Sent to the Oakland Tribune, November 13
"Schools in East Bay and state are switching to Common Core standards" (Nov 10) presents an incomplete view.
There is no need for the Common Core: Our schools are not broken. The problem is poverty. Test scores of students from middle- class homes who attend well-funded schools are among the best in world. Our unspectacular overall scores are due to the fact that the US has the second highest level of child poverty among all 34 economically advanced countries (now over 23%, compared to high-scoring Finland’s 5.4%). Poverty means poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and lack of access to books, among other things. All of these negatively impact school performance.
Instead of protecting children from the effects of poverty, the CC provides "tough" standards and more testing than has ever been seen on this planet.
Most important, there is zero evidence that harder standards and increased testing help students.
Instead of dealing with the real problems, the common core offers us, in the words of Susan Ohanian, “a radical untried curriculum overhaul and … nonstop national testing.”
Stephen Krashen
original letter: http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_24496683/schools-east-bay-and-state-are-switching-common
Some sources:
Poverty and international test scores: Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13; Bracey, G. 2009. The Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/Bracey-Report. Berliner, D. 2011. The Context for Interpreting PISA Results in the USA: Negativism, Chauvinism, Misunderstanding, and the Potential to Distort the Educational Systems of Nations. In Pereyra, M., Kottoff, H-G., & Cowan, R. (Eds.). PISA under examination: Changing knowledge, changing tests, and changing schools. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers. Tienken, C. 2010. Common core state standards: I wonder? Kappa Delta Phi Record 47 (1): 14-17. Carnoy, M and Rothstein, R. 2013, What Do International Tests Really Show Us about U.S. Student Performance. Washington DC: Economic Policy Institute. 2012. http://www.epi.org/).
Impact of poverty: “Poverty means poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and lack of access to books”: Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential; Krashen, S. 1997. Bridging inequity with books. Educational Leadership 55(4): 18-22.
Impact of standards and tests on student learning: Nichols, S., Glass, G., and Berliner, D. 2006. High-stakes testing and student achievement: Does accountability increase student learning? Education Policy Archives 14(1). http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v14n1/. OECD. Tienken, C., 2011. Common core standards: An example of data-less decision-making. Journal of Scholarship and Practice. American Association of School Administrators [AASA], 7(4): 3-18. http://www.aasa.org/jsp.aspx.
Nonstop testing: Krashen, S. 2012. How much testing? http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/25/stephen-‐ krashen-‐how-‐much-‐testing/ and: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/
"Schools in East Bay and state are switching to Common Core standards" (Nov 10) presents an incomplete view.
There is no need for the Common Core: Our schools are not broken. The problem is poverty. Test scores of students from middle- class homes who attend well-funded schools are among the best in world. Our unspectacular overall scores are due to the fact that the US has the second highest level of child poverty among all 34 economically advanced countries (now over 23%, compared to high-scoring Finland’s 5.4%). Poverty means poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and lack of access to books, among other things. All of these negatively impact school performance.
Instead of protecting children from the effects of poverty, the CC provides "tough" standards and more testing than has ever been seen on this planet.
Most important, there is zero evidence that harder standards and increased testing help students.
Instead of dealing with the real problems, the common core offers us, in the words of Susan Ohanian, “a radical untried curriculum overhaul and … nonstop national testing.”
Stephen Krashen
original letter: http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_24496683/schools-east-bay-and-state-are-switching-common
Some sources:
Poverty and international test scores: Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13; Bracey, G. 2009. The Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/Bracey-Report. Berliner, D. 2011. The Context for Interpreting PISA Results in the USA: Negativism, Chauvinism, Misunderstanding, and the Potential to Distort the Educational Systems of Nations. In Pereyra, M., Kottoff, H-G., & Cowan, R. (Eds.). PISA under examination: Changing knowledge, changing tests, and changing schools. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers. Tienken, C. 2010. Common core state standards: I wonder? Kappa Delta Phi Record 47 (1): 14-17. Carnoy, M and Rothstein, R. 2013, What Do International Tests Really Show Us about U.S. Student Performance. Washington DC: Economic Policy Institute. 2012. http://www.epi.org/).
Impact of poverty: “Poverty means poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and lack of access to books”: Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential; Krashen, S. 1997. Bridging inequity with books. Educational Leadership 55(4): 18-22.
Impact of standards and tests on student learning: Nichols, S., Glass, G., and Berliner, D. 2006. High-stakes testing and student achievement: Does accountability increase student learning? Education Policy Archives 14(1). http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v14n1/. OECD. Tienken, C., 2011. Common core standards: An example of data-less decision-making. Journal of Scholarship and Practice. American Association of School Administrators [AASA], 7(4): 3-18. http://www.aasa.org/jsp.aspx.
Nonstop testing: Krashen, S. 2012. How much testing? http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/25/stephen-‐ krashen-‐how-‐much-‐testing/ and: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/
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