Common Core Facts: Listen to Sandra Stotsky, Joy Pullman, Jamie Gass on Recorded Webinar Call

Sandra Stotsky, Joy Pullman and Jamie Gass were on a webinar call sponsored by Stop Common Core in NY State this past week.

You can listen to it here.

Thanks to Stop Common Core in NY State for providing this to other activists so they can fight common core in their states.

Join this #stopcommoncore Telephone Conference Thursday, July 25

“Stop Common Core Conference Call"

Common Core State Standards in education have garnered a growing degree of attention from all sides of the educational policy field in the last several months. New Hampshire was one of the states to adopt this new set of academic standards and is right at the center of this lively debate currently going on in the school halls.

Common Core's advocates say it raises the educational bar. Yet, detractors have indicated that Common Core comes with a number of detrimental trade-offs.

The minds and futures of children merit the careful consideration of all angles and facts to determine the truth and the best course of action.

Interested parties are invited to join an exclusive 90-minute discussion call that will address Common Core State Standards. Respected educational policy experts from several well-known organizations will be on the phone to present valuable information and respond to your questions.

The discussion call will be held on:

• • •

Thursday, July 25 @ 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm EST (last 30 minutes will be a Q &A) 

Call in Number: 530-881-1300 Code: 587258

Experts on the call will include:

• Dr. Sandra Stotsky: Sandra Stotsky was professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and held the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality. She retired in December 2012. She served as Senior Associate Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from 1999-2003, where she was in charge of developing or revising all the state’s K-12 standards, teacher licensure tests, and teacher and administrator licensure regulations. She served on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from 2006-2010, appointed by Governor Mitt Romney. She served on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, from 2006-2008, appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Most recently she served on the Common Core Validation Committee, from 2009-2010. She was also editor of NCTE’s premier research journal, Research in the Teaching of English, from 1991 to 1997. She has published extensively in professional journals and written several books.

• Joy Pullman: education research fellow, The Heartland Institute is a research fellow of The Heartland Institute and managing editor of School Reform News, a national monthly publication. In that capacity, she has interviewed and produced podcasts with many of the leading figures in school reform. She previously was the assistant editor for American Magazine at the American Enterprise Institute. She is also the 2013 recipient of a Robert Novak journalism fellowship for in-

depth reporting on Common Core national education standards.

Why Believe The Lies of Common Core

A couple months ago Dr. Sandra Stotsky, who was a member of the CCSSI validation committee, participated in a panel discussion on common core in Chesterfield Missouri. Recently, she wrote a piece for Pioneer Institute asking the question we have been asking ourselves for a while now - Why are people so willing to believe the lies or misrepresentations put forth by the proponents of common core, even when those claims have been proven false?  Here is some of that piece.

One of the most puzzling phenomena in recent years is the unquestioned acceptance by seemingly rational people of the many claims made by the proponents of Common Core’s standards. The claims have been made repeatedly despite the fact that they have been shown to be either lies or simply utopian hopes. So, what are the lies or the utopian hopes? And why do others repeat these lies or pie-in-the-sky claims about what these standards will achieve?

First, we are regularly told that Common Core’s standards are internationally benchmarked. Joel Klein, former head of the New York City schools, most recently repeated this myth in an interview with Paul Gigot, the Wall Street Journal editor, during the first week in June. Not mentioned at all in the interview or the op-ed he co-authored in the WSJ a week later is Klein’s current position in a company that does a lot of business with Common Core. An Exxon ad, repeated multiple times during a recently televised national tennis match, also suggested that Common Core’s standards were internationally benchmarked. We don’t know who influenced Exxon’s education director.

Gigot never asked Klein what countries we were supposedly benchmarked to. Nor did the Exxon ad name a country to which these standards were supposedly benchmarked. Klein wouldn’t have been able to answer, nor could Exxon have named a country because Common Core’s standards are not internationally benchmarked. Neither the methodologically flawed study by William Schmidt of Michigan State University, nor the post-Common Core studies by David Conley of the University of Oregon, all funded by the Gates Foundation, have shown that Common Core’s content is close to, never mind equal to, the level of the academic content of the mathematics and English standards in high-achieving countries. Moreover, Conley’s studies actually contradict the findings of his much earlier pre-Common Core study showing what college faculty in this country expect of entering freshmen in mathematics and English.

Second, we are frequently told that Common Core is about standards and testing, not curriculum. For example, Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser claimed, in an op-ed in the Boston Globe on Friday, June 14, that Common Core’s standards are simply “a matter of testing, not curriculum.” Why, then, is the Bay State’s department of elementary and secondary education running teacher workshops to redesign classroom curriculum for Common Core? Especially when the curricula that were based on the state’s own, first-class standards and own, first-class tests helped to propel the Bay State to first place on NAEP reading and mathematics tests, in both grade 4 and grade 8, and to a tie for first place in grade 8 on an international test. Glaeser did admit he is on the Gates Foundation’s advisory board. Is he obligated to repeat its party line?

 Please read the story in it's entirety here.

I suspect that the reason so many believe them comes right out of Rahm Emmanuel's playbook which states "Never let a good crisis go to waste."  First they create a false crisis in American education. Our education system has its problems, but there is no new "crisis" here. The same problems that plague us now: poverty, the breakdown of the family, the rise of the entitlement state, have been with us for a very long time. The reformers have simply used these conditions to paint a picture of crisis which is then, typically, met with cries to "save us." Anyone who comes and offers something to save us is met with cheers and quickly ushered in. It's not like they would take advantage of the "crisis" like oh, I don't know, roofing companies who magically appear after a particularly bad storm, ask for your money up front promising to fix damage they see on your roof, only to fail to complete the job or never to be seen again.  People believe in common core because they desperately want to believe this will fix the crisis that someone else told them exists. It conveniently addresses two things government can readily change, standards and assessments, leaving teachers to absorb most of the blame if the supposed fixes don't work, while never dirtying the hands of bureaucrats with addressing the real, but politically untouchable, underlying causes of poor education already mentioned.

Your silly facts just confuse the public Dr. Stostky. Why should we listen to you? It's not like you turned around an entire state's education system launching them to the top of the NAEP scores. Oh wait, you did, but then those reformers rode in on their white horse and rescued Massachusetts with Common Core. I hope the Bay State can survive their cure.

Where Did the Common Core Standards Really Come From

On April 25th Dr. Sandra Stotsky spoke on an expert panel in Chesterfield Missouri giving the audience a look behind the curtain at the Common Core standards development process.




Developed by teachers? Not so much.
Based on research? Not really.
Will prepare students for college? Not likely.

Part 2 is available on the NoMOCommonCore YouTube channel.

The Lone Reporter Attending the Common Core Chesterfield Presentation Gets the Scoop: People Want Answers to Common Core Implementation/Ramifications

Thursday night over 200 people attended a panel discussion in Chesterfield, Missouri about the concerns of Common Core: how it was implemented and the ramifications.  We will have video up within the next few days but in the meantime, you can read the coverage from the only reporter covering the event.  

Many news organizations were invited, but Carol Enright of West Newsmagazine was the lone press person in the crowd.  Make your comments on the newsmagazinenetwork.com and show your appreciation for her attendance and reporting on this important issue.   

From Common Core opposition panel packs Chesterfield City Hall:

An overflow crowd packed Chesterfield City Hall on April 25 for a panel discussion of the Common Core State Standards. And the message from the panelists was clear: “Common Core is coming. It was approved without your knowledge or your input. And the only way you can stop it is by continuing to pack rooms like this and asking questions of the powers that be.”

Those powers are an education lobby supported by big business, according to the panel that included two state senators who introduced legislation to stop Missouri from implementing the standards: Dr. Sandra Stotsky, education researcher and former member of the Common Core State Standards validation committee, and Gretchen Logue, founder of MissouriEducationWatchdog.com. Rockwood parent Anne Gassel was also on the panel.

....Proponents claim that the standards will introduce a higher level of rigor to American classrooms, but Stotsky said, “they’re not rigorous at all, which is why the word ‘rigorous’ is used over and over and over again.”

She warned about the high costs of implementing the standards, particularly the professional development and technology upgrades needed to support the associated online tests. And she criticized the state for not informing local school boards, teachers and parents about Common Core, asking why it had to be a big secret if it was going to be so transformative.

Read more here.

Common Core Panel Discussion at Chesterfield City Hall: Standing Room Only

Common Core meeting Chesterfield City Hall

Over 200 people attended a Common Core panel discussion featuring Sandra Stotsky, Senator John Lamping, Senator Brian Nieves, Anne Gassel and Gretchen Logue.  Lee Presser moderated and questions were taken after the panel discussion.

Dr. Stotsky (who appeared as a witness for SB210 and HB616) was on the Common Core ELA  committee and refused to sign on as a supporter.  Senators Lamping and Nieves spoke about SB210 and its progression through the Senate.  Anne and Gretchen talked about the data mining/dissemination of individual student information and action citizens can take to stop the implementation of Common Core in their schools.

Watch for the video to be posted on this site within the week.  We appreciate everyone's help and participation in last night's event.

You can access Dr. Stotsky's testimony on HB616 and SB210 here.

Common Core Costs $22 Million in One Alabama District

Pearson is really cleaning up in the Huntsville, Alabama school district.  From The Report Card and Pearson $22 Million Contract With Huntsville AL Schools Exposed:

Editor: The Report Card has published a series of articles pro and con about on the Common Core K-12 Standard now required in 46 states. Diane Ravtich, and Sandra Stotsky well known educational reformers have come out against the Common Core saying. Dr. Stotsky has asserted that the CCS will drive up costs and lower literary and educational standards. Paul Horton, history teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory School has documented that Pearson, a $9 Billion publishing giant and CCS supplier has engaged in influence peddling. Diane Ravitch said: Pearson is overstepping the bounds of the role of a profit-making business. The corporation is acting as a quasi-government agency in several instances.”

An Alabama official who wished to remain anonymous, sent us a copy of sweeping $21 Million five-year contract between Pearson and the City of Huntsville. Population 180,000. The official was concerned that the there were no competitive bids for the service, and that the contract gave Pearson too much control over the curriculum and the operation of important local functions. The contract gives Pearson a total grip on Hunstville schools because it controls student content, teacher training, the Information Technology Platform, and apparently testing.

Keith Ward, Director of Communication and digital services for Hunstville Schools stated that the contract has been executed and work is being implemented. Mr. Ward was unaware of  whether there was a competitive bidding process or not and stated that he would research the matter and get back with the information.  Mr. Ward said that the main purpose of the contract was to permit Huntsville to move forward with digital learning. According to the anonymous Alabama official, The entire reason that the contract was developed in the first place was to ensure that Huntsville schools were CCS compliant. So Sandra Stotsky’s argument that Common Core Standards would be too costly seem to have a strong basis in fact. Many questions remain. Was there a competitive bidding process? Is CCS the driver behind all of this expense?

You can see the contract here.

That's a lot of money over a 5 year period for just one school district, school population of 26,000.  How much do you think implementation of Common Core will cost your district?

MO HB 616 and MO SB 210 Sandra Stotsky Testimony Regarding Common Core

Invited Testimony for a Hearing on

House Bill #616 and Senate Bill #210:

 Bills to prohibit the State Board of Education from adopting and implementing Common Core’s Standards and Tests

Sandra Stotsky

Professor Emerita of Education Reform

University of Arkansas

March 6 and 7, 2013

I thank State Representative Paul Curtman and State Senator David Pearce for the opportunity to support bills prohibiting the State Board of Education from adopting and implementing the standards for public schools developed by the Common Core Standards Initiative—as part of a larger effort to downsize government.  I will explain why Common Core’s English language arts standards and future tests are worse than those Missouri has used in recent years, why Common Core’s ELA standards will lower student achievement and reduce the quality of your teaching force, and why they cannot be changed unilaterally by Missouri no matter what you are told.

My professional background: I was a senior associate commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1999-2003 and, among other duties, was in charge of development or revision of the state's K-12 standards in all major subjects, licensing regulations for teachers and administrators, teacher licensure tests, and professional development criteria. I reviewed all states' English language arts standards for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in 1997, 2000, and 2005. I co-authored Achieve, Inc.'s American Diploma Project high school exit test standards for English in 2004. Finally, I served on Common Core's Validation Committee from 2009-2010.

I will speak briefly to the following points.

1.  That Common Core's English language arts standards won’t lead to college readiness

2.  That they lack a research base, international benchmarking, and qualified authors

3.  What leads to college readiness in the secondary English class    

4.  That Missouri cannot change one single word in Common Core’s standards

5. What Missouri can do to increase student learning in all subjects

1. Common Core's English language arts standards won’t lead to college readiness:  Common Core’s “college readiness” standards for ELA standards have many flaws:

Common Core expects English teachers to spend over 50 percent of their reading instructional time on informational texts at every grade level. It sets forth 10 reading standards for informational texts and 9 standards for literary texts at every grade level, K-12.  (An informational text is a piece of writing written to convey information about something, e.g., gravity, bicycles, nutrition.)  There is no body of information that English teachers have ever been responsible for teaching, unlike science teachers, for example, who are charged with teaching information about science.  In addition, English teachers are not trained to give informational reading instruction—by college English departments or by teacher preparation programs.  They study four major genres of literature—poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction—and are trained to teach those genres.

Common Core reduces literary study—what English teachers are trained to teach. Common Core does not specify the literary/historical knowledge students need in its standards.  It offers no specific criteria for selecting literary or informational texts for study. It provides no list of recommended authors, never mind works.  It requires no British literature aside from Shakespeare.  It does not require study of the history of the English language. 

Common Core’s middle school writing standards are an intellectual impossibility for average middle school students. Adults have a much better idea of what "claims," "relevant evidence," and academic "arguments" are. But most children have a limited understanding of these concepts, even if Common Core’s writing standards were linked to appropriate reading standards and prose models. Nor does the document clarify the difference between an academic argument (explanatory writing) and persuasive writing, confusing teachers and students alike.

Common Core’s college-readiness standards are chiefly empty skills.  Skills training (such as how to use Google or a card catalogue or find a main idea) alone doesn’t prepare students for college. High school students need to be taught how to read and understand the content of complex literary texts in order to do “critical thinking.”

It is not surprising that such deficient standards received a grade of B+ from the Fordham Institute and that the Fordham Institute claims Common Core’s standards are superior to those in most states.  Fordham Institute received at least $1,000,000 dollars from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core’s standards. The top officials at the Fordham Institute changed the evaluation form (and grading scheme) it had used in earlier reviews of state ELA standards in order to claim that Common Core’s ELA standards were better than those in most states. 

2.  Common Core’s standards lack a research base, international benchmarking, and credible authors: Common Core’s Validation Committee, on which I served, was supposed to ensure that its standards were internationally benchmarked and supported by a body of research evidence. Even though several of us regularly asked for the names of the countries the standards were supposedly benchmarked to, we didn’t get them.  Nor did we get citations to the supposed body of evidence supporting the idea that an increase in instruction in informational reading in English or other classes will make students college-ready. 

We did not get evidence on international benchmarking because Common Core is not about “rigor for all,” despite all the parrot talk. In grades 6-12, it is about “rigor for none” or educational rigor mortis.  Its goal is not to increase all students’ achievement—the goal of the Bay State student standards and tests, and teacher standards and tests.  Common Core’s goal is to close the demographic gaps in student achievement the easiest way that Gates and the USDE could figure out—which is why Jason Zimba, the mathematics standards writer told the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Education at a public meeting in March 2010 that college-readiness for Common Core means readiness for admission to a non-selective community college.  The aim of its high school mathematics standards is not to strengthen the high school curriculum and to prepare a regularly increasing number of students for college freshman calculus courses. 

Reading researchers have acknowledged there is no research to support Common Core’s claim   about the value of informational reading instruction in the English or other classes. It is also the case that the organizations that developed these standards (CCSSO and NGA) and that promoted them (NASBE, PTA, Achieve, Inc.), as well as recent reports on the “validity” of Common Core’s standards by one scholar at the University of Oregon and another one at Michigan State University, have all been funded by the Gates Foundation. None offers evidence that Common Core’s standards meet current entrance requirements for most colleges and universities in this country or elsewhere.  Moreover, the Gates Foundation chose the chief writers of Common Core’s standards in English language arts and mathematics. Neither has ever taught in K-12.

3.   What leads to college readiness in secondary English classes? The study of complex literature in the English class, not informational texts, leads to college readiness.  Students have to be taught how to “read between the lines.” Literary study was the focus of the Massachusetts 1997 and 2001 ELA standards, considered the “gold standard” among state ELA standards long before Massachusetts students scored in first place in grades 4 and 8 in reading on NAEP—and stayed there. 

Moreover, from about 1900—the beginning of uniform college entrance requirements via the college boards—until the 1950s, a challenging, literature-heavy English curriculum was understood to be precisely what pre-college students needed.  From the 1960s onward, the decline in readiness for college reading (acknowledged in the Common Core document) reflected in large part an increasingly incoherent, less challenging literature curriculum that was propelled by the fragmentation of the year-long English course into semester electives, the conversion of junior high schools into middle schools, and the assignment of easier, shorter, and contemporary texts—often but not always in the name of multiculturalism.

By reducing literary study, Common Core’s 50/50 mandate decreases students’ opportunity to develop the analytical thinking once developed in just an elite group by the vocabulary, structure, style, ambiguity, point of view, figurative language, and irony in classic literary texts.  It also reduces the quality of those who become English teachers.  Most English teachers want to teach literature, a major reason they become English teachers.

4.  Why Missouri cannot change one single word in Common Core’s standards: The two organizations that developed Common Core’s standards have copyrighted their documents. States that have adopted Common Core’s standards cannot change one word of the standards in them, even if their teachers find the standards confusing, placed at inappropriate levels, or poorly written. States can add up to 15% of their own standards but must assess this 15% themselves.  This 15% is above and beyond what is in the Common Core standards.  

5. Why Missouri’s own ELA Standards didn’t increase student learning enough:  The fact that the Bay State’s standards seem to have been more effective than those in other states can be attributed to the simultaneous changes in the academic requirements for teacher and administrator training programs, licensure tests, and professional development. High quality in a state’s standards is not enough.   Raising the academic bar for admission to an education school and embedding the content of strong academic standards into its educator preparation programs, licensure tests, and professional development will over time lead to increases in achievement for all students in reading and mathematics, as it did in Massachusetts.  

Final Comment

Let me repeat some basic points of fact first.  (1) Common Core’s standards are NOT internationally benchmarked and will not make us competitive. No country has ever been mentioned as a benchmark.  (2)  Common Core’s standards are NOT rigorous. The Gates Foundation wanted to make a sale.  Would any state have adopted them if it wasn’t told they were rigorous?   (3) There is NO research or research evidence to support Common Core’s stress on “informational” reading instruction in the English class or in any other high school subject.  (4)  Missouri does not need Common Core to find out how Missouri students compare with Idaho students.  It can use NAEP’s results to find out.

All state standards need to be reviewed and revised if needed at least every five to seven years by identified Missouri teachers and discipline-based experts in the arts and sciences, and parents.  In addition, all state assessments should be reviewed by Missouri teachers and discipline-based experts in the arts and sciences before the tests are given.  This can’t happen with Common Core’s standards and assessments.  Missouri has lost control of the content of its children’s education under Common Core.  Its main task is simply to pay for its costs. The future costs for staying with Common Core will far outweigh the costs for leaving while leaving is still possible.

How The Mighty Finland Fell

Ask most people how American students are doing compared to their counterparts overseas and they will tell you that we are middling at best and failing at worst. Ask who is doing it right and you will most likely hear, "Finland!" This northern country has been the utopia of education for many years,  growing as an edutourism destination to capitalize on her students' test scores on the PISA exam. Let's all be like Finland! Not so fast. A review of the most recent data reveals that this education envy may be misplaced.

Education Week compared Finland's 2011 performance on the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to the US's. "The most striking contrast is in mathematics, where the performance of Finnish 8th graders was not statistically different from the U.S. average in the 2011. Finland, which last participated in TIMSS in 1999, actually trailed four U.S. states that took part as 'benchmarking education systems' on TIMSS this time: Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Indiana."

Even more revealing is an observation by Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "If Finland were a state taking the 8th grade NAEP, it would probably score in the middle of the pack," he said, referring to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Another comparison is Finland vs the state of Florida on the PIRLS test. In this match up of 4th graders on the subject of reading, the scores were about the same. Florida was the only state to voluntarily particiapte in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and is known to focus on literacy in the 3rd grade. Finland did score above the U.S. average in reading in 4th grade.

Pasi Sahlberg, the director general of the Center for International Mobility at the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, in Helsinki, attempted to explain the various test results. "With specific regard to math, I was not really surprised. ... Finnish math curricula put strong emphasis on problem-solving and applying mathematical knowledge rather than mastery of content. PISA measures the former, TIMSS the latter."

What does this mean to U.S. students?  Sandra Stotsky, a former member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Professor of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, answered the question of whether this difference in the approach to teaching mattered. "...the answer depends on whether one wants this country to produce its own engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, or to depend on high school students with advanced math knowledge and skills coming from other countries to our universities."

What is striking in the article is the number of ways the state of Massachusetts comes out on top in the international ranking, yet the Massachusetts standards and curriculum are not the basis for the upcoming Common Core standards. How very odd if our goal is to have students prepared to compete in the global job market.

Is David Coleman Doing the Humpty Dumpty?

Is the Common Core fairy tale being exposed as just that?

David Coleman, chief architect of the Common Core standards and newly named head of the College Board, is being questioned on not only his motives in crafting the standards and financial gain realized from his participation in their implementation, but also on his understanding of historical documents and the basis of the standards themselves.  

Jim Stergios posted an article, "The Wrong Lesson on National Standards", addressed to Mr. Coleman about his participation in the Common Core:

I’m sorry because I think I may have gotten some of the intentions of Common Core's supporters wrong. Considering the heavy hand of the Gates Foundation and DC-based trade groups and their support of an effort that violates three federal laws; the imposition of $16 billion in new unfunded mandates on states and localities; and the feds’ shoehorning of states into adopting mediocre/community college readiness academic standards; I thought there may have been a well-thought-through plan at work. I thought the fact that many of the same players were involved in the 1990s in similar efforts meant that they had learned from past mistakes and decided to bypass congressional scrutiny and state legislative processes.

I thought they (and by association perhaps you) were consciously flouting the rule of law, the Constitutional Framers, and 220-plus years of American constitutional history. After all, supporters of national standards know their history and what is legal and illegal, and why all this was a bad idea. 

 Stergios then analyzes a statement by Coleman in which Coleman used Madison's Federalist #51 for a pro-Common Core argument.  Coleman referenced Federalist #51 in a video produced by the Hunt Foundation (funded by Gates) and explained his understanding (in blue) of this document:

 

The video (see especially 2:07 to 2:49) does not dissuade me from my view that the national standards are a mediocre race to the middle, or that they are illegal, or needless centralizing and expensive. 

In it, you articulate how you would use Madison’s Federalist #51 to teach students and teachers about carefully reading primary sources like Madison’s work and how to understand concepts like “faction” as the authors themselves understood these terms. The video comes with a nice-looking pictorial text of Federalist #51 on the screen. Listening for a few minutes, I thought it sounded good, especially where you note:

I want to say a little more about what we mean by building knowledge through reading and writing. It doesn’t mean simply that students can refer to a text they’ve read in history and social studies and mention that in Federalist Paper 51 someone named Madison had some ideas about faction. To be able to read and gain knowledge to analyze that document would be as the [national] standards require to examine precisely what Madison said or didn’t say about faction and from reading that document carefully having a rich and deep understanding about precisely what Madison thought about faction. It’s about the close study of primary documents to understand from whence they come and what they might mean and not mean.

Stergios points out that Coleman's interpretation is not valid:

I’m not sure if Yale and Oxford, while you were there as a Rhodes scholar, forgot to tell you this, but Madison’s Federalist #51 isn’t about “faction.” I know you repeat this point over and over in the video tutorial. But, as any well-educated 10th-grader knows (at least in Massachusetts before we switched to the national standards), Federalist #51 is actually about checks and balances.

In fact, David, I hope you and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Hunt Institute, and the whole swarm of national standards proponents will take the time to read Federalist #10, which, incidentally is the most famous of all of Madison’s works. The term “faction” is mentioned 18 times (including the title) and is the major topic of Federalist #10. Madison’s views on “faction” are thoughtful and far-sighted.

David, I truly hope you and other supporters of the Common Core will come to read the Federalist Papers and demonstrate the skills to understand James Madison’s original intent. I further hope you will gain the ability to reflect on the premises of the American constitutional republic. Perhaps close attention to the section of Federalist #10 regarding not serving as judge in your own case would help you and the Gates Foundation understand that advancing a policy with hundreds of millions of dollars and then paying others to support that view is a no-no. I am convinced that, with this reading and study complete, you will understand why national education standards are anti-constitutional, illegal, and violate the public trust.

In truth, when crafting the Constitution and the Federalist Papers Madison and the Framers very much had in mind the reckless ambitions of the recklessly ambitious. The drive to advance the Common Core outside the boundaries of the Constitution and legal restrictions is just what Madison had in mind. And the EduBlob represents exactly the types of dangerous “factions” whose “common impulse of passion, or of interest” were contrary to the public good and the “aggregate interests of the community.”

The next time you would like to opine about why you and others should set national standards, curricula, and testing for America’s 50 million schoolchildren, I would ask you to reflect on you and your peers lack of even the most basic understanding of our Founding principles.

Stergios isn't the only one questioning Coleman's knowledge or honesty.  Diane Ravitch asked the question in an article, "Why Does David Coleman Dislike Fiction?":

I have been told by several people who attended David Coleman’s lectures that he speaks disparagingly of fiction. That’s why the Common Core standards permit 50% fiction in the early grades but only 25% fiction in high school.

There are some interesting reader comments and Mr. Coleman himself responded:

David Coleman

May 20, 2012 at 8:08 pm

Dear Diane,

I responded on your other blog post about the vibrant role of fiction in the standards. I accept your warning that my comments are being taken otherwise, and will do my best to be very clear in public and private going forward. I do regret that I did not correct the person who made the remark about reading novels and work, but it is a little strange to claim that i dislike fiction based on something someone else said. But again, i should have objected and i accept that criticism from you and others that have written.

Of course, much more important than my personal likes and dislikes are what the standards themselves say. You have asked me to be clear, so please let me be very clear on 3 essential facts:

1) The 70/30 balance in grades 6-12 does not mean that students read mostly non-fiction in ELA classrooms. It applies to all student reading and explicitly includes the reading of content rich non-fiction in history, social studies, science and technical subjects. The majority of 6-12 ELA remains devoted to literature with some room for literary non-fiction. 

2) The standards require the careful study of poems, novels, and drama in K-12. Such things as the study of Shakespeare is required, American literature and wonderful aspects of poetry. Let there please be no misunderstanding that literature in these standards does not remain a central part of student and teacher work.

3) Of course, the published standards are based on the work of the states who worked on them as well as teachers (not my own likes and dislikes). For example, the literature standards are much indebted to Massachusetts. The NEA and AFT both had working teams of teachers who reviewed and shaped the standards repeatedly in their development; there is an article in the AFT monthly about the specific impact of teacher comments on the standards. 

These three facts are important and I appreciate your concern that they be clarified.

Thanks,

David

Mr. Coleman's contention about the non-fiction 70/30 statement elicited this reader response:

Frank Little

May 20, 2012 at 11:25 pm

 

Coleman sounds like a sensible man and his response even makes sense. Therefore it must have been a different David Coleman whose ‘Common Core’ presenters introduced teachers with the idea of less literature and more “informational text” – does my Ikea DIY manual is “informational text” as well?. Either Coleman doesn’t know what his representatives been telling teachers or he found a way to spin the truth for us. Not to mention the fact that he is part of Rhee’s cultural revolution gang does not support his credibility. But even if Coleman was the reincarnation of William Shakespeare himself we would still demand democracy. This term is becoming a dirty word and some of us might have forgotten its meaning but in essence it is the ability of people – real people not Pearson corporation kind of people – to decide for themselves what is good for their children and communities. This task can be given to professionals, educators, historians and writers – not business people – and eventually be decided by the people.

Aside from that, the method of testing is yet another despicable practice. Teaching literature, poetry, plays and theater, that express the most complex and beautiful ideas, only to be reduced to multiple choice standardize test. If you recall the ‘Pineapple’ debacle, you might remember the author of the short story admitted that he wouldn’t have known the answer regarding his own creation.

Back to Coleman, if one looks at his response, one can identify a corporate maneuver. He never takes responsibility for the program he runs and again refers us to a set of standards that can not be questioned or evaluate but are all given and have to be followed. He is merely Moses on the mountain who delivers it to us from above.

Yet the Coleman who wrote in this blog should attend the other Coleman’s Common Core presentation and he might get vary angry, especially when he would be told about potentially reducing percentage of literature far beyond the 70/30.

 

Mr. Coleman's memory was called into question by another reader, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, who helped develop Massachusetts standards:

Sandra Stotsky

May 21, 2012 at 1:41 pm

 

David Coleman makes false claims about the major influence on Common Core’s literature and reading standards (e.g., “the literature standards are much indebted to Massachusetts”). Only in a perverse way could that statement be true. He misparaphrased and misplaced almost every literature standard he may have taken from the 2001 MA ELA Curriculum Framework.

I regularly showed during the spring and summer of 2010 the mismatch between what was in the MA standards and what was in CC’s ELA standards. In a series of White Papers (# 56, 61, 63. and 65), released by the Pioneer Institute in 2010, I provide a variety of systematic comparisons of the two sets of standards showing how inferior CC’s ELA standards were to the MA 2001 standards in ELA for both K-5 and 6-12, and to even its proposed revision of these standards. 

I was told that Coleman and Sue Pimental had visited the MA Department of Education several times to consult with the staff there on the ELA standards. Never once did they ask to speak to me privately or publicly (by 2009-2010 I was on the Common Core Validation Committee and no longer at the MA DoE). Nor did they ever speak to the people who created the MA ELA standards (like Mark McQuillan, by then Commissioner of Education in Connecticut; William Rice, by then at the National Endowment of the Humanities; or James McDermott, an award-winning English teacher in Worcester) or to the people who worked on the entire MA ELA curriculum framework under my supervision at the MA DoE in 2001 (Holly Handlin, a former English teacher; and Janet Furey, a former reading teacher—both still in MA). 

Given how CC’s ELA standards turned out, it is a mystery what Coleman and Pimentel learned from their visits to the MA DoE in 2009-2010. It is not possible to claim with a straight face that Common Core’s K-5 or 6-12 reading and literature standards were modeled on the MA standards.

Sandra Stotsky

David Coleman is being challenged on his intellectual knowledge and his spin on the model of the standards.  Does this Common Core issue in terms of how it was adopted and who is writing the standards cause you concern for the future of American public education?

Who can taxpayers complain to?  School boards can't do much, most states signed over their right to set their standards, and if you live in Missouri, you'll have to figure out what bureaucrat to call in Washington state when you find factual errors in curriculum.  Do you trust these people to write national standards when they can't be held accountable for errors or answers not based in fact?