Jay P. Greene's Blog

When challenged, the natural inclination of the education establishment (The Empire) is to suppress dissent.  They prefer matters to be decided by small groups of selected elites behind closed and they certainly don’t want critical ideas to be given a full and open hearing.

With that in mind, you should know that Twitter has suspended the account of Old Diane Ravitch.  In case you missed it, some genius was “Tweeting” under the name of Old Diane Ravitch, quoting the writings of Diane Ravitch before she underwent her tranformation.  Old Diane Ravitch (ODR) would send “tweets” that were in direct contradiction to the “tweets” that current Diane Ravitch is sending.

The point of this was not to show that Ravitch has changed her mind, which anyone can do when presented with new information.  The point of ODR was to show that Ravitch’s current bold declarations are just as shallow and unsupported as were her old declarations — just in the opposite direction.  Since Twitter seems to consist of little more than a series of shallow and ill-thought-out declarations, it was the perfect medium to showcase the silliness of both the current and past incarnations of Diane Ravitch.

But the Empire struck back.  Someone, perhaps Diane herself, must have complained to Twitter and they have suspended ODR’s account.  ODR emailed me via an ODR Gmail account to provide the text of an appeal to Twitter to reverse the suspension.  ODR rightly observed:

These followers and the other 200+ followers of this account know that this account is not operated by Diane Ravitch, but rather is aimed to entertain by tweeting quotes from her earlier writings (the sources of which are clearly documented by links contained in the tweets). Thus, this account is not “impersonating” a real individual (as would be prohibited by the Twitter Rules) any more than the fake Mayor Emanuel was impersonating the real Rahm Emanuel.  Additionally, the account has never been used in a manner that is threatening, demeaning, or disrespectful in any way.

We’ll have to see whether this appeal works but I am not very optimistic.  Twitter makes a lot of money from people like Diane Ravitch who tweets about 70 times per day to her more than 13,000 cult members, er, I mean followers.  On the other hand, Twitter, like all social media, can rapidly lose their mostly young and anti-authoritarian customers if they start acting like heavy-handed jerks who suppress open communication.

In another example of how the Empire likes to operate, I received an e-mail yesterday from Eugenia Kemble from the Shanker Institute that reveals the establishment’s preference for discussions among small groups of selected elites behind closed doors.  Kemble was responding to a mass email originally sent by Mike Petrilli to dozens of education “analysts,” think-tankers, reporters, congressional staffers, and Department officials.  Several people replied to all and the debate was being continued by mass email.

Eugenia, whose union-backed think tank issued the Manifesto in support of national curriculum, decided to weigh-in but added to the bottom of her reply: “Note to All:  This is a private email and not for publication, quotation or circulation beyond those to whom it is addressed.”  No one in the exchange of mass emails had previously requested or could have reasonably expected that their comments would be private.  The list included a bunch of reporters as well as public officials whose emails are subject to Freedom of Information requests.

Inserting that note revealed Kembel’s and the establishment’s preferred method of operation.  Keep debates limited and secret.  Happily the debate over the nationalization of standards, curriculum, and assessments is out in the open and no matter how hard Kembel tries, she can’t bottle it back up.

(guest post by Ze’ev Wurman & Bill Evers)

Some people who favor national standards have pointed to the variability among states as making comparisons difficult and have been quick to point to national standards and tests as a consistent, nationwide, uniform system to judge all schools in the same way.  No one has been more outspoken on those points than the Fordham Institute, whose 2007 The Proficiency Illusion report was touted far and wide. It was followed in 2009 by another Fordham report, The Accountability Illusion, that took states to task not only for having distinct definitions of proficiency, but also with fuzzing the issue even more by playing with other NCLB accountability rules. Checker Finn came out on its publication declaring:

“This report’s crucial finding is that – contrary to what the average American likely believes – there is no common, nationwide accountability system for measuring school performance under NCLB. The AYP system is idiosyncratic, even random and opaque. Without a common standard to help determine whether a given school is successful or not, its fate under NCLB is determined by a set of arcane rules created by each state…”

 And:

“It looks like a school’s ability to clear the NCLB bar depends as much on the state in which it’s located as on how its students perform. No Child Left Behind’s image suggests that schools across America are being judged in a consistent, fair and transparent way—but that turns out to be an illusion.”

Hence it is a small wonder that Fordham has been on the forefront of the push in recent years for uniform national standards, and the recent alliance between it and the Gates Foundation and AFT, with the support of another dozens of “independent” organizations paid for by Gates, pitched for a national curriculum built on top of the federally pushed “voluntary” Common Core standards. From its reports, it is clear that Fordham believes in a single set of content standards with a single set of performance standards (cut-scores) as pitched in its Proficiency Illusion.

Yet, interestingly enough, in 1995 Albert Shanker came out against a single set of cuts scores across the nation. As he wrote (p. 79):

A recent and popular slogan in American education is that all children can learn to the same high levels. This is news to parents, teachers, and the public; it defies everything we know and appreciate about human differences. But reformers are nonetheless insisting that we establish a single set of “world-class”  performance standards and that schools be held accountable for getting all their students to achieve at that level.…

If we set a single standard, we essentially have two choices. One is to set the standard high. That is desirable, especially since we are talking about “world-class.” Unfortunately, most of our students would not reach it. … [It] would produce intense pressure to lower the standard, and we would effectively be back where we started.

The other choice is to set the standard low, perhaps slightly higher than the minimum competency standard we now have but at a level that would be attainable by virtually all of our students. We could then congratulate ourselves for raising the floor of achievement, but we will have missed an opportunity to raise the ceiling and to move up the middle as well. If we can do better by all students by acknowledging that they, like all human beings, differ in their capacities, motivations, and interests, then why settle for a new minimum competency standard disguised in “world-class” rhetoric?

This issue is not solved by just having a single set of standards, or by a single test. To have the same meaning for “proficiency,” the test must also have a uniform definition of cut scores for all states that define the various achievement levels. Yet the national assessment consortia have been notably mealy mouthed on this issue — in their presentations to the California State Board of Education this March, both consortia indicated a flexibility to allow each state to set its own cut scores.

Makes one wonder how the new ideological partners, Fordham and AFT, will resolve this underlying tension between them.

[Ze’ev Wurman is an executive at a Silicon Valley start-up and was a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Education.  Bill Evers is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a member of the institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.]

It is now clear, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s own description, that the Department is in violation of the law by which it was created.

Our criticism of the nationalization of standards, curriculum, and assessments elicited the following statement from Peter Cunningham, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education: “Just for the record: we are for high standards, not national standards and we are for a well-rounded curriculum, not a national curriculum. There is a big difference between funding development of curriculum—which is something we have always done—and mandating a national curriculum—which is something we have never done. And yes—we believe in using incentives to advance our agenda.”

Let’s leave aside the double-speak of how incentivizing is somehow different from mandating.  Instead, let’s focus on his admission that the Department is “funding development of curriculum” and is “using incentives to advance our agenda.”

The 1979 law by which the U.S. Department of Education is authorized in its current form clearly prohibits these activities.  It states (in section 103b): “No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection or content of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.” (emphasis added)

So, the spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education says that they are funding development of curriculum, but the Department is expressly not authorized to direct, supervise, or control curriculum.  They are are also prohibited from directing, supervising, or controlling textbooks or other instructional materials.

The Department seems to think that it is on solid footing as long as it does not mandate or control curriculum.  But the 1979 law restricts the Department more broadly.  It may not even direct or supervise curriculum.  I have no idea how the Department could fund the development of curriculum without also exercising some direction and supervision over that curriculum.

Nor can the Department justify its current activities by claiming that they are only funding the development of curricular frameworks and instructional materials.  The Department is also explicitly prohibited from directing, supervising, or controlling the content of instructional materials.

As far as I know, no law has specifically authorized the Department to engage in these activities from which they are otherwise prohibited.

I think they have been caught red-handed.

(edited for clarity)

Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli responded today to the criticism over a nationalized set of standards, curriculum, and assessments.

Charles Miller, the former chair of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas and one of the chief architects of Texas’ accountability system, sent me the following note.  He observed the extensive use of passive voice in the Fordham reply, which serves to conceal who is supposed to be doing the described actions.  He wrote:

So much of the discussion by the advocates of Common Core Standards is filled with references to steps which have to be taken or events which have to take place without identifying specifically how and by whom it happens.  Almost always, there is the implication that some set of elite experts or the federal government will handle what’s necessary with the utmost competence…and virtue—and no unintended consequences, the bane of central planners.  For my own satisfaction, I took this paragraph below from the Gadfly’s response to the Counter-Manifesto [it should always be in [bold]] and tried to fill in specifically who the implementing agents of change will or should be.

 Here’s what I came up with:

 “So here’s where we stand: First, states should be encouraged [by the federal government’s funding lever] to stay the course with the Common Core standards and assessments, at least until we [the federal government] see what the tests look like. While the standards aren’t perfect, they are vastly better than what they are replacing in most states [as judged by the federal government]. Second, à la the Shanker manifesto, efforts should be made [by the federal government] to develop all manner of tools, materials, lesson plans, professional development, curricula, and more that [the federal government determines] will help teachers implement the standards in their classrooms—and to help students master them [as determined by the federal government]. We have no particular concern with the federal government—or philanthropists and venture capitalists, big and small—helping to pay for those activities, as has been done so often in the past [because the federal government never exercises control or significant influence when it spends money]. But, third, it should be made crystal clear  [by the federal government] that the use of all such materials will be completely voluntary for states and, we would argue, for districts within states, schools within districts, and teachers within schools. And fourth, the two consortia now building new Common Core assessments should take pains [with perhaps a loyalty oath to the federal government] not to cross the Rubicon into micromanaging schools’ curricular and instructional decisions.”

I would also add that Fordham’s continued assertion that this entire nationalization project is voluntary is getting downright annoying.  The adoption of the national standards was coerced by making state receipt of federal funds at least partially dependent  on endorsing them.  Fordham did not lift a finger to object to this federal coercion on standards, so why would we believe their new-found conviction that all of this should “be completely voluntary for states”?

Fordham’s credibility in claiming that this nationalization project is voluntary is further undermined by the fact that they recommended that the reauthorized ESEA should:

Require states to back-map achievement standards down to at least third grade, so that passing the state assessment in each grade indicates that a student is on track to graduate from twelfth grade ready for college or a career. States that opt out of the state assessment consortia funded by Race to the Top (RTT) would have their standards peer reviewed at the federal level by a panel of state officials and content-matter experts.

Of course, standards, curriculum, and assessment are all connected.  Once the federal government coerces states to adopt a set of standards, as it has already done without Fordham’s objection, and once states are compelled to adopt a particular set of assessments, as Fordham proposes the federal government should do, then we have a de facto national curriculum regardless of whatever else is done.

The signers of the Counter-Manifesto do not necessarily agree with each other about whether standards, curriculum, and assessments are best handled at the school, district, or state level, but we all agree that centralization to the federal level is undesirable.  Fordham’s facile suggestion that we should find centralization to the federal government acceptable because some of us find centralization to the state level acceptable, assumes that centralization is the same regardless of the level to which power is allocated.  If Fordham is so comfortable with centralization and finds the “hodge-podge of standards, tests, textbooks, curricular guides, lesson plans” so bothersome because it lacks “coherence,” then why wouldn’t they support centralization to the U.N.?  Why should math be any different in Mexico than it is in the U.S.?  A fair number of children cross the border.

The point is that some level of centralization involves the delegation of power to people who are too far removed from the circumstances to be effective, even if they were perfectly benevolent in their exercise of power (which we generally trust less as power is aggregated further).  The signers of the Counter-Manifesto are consistent with the sentiments of the Founders, the legislative authorizers of the Department of Education, and the American people in understanding that education standards, curriculum, and high-stakes assessments should not be done at the national level.

Fordham, in coalition with its friends at Gates, Pearson, AFT, and the US Department of Education are trying to subvert this historical and legal consensus against federal control by failing to be candid about what they are proposing.  That’s why they love the passive voice so much in addition to the use of weasel words.  And that’s why Charles Miller’s clarification of the actor in each sentence is so useful.