Thomas B. Fordham still pushing the Common Core on Nevadans
Michael Petrilli and Michael Brickman, of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have made their way back to Nevada via a Las Vegas Review Journal special commentary, February 16, 2015, Common Core is working; Nevada mustn’t turn back.
Once again spoon feeding us the evidence-free Common Core State Standards aka Nevada Academic Content Standards, for what ails American education. Frankly, if these gentlemen are so fired up about the educational progress of Nevada’s children then perhaps they could send us a big fat check. Maybe they could peel off some of that Common Core promoting-Gates Foundation money or they could recommend the nation’s best pre-2010 educational standards, which are superior to the Common Core. Something tells me they won’t do either.
To begin with the crusaders of the Common Core State Standards always put forth in their argument that, “They’re just standards.” Yet Fordham states:
“Educators throughout the Silver State have spent the past four years preparing for the new standards and assessments by developing local curricula, adopting new textbooks and prepping themselves to teach challenging material.”
Four years to prep for – little Johnny needs to read Old Yeller and know his math facts before advancing to the 4th grade – sounds like more than “just standards” to me.
Right after the “just standards” lip service Common Core devotees praise the almighty “college and career” readiness of the standards. Fordham bangs that drum too, “Nevada now expects its schools to help all of their pupils make progress toward challenging standards connected with student success — meaning a clear path after high school to college or a good-paying job.”
When did K12 education become a pipeline for the workforce? There is a difference between preparing a student for life and preparing a student for the workforce. One will create dreams. The other will create drones.
How will that “progress” be measured? Enter in the Smarter Balanced Testing Consortium. Why does Nevada need to be a part of a testing consortium? Why do we need a national assessment year after year? Why do Nevadans need to give away over 1.3 million annually of their hard earned money to have Battle Born students assessed on learning subject content – something a good teacher could tell us without holding the taxpayers hostage for a million bucks. (By the way this annual assessment will soon be 3rd through 12th grade as the Nevada Department of Education currently has a bill, SB25, before the Legislature asking for testing to commence in grades 9, 10, 11 & 12, pursuant to 20 USC 6311(b)(3).)
Then there is the ACT for judging Nevada’s Juniors college and career ready. This test will be paid for by the taxpayers, administered by ACT and required by law, NRS 389.807. However, here’s the interesting piece – this test will not have a cut score, per se, that will negate a student from receiving their diploma as long as they have passed their EOC (formerly high school proficiency) exams. Let me repeat that. Juniors are being required by law – whether they plan to attend college or not – to take another test that will decide whether they are college and career ready. (I plan to discuss this in depth at a later time.)
Mr. Petrilli and Mr. Brickman say, “States’ old assessments told us very little about what students had learned because they were too easy.”
Yet now we are warned again and again to be prepared for most of Nevada’s students to be scored less than proficient. Why do you suppose that is? I think Clark County’s own Bill Hanlon, Director of the Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program, spoke to one reason when he said in his special to the Review Journal, December 28, 2014, “These tests are money-makers. Buying preparation materials from these testing consortia is another windfall for them — especially if they can get a lot of kids to fail. And they took care of that — they set the cut score so 67 percent of the students will be non-proficient. These companies are great investments.”
Another reason is to make sure Common Core prevails as the perceived cure-all drug for the educational ailment that apparently every student in America is suffering from. Or so the delusional Common Core pushers would have us all believe. Year after year the assessments will be modified or cut scores will be adjusted so that student scores will improve and voila a nation of college and career ready graduates will drop to their knees, grateful that the Common Core has made them worthy of the 21st century global workforce.
The Common Core is not working. Turn back, turn left, turn right – as long as we turn in a direction that is good and joyfully productive for Nevada’s students, not the Fordham boys, not the federal government, not the pushy people pushing pupils into a 21st century workforce. Until we give the classroom back to the teachers and students and stop wasting Nevadan’s money and student’s educational years (neither of which will be returned) on this ill-thought out initiative no amount of “just standards” will give Nevada the success it seeks.
