Jay P. Greene's Blog

(Guest Post by James Shuls)

Let me start by saying that I share most of Jay Greene’s reservations about the Common Core State Standards. Over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to discuss these concerns with many Common Core supporters. Although I typically disagree with their conclusions or their logic, I believe Common Core supporters are for the most part sincere in their belief that these standards are rigorous and will improve outcomes for students. However, I find claims that the Common Core State Standards will not influence instructional practices downright disingenuous and obviously false.

In a recent Twitter exchange, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education informed me that the CCSS don’t “tell teachers how to teach.” This is a phrase that has been echoing across the country as the Common Core has come under attack from the left and the right.

The fact is that curriculum standards don’t tell teachers how to teach in the same way that a high jump bar doesn’t tell a jumper how to jump. You could theoretically jump over a high jump bar in whatever way you would like; but because of how the jump is structured there is a clear advantage to doing the old Fosbury Flop.

It is clear from documents on the Common Core website and from the discourse throughout the country that these new standards encourage constructivist teaching practices. Take for example these two quotes from a Key Points in Common Core Math document.

• The standards stress not only procedural skill but also conceptual understanding, to make sure students are learning and absorbing the critical information they need to succeed at higher levels ‐ rather than the current practices by which many students learn enough to get by on the next test, but forget it shortly thereafter, only to review again the following year.
• Having built a strong foundation K‐5, students can do hands on learning in geometry, algebra and probability and statistics. Students who have completed 7th grade and mastered the content and skills through the 7th grade will be well‐ prepared for algebra in grade 8.

Common Core developers themselves are saying that traditional methods of math instruction aren’t working and students should be learning through “hands on learning.” It is reasonable to assume the tests will likely favor constructivist teaching practices.

I have written extensively about what constructivist teaching looked like in my child’s classroom, where students were supposed to discover how to solve math problems rather than learn to use standard algorithms. My kid’s school is not the exception, it seems to be the rule. Across the country schools are beginning to understand that the Common Core standards will require a more constructivist based form of instruction.

In California, teachers will be “encouraging critical thinking over memorization, focusing on collaboration and integrating technological advances in the classroom.”  We are told that teachers “are attending workshops and training sessions to rethink the way they relay information to students.”

A Virginia newspaper reports, “Discovery, guided math, problem-based learning, project-based learning – call it what you like, it’s here.”

Even in Massachusetts, a state that had arguably better standards than the Common Core, teachers are moving more towards constructivist teaching practices. In the Wrentham School District, “the first and second grade math programs are already implementing new methods for teaching basic math skills that are designed to create deeper understanding of math among the students.” One teacher commented, “Our job as teachers is to guide through questioning.” If that doesn’t sound constructivist, then I don’t know what does.

I am aware that some non-constructivist based curricula, like Saxon Math, are aligning to the Common Core. They are doing so because they have to or they will be at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace. It remains to be seen if these more traditional models will resist constructivist influences. Much of that depends on how the Common Core assessments are structured.

I am also aware that the standards do not dictate which pedagogical approach a teacher must take. Although, to me it feels a bit like when my mom used to say, “You can do what you want.” Which never really meant that I could do what I wanted.

The bottom line is that the Common Core State Standards are built on constructivist principles and are being implemented, by and large, by constructivist means. If supporters like constructivism, which I suspect most do, then they should just come out and say so. That is not such a difficult position to defend. But don’t attempt to tell me these standards won’t tell teachers how to teach.

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James Shuls is the education policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute

One of the better arguments for the adoption of national standards is that it is necessary to prevent a race to the bottom among states and localities.  States wishing to look good rather than actually be good may be tempted to lower their academic expectations so that they can more easily declare victory without having to make any educational progress.  Imposing a national standard would prevent this race to the bottom because all states would have to compete on the same scale and could not manipulate the measuring tape to appear 10 feet tall.

There is some evidence that this kind of race to the bottom has been occurring.  Rick Hess and Paul Peterson, for example, have compared state cut scores for proficiency on their state tests to results on the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to show that the level of achievement required to be declared proficient in many states has been dropping over the last decade. In his recent review of the Maranto and McShane book on Obama’s education policies, Nathan Glazer described how advocates for national standards see them as a fix for this race to the bottom:

 in Race to the Top, “the Obama administration tacitly gave its approval to a set of ‘Common Core Standards’ developed by a consortium of state school officers and tied Race to the Top dollars to participation in the program.” This may be a path to finally getting a set of national standards and overriding the standards the states set, which have in many states been pushed lower. This “race to the bottom” has made it easier to show adequate yearly progress (AYP) and avoid triggering measures required for schools that do not show AYP.

So does competition among states and localities really produce a race to the bottom or does competition motivate improvement and spark continual improvements?  The answer depends on what states and localities are competing for.  If states and localities are competing to receive federal funds and/or avoid federal sanctions, as Glazer describes states seeking to make AYP, then competition will produce a race to the bottom.  In competing for bureaucratic approval from the feds, states only have to appear good (satisfy the bureaucratic requirements), but they don’t have to actually be good.  Competing for the bureaucratic approval of the federal government turns education into a redistributive policy where the goal is to get a larger share of the federal largess.

But if states and localities are competing for residents and businesses to increase their tax base, then the incentive from competition is to increase standards and quality.  Millions of individuals are not so easily fooled and can distinguish between phony claims of progress created by lowering the bar and real progress.  Clever bureaucrats can also tell the difference but they are bound by the rules for dispersing rewards and sanctions and so are forced into encouraging a race to the bottom.  Individual face no similar constraints.  They want to move to the areas with the best schools to help their kids, enhance their property values, and have access to a quality labor force.  Individuals may make mistakes or have bad taste, but in aggregate they reward real educational progress not fake, race to the bottom, manipulation.

The history of U.S. education is filled with evidence of how this competition for residents and tax base has spurred improvements in quality and increases in rigor.  The economic historian, William Fischel, carefully documents how the development and spread of high school education in the United States was driven by localities seeking to compete for residents demanding a more rigorous education.  And the standards required for graduating high school have steadily increased over time.  Graduation requires more college-prep coursework.  In almost half of the states students now have to pass a state test to receive a standard diploma.  And 37 states instituted their own testing and accountability systems before NCLB was adopted.  The result of these state and local efforts was not always a rigorous education, but they clearly show a trend toward higher standards and quality in response to consumer demand.  Competition produces a race to the top as long as it is competition for individual taxpayers and business instead of competition for federal government handouts.

So, if a race to the bottom is fueled by the desire to satisfy federal bureaucratic rules, why would we think the solution is in the adoption of more federal bureaucratic rules?  National standards will just create a new regime of gaming, manipulation, and the appearance of progress without the actuality of it.  Expanding choice and competition for individuals is the solution to a race to the bottom, not more centralized control that stifles that competition.

I wrote a post for the George W. Bush Institute’s blog to build on the debate I had last week with Checker Finn in the Wall Street Journal about national standards.  Here is a taste of the blog post:

Last week Checker Finn and I debated the merits of national standards in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.  Checker argued for requiring that all students meet the same, national standards, while I argued against.  I oppose national standards because I don’t think all students should learn the same things in the same way, because I don’t trust a national authority to correctly identify what students should learn, and because I am convinced that progress in education, like in our economy, comes from choice and competition rather than from central planning.

But many good and smart people are nevertheless attracted to national standards.  Why?  I think the problem is a mixture of hubris, impatience, and naiveté….

As tempting as it is for people of good will who see the problems of our education system and think they know better ways of doing things, it is important to resist the impulse to impose a national solution.  You may not know the better way for everyone; you need to work with parents and localities to gradually experiment with reforms; and you shouldn’t imagine that you will be the one in charge of the national solution.  Avoid the dangers of hubris, impatience, and naiveté while pressing forward with the gradual experimentation of choice and competition.

Well, it wasn’t really a Smackdown, but it was a lively debate between Checker and me on whether we should adopt national standards.

Here’s a taste —

Checker:

One way to ensure that young people develop the skills they need to compete globally is to set clear standards about what schools should teach and students should learn—and make these standards uniform across the land. Leaving such decisions to individual states, communities and schools is no longer serving the U.S. well….

Perhaps most damaging to our international scores and economic competitiveness has been our reluctance to follow the example of nearly every other successful modern country and establish rigorous national standards for our schools and students. States, districts, schools and individuals would, of course, be free to surpass those expectations—but not to fall below them.

We need rigorous national standards because we live in a mobile society where a fourth-grader in Portland, Maine, may find herself in fifth grade in Portland, Ore., just as a high-school senior in Springfield, Ill., may enter college in Springfield, Mass. We need them because our employers increasingly span the entire country—and globe—and require a workforce that is both skilled and portable. This is no longer a country where children born in Cincinnati should expect to spend their entire lives there. They need to be ready for jobs in Nashville and San Diego, if not Singapore and São Paulo.

Me:

Even if we could identify a single, best way to educate all children, who is to say the people controlling the nationalized education system would pursue those correct approaches? Reformers would do well to remember that they are politically weaker than teacher unions and other entrenched interests. Minority religions shouldn’t favor building national churches because inevitably it won’t be their gospel being preached….

… student achievement has been flat for four decades. But this lack of progress wasn’t caused by a lack of national standards. Instead, unionization of educators and the resulting imposition of uniformity and restraints on competition are largely to blame. Imposing even more uniformity with national standards will only compound that problem.

Countries with national standards generally don’t have higher achievement. Canada and Australia are large, diverse countries like the U.S., with significantly stronger student performance as measured on international tests. Yet neither has national standards, tests or curricula. It is true that some high-achieving countries do have national standards—examples include Singapore and Finland—but these countries contain small homogeneous populations that might be more comparable to one of our states or large districts than to the U.S. as a whole. And many lower-achieving countries, such as Greece and Thailand, have national standards and curricula.

The way to improve our students’ performance is to reinvigorate choice and competition, not stifle it. We should be as wary of central planning for our education system as we would for our economy.

Enjoy