tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post8878687955266146932..comments2024-03-16T13:43:21.762-04:00Comments on Schools Matter: Diane Ravitch's Mutating Common Core PositionsJames Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-71538688494659734312014-06-12T12:00:04.185-04:002014-06-12T12:00:04.185-04:00Perhaps Diane's position is not "too soph...Perhaps Diane's position is not "too sophisticated" to appreciate but, rather, just too muddy to see through. I don't think any of us can afford for anti-CorpEd's matriarch-of-record to figure out how to make the Weingarten position palatable to those who prefer public schools over corporate ones.James Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-79162048499675618282014-06-12T11:50:28.832-04:002014-06-12T11:50:28.832-04:00I'm sorry but I don't see how Glenn Beck&#...I'm sorry but I don't see how Glenn Beck's position is relevant to how Diane Ravitch views the Common Core. If the Core was rotten before Glenn Beck, or "fatally flawed," how do Glenn Beck's rants and thought disorders change that rottenness? And yet the May version of Ravitch's assessment of Common Core are very different than March. <br /><br />Weingarten used the Tea Party nuts as a foil, too, just a few days after Diane's May HuffPo piece, in order to make her support of Common Core appear as the sane alternative to rightwing nut jobs. For all of Diane's insistence that the AFT misleader is moving away from CorpEd, it seems to me that Ravitch is the one who is being moved.James Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-17689299158790947702014-06-12T08:22:42.899-04:002014-06-12T08:22:42.899-04:00"One may wonder if the Diane of March 2014 is..."One may wonder if the Diane of March 2014 is implicated as a source of those 'hysterical claims.'" No, one doesn't wonder this if one reads the source of the words. What you're failing to note here is that these "evolving positions" are in direct response to the release of Glenn Beck's book about the Common Core, which contains an unhinged critique of the CCSS. Ravitch claims that those who say CCSS for instance "makes children gay" is perhaps going too far. To my mind such hysteria makes it difficult to mount a real critique of the Common Core mess. You may see Ravitch as wildly swinging around and "evolving" in her opinions. I see her words as context dependent, and for you to present them sans context is extremely misleading.Julie Vassilatoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16303703173506929264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-71441321354409902872014-06-12T03:37:03.568-04:002014-06-12T03:37:03.568-04:00The article quotes Diane Ravitch as saying:
1. Con...The article quotes Diane Ravitch as saying:<br />1. Convene your best classroom teachers and review CCSS. Fix whatever needs fixing. Recognize that not all students learn at the same pace. Leave time for play in K-3.<br />Is she posing an ‘erosion’ alternative to CC rather than an outright repeal under the assumption that ensuing federal Administrations will be less likely to monitor whether all the state’s districts are complying 100%? Maybe she thinks many have already or are thinking about modifying how lesson plans are tied to the standards, figuring they won’t get caught. But the real catch is tie to the tests. How is a teacher going to explain the effect that subtle differences will have on selecting the correct answer for hundreds of questions, which they will have no opportunity to change? So, you have to get rid of the tests first, which she states in her next point. <br /><br />2. Do not use the federally funded tests. Do not spend billions on hardware and software for testing. Let teachers write their own tests. Use standardized tests sparingly, like a state-level NAEP, to establish trends, not to label or rank children and teachers. <br />OK, she goes for refusing the tests here which implies that the state in question would have to opt out of their agreement. So, what is the sense of point (1)? Is she echoing what I have seen a few state Administrations say and that is ‘we will use those standards that we agree with but will reserve the right to get rid of the ‘few’ that we don’t like’?<br /><br />3. Do not use results of CC to produce ratings to “measure” teacher quality. Study after study, report after report warns that this is a very bad idea that will harm the quality of education by focusing too much on standardized tests, narrowing the curriculum, and forcing teachers to teach to the tests.<br />When she says “Do not use results of CC”, when she should have said ‘tests’, is she just being careless with her words?<br />4. Do not let your judgment be clouded by people who make hysterical claims about the standards or those who wrote them. . . .<br />I don’t know what she means here, unless she just felt like she had make people feel like there is no need to panic because all this will be negotiable after we get a new administration.<br />I totally agree with the articles concluding statement and can see no reason for her to say all that unless she was just throwing out some possible bones to those whom she thinks might be ripe for coming up with some compromise plan for how all this is supposed to go down in the future.sixtiessmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16690402553239759342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-14165378335941518112014-06-11T23:30:02.945-04:002014-06-11T23:30:02.945-04:00As a teacher, I can customize nothing in the stand...As a teacher, I can customize nothing in the standards. I am faced with the challenge of trying to squeeze what I am teaching into a relevant standard. Most of the time, it is a bit of a stretch. I am guessing that my administrator spends little time reading my lesson plans.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com