he eats,” before moving to more sophisticated constructs on their own such as “Love is a chocolate fountain that never runs out.” They are capable of sustaining elaborate metaphors to explain the writing process:

I choose my audience very carefully when playing for an audience for the first time. I want constructive criticism, and therefore I prefer to have my peer musicians as well as my conductor or private instructor hear me play aloud for the first time. . . .When I have read and reread [the paper] so many times that I am unable to find any mistakes, I then like to read my paper aloud to my family or a group of my close friends in order to get their reactions. Maria, National Writing Project website

These students knew they were not writing about a pig, chocolate fountains, or conducting music. If Coleman had classroom experience, he would have first hand evidence about student creativity.

Finally, many of the most beloved children stories are saturated with metaphor.  Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is filled with metaphors that address life’s absurdities, and one specific metaphor brings me back to an entry I wrote titled  David Coleman, the Cheshire Cat of Education.

While I did not mean that Coleman is a cat literally, I do mean that his philosophy of education is as contradictory as the character in Carroll’s imaginative classic. “Curiouser and curiouser,” wonders Alice, when the enigmatic Cheshire Cat appears and reappears at critical moments in the story. Likewise, Coleman’s curious contradictions may be the reason for any inaccuracies in McCabe’s summary of his presentation. On the other hand McCabe may have accurately recorded these contradictions and illustrated how Coleman’s inexperience makes his statements about how to teach in a classroom ridiculous…literally.

In Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Education, Education reform, Reader, Writing , , , , , , , , ,
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Classroom Credibility Counts

July 17, 2013 — 1 Comment

No common coreOne of the underlying problems in educational reform today is that so few reformers have any hands-on classroom experience. Reading about teaching is academic and informative, but the hands-on experience of standing in front of a class of 9, 14, 24, or (heaven forbid!) 31 students at any grade level is irreplaceable. Developing lesson plans is an academic exercise, however monitoring and adjusting that lesson plan for real time problems (fire drill, student absences, material shortage, technology glitch) during instruction is irreplaceable. Reading assessment data is an academic enterprise, but understanding that data in the context of the classroom with all the personalities, abilities, disabilities, and socio-economic influences is irreplaceable. Hands-on experience should be a major factor in education reform, but the education reform efforts in the  Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have little to no classroom credibility.

A recent entry on Twitter from Randi Weingarten, current president of the American Federation of Teachers, was an attempt to address the classroom experience of the creators of the CCSS. Weingarten herself does have hands-on experience in the classroom, but that experience is spotty.  From 1991 until 1997, and with the exception of a six month full time teaching load in the fall of 1994, Weingarten taught on per diem basis (substitute?) at Clara Barton High School in Crown Heights, NY. Total experience? Six years, but this short experience is six more than many of the educational reformers who participated in the creation of the CCSS.

Weingarten tweeted the following on June 29, 2013:

Teachers were part of the development of #CCSS from the beginning http://youtu.be/y1DlNpaKW38

She was posting a link that was supposed to demonstrate that teachers, real classroom teachers with hands-on experience, had been involved in the standards from the beginning. The link led to a YouTube video featuring an ELL classroom teacher Lisa Fretzin who reflects how she “…was part of the review process starting in August looking at the the first draft”:

While Ms. Fretzin certainly has classroom credibility necessary for developing the CCSS, her participation was not exactly at the “beginning” of this process. According to her statement on the video, she was not present at the creation; she was asked to “review” which is different than “from the beginning”. Furthermore, her name is not on the list of participants who did create the CCSS for English Language Arts (or feedback group) which clearly identifies only four of the 50 participants (8%) as “teachers”. The remaining 46 participants (92%) are identified with titles such as: “author”, “consultant”, “specialist”, “professor”,  “supervisor”, “director” or “senior fellow.” In all fairness, perhaps many of these participants had worked in the classroom before moving into higher ranking positions as one would hope, but their hands-on classroom work experience is unclear.

The most glaring examples of classroom incredibility are the lead authors for the CCSS, Susan Pimentel and David Coleman; their collective classroom experience is zero. Pimentel has a law degree and a B.S in Early Childhood Education from Cornell University. Coleman’s, (termed “Architect of the Common Core”) classroom experience is limited to tutoring selected students in a summer program at Yale. He later founded Student Achievement Partners and is currently serving as the President of the College Board.

Weingarten must also know that classroom teachers for PreK-Grade 3 and grade level experts were not included in the creation of the CCSS at all. Many of these educators have express concerns that students are not cognatively ready for many of the standards in math and reading. Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post put up an editorial (1/29/13) “A Tough Critique of Common Core on Early Childhood Education” by Edward Miller, teacher and co-author of Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige is Professor Emerita of Early Childhood Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and author of Taking Back Childhood. They note that when the standards were first revealed in March 2010, “many early childhood educators and researchers were shocked. “

The promoters of the standards claim they are based in research. They are not. There is no convincing research, for example, showing that certain skills or bits of knowledge (such as counting to 100 or being able to read a certain number of words) if mastered in kindergarten will lead to later success in school. Two recent studies show that direct instruction can actually limit young children’s learning. At best, the standards reflect guesswork, not cognitive or developmental science.

Miller and Carlsson-Paige also include links to the Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative and summarize their statement:

 We have grave concerns about the core standards for young children…. The proposed standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades….

At all grade levels, therefore, there are concerns about how inclusive the creators of the CCSS were in engaging classroom teachers. The entire initiative, by its own admission, began politically, coming from the nation’s governors and education commissioners, “through their representative organizations the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).”

Weingarten’s tweet was more than a little disingenuous when she indicated that “teachers were part of the development” when, to the contrary, there is much more evidence to prove that the ratio of teachers to individuals bearing education titles was disproportionate in favor of reformers and academics without classroom experience.

Real teachers, those with hands-on experience gained in the classroom, have had a limited say in the CCSS that they will be implementing day in and day out in their classrooms at every grade level. Excluding this important faction is why there has been pushback from teachers who recognize the difficulties in implementing many of the standards. Furthermore, there are growing concerns about the level of accountability for teachers in having students meet these same standards.

Ultimately, Weingarten should not tweet out misinformation about teachers developing the CCSS, especially when the evidence demonstrates that teachers were a only a tiny percentage in creating these standards. Weingarten must know that for any educational initiative to succeed, teachers must be engaged from the very beginning.

In these days of education reform, classroom credibility counts.

In Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Education, Education reform, Teacher , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Missing the Context Misses the Purpose of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”

April 15, 2013 — 3 Comments

Here is an educational policy riddle: How much background knowledge does a student need to read a historical text?

According to New York Engage website: None.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are being implemented state by state, and there is an emphasis from teaching students background knowledge to teaching students skills, specifically the skill of close reading.

The pedegogy is explained by The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC):

Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately. Directing student attention on the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details. It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. (PARCC, 2011)

There are many lessons that strongly advocate the use of close reading in teaching historical texts on the EngageNY.com website, including a set of exemplar lessons for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address promoted by CCSS contributor and now College Board President, David Coleman. The lesson’s introduction states:

The idea here is to plunge students into an independent encounter with this short text. Refrain from giving background context or substantial instructional guidance at the outset. It may make sense to notify students that the short text is thought to be difficult and they are not expected to understand it fully on a first reading–that they can expect to struggle. Some students may be frustrated, but all students need practice in doing their best to stay with something they do not initially understand. This close reading approach forces students to rely exclusively on the text instead of privileging background knowledge, and levels the playing field for all students as they seek to comprehend Lincoln’s address.

Photo of Lincoln delivering Gettysburg Address- (www.wikipedia.org)

Photo of Lincoln delivering
Gettysburg Address- (www.wikipedia.org)

The lesson plan is organized in three sections. In the first, students are handed a copy of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and perform several “cold” readings, to themselves and then with the class.

Lesson Plan SECTION 1 What’s at stake: a nation as a place and as an idea

Students silently read, then the teacher reads aloud the text of the Gettysburg Address while students follow along.

  • Students translate into their own words the first and second paragraph. 
  • Students answer guiding questions regarding the first two paragraphs

Please note, there is no mention of any historical context for the speech. Students will come to this 273-word speech without the background knowledge that the Battle of Gettysburg was fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, and this battle is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. They will not know that the battle resulted in “Union casualties of 23,000, while the Confederates had lost some 28,000 men–more than a third of Lee’s army” (History.com). They will not know how the Army of Northern Virginia achieved an apex into Union territory with “Pickett’s Charge,” a failed attempt by General George Pickett  to break through the Union line in South Central Pennsylvania, and that the charge resulted in the death of thousands of rebel soldiers. They will not know how the newly appointed Major General George Gordon Meade of the Army of the Potomac met the challenges of General Robert E. Lee by ordering responses to skirmishes on Little Round Top, Culp’s Hill, and in the Devil’s Den. They will not know that Meade would then be replaced by General Ulysses S. Grant in part because Meade did not pursue Lee’s troops in their retreat to Virginia.

Instead of referencing any of this historical background, the guding questions in the lesson’s outline imagine the students as blank slates and mention another historical event:

A. When was “four score and seven years ago”? B. What important thing happened in 1776?

The guiding responses for teachers seem to begrudge an acknowledgement that keeping students bound to the four corners of a text is impossible, and that, yes, a little prior knowledge of history is helpful when reading a historical text:

This question, of course, goes beyond the text to explore students’ prior knowledge and associations. Students may or may not know that the Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776, but they will likely know it is a very important date – one that they themselves have heard before. Something very important happened on that date.  It’s OK to mention the Declaration, but the next step is to discover what students can infer about 1776 from Lincoln’s own words now in front of them.

In addition, there are admonishments in Appendix A of the lesson not to ask questions such as, “Why did the North fight the civil war?”

Answering these sorts of questions require students to go outside the text, and indeed in this particular instance asking them these questions actually undermine what Lincoln is trying to say. Lincoln nowhere in the Gettysburg Address distinguishes between the North and South (or northern versus southern soldiers for that matter). Answering such questions take the student away from the actual point Lincoln is making in the text of the speech regarding equality and self-government.

The lesson plan continues:

Lesson Plan SECTION 2  From funeral to new birth

  • Students are re-acquainted with the first two paragraphs of the speech.
  • Students translate the third and final paragraph into their own words.
  • Students answer guiding questions regarding the third paragraph of the Gettysburg Address.

Please note this does not provide the context of the speech that was given that crisp morning of November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the National Cemetery on a damp battlefield that only months before had been dampened red with the blood of tens of thousands of soldiers from either side. The students would be unaware that Lincoln had taken the train from Washington the day before and was feeling slightly feverish on the day of the speech. There is some speculation that he may have been suffering from the early stages of smallpox when he delivered the speech reading from a single piece of paper in a high clear voice. The students would not know that Lincoln’s scheduled time at the podium followed a two hour (memorized) speech by Edward Everett, who later wrote to Lincoln stating, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.” The students would not know that many of the 15,000 crowd members did not hear Lincoln’s two minute speech; the 10 sentences were over before many audience members realized Lincoln had been speaking. The students would not know that this speech marked Lincoln’s first public statement about principles of equality, and they would not know that he considered the speech to be a failure.

Lesson Plan SECTION 3  Dedication as national identity and personal devotion

  • Students trace the accumulated meaning of the word “dedicate” through the text
  • Students write a brief essay on the structure of Lincoln’s argument

The lesson provides links to the five handwritten copies of the text, in the “Additional ELA Task #1: Comparison of the drafts of the speech” so that students can see drafts of the speech and the inclusion of “under God” in the latter three versions. There is also an additional Social Studies task that incorporates the position of respected historian Gary Wills from his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Worlds that Remade America. This activity suggests students use excerpts from Wills’s book and an editorial from the Chicago Times (November 23, 1863) to debate “Lincoln’s reading of the Declaration of Independence into the Constitution”. One excerpt from Wills’s book includes the statement,”The stakes of the three days’ butchery are made intellectual, with abstract truths being vindicated.” Finally, here is information about the battle itself; the battle lasted three days and soldiers died.

The enterprise of reading the Gettysburg Address without context defeats PARRC’s stated objective of having the students “arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole”. The irony is that in forwarding their own interpretation of the speech, David Coleman and the lesson plan developers have missed Lincoln’s purpose entirely; Lincoln directs the audience to forget the words of the speech, but never to forget the sacrifices made by the soldiers during that brutal conflict:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

Lincoln wrote and delivered the Gettysburg Address to remind his audience “that these dead shall not have died in vain”. Analyzing the language of the address isolated from the Civil War context that created the tone and message is a hollow academic exercise. Instead, students must be taught the historical context so that they fully understand Lincoln’s purpose in praising those who, “gave the last full measure of devotion.”

“It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

Continue Reading…

In 10th Grade, 9th Grade, Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Curriculum, Education, Education reform, Non-Fiction-Informational Texts, Social Studies , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Dear Senior Applying for College: Tell Us a Story (But Not to the College Board President)

February 11, 2013 — 1 Comment

College Application Essay topics for 2013-2014 have been posted, and SURPRISE! Every prompt requires a narrative!

storyA recent news release by the Common Application, a non-profit widely used for college admissions by high school seniors at nearly 500 colleges and universities, explains the changes in essay prompts for 2013-14. The option to write about a topic of “your choice” has been dropped; the essay topics are:

  • Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
  • Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
  • Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?
  • Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

The irony of this decision should not be lost on anyone who remembers a blunt statement made by David Coleman, the current President of the College Board. In April of 2011 at a NY State Department of Education presentation on the Common Core, Coleman said, “As you grow up in this world, you realize people really don’t give a sh*t about what you feel or what you think.”

Well, apparently the College Application Board does care. Their prompts specifically ask college bound students what they feel or what they think. In fact, the College Application Board cares so much that they will allow students to expand their storytelling by an additional 150 words, increasing the word count from 500 to 650.

The decision by the College Application Board really is not that surprising.  on the Buffer blog called attention to research on reaction of the  the human brain to stories. He summarized a number of brain studies that indicate that the best learning comes from storytelling. One study by Uri Hasson from Princeton was published in an article titled “Speaker–Listener Neural Coupling Underlies Successful Communication” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article discussed how subjects under study create empathetic bonds with listeners by using stories:

“When the woman spoke English, the volunteers understood her story, and their brains synchronized.  When she had activity in her insula, an emotional brain region, the listeners did too.  When her frontal cortex lit up, so did theirs. By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains.”

College bound seniors should take note of this research when they write; apparently a compelling story can be quite convincing. Luckily, they will have  plenty of practice with the narrative writing genre which is now back in favor with the adoption of the Common Core Literacy Standards. Anchor Writing Standard #3 for grades K-12 reads:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences.

Curiously enough, one of the architects of the Common Core Literacy Standards was David Coleman before he took his position at the College Board.

Now the revised College Application Board form for 2013-14 states: “Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story”

A word of caution, though. Don’t expect College Board President Coleman to care.

In 12th grade, Education, Writing , , , , , , , , ,
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“We are in the ‘Perfect Storm’ in Education”-Lucy Calkins and the Common Core

October 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

The impending Hurricane Sandy did little to stop over 2000 teachers from attending the 83rd Saturday Reunion at Teacher’s College at Columbia University on Saturday, October 27. Taking up the microphone in a set of informal welcoming remarks, Lucy Calkins complimented the crowd that had gathered in the Nave in Riverside Church, “So many of you have come here…instead of clearing out storm drains or without stocking up on toilet paper. You have weathered the trip despite the predictions of this ‘Franken-storm’.” The crowd laughed appreciatively.

“Yes. We are in a storm,” she continued with growing seriousness. “Today, we are in a ‘Perfect Storm’ in education, and we must learn to travel these hurricane winds and sail.”

Calkins was referencing the convergence of the Common Core State Standards with educational reform efforts that emphasize standardized testing. Newly designed teacher evaluations tied to single metric tests combined with cuts in funding for public school education because of a stagnent economy have also contributed to this ‘Perfect Storm’. This audience understood her metaphor.

Lucy Calkins is the Founding Director of the Reading and Writing Project LLC and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project as well as the Robinson Professor in Children’s Literature at Teachers College where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program.

Co-authors Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth and Christopher Lehman all led sessions at the 83rd Saturday Reunion of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project on Saturday, October 27, 2012

At a session that followed her welcoming remarks titled, “Implementing the Common Core: What’s Working, in Big Exciting Ways, to Engine Dramatic Reforms,” Calkins explained that she would not be delivering a big keynote at this conference on the Common Core, despite her belief that she considers this “most important document in the history of American education.” Instead, she plans to take time off from teaching to tour the country speaking on the Common Core and the book she co-authored, Pathways to the Common Core, in ordercto help school districts with the real work of accelerating students to perform at the level required by the Common Core, noting that “85% of our students are not there.”

Calkins also expressed her concerns that our nation’s history of large-scale educational reform is not good. “We have been sent many times to reform school,” she continued, “we have to be worried that this [Common Core] may be just one more reform.” However, Calkins stated that what works in this particular reform’s effort is the “absolute and total appreciation that what will make the difference is the teacher.” She directly confronted all the teachers in attendance and directed, “You need to be knowledgeable, and read the actual Common Core, not the ‘Publisher’s Guide to the Common Core’.” Her concerns at this conference echo her remarks in March 2012 at the 82nd Saturday reunion where she specifically called out David Coleman, co-founder and CEO of Student Achievement Partners  and who, according to Pathways to the Common Core, “received a  four-year 18 million dollar grant from the GE Foundation to develop materials and do teacher training around the CCSS” (6). Coleman has since moved on to take a position as the President of the College Board. Pathways to the Common Core, co- authored with Mary Ehrenworth and Christopher Lehman, details concerns that this enormous grant and any additional grant money will result supporting those who are “spelling out implications and specifying what they wish the Common Core had said,”(5). Already there has been a growing body of materials that contradict the intentions of the standards:

“There will certainly be additional materials and documents that emerge following this new round of money, with the potential to make similar claims as the Publisher’s Criteria for the Common Core Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy, Grades 3-12 (Coleman and Pimentel 2011)  and the Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resources (OER) Objects (Achieve 2011). When documents are presented as if they’ve gone through the process of review and been ratified by the states on subcommittees, it is troubling”(6).

Calkins reminded participants that the crucial difference will be the professional teachers who bring colleagues into their work to build a community of teachers, and that this community should know the Common Core standards.

Turning to the topic of her session, Calkins also explained that some of the most exciting work that was recently taking place on the Common Core  at the Teachers College was with their work with students in argument and debate.

She described the success teachers at the Reading and Writing Project were having with students who participated in read-aloud by gathering evidence for one position or another. For example, students had listened to a reading of The Stray and took notes on different positions. Following the basic rules of debate, students were given the opportunity to caucus with those who held their opinions before debating or refuting their debate partner’s position. In order to model the process with Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, teachers taking one position that the tree was strong stood to caucus with like-minded participants, while those seated conferred with those who agreed with the different opinion that the tree was weak. Calkins directed teachers to stand, sit, debate or caucus, modeling how this might work in a classroom in one 45-50 minute period. She showed several video clips showed students participating in the same process demonstrating the success of using these techniques. “The results were fantastic,” Calkins exclaimed as the videos played, “so exciting to see the students gathering evidence and using the text in their arguments.”

What was evident during her sessions at this conference was that during this ‘Perfect Storm’ in education, Calkins is confidently empowering teachers to sail through what seems to feel like hurricane force changes in the profession. Her efforts in preparing teachers to navigate these new challenges can help insure that while these controversial storms may rage outside, inside the classroom day after day, the teacher is prepared to be the captain of the ship.

In Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Education, Education reform, Professional Development, Teacher, Writing , , , , , , , , , ,
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David Coleman-The Cheshire Cat of Education

September 28, 2012 — 7 Comments

 David Coleman, incoming president of the College Board is staring out from the front cover of the October 2012 issue of The Atlantic . Actually, he is not staring. I think he is smirking…a Cheshire Cat smirk.

He has every reason to smirk. Coleman one of the architects of the Common Core State Standards has emerged as one of the more influential education policymakers to change what will be taught in classrooms and how this content will be taught without ever having spent time in the classroom himself.

Yes, Coleman has never taught in a public school classroom, although he was very successful as a student. He was educated in the Manhattan public school system, the son of highly educated parents, his father, a psychiatrist, and his mother, president of Bennington College. His privileged liberal arts credentials are immersive and include Yale, a Rhodes Scholarship, Oxford, and Cambridge.

His perspective on education has been informed by the business side of education which included pro-bono work at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He developed and sold the assessment company Grow Network; co-founded and sold Student Achievement Partner; and most recently, accepted a position as president of The College Board.

Coleman has materialized, like Lewis Carroll’s enigmatic Cheshire Cat, as the cool outsider who surveys education as a Wonderland ruled by nonsense. He has promoted an agenda of close reading and an increase in non-fiction, to a ratio of 70% of all required reading by grade 12, from his perch high above the daily dust-ups of the average classroom.

Now, after developing the CCSS, replete with new batteries of state tests, he has moved on to the pinnacle of high stakes testing, the SAT. His arrival comes amid renewed concerns from studies about the SAT that demonstrate the unfairness of the test for minorities, females, and students living in poverty.

While I can embrace many of the standards in the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (CCSS),  I remain unconvinced by Coleman’s sweeping claims that “close reading” lessons  of several days focused on a complex and difficult text is critical to improving understanding. I have practiced close reading, but not with the singular and tortuous focus Coleman advocates. There is little research as to how this approach will improve reading skills for all students. For 21 years, I have been a “boots on the ground” promoter of reading to a population of students who are reading less and less of the assigned materials, so I speak from experience when I state that Coleman’s emphasis on close reading can have an adverse effect on an already poor reader.

Furthermore, Coleman negates the effectiveness of the past 35 years of having students engage with a text using Louise Rosenblatt’s Reader Response Theory. His blunt charge “as you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a sh*t about what you feel or what you think” is simply not true. I cannot imagine any author who would not want to know what a reader thought. Writing is supposed to inspire; writing is an invitation to a dialogue. Furthermore, how will not listening to what students thought engage them in writing at all?

The question is how did Coleman get to place his large footprint on education, and why did teachers let him move into this position? Were teachers so preoccupied with teaching that they failed to see how the dynamics of education were moving from engaging leaders from public school institutions to accepting leadership from more commercial enterprises?

Dennis Van Roekel alluded to the rise of Coleman and others like him when he delivered an address to the National Education Association 91st Representative Assembly this past July:

Are we willing to assert our leadership, and take RESPONSIBILITY for our professions?
The demands of our work are changing as our students change, and the world around us is changing too – ever so fast.I say it is time for us to lead the next generation of professionals – in educating the next generation of students!

I’m so tired of OTHERS defining the solutions… without even asking those who do the work every day of their professional life.
I want to take advantage of this opportunity for US to lead – and I’m not waiting to be asked, nor am I asking anyone’s permission.

Because if we are not ready to lead, I know there are many others ready, willing, and waiting to do it for us. Or maybe I should say, do it “to” us.

Van Roekel’s quote echoes the question rhetorically posed by noted educator Lucy Caulkins at her presentation of the 82nd reunion at Columbia Teacher’s College, “Where is the proof, David Coleman, that your strategy works?”

Coleman’s ascent to the top of American education policy has been steady. He made contributions to the CCSS which will result in nationwide metrics for grades K-12. Add this testing to his new control of the SAT, and his influence on American education and the tests that measure learning will continue through the college level, all without his having the informative experience of teaching in a classroom. That any one individual without any teaching experience could have had this impact on the daily workings of the classroom is a commentary on the current state of madness that public education now finds itself.

At one point in in her Adventures in Wonderland, Alice comes across the Cheshire Cat in the hope of finding her way out:

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Carroll’s Cheshire Cat character is a tease, an enigmatic riddler who offers judgments and cryptic clues but no  solution to the frustrated Alice. Coleman is education’s Cheshire Cat, offering positions in education but with no evidence to prove his solutions will work.

Curiouser and curiouser. David Coleman has become one of the most influential educational policymakers in our public school systems, but at this time, we have little else but his smirk.

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English Teachers Need to Defend Literature from Myths of the Common Core

August 23, 2012 — 3 Comments

English teachers, defend literature in the classroom!

I teach English, and I am feeling a little defensive lately. In the past week, I have had two separate “literature-threatening” incidents.

The first came from a reader to an opinion piece I wrote that was featured in Education Weekly, 21st Century Students Need Books, Not Textbooks. The responder was repeating the myth that English classrooms need to abandon teaching literature in favor of teaching math and science texts:

“You need to look at the Common Core ELA [English Language Arts] standards and realize you now have a responsibility to teach reading and writing for STEM subjects. That is why this discussion is so wrong. Start reading math and science textbooks and start teaching what your students need, not what you love. I learned early on: the most boring subject is the world is another person’s hobby. Your hobby is reading “literature.” Your students need to learn to read and write STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] topics, and those are found in textbooks. PERIOD!!”-Ebasco

This kind of response comes from the mistaken interpretation that the 70% of informational texts suggested by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) need to be taught in English class; even the CCSS devotes a clarification to this on page 5 of their document in a footnote. Instead, reading is to be a critical part of all disciplines, generally 70% informational texts in all subjects and 30% fiction in English classrooms. However, English teachers can assign informational texts just as history/social studies can assign historical fiction; the genre assignment is fluid. An entire section of the ELA CCSS titled “Reading in History/Social Studies, Science, Math and the Technical Areas” is a guide devoted to improving the reading and writing standards in all disciplines. The push for reading informational texts is certainly a result of STEM, but literature is not being jettisoned out of the curriculum because it is a “hobby”.

Indeed, the benefits of reading literature is rooted in the second of the “literature threatening” incidents, in a WNYC Schoolbook blog post a piece titled Never Mind Algebra, Is Literature Necessary?  In this post, Tim Clifford made a compelling case regarding the stripping of literature from English classrooms in favor of Common Core, and again, the roots of this anti-literature movement are found in mistaken interpretations of the CCSS.

Clifford began his post with a multiple choice quiz based on the following quote:

“Now, what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root everything else out.”

Clifford posed the question “Who said the above?” and then offered three responses:

a. Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and educational gadfly
b. Michelle Rhee, staunch proponent of standardized testing
c. David Coleman, author of the Common Core standards

Then he offered the real answer,
d. Thomas Gradgrind, a fictional character created by Charles Dickens in the 1854 novel Hard Times.

The quote expressed the publicized sentiment of standardized testing advocates David Coleman, Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee. (I had chosen David Coleman as my answer). In discussing the correct answer, Gradgrind, Clifford explained that Dickens’s character was an attempt to skewer those utilitarian values in the mid 19th Century. Like today, there was a push for informational facts and statistics at the expense of creativity and imagination in public education.

Dickens’s novel Hard Times expressed his belief that an over-emphasis on facts over creativity promoted contempt between mill owners and workers.  Gradgrind’s name, like other Dickens creations, immediately expresses to the reader that he is an altogether unpleasant man, espousing that all one needs is “facts and statistics.” His daughter Louisa’s breakdown towards the conclusion of the novel brings him to the realization that fiction, poetry and other pursuits are not “destructive nonsense.”   Oh, if only Gates, Rhee, and Coleman were characters that could be similarly convinced.

In his post, Clifford described how his 6th grade curriculum has been altered to fit the ELA CCSS. He bemoaned the earlier loss of vocabulary and grammar in context and the most recent loss of creative writing which, “has been chopped clean away, to be replaced with unending persuasive essays that are the darlings of the Common Core standards.” He continues:

“Even reading has not been left unscathed. Many schools teach reading as a set of skills to be mastered rather than as a journey to be embarked upon. Children are taught how to predict, to connect, to draw inferences, and so forth, but they are rarely allowed the leisure to savor what they read or to reflect on the art of good writing.”

Clifford wrote about a successful novel writing project that, “engaged students on many levels and taught them story structure, characterization, use of dialogue, and exposition.” Unfortunately the project, “was jettisoned last year because of the national shift to the Common Core. It was replaced with an eight-page (for sixth graders!) research project.” He sadly noted, “The results were predictably dull and uninspired, but Gradgrind certainly would have approved. The papers were filled with facts but devoid of imagination.” In Clifford’s scenario, a successful unit of reading and writing was eliminated to favor lesson plans that do not have the evidence to prove success.

Where is the evidence that eliminating writing literature in favor of writing research papers will serve a mission statement of educating  “productive problem solvers and decision makers” who are “personally fulfilled, interdependent, socially responsible adults” ? Why are so many interpretations of the ELA CCSS rigidly eliminating what does work in favor of what might work? More to the point, why is there even a 70% vs. 30% split in reading genres, and why do stakeholders keep missing the point that the increase in informational texts must come by increasing reading in other content areas?

The positive impact of reading literature was discussed in the NYTimes article by Annie Paul Murray, “The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction”. Reading fiction, “is an exercise that hones our real-life social skills, another body of research suggests. Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective.” To summarize, the data using neuroscience proves that reading fiction is good for you.

I teach literature, and my students make connections to the real word (Macbeth to Afghan Warlords; Frankenstein to the science of cloning) in my class everyday. Literature helps my students make sense of the world; they do not need to suffer under a despot, but they can experience a corrupt political system in Orwell’s  Animal Farm. They do not need to crash on a deserted island to understand how quickly very civilized young people can tun into savages when they read William Golding’s  Lord of the Flies. They can contemplate how precious is the relationship between a father and son who cling to decency and humanity without having to survive an apocalyptic nightmare  from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  They  can better understand the historical context of Jim Crow laws from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and in Kathryn Stockett’s more recent novel The Help.

And they can also learn about the utilitarian movement in England during the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle class, the frightening system of government-run workhouses, and the dangers of child labor in another Dicken’s novel,  Oliver Twist. Dickens’s literature demonstrates the power of fiction as a means of providing background information. Read a textbook of facts and statistics explaining the Industrial Revolution, and then read Oliver Twist. Which version will you vividly remember?

In Books, Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Curriculum, Education , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Common Core Literacy: Lucy Calkins-1, David Coleman-0

March 25, 2012 — 17 Comments

Lucy Calkins

The difference between reading an article or a book by Lucy Calkins and hearing her speak in person is a difference that cannot be measured in nuances; the difference is measured in hearing the decibles of her passion.

On Saturday (3/24/12), at the 82nd Saturday Reunion held at the Teachers College at Columbia University in NYC, Calkins stood before a packed house of elementary and middle school teachers in the Nave at the Riverside Church to deliver her closing session, “Walking Courageously Forward in Today’s Common Core World: Literacy Instruction, School Reform and Visions of Tomorrow”.  Hours before the keynote address by children’s author Pamela Munoz Ryan, Calkins had been energetically wandering with a microphone to periodically announce the location of a second keynote address for K-1 teachers or explain a new voucher system for lunches to speed up the notoriously overcrowded lunch lines. She waved for  people to make room in the pews for others and directed her aides to circulate with pads of paper to gather e-mails of participants. (NOTE: Please, Ms. Calkins; get a Twitter account or just have us send our e-mails to a web address!)

According to the jam packed schedule of workshops, she then presented at 10 AM: “An Introduction to the Project’s Thinking About Common Core-Aligned Upper Grade Reading”. At 11AM she presented the workshop, “In the Complicated World of Today, What’s Changed and What’s Stayed the Same About the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project’s Ideas on Teaching Writing?”, and she was spotted checking in on other presentations during her “spare time”.  All this before delivering her final address back in the church at 1PM.  Calkins is already a one person educational seismic wave, which made her opening, a lifting of the lyric from a Carole King’s song, “I feel the earth move under my feet”, much more than metaphoric.

Lucy Calkins is the Founding Director of the Reading and Writing Project LLC and the  Teachers College Reading and Writing Project as well as the Robinson Professor in Children’s Literature at Teachers College where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program. She has authored several books about teaching writing, and she has recently co-authored a book, Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement.

Much of the speech was directly lifted from her article, “Explore the Common Core” where she advocates for teachers to embrace the Common Core to be a “a co-constructor of the future of instruction and curriculum, and indeed, of public education across America.” She writes,

“As challenging as it must have been to write and finesse the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, that accomplishment is nothing compared to the work of teaching in ways that bring all  students to these ambitious expectations.The goal is clear.The pathway is not.”

In confronting one of the possible pathways, Calkins leveled her most serious criticism. She called attention to two of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) authors who have emerged very publicly as spokespersons, David Coleman (Student Achievement Partners) and Susan Pimentel (Education First), and reminded the attendees that neither has been a classroom teacher. “What is alarming is that they feel empowered to continue to write the Common Core,” she declared. There are a growing number of CCSS support websites that illustrate her frustration, for example, Coleman’s well-documented lesson plans on the study of informational texts such as The Gettysburg Address with his explanations on videos are found at engageny.org.  Ironically, while most historians praise Lincoln for the brevity of this address and the precision of its language,  Coleman’s lesson design would have students spend six to eight sessions in a close reading of the speech. Calkins complained that  extended close readings like Coleman’s are “text dependent activities” and that there are “no questions that transfer to another piece” as well as the unreasonable commitment of time to one common text.

Her frustration also stems from the New York State’s Department of Education’s adoption of many of Coleman’s additions to the original CCSS in providing models for curriculum development. She sounded a loud chord of caution against Coleman and others who write “around the standards” in presenting their curriculum models. She rhetorically challenged Coleman, “Where is the evidence do you have,  David Coleman, that your method works? Where is the evidence that the close reading you describe is improving literacy?”

She then modeled a quick lesson on the poem “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pasten, where she effectively refuted Coleman’s tedious approach of laboriously parsing every word in a text. She dismissed the notion that the discussion of any piece “ends at the four corners of the text,” adding that “one cannot infer or understand a metaphor without drawing from [one’s self].” Instead she recommended “sticking as CLOSELY to the text as possible, and in a response, have the student respond to the question ‘how do you know?'”.

Calkins also expressed concerns that in order to meet  CCSS “they [administrators] will add more…informational texts, more close reading. That will not work” she concluded emphatically.  Instead, “The problem facing schools is fragmentation and overload;” adding more to the teacher’s curriculum requirements will not be effective. Chiefly, she explained, the CCSS is, “not about a curriculum of compliance. This is about accelerating students, ramping up student achievement;” the CCSS is a “call for school reform.”

Because of CCSS, however, there will be enormous amounts of money spent on developing curriculum, resource materials, and testing. Authors of the CCSS, educational consultants, publishers, testing services are all looking to develop materials in order to help school systems meet the CCSS.  CCSS has spawned a new industry. Calkins detailed the anticipated expense of implementing the CCSS as $15.8 billion with $7 billion of the expense committed to technology so that students can complete testing online. When the “number one reason preventing student achievement is poverty”, in a time of shrinking budgets, Calkins described her discomfort with implementing  such costly programs and the inevitable auxiliary expenses that will be spent school district by school district in trying to meet the CCSS.

How can educators meet the CCSS in specific ways? “Students should have clear goals so they have a sense what is expected by gathering performance data,” Calkins advised, “Note what has changed with the student and [note] what changes are we expecting. A school should be able to identify [exemplars] what is expected at each grade level.” She also urged teachers to “embrace the call to nonfiction literacy” in order to build knowledge. “Change is hard,” she noted, “but research shows that fear will not make people change; the only effective way to change is through is support groups” suggesting that teachers need to collaborate in support groups to meet the CCSS.

Listening to Calkins was a more than a pep talk. Her reasoned approach to the CCSS was not born solely in the ivory towers of academia nor at a table of educational policy wonks. Her advice to read the CCSS as “gold” comes from her ongoing commitment to improving education coupled with her experience with  students and the teachers she supervises.

Had the audience the opportunity to respond to Lucy Calkin’s line of verse from the song “I Feel the Earth Move”, they could have easily chose another title from  from Carole King’s Tapestry album…”Where You Lead, I Will Follow.”

In Common Core, Curriculum, Education , , , , , , ,
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Dear Common Core: Science Supports Reading Fiction

March 21, 2012 — 9 Comments

English teachers are seduced by literature. We fell in love with an author’s language, a fascinating plot turn, or a well-developed character, and we are bold in our love. While students may roll their eyes when we proclaim The Great Gatsby  or Great Expectations as  a favorite book, or snicker when we dramatically recite lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we hardly pause in our attempts to introduce 1984 into 2012 brains. They may groan while we happily distribute Lord of the Flies and assure them they will “love” the book; they may find us positively deranged when we weep at the death of Lenny (Of Mice and Men), or the Man (The Road) or Willie Loman (Death of a Salesman). However, nothing makes an English teacher happier than the conversion of our reluctant readers into admirers of an author’s work. The teaching of literature as a record of man’s humanity sums up our purpose, our raison d’etre. For writing and grammar, we will roll up our sleeves and revise, and conference, and edit, edit, edit. For the newer standards in listening and speaking, we support presentations in class and incorporate technology when necessary, but the joy of teaching English is in the literature, in the wealth of stories told by others.

Now, the adoption of Common Core Standards has many English Language Arts teachers concerned. Why? According to one of a number of  Common Core websites, (NOT the Common Core State Standards website) the standards are designed around the “basic idea” of a “utilitarian education.” David Coleman, one of the architects of the Common Core, supports the expansion of informational texts, a genre formally known as non-fiction, into all disciplines, “For example, students are asked to read a variety of texts. In 4th grade, they must read 50% literary text and 50% informational texts; by high school, they read only 30% literary texts and 70% informational texts.” Of course, English teachers have always included exceptionally well written pieces of non-fiction into their teaching. For example, Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal illustrates power of satire, Elie Wiesel’s Night is a haunting memoir, and Roger Rosenblatt’s The Man in the Water is a memorable personal essay, and all have found homes in English curriculums. But the disproportionate ratio of 30% fiction to 70% informational text? That ratio for lovers of literature is alarming.

In order to achieve the inclusion of informational texts, The Common Core of Standards for English/Language Arts includes a separate set of standards that address reading and writing in history, science, math and the technical areas. While these standards were developed to expand reading and writing in these disciplines in order to advance core knowledge, these standards still fall under the umbrella of the English/Language Arts Standards. Note that these standards have not been developed by the respective disciplines of history, science, math and the technical areas. Moreover, there is no mechanism for enforcing these standards through history, science, math and the technical areas except through the English/Language Arts Standards. English teachers are understandably concerned that they will ultimately be responsible for the increase in the reading of informational texts at the expense of the literature they so dearly love.

So, it is with great delight that I read in an informational text (aka news article) that science supports the reading of fiction.

According to an article in the New York Times, Your Brain on Fiction (3/17/12) by Annie Murphy Paul, neuroscience is riding to the English teacher’s rescue! The article is centered on research that demonstrates “Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.” Apparently, our brains cannot differentiate between the fictional experience and the real life experience, “in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated.” Furthermore, the simulation of social experience in fiction through a character’s point of view  helps prepare our brains for real-life social interactions.

Researchers Dr. Oatley (University of Toronto)  and Dr. Mar (York University-Canada), in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that because of these fictional experiences, readers were more empathetic.

Fiction, Dr. Oatley notes, ‘is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting instances of cause and effect. Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.’

Dear Common Core, take note. Science has the research to prove that the reading of fiction is equally critical to the development of our social life skills; fiction is not limited to a ratio of 30% importance. The usefulness of fiction in social development is not an arbitrary argument from the heart, but a means by which our brains experience our world.  Yes, informational texts can deliver content and support core knowledge, but fiction is what develops our humanity. Which is why we English teachers fell in love with stories in the first place.

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