Common Core State Standards, Common Core, and Partnership for 21st Century Learning

This past week my colleagues pointed me to a Video about a new initiative in New Brunswick, Canada, which uses the Partnership of 21st Learning framework.



Pearson Foundation created this next video to describe the approach.



Maine joined the Partnership in 2007. The Stategic Council members can be found here. Note that Microsoft is one of them and that Pearson is a major influence.

Okay, now it starts to get interesting. This week Common Core, an organization not to be confused with the Common Core State Standards group, although Fordham Foundation seems to be connected with both, has issued the Common Core Curriculum Maps which are based on the new CCSS.  Find the donors here. Note that Gates Foundation is a major contributor.

Now it starts to get very, very interesting.  It seems that Common Core has been slamming the Partnership for 21st Skills for the past year, bringing out lots of big guns, including Diane Ravitch and a number of well-known commentators who seem to support a more classical education.

Interesting stuff . . . the culture wars continue, but Gates/Microsoft and Pearson seem to be supporting both sides.

New Brunswick seems to have sided with the P21 approach.  What should Maine do?

Any thoughts?  Which approach do you prefer?  Or is there a middle ground?

Common Core State Standards Implementation

Let's face it, for better or worse, the CCSS is a done deal. ACHIEVE - the architect of this document with financial support of large foundations, universities,  corporations, including testing and publishing companies, and with the support of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers  - has issued a toolbox for implementation called On the Road to Implementation.


Race to the Top grants require CCSS, and there are rumors that the feds might tie Title 1 money to it as well.  What is said to be voluntary, in the real world of tight fiscal times, is clearly not.  Most states have now come on board along with making major changes in law and policy.  And with some greasing of pockets, organizations such as NEA, NFT, ASCD and the PTA have come on board as well.


This was very much a top-down creation with very little real input at the grassroots level or even by national curriculum organizations such as NCTE or NCTM.


Most readers of this blog should know my view on this development by now.  I'm very concerned for at least three reasons.


First, I believe President Dwight Eisenhower's observation has great merit.

"A distinguishing characteristic of our nation — and a great strength — is the development of our institutions within the concept of individual worth and dignity. Our schools are among the guardians of that principle. Consequently . . . and deliberately their control and support throughout our history have been — and are — a state and local responsibility. . . . Thus was established a fundamental element of the American public school system — local direction by boards of education responsible immediately to the parents of children. Diffusion of authority among tens of thousands of school districts is a safeguard against centralized control and abuse of the educational system that must be maintained. We believe that to take away the responsibility of communities and states in educating our children is to undermine not only a basic element of our freedoms but a basic right of our citizens. "

I simply don't believe schools controlled by large corporations is in the best interest of democracy.  And don't make any mistake about it, this control is reaching a new level of magnitude.


Second, I worry about the type of pedagogy that will be encouraged with the soon-to-be-developed assessments.  I've seen the glitzy content management systems being hawked  in the vendor areas of state and national conferences.  Already, powerful interests are aligning their products with the CCSS. Do we really want learning to be a teacher-in-a-box?  It seems to me that there is a great danger that the connections that develop when students are engaged in real life problems in project-based learning will take a big hit if so much importance is given to standardization.


Third, I would argue that standardization is not really the issue.  The issue is poverty and income disparity in the United States. 


Okay, that's where I stand . . . . but being resigned to the reality, I've created a new wiki (currently under construction) called Learning in America at http://learninginamerica.us in order to index open educational resources to the new standards. If we must have national standardization, then we should at least not become enslaved to large oligopolistic educational publishing outfits.  Let's open up the possibilities of local decision making in the methods and resources we use.

What do you think?

On the Road to Implementation: Achieving the Promise of Common Core Standards


Education Week: Common Standards:  Moving from Adoption to Implementation

Audio Overview

NCEE, Pearson, RttT, CCSS, USED & Gates

The Ascent of America's Choice and the Continuing Descent of America's High Schools  ~ Sandra Stotsky

Gates, CCSS, RttT & Continuing to Follow the Money

Huffington Post: The Most Dangerous Man in America

Business Week: Bill Gates' School Crusade

Education News; Corporate Role in Common Core Standards Ought to Be Exposed: Who appointed Bill Gates Emperor of Education?

Washington Post: Gates Foundation Playing Pivotal Role in Changes for Education System

Washinton Post: Bill Gates' Troubling Involvement with School Reform

Schools Matter: Rotten to the Common Core: When Will Parents and Teacher Revolt? 

Rethinking Schools: Keeping Public Schools Public: Testing Companies Mine for Gold

Marion Brady: Education Reform: An Ignored Problem, and a Proposal

"The most useful thing Congress and state departments of education can do is abandon authoritarian, centralizing initiatives and legislation that dictate what’s taught. By propping up an obsolete, dysfunctional curriculum, they’re making a very bad situation much worse.  ~ Marion Brady, Truthout, June 25, 2010

"The 'standards and accountability' education reform effort began in the 1980s at the urging of leaders of business and industry. The reform message preached by Democrats, Republicans, and the mainstream media is simple. 1. America's schools are, at best, mediocre. 2. Teachers deserve most of the blame. 3. As a corrective, rigorous subject-matter standards and tests are essential. 4. Bringing market forces to bear will pressure teachers to meet the standards or choose some other line of work.

Competition - student against student, teacher against teacher, school against school, state against state, nation against nation - will yield the improvement necessary for the United States to finish in first place internationally."  ~ Marion Brady, Truthout. 

Read the rest of the article.

Clipart Credit

Follow the Money . . .

Who controls education in the United States of America?

"This group of very rich people ignored this body of research that shows that the single most powerful factor in education gaps is poverty and not standardized testing.

Did they forget that the United States has the second highest rate of children in poverty of any industrialized country in the world?" ~  Cindy Lutenbacher, ajc . . .  READ MORE

Poverty and Test Scores: A Critical Analysis ~ Orlich & Gifford, Phi Delta Kappan 10/20/06

Poverty and Education: Overview

Poverty and Learning Wiki

USAToday: More Than 1 in 5 Kids Live in Poverty

CCSS

The Common Core State Standards have been released today.


What do you think?

Texas, CCSS & Corporate Political Control

I'm so glad I live in Maine and not Texas. After doing a bit of research, I realize how much political control there is in determining how schooling is delivered in that state. And the sad part of it is that there seems to be increased collusion between corporate textbook publishers and politicians. There even seems to be an attempt to shut down any use of open source materials in teaching unless it has been approved at the State level. From my perspective, this is big government and corporations mandating what parents and teachers should think and say. How did this happen in a state known for the independence of thought and the self-reliance of its citizens?

Sadly, what is happening in Texas seems to be happening to the rest of the country as well through the Common Core State Standards in which politicians and corporations are determining what is to be taught in our local schools in an attempt to commodify and standardize as though people were simply widgets and cogs in a machine rather than complicated, but warm human beings.

Oddly enough, some Texans are speaking of the CCSS as being a plot by progressives to indoctrinate children. The truth of the matter is that CCSS is being promoted by conservatives and liberals alike. It is being pushed by the Business Round Table, politicians, and many conservative think tanks and foundations, as well as huge textbook publishing companies.

Who should control education in the United States? Local citizens, educators, and school boards . . . or rich and powerful state and national entities and interests?

What do you think?

Cartoon Credit

ASCD - The Whole Child and the CCSS

Is it just me, or does the ASCD endorsement of the Common Core State Standards after promoting the Whole Child philosophy seem incongruous? Would someone care to explain it to me?

The Common Core State Standards were written by Corporate America, including major educational publishing and testing companies . . . and with very little initial input from educators. It essentially commodifies students in the interest of financial gain.

Note that ASCD's "premier sponsor" for their Spring 2010 conference was none other than McGraw-Hill, which just happens to be one of prime movers in developing the CCSS . . . and has huge vested interests in the adoption.

What on earth is ASCD thinking? I, for one, am very disappointed that an organization that I had respected has gone down this road. Ditto for the NEA and AFT.

Again, would someone help me understand this seeming contradiction?

The Whole Child Blog
ASCD Works with CCSSO and NGA on Common Core State Standards Iniative

Marion Brady on the Common Core State Standards

Ecology of Education:

• Education Reform: 22 Problems, and a Proposal
• Promises to the Future of Education
• Free Market Education?
• Memo to Lawmakers: You Don’t Know What You’re Doing on School Reform
• Calling teachers to action beyond SB 6

Grave Concerns from Alliance for Childhood

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals
on the Common Core Standards Initiative

Corporate Control of Public Education Policy

Some have said that the Common Core State Standards have been driven primarily by corporate officials, politicians and testing companies.



If that is the case . . .

• Who stands to profit?

• Should Corporations control educational Policy in the United States?

Below are some links that reflect on the issue:

Education Reform is the Best Stock on the Market

Who Will Profit from the Standards?

Conflict of Interest Arises as Concern in Standards Push

Pearson Education Looks Within to Beat McGraw Hill

Pearson Education: World's Leading Education Business is Launched

Alfie Kohn: Debunking the Case for National Standards

Susan Ohanian: Stop National Standards

Data Warehousing Will Destroy Your Soul

Schools Matter: Stimulating Corporate Control of Education

Business Round Table: Education, Innovation and Workforce Initiative

Common Core National Standards Draft Released

"There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people"

~Diane Ravitch
Bridging Differences

Core Standards Downloads

Education Week: "Draft Common Standards Elicit Kudos and Criticism"

The Washington Post: "The Problems with the Common Core Standards"

NPR: "Education Panel Unveils Core K-12 Standards

Washington Post: "Governors, State School Superintendents Propose Common Academic Standards"

The Huffington Post: Susan Ohanian: "Politics and Parsnips: Obama's Common Core"

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative