Common Core Standards

[Minoosh]

All of the cites I provided above relate directly to the issue of markets versus State provision of education services. I addressed Kelly's point.

I'm not saying they don't. It's just not an argument I'm having.

Students who don't "get it" on the tenth repetition may get it on the eleventh.

Yes, and?

Someone interested in "best practice" would take note of the role that competition between providers of goods and services plays in incremental improvements.

I'm interested, in a theoretical way, but it doesn't change my job in the short term. I look at performance tasks and do my best to coach individual students past whatever kind of problem gives them the most trouble.

The PARCC exam changes the nature of some of those tasks - more maybe than our state Legislature realized.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Who is the customer?

That was the question that Myron Lieberman asked the class on Education policy (UH, Summer, 1995). Students? Parents? Taxpayers? Legislators?

Who is the vendor? Schools? Public sector unions? Politicians?

In the public sector, these questions are muddier than in the private sector.

People respond to incentives. Incentives matter to students, parents, classroom teachers, union agents, school administrators, voters, and legislators.

 

[Minoosh]

There's quite a lot. Read Coulson's discussion of Project Follow-through.

It's interesting to me Direct Instruction (the trademark version) gets high marks. It's an extremely scripted technique based on students chanting answers in unison, and it has to be implemented from the top down. It's not exactly one size fits all, because students are sorted by ability level, but within that group conformity is the whole point.

I hope I'm picking a fair example in this clip:

Direct Instruction - An Educational Strategy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwODCQ9BnU&feature=kp

If knowledge can be drilled into brains this way, super. Just about every student I've worked with knows *a negative times a negative equals a positive* because they've all been shown "Stand and Deliver" at some point in their school careers, and Jaime Escalante used this chanting technique with his students. It depends on having a group to work with.

FYI, I'm not a dues-paying member of any cartel. I am a quasi-private-sector alternative, an outside vendor who competes for the privilege of providing cost-effective supplemental instruction to selected students. Also I am fairly new to the field, and still (always I hope) learning.

I find your points interesting (though sometimes elusive) and I suspect we agree on some things, but when you depict teachers as an evil cabal of leeches intent on sucking up public money and the lifeblood of our youth, I see a caricature that does not reflect the reality I've experienced.

"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."--Alfred North Whitehead

Since you present this quote free of clues about your rhetorical purpose, I'm inventing my own takeaway: You don't want to have to think about multiplying single digits. Fluency advances by building automatic responses.

As it applies to Direct Instruction (or direct instruction), a teacher might solicit a group response:

Teacher: Seven times six!
Class: responses vary, but "42" is among them.

Teacher: Good. Seven times six is 42. Class, what is seven times six?
Class: FORTY-TWO.

It's like a singalong, you don't know the words but the stakes are low, you can kind of hum along then pick up the lyrics as you go. By the end of the lesson it's drilled into your little noggin. In language arts, the teacher might cycle different short vowels amid various consonants:

"Slip, slap, slop." Good. "Tip, tap, top."

This is my interpretation of direct instruction and I'm fine with it, but it depends on conformity and I thought you were against conformity-based expectations.

 

[marplots]

I asked, "Who is the customer [of education]?"

That was the question that Myron Lieberman asked the class on Education policy (UH, Summer, 1995). Students? Parents? Taxpayers? Legislators?

Who is the vendor? Schools? Public sector unions? Politicians?

In the public sector, these questions are muddier than in the private sector.

People respond to incentives. Incentives matter to students, parents, classroom teachers, union agents, school administrators, voters, and legislators.

In my view, the proper "customer" is society itself and we rely on the educational system to provide members of that society. Since I have been a working adult, more than 32 years worth of high school graduates have joined me in the workforce. They are the people I talk to in the doctor's office, the ones who show up when I need a repair or installation at my home. They are the police who respond when I dial 911. In other words, these graduates become the very fabric of the society around me.

Do I want to trust their education to the wide variety of parents out there? Not at all. The job is too important to give to someone whose major qualification is enthusiasm - no matter how much a parent may love their child.

Should it be mandatory? Yes. And for the same reason vaccinations are mandatory - I want a generation of healthy minds to keep things going as my peers age and fall away.

Is there a role for homeschooling in my preferred schema? Sure, but it would be "in addition too" and not "instead of."

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

varies from area to area, people going to the BOE meetings here have a large impact.

What definition of "large" are you using? If we look at results on, say, a contest over whether a book should be allowed or not - only one side wins. So the "impact" for one side is logically zero. What examples can you give where there is a controversy over courses to offer, budget, or whatever for which this isn't true?

Generally the most significant question is the budget, and almost nobody gets their most desired outcome. Many want more, many want less, many disagree with the way it is being spent as opposed to the total.

By comparison to us, we get precisely the decision we want with zero effort. We make the decision and we're done with it.

 

[marplots]

By comparison to us, we get precisely the decision we want with zero effort. We make the decision and we're done with it.

Why is this a good thing?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

In my view, the proper "customer" is society itself and we rely on the educational system to provide members of that society. ...

How would that work? That amorphous "society" will act as a succession of individuals. For each person under age 18 somebody or some body (committee) will determine how that sub-adult will spend the time between birth and age 18. Cannot "society" decide to empower parents with control? The welfare-economic case turns on the relative costs and benefits of different assignments of control. In reality, school policy is a matter of raw interest-group politics and organized insiders (the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel) win with Common Core.

Since I have been a working adult, more than 32 years worth of high school graduates have joined me in the workforce. They are the people I talk to in the doctor's office, the ones who show up when I need a repair or installation at my home. They are the police who respond when I dial 911. In other words, these graduates become the very fabric of the society around me.

Do I want to trust their education to the wide variety of parents out there? Not at all. The job is too important to give to someone whose major qualification is enthusiasm - no matter how much a parent may love their child.

Why trust the people who have demonstrated corruption and incompetence instead?

Should it be mandatory? Yes.

To what does "it" refer?

And for the same reason vaccinations are mandatory - I want a generation of healthy minds to keep things going as my peers age and fall away.

That's not the reason that governments mandate vaccination. Measles is contagious. Ignorance is not. At least, not in the same way. The risk of mass ignorance rises with institutionalization. Like many contagious conditions.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

There's not a whole lot of "literature" about the relative merits of competing math methods. Not a lot of quantitative data on "what works."

There's quite a lot. Read Coulson's discussion of Project Follow-through.

It's interesting to me Direct Instruction (the trademark version) gets high marks. It's an extremely scripted technique based on students chanting answers in unison ...

Perhaps "Direct Instruction (the trademark version)" involves "students chanting in unison". That's not a requirement of "direct instruction", which means "teaching". Here's another name for the strategy: EDIP. Explain. Demonstrate. Imitate. Practice. You don't need groups. Kumon is a sequence of worksheets through which students work at their own pace. .

... and it has to be implemented from the top down. It's not exactly one size fits all, because students are sorted by ability level, but within that group conformity is the whole point.

Change of topic? I thought we were considering instructional strategies. Are we back to the relative merits of markets for education services versus a compulsory State-monopoly system?

... If knowledge can be drilled into brains this way, super. Just about every student I've worked with knows *a negative times a negative equals a positive* because they've all been shown "Stand and Deliver" at some point in their school careers, and Jaime Escalante used this chanting technique with his students. It depends on having a group to work with.

Why? Have you ever memorized poetry? I recommend to young students that they memorize integer products up to 12x12 and integer squares up to 50x50. It's not hard when you're young, and it saves time. I expect this method of instruction could be delivered in groups, with simultaneous audio and visual, text and pictures, but it would not require group instruction. Feynman wrote that Hans Bethe (iirc) had memorized log tables. Richard Francis Burton could acquire fluency in a new language in six months. He carried vocabulary cards around and drilled himself.
The cartel's disdain of drill and rote memorization exacts a great toll.
Please do not infer from the above that I insist that inquiry has no place.

..."It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."--Alfred North Whitehead

Since you present this quote free of clues about your rhetorical purpose, I'm inventing my own takeaway: You don't want to have to think about multiplying single digits. Fluency advances by building automatic responses.

Yes. A good driver doesn't have to think about coordinating the gas, brake, and clutch pedals. It's a reflex.

What to teach this way and when to teach this way are matters of taste (preference, values, etc.) and fact ("What works?"). In either case, the argument for State-imposed uniformity is extremely weak.

 

[Minoosh]

The risk of mass ignorance rises with institutionalization.

As Mitt Romney might say, institutions are people, my friend.

Somewhere along the way people invented "division of labor" and out of that "institutions" arose. Like the fire department. Why do we need those? Surely neighbors know best how to put out neighborhood fires!

And surely parents know what's best for their children. Not just anyone can procreate.

I don't know how humanity got it so wrong when libertarianism clearly offers such superior solutions.

Perhaps "Direct Instruction (the trademark version)" involves "students chanting in unison". That's not a requirement of "direct instruction", which means "teaching".

Grant Coulson was talking about the brand name, though. "Direct Instruction." You referred me to him re: what works.

About the same time, I learned about the Direct Instruction procedures developed by Siegfried Engelmann and Carl Bereiter. These techniques produced far and away the most impressive gains in the large-scale Follow Through experiment carried out in the early 70s in the U.S. with 75,000 at-risk students. Direct instruction was pitted against 19 other methods, most of which are still used and all of which, except Behaviour Analysis in certain areas, failed to perform better than Direct Instruction.

He mixes up the upper-case and lower-case distinctions but it's clear what he means.

Here's another name for the strategy: EDIP. Explain. Demonstrate. Imitate. Practice. You don't need groups. Kumon is a sequence of worksheets through which students work at their own pace.

You think teachers don't use worksheets?

I recommend to young students that they memorize integer products up to 12x12 and integer squares up to 50x50. It's not hard when you're young, and it saves time. I expect this method of instruction could be delivered in groups, with simultaneous audio and visual, text and pictures, but it would not require group instruction.

Maybe not, but people got together and created things like schools ... and fire departments ... and if I memorize all integer squares up to 50 x 50, something will have to go.

The cartel's disdain of drill and rote memorization exacts a great toll.

The cartel members I know are OK with it. My local cartel might be kind of lax, though.

I don't get the "inquiry" vs. "memorization" dichotomy. Both have their place. They reinforce each other.

In either case, the argument for State-imposed uniformity is extremely weak.

How have so many people gotten it so wrong when markets clearly offers such superior solutions?

 

[Minoosh]

Many children, inexplicably, like forming groups and hanging out with their peers, and the behavioral results are not always an unmitigated blessing.

If school were in session, no way would I have the mental energy to participate forums like this.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... Should it be mandatory?

To what does "it" refer?

?

...Yes.
And for the same reason vaccinations are mandatory - I want a generation of healthy minds to keep things going as my peers age and fall away. ...

That's not the reason that governments mandate vaccination. Measles is contagious. Ignorance is not. At least, not in the same way. The risk of mass ignorance rises with institutionalization. Like many contagious conditions.

As Mitt Romney might say, institutions are people, my friend.

It was "corporations are people", I believe, but that's okay. Legally, corporations are people, for reasons of efficiency. Different legal environments present different incentives to employees, investors, and customers. Let's accept your "institutions are people" as true. It does not work the other way, any more than "bats are mammals" (true) works the other way--"mammals are bats" (false, usually). People are hardly interchangeable. Schools cannot consistently deny this, with their insistence on credentialization, they're all about distinguishing one person from another. The welfare-economic argument for any policy (e.g., compulsory attendance statutes) is that it makes a difference compared to the legal regime that does not feature that policy. "What difference does it make?" is an empirical question.

Gandhi observed that parents are the natural teachers of children.

Somewhere along the way people invented "division of labor" and out of that "institutions" arose. Like the fire department. Why do we need those? Surely neighbors know best how to put out neighborhood fires!

In sufficiently rural environments, fire departments waste resources. If you're going to make an argument out of sarcasm, surely as a nation we'd benefit from direct democratic determination of next week's breakfast menu. I posed this question before in this thread, and earlier:...

1. From State (government, generally) operation (or subsidization) of what industries does society as a whole benefit? You may imagine a dichotomous classification A = {x: x in an unlikely candidate for State operation (or subsidization)} and B = [x: x is a likely candidate for State operation (or subsidization)} or a continuum .................
(highly unlikely) -1_______.________+1 (highly likely).
2. What criteria determine an industry's classification or position on the continuum?

Have you given any thought to an answer?

And surely parents know what's best for their children. Not just anyone can procreate.

I don't know how humanity got it so wrong when libertarianism clearly offers such superior solutions.

I recommend Andrew Coulson, Market Education, The Unknown History (1999), Joel Spring, The American School, and Sol Cohen, Education in the United States, A Documentary History.

The US State-monopoly school system originated in a theocratic imperative to promote the State religion in the religious colonies of pre-Revolutionary British North America and, later, anti-Catholic bigotry. The system survives on strident lobbying by the current recipients of the taxpayers' $700+ billion per year K-PhD education subsidy.

Grant Coulson was talking about the brand name, though. "Direct Instruction." You referred me to him re: what works.

Yes. Did you refer to Market Education? There is a large volume of literature on what works in Math instruction. I answered your question, seems to me.

Here's another name for the strategy: EDIP. Explain. Demonstrate. Imitate. Practice. You don't need groups. Kumon is a sequence of worksheets through which students work at their own pace.

You think teachers don't use worksheets?

Some do. My point was that Kumon teaches through a sequence of worksheets that allows students to work at their own pace as they master the skills needed for completion.

... people got together and created things like schools ... and fire departments ... and

Sobibor, the labor camps of the Kolyma River basin, the engineered famine in Ukraine...

The cartel's disdain of drill and rote memorization exacts a great toll.

if I memorize all integer squares up to 50 x 50, something will have to go.
....
I don't get the "inquiry" vs. "memorization" dichotomy. Both have their place. They reinforce each other.

Make up your mind.

How have so many people gotten it so wrong when markets clearly offers such superior solutions?

That's a matter for historical research. Interest group politics and political corruption are nothing new.

 

[marplots]

This jumped out at me:
"Gandhi observed that parents are the natural teachers of children."

Yeah. And feet are the natural means of human transport.

Public education isn't an "instead of" parental teaching, it's an "addition to." I can't imagine a loving parent (outside of the Amish maybe) who wouldn't want their children to get the best education available to them. Arguably, this is the idea that pushes homeschooling - a reaction by parents to what they perceive as a low quality education.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

This jumped out at me:
"Gandhi observed that parents are the natural teachers of children."

Yeah. And feet are the natural means of human transport.

Public education isn't an "instead of" parental teaching, it's an "addition to." I can't imagine a loving parent (outside of the Amish maybe) who wouldn't want their children to get the best education available to them. Arguably, this is the idea that pushes homeschooling - a reaction by parents to what they perceive as a low quality education.

95% agreement. What grates is the term "public education". Many people use the term "public education" where they apparently intend "government-operated schools". Compulsory attendance at State-operated schools is to a well-educated population as collective farms are to a well-fed population. That is, counter-indicated.

 

[marplots]

95% agreement. What grates is the term "public education". Many people use the term "public education" where they apparently intend "government-operated schools". Compulsory attendance at State-operated schools is to a well-educated population as collective farms are to a well-fed population. That is, counter-indicated.

That probably stems from the traditional division between state-run schools and private. I had two kids and we used both types. But we couldn't always afford the private, which we liked much better.

So I'm not married to government run schools, but am still a fan of testing whatever is on offer - which is simply a type of quality control in the end.

 

[Minoosh]

People are hardly interchangeable. Schools cannot consistently deny this, with their insistence on credentialization, they're all about distinguishing one person from another.

Credentials exist for lots of things, not just teaching. They don't make people interchangeable. They do signal that a person has gone through a standardized process to obtain a credential. They've jumped through the required hoops. That limits the labor pool for a lot of jobs.

Oddly, though charter school teachers don't have to be certified in my state, charters have taken to advertising that they employ certified teachers. I don't know why. They must figure the public cares. Maybe because the cartels are so good at propaganda.

I posed this question before in this thread, and earlier:... Have you given any thought to an answer?

Again I paraphrase and hope I'm getting it right: If we accept that collectivization "works" and/or is appropriate under certain circumstances, how do we decide exactly what to collectivize, and to what extent?

If that's the question, then I think about it a lot. But I haven't worked out a foolproof formula, and in my opinion, neither has anyone else.

The polarities in the education debate to me seem to be: a) Parents own their children and can educate them (or not) any way they like or b) Infants must be confiscated and subject to pervasive, lifelong indoctrination by the state (or State).

It's a false dilemma. *Of course* there are advantages to very local, small-scale instruction. It also has its limits.

My point was that Kumon teaches through a sequence of worksheets that allows students to work at their own pace as they master the skills needed for completion.

I see schools using similar models quite a bit, maybe because my students are somewhat nontraditional. The "lab" format - students working online, with a teacher supervising and doing spot-tutoring - is pretty common.

Sobibor, the labor camps of the Kolyma River basin, the engineered famine in Ukraine...Make up your mind.

Is the fundamental problem collectivism, or the all-or-nothing approach?

 

[Astrodude]

A lot of people on this thread don't seem to know what the common core standards are. They are very broad and very rudimentary; they're not some sort of comprehensive overhaul of the system.

 

[kellyb]

A lot of people on this thread don't seem to know what the common core standards are.

Well, that would include you.

I'm far from an expert on Common Core, but I have a homeschooled kid (never in daycare/preschool, "homeschooled from Kindy") doing a 6th grade "mainstream" curriculum that is aligned with Common Core.

They are very broad and very rudimentary

No, they're not. They're very specific, and the standards are high.

If you'd ever homeschooled a school-aged child you'd hopefully understand this.

 

[kellyb]

Malcolm:

Common Core Math is to effective Math instruction what Whole Language methods of Reading instruction are to phonics.

"Common Core Math" basically IS "Singapore Math"! It's the antithesis of not teaching kids phonics!

And you do it again...

Compulsory attendance at State-operated schools is to a well-educated population as collective farms are to a well-fed population.

Tell that to Finland.

You might have great points in your posts somewhere, but they're very difficult to hear over the shrill libertarian wanna-be talking points.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

A lot of people on this thread don't seem to know what the common core standards are. They are very broad and very rudimentary; they're not some sort of comprehensive overhaul of the system.

I have looked at some of them. No matter how broad or rudimentary its "standards" Common Core has two defects:
1) Common Core promotes national standards.
The US Constitution gives the national government no role in the education industry. Common Core pushes education decision-making farther from parents and closer to remote national authorities.
2) They are age-graded. Children are not standard in their interests or abilities.

Common Core is a special case of industrial policy, State direction of investment. For devout socialists, that's a plus. For free marketeers that's a big negative.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... common core standards are ... very broad and very rudimentary ...

No, they're not. They're very specific, and the standards are high.

What do you mean by "high" as applied to "standard"?