April 16, 2014
It might help to look
at texts that “exemplify” what the new standards ask students to read.
This is refreshing: I walk into a
coffee shop and a parent wants to discuss the Common Core. It becomes a discussion about what we want
students to read and learn. How great is
this!
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Cover of Time magazine, April 21, 2014 -“Common Core Revolt”
Denver
Post Editorial, April 13, 2014 –“Crusade continues on Common Core”
Mike Rosen Show, April 10, 2014 –
Gov. Hickenlooper answers question about
getting rid of Common Core
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I’m glad it’s a hot topic (see box). We ought to be talking about WHAT we teach. Reform efforts often relegate curriculum to
the back burner. So hurrah! We are
talking about it!
And here I write about it–
essentially to inform, and yes, to persuade. I want to present mom and dad
excerpts from a few books, essays, and speeches that, according to the Common
Core State Standards (CCSS), represent the kind of reading we can—(my bias: perhaps should)—ask of our
students.
You ask: Am
I being ironic? Do I fail to see the
contradiction? How can I claim to
advocate for choice, charters, and school autonomy—and then suggest every student
should read, say, the Gettysburg Address?
A look back will help. The initial
legislation for the standards and
charter schools passed in the same 1993 session: it was our first attempt to set
clear expectations for all Colorado students, while simultaneously we provided greater autonomy for parents and
educators willing to open a school. Charter schools were free to develop or
commit to a curriculum that matched the
school’s mission and educational philosophy: Core Knowledge, Expeditionary
Learning, KIPP, Montessori, or whatever it might be. Many choices on how a school could meet—or exceed—the standards, the shared goals we set for all Colorado students.
Our current Colorado Academic Standards were adopted in 2010. As one
of dozens who has reviewed and critiqued charter school applications for the
Colorado League of Charter Schools over the past four years, I continue to see a
remarkable range of educational philosophies and curricula in recent applications. And yet each new school commits to meeting our
new standards. Freedom on the how, general
agreement on the what: the skills and
knowledge students should learn.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Our new standards, then, do not change the structure that has been in
place for two decades. Local control by 178 districts, and especially
site-based control by any charter school, means the curriculum and classroom
instruction, which we can make as strong and rigorous as we wish, are still in
our hands.
On the other hand, standards are
meaningless if they
do not have an
impact on
what we teach: i.e. the
curriculum. When CCSS critics tell us
they will “lower our standards,” a parent is right to be concerned. Bob Schaffer
,
former chair of the Colorado State Board of Education, has stated: “The Common
Core standards are indeed common—not ambitious, not high.” Leaders in Douglas
County share this view.
Educators to state: Let's go
above Common Core
Douglas County
educators are among those who don't want the state to implement the national
Common Core standards, but their objections have less to do with money and
local control than with high standards.
As in, the Common Core State Standards aren't high enough.
“We feel like
there's a problem with it being the beginning of the conversation and not to
the rigor that we want our students to aspire to,” said district superintendent
Elizabeth Celania-Fagen.
It doesn’t help when CCSS
defenders reel off a few pat phrases about the wonders of the new
standards. This former teacher finds it
especially depressing when an educator spouts banalities like this:
“We’re moving away
from rote memorization, drilling children, and moving more toward getting
deeper into the content and really being able to not only apply our knowledge
but transfer it from one thing to another. Critical-thinking skills are back!”
(New Mexico teacher, quoted in the American Federation of
Teachers’ paper in support
Good grief! We needed new
standards to ask students to use their minds?
Gosh, I thought I was expected to ask my 7th graders to THINK way back
in the dark ages in my first teaching job … in 1975.
My guess is parents won’t find the verbiage from on high of much use
either:
·
U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan: “… the
Common Core standards mark a sea-change in education. Not only do they set the
bar high, they give teachers the space and opportunity to go deep, emphasizing
problem-solving, analysis, and critical thinking, as well as creativity and
teamwork.”
·
Bill Gates: “Common core is about learning to
apply knowledge and critical thinking. Not just testing rote memorization.”
Mom and Dad are going to have trouble wrapping their heads around such
amorphous language.
My goal, here, is to be concrete, to give parents something they can
get their hands on. Passages to read. Quotes from six texts more Colorado students might be asked to study.
One parent who spoke up for the
new standards on Colorado Chalkbeat had something tangible in mind when he
wrote:
I agree with Mr. Zavala. Let me offer a few specific examples of what
his children might be reading.
Exemplary
works of FICTION: Again, while nothing
is required by CCSS, I find it
reassuring to see the website includes many of the works of fiction I read
with students at various times in my 18-years of teaching: Homer’s The
Odyssey; Macbeth (1592); Pride and Prejudice (1813); Jane Eyre (1848); Fathers and Sons (1862 ); A
Doll’s House (1879); The Great
Gatsby (1925); The Grapes of Wrath
(1939); Fahrenheit 451 (1953); A Raisin in the Sun (1959); To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) (http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf).
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First, a word of caution. NOT ONE
PASSAGE, NOT ONE SENTENCE THAT FOLLOWS, IS
REQUIRED,
MANDATED, or
IMPOSED ON EVERY SECONDARY STUDENT IN COLORADO. But these passages
are from examples that meet Colorado standards for reading,
writing, and communicating.
The works quoted here, according to
CCSS, demonstrate a limited number of “Texts Illustrating the Complexity,
Quality, & Range of Student Reading 6-12” for Language Arts Standards.
“…the texts listed … are meant only to show
individual titles that are representative of a range of topics and genres.”
TMM – Too Much MISinformation
Please take a look at six
passages—in chronological order—from the “exemplary informational texts” listed
on the CCSS website. (More examples below
.)
I
ask you: if we expect students to read, understand, discuss and write about
works like these, do you think we will be “lowering our standards”? Do these represent, as Dustin Zvonek,
Colorado State Director of Americans for Prosperity claims, “watered-down
standards and … politically-correct content classroom content”? (From an Open
Letter to Gov. Hickenlooper asking him to “apply the brakes” on implementation
of “the latest federal education fad called Common Core.”) Does the charge made by a Long Island
superintendent in
Time make any
sense? “We were told this was a new curriculum [
a sure sign he was misinformed from the start] that would raise
standards and go deeper. Who could
object to such a thing? But the devil is in the details, and the details are
horrible” (“Skipping Out,” 4/21/14).
I offer here are some of the “horrible” details: Patrick Henry,
Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln….
**
1. “Speech to the Second Virginia Convention” - by
Patrick Henry (1775)
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable
to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it
be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed,
and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual
resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of
hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not
weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed
in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and
in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which
our enemy can send against us.… There is no retreat but in submission and
slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of
Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
It is
in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace—but there
is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the
North will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already
in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What
would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the
price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
2. Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave - by Frederick
Douglass (1845)
I have been frequently asked how I felt
when I found myself in a Free State. I have never been able to answer the
question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest
excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed
mariner to feel, when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit
of a pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New
York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions…. There I
was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and
without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren – children of a
common Father, and yet I dared not unfold to any one of them my sad condition….
It was a most painful situation; and, to
understand it, one must needs experience it, or imagine himself in similar
circumstances. Let him be a fugitive slave in a strange land—a land given up to
be the hunting-ground for slave-holders—whose inhabitants are legalized
kidnappers—where he is every moment subjected to the terrible liability of being
seized upon by his fellow-men, as the hideous crocodile seizes upon his prey!—I
say, let him place himself in my situation—without home or friends—without
money or credit—wanting shelter, and no one to give it—wanting bread, and no
money to buy it, and at the same time let him feel that he is pursued by
merciless men-hunters, and in total darkness as to what to do, where to go, or
where to stay, perfectly helpless both as to the means of defence and means of
escape, in the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawings of hunger,
in the midst of houses, yet having no home, among fellow-men, yet feeling as if
in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and
half-famished fugitive is only equalled by that with which the monsters of the
deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subsist,--I say, let him be
placed in this most trying situation, the situation in which I was placed,
then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know
how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.
3. “Gettysburg Address” - by Abraham
Lincoln (1863)
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we
can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and
dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add
or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far
so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people,
by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
4.
“Blood, Toil, Tears
and Sweat”: Address to Parliament – by Winston Churchill (May 13, 1940)
I say
to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have
nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal
of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and
suffering.
You
ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War
with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war
against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable
catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
You
ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all
costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the
road may be, for without victory there is no survival.
Let that be
realized. No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the
British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge, the impulse of the
ages, that mankind shall move forward toward his goal.
I
take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be
suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to
claim the aid of all and to say, "Come then, let us go forward together
with our united strength."
5.
“State
of the Union Address” - by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Jan. 6, 1941)
In
the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world
founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The
first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.
The
second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in
the world.
The
third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic
understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for
its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
The
fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a
world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough
fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical
aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.
That
is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of
world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very
antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to
create with the crash of a bomb….
This
nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions
of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God.
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to
those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity
of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
6.
“Letter
from Birmingham City Jail” - by Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 16, 1963)
I guess it is easy
for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait.
But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and
drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled
policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters
with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers
smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you
seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public
amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see the tears
welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to
colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in
her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by
unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to
concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos:
“Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a
cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the
uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when
you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” men and
“colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes
“boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your
wife and mother are never given the respected title of “Mrs.”; when you are
harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living
constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and
plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a
degenerating sense of “nobodiness”; then you will understand why we find it
difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and
men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they
experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand
our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
**
Good news: These six readings are part of the Core Knowledge Sequence –
which guides the curriculum in over 40 Colorado schools, including Liberty
Common in Ft. Collins
In
Another View #82–Implementing Common Core
State Standards in Language Arts (Aug. 27, 2011) I wrote of the overlap
between the “exemplary texts” listed by CCSS and the curriculum guided by the
Core Knowledge Sequence (I taught in three such schools—two charters and one
private; we have over 40 public and private Core Knowledge schools in our
state-
http://www.coreknowledge.org).
In
Another View #87 – Reading (Sept.
4, 2012) I listed a number of those “exemplary texts” to show how wrong
Sheridan’s Superintendent Mike Clough was to claim the new standards would mean
“much more work around technical manuals and much less work around
novels.” In
Another View #105—Teaching our students to write (Dec. 3, 2013), I called
attention to several first-person narratives and essays in the Core Knowledge
curriculum that I believe meet the CCSS guidelines for strong literary
nonfiction.
The Core Knowledge Sequence
recommends teaching all six of these works between grades 4-8.
Teaching 7
th and 8
th
grade, my classes read the Churchill and Roosevelt speeches while my students
were studying World War II in their history class; we studied “Letter from
Birmingham City Jail” during their unit on Civil Rights. (Please ignore the shrill cries that CCSS
“wants to control the curriculum.”
Teaching those three works took about five classes, in all.) So it is no surprise to find that E.D.
Hirsch, the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation, is a strong supporter of
the new standards.
The Common Core Standards could
presage a breakthrough in the dreary record of 8th-grade reading scores over
the past 40 years.… the new language-arts standards place a unique emphasis
from the earliest grades on science, history, and the arts, so that students
will gradually build the general knowledge they need to read and to
comprehend.… Also very welcome, in this final version is the emphasis on civic
knowledge and on the seminal texts of the nation. These standards mark, then, a
real advance on even the best of existing state language-arts standards. If
they are indeed accompanied by a coherent curriculum that ensures students
accumulate needed knowledge starting in earliest grades, they will form a
platform on which we can finally address the literacy crisis in this country.
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Quotes-from-Supporters.pdf
If a parent finds
the six texts included here “lack rigor” or are “politically correct,” feel
free, but I wish we could discuss the merits of such readings—rather than
succumb to false charges and misinformation.
If a legislator like Vicki Marble (R-Ft. Collins) believes “there was
nothing wrong with our academic standards,” so “why are we trying to fix
something that isn’t broken?” perhaps she is unaware that in 2011 the Fordham
Foundation gave our history standards an F.
Which led to my rebuke in Another View
#76: “Do you find it odd that World War II is not mentioned in our history
standards? Not once in 100 pages….
Search for Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler.
Try Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Hiroshima, A-Bomb. Nothing. Zip.”
Colorado’s
social studies standards are unchanged since then. But today, happily, schools
and teachers can point to “exemplary texts” offered by CCSS to say—perhaps our
students should read those speeches by
Churchill and Roosevelt, and texts like the Gettysburg Address and King’s “Letter.”
One example of how the new standards are—imperfect, to be sure—but at least a
step in the right direction.
