So… We Are Rating the University of Delaware By Common Core

The educational department of the University of Delaware is ranked 31st in the nation... That is at least out of 5000 accredited teaching schools…

Not only that, they are 31st in the top ranked educational teacher training country in the entire world… Apparently there is no educational crises in America when it comes to teachers receiving top notch training.

Overall, the top 10 countries in rank order are the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom….

What just passed last Thursday in Delaware, now requires the University of Delaware, again now ranked 31st in the top educator nation in the world, to be judged solely on how its teachers administer Common Core when they go out into the field…

Common Core?

Just how good is this Common Core we are talking about?

New Attack on Common Core From Pennsylvania Democrats

Common Core Standards attacked by Republicans

‘Common Core’ Standards Come Under Attack By Lucas Johnson, Associated Press

Nation at Risk Anniversary, Common Core Under Attack

Common Core Conundrum

Common Core State Standards Under Attack

The RNC’s Attack on Common Standards

The War Against the Common Core

911: Common Core Under Attack

Rotten to the Core: Conservatives spearhead drive at RNC meeting to stop Common Core

Weingarten Calls For A Moratorium on the Implementation of the Common Core: A “Save Harmless” Year for Planning That Includes Parents, Teachers and Principals.

Washington Post: Common Core is in Trouble

Common Core Standards Facing Increased Opposition

Common Core – Language

Common Core Makes Waves

Indiana Among States Acting to Oppose Common Core Standards

Lisa Nielsen: Is the Common Core an Attack on Progressive Education?

Common Core: Education Without Representation

The Common Core: The Good, the Bad, the Possible

Your Children Need a Néw Brain for Common Core

Kentuckians Against Common Core Standards

Toynbee Predicted Privatization

One would think someone in Legislative Hall would have at least looked into Common Core before mandating that the 31st best teaching institution in the best ranked nation for turning out good teachers, would have to be judged on its effectiveness by the results of a program everyone is having so much trouble with.

Progressives are against it. Tea Party Advocates are against it. Democrats are against it. Republicans are against it.. Red States are against it. Blue States are against it. How could this be? Could it be possible they all have children?

In fact, it appears there is no one who is in favor of common core, across this entire great nation we are so fortunate to live in… No one except 59 Delaware legislators, who apparently didn’t get the memo…..

Inside The SB51 Delibrations……

(from) John Kowalko May 19, 1:00 pm

With all due respect, I didn’t have to be awakened to the horrors of this poorly written and intended piece of legislation. I argued against it in the House Committee to no avail and spoke with some of the supporters, (DSEA), to attempt to alert them of its flaws.

The reality of this is that the administration, through its DOE policy head, was not honest, (on the floor, or in any of discussions leading up to the bills disposition), about the support it had from “higher ed. institutes” in Delaware.

The DSU Provost’s response (on the House floor, during debate) to the question “did your institution participate in crafting this legislation” was an unequivocal “NO” and my investigations lead to evidence that none of the institutions of higher learning participated in crafting this ill-conceived piece intended to reflect positively on the DOE and administrations abdication to RTTT compliance.

If you paid close attention as to how the alleged support was phrased/explained you can see the reality of the situation. DOE implied/suggested that a lack of pronounced objection implied “full” acquiescence to DOE’s contrived policy and this is at the least “intellectually” dishonest. If you ask yourself why none of the higher ed institutions voiced any trepidation in the matter I advise you to look at The calendar and note that starting this week the Joint Finance Committee meets to rule on recommended and suggested budget money increases for these institutions and only a fool would feel confident in challenging anything that might put them at a disadvantage in that arena.

As for the DSEA, I tried to make them understand that this legislation can and will be used as the first (and perhaps only) validation of “component 5″ test score evaluations of teacher effectiveness but I imagine I wasn’t convincing enough.

So I am copying you and your readers some of the talking points raised in support of the Potter/Kowalko amendment and in opposition to the bill.

Feel free to post or send this comment and content anywhere you please.

Respectfully,
Rep. Kowalko

SB 51 purports to be a method to set high completion requirements, high-quality teaching experiences and ongoing evaluation of teaching program participants and to prepare prospective elementary school teachers in age-appropriate literacy and mathematics instruction. The bill also requires new educators to pass both an approved content-readiness exam and performance assessment before receiving an initial license.

While these ambitions are laudable, (and when we address the bill we can speak to its ability or lack thereof, to do that), this bill, as written intrudes into the arena of subjectively judging, with no verifiable proof or proven data, the ability of students to succeed in the programs of education studies. It contrives to prematurely eliminate students from entering into their chosen career path by legislating away their choices and options. All schools of higher education have relatively strict requirements and acceptance standards merely to be accepted as students and some have even more rigorous standards for acceptance to education pathway courses. We might presume that a quantifiable measure of success in the matters of teacher preparation and certification and educator evaluation can be achieved by this legislation but the chapters that prejudge and preclude individuals from participation in these programs should not be a matter of the imposition of laws that deny opportunity and access and violates the principles of individual rights. The schools are well positioned and qualified to make those judgments that best serve their own programs and those impositions should be removed from this bill before passage.

The current system works. Between the entrance and exit requirements, UD and DSU already winnow out over two-thirds of the students interested in teaching careers.

Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three

The Hare and the Pineapple

This is Common Core. Point is: we are determining a student’s future, a teacher’s future, a school’s future, and the entire future of the combined Educational Departments of the University of Delaware, Delaware State, and Wilmington University’s …. based on a race between a pineapple and a hare…

Please send more examples… Thank you.

Exposing Common Core To The Public

This is a homework assignment given to one Delawarean student. I published this before, but since many are now tuning in for the first time, here it is again…. The original story began with how a student was upset they would not be covering Shakespeare this year. When a parent asked at open house, the answer was: “We’re doing common core this year. It is a very structured learning process. We won’t be reading literature this year”. This is what they read instead.

======

“Inventory” was almost here. Miguel had to count all the product on his shelves. He didn’t have time. In the morning deliveries came and had to be stocked and rotated. Once he opened his doors, he had to handle customers, and never was a time that no one was in the building. Then in the evening, he had to stay to make sure his evening shift was running smoothly. His assistant came in at five, and Miguel would wait to make sure all staff was present and accounted for, that no manpower shortages would occur, and that all equipment was working properly, before he could leave. He started every day at 5 am…”

DISCUSS THOROUGHLY

ANALYZE CORRECTLY

WRITE THE NEXT SENTENCE

VOCABULARY

inventory
deliveries
customers
assistant
accounted
manpower
shortages
properly

WHAT IS THE KEY POINT OF THIS PARAGRAPH

WHAT IS THE AUTHOR TRYING TO SAY

WRITE A 5 PARAGRAPH TEXT ON HOW YOU WOULD SOLVE MIGUEL’S PROBLEMS.

=====

From Shakespeare to this….. Welcome to Common Core, ladies and gentlemen.

They’re Trying To Trick You.

I’m usually done with a piece of legislation when it doesn’t go my way.. I always shared a disdain for those who lose and refuse to accept reality for what it is… But I’ve received so many questions over SB51, that I’ll break protocol, to discuss it for one last time…

The main question I’ve received most often, is why did I take on this unattainable cause. Surely one could see the writing on the wall when the Senate voted? Wasn’t it a waste of time?

Oddly, no. And I’m perplexed a little as to why I feel that way. Because it did suck up a lot of time and it had only two people vote against it in the entire General Assembly, and two abstentions (one principled and one physical.) So I’m going to try and work it out here, in type, as to why it was important to lead a fight against it. One that if one was keeping score, turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

The reason for SB51″s success, was its stealth. It was out of committee, in the Senate, out of the Senate, in the House committee, and on the House floor, each time with very little notice. In fact, it wasn’t until after it had passed the Senate that I began hearing how bad this bill really was. Perhaps in a regular year, that would not have occurred. Someone would have read the bill earlier as it hit the docket and passed that information along. It should be noted this is an extraordinary year. The recomposition of this General Assembly has made many big changes possible. Gay Marriage, Background Checks, Reporting Stolen Firearms, Repeal of Death Penalty, Kinder-Morgan, Assault Bans, Bans of High Capacity Clips, have kind of sucked the wind out of the room when it comes to a bill that says something sensible like we should be hiring smart teachers instead of dumb ones.

One of our most progressive commentators said something like “I can see no one having a problem with that.”

And indeed. This bill seemed to have everyone on board. DSEA, that educational labor union who represents teachers, RODEL who represents the corporate Investors, the Governor who put this prominently in his state of the state address, both parties whom neither wanted to be seen as being against better education, the Chamber of Commerce and those who fund the entities inside the Community Service Building on 10th Street, progressives, conservatives. There was no one who seemed not to want to rubber stamp it…

It took a lot of work to wake up even three people to contest it…. And that is a start….

With overwhelming support, my goodness, in percentage terms…. 93% of the entire General Assembly was in favor. That ironically was the same percentage of Delawareans that wanted Offshore Wind over the objections of 4 well place members of the Executive Committee back in 2007-8…

How can anyone “credible” be against such a good bill with “overwhelming” support?

I would say there is one common thread among those who first voiced opposition and carried the water for trying to educate the public about this bill. And if you agree or disagree, please feel free to chime in. This is an informal piece.

Anyone who has experienced Common Core, who has actually experienced it, would be against this bill. I experienced it by helping a student with their homework assignment. Teachers and administrators experience it in their professional capacity. School Boards experience it by being in the cross fire between the DOE and parents who are as upset as I was with the crap that is being passed off as “learning.”…

Obviously from the results of the vote, very few people in Delaware have experience Common Core. Once you see what it has done to your kids, you are outraged. Outraged. There is no other accurate description….

So the vote in support of SB51, was primarily based, if I could extrapolate, on ignorance. I too would have been right there with them if I had not had the cathartic experience of meeting Common Core face to face. Once one does, one quickly learns to hate it. For many, many years I have been privy to a lot of grumbling from educators over each new “program of the year”, but never, never have I experienced a deterioration in a student’s drive to do well, as I have seen across the board with Common core…. “A” Students just giving up and settling for “C’s”, because of the capriciousness of the teaching and those learning materials that come in “packets.”

Here is what has to happen. These tests and packets need to get leaked to the public. Once seen and ridiculed, the proper perspective and potential damage from Common Core becomes clearer. Further more, every single member of the educational committees of both the Delaware Senate and House, should take this bill. Then the General Assembly would finally be in alignment with where the parents will be next year.

This year was really the first where Common Core was trialed. Next year it will be much more extensive.

So when one says that our teaching colleges and universities will be rated by how well their student teacher’s students do on Common Core tests over the next five years, quite a bit of that sentence totally depends on how good or bad Common Core is… I can tell you… it’s really.. really… bad.

Common Core is no better than “No Child Left Behind.” That too was a landmark piece of legislation to make teachers accountable to teaching, and not sending unprepared students up the ladder. It was hailed as the crowning achievement of American Society. Those very few who looked at the detail, and questioned how it would work, were laughed at as being among those who wanted to “leave children behind.” But guess what? When that was implemented in full across the nation, it didn’t work. Students did worse instead of better. Gee, the educational structure asked? How can this be? Answer was, it didn’t work in Texas under then Governor George W. Bush, either. They just tweaked the test scores.

Common Core is no better. In fact, it is probably worse. And there are many reasons why, which have been discussed on this blog many times, as well as on Transparent Christina, Kilroy’s of Delaware, Delaware Way, and Seventh Type… It “can” be better, but those pieces are being squashed under “bigger” principles, such as busting the teachers union, paying off Wall Street investors, making fistfuls of dough out of charter schools and vouchers… Big money has got its roots into education and is now trying to choke off all competition from good crops..

This bill’s overwhelming victory is not the end…. In fact, I think it may just hasten the end of Common Core, instead of extending it… I think so because I know how bad this program is.. I know there is no way you, once you experience it’s insanity, its inadequacy, and its ineptitude, will be supportive of common core… You can’t be.. No one like being inside a Kafka novel. We have nine months to educate Delaware what Common Core will do to your children. Nine months… If we are wrong, and the public does not by then demonize this program, then perhaps it is good that this bill passed.

But I’ve seen Common Core face to face… so I sincerely doubt that outcome….

Then, come next January, January 2014 an election year no doubt, we again will see these familiar words with a lot of support behind it.

“Section 1. Amend the title of Chapter 12, Title 14 of the Delaware Code, by making insertions as shown by underlining and deletions as shown by strikethrough as follows:”……

It’s Over… SB51 Squeaks By 37-2 (2 Abstentions)

Corporate wins this one.

Paul Baumbach Comes Through For Delaware Parents

SB 51 now has an amendment. In the House!   This amendment corrects a lot of wrong with just a few words.

Here are the changes….

AMEND Senate Bill No. 51, as amended by Senate Amendment No. 1, by striking lines 94 through 105 in their entirety and substituting in lieu thereof the following:

(d) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall establish rigorous exit requirements, which shall include but not be limited to achievement of passing scores on both a content-readiness exam and a performance assessment.

(e) The Department shall promulgate rules and regulations governing educator preparation programs pursuant to this subchapter in collaboration with Delaware educators.

 

If this is done, we can all have the  best of both worlds.  One, we as parents of Delaware’s children, now have oversight.  We have someone we can go to when we see issues that are not right.  Before, we had to take whatever… If that whatever was bad, we were all simply screwed… Parental oversight is important.  Not just in the creation or planning of great policies, but in their implementation.   Parents are the front line in education. They are the first to know if their child is thriving, or failing… Long before the child or teachers even have a clue.

Two, this policy allows for necessary changes which will improve teaching to be allowed to go forward.  The testing is a good tool. but not one we should be using as our sole criteria to evaluate ourselves and our educational process.  Put in proper perspective,  it is like rating a carpenter on the quality of hammer he uses…  Not his output, not his accuracy, not his speed, but on whether he sprang for a ‘highly rated’ hammer or not… 

With this amendment, we can proceed.   The tests can continue, and we can do what we were told they would be properly used for…. to find the weaknesses in our children’s learning and work to repair them… 

As long as a teacher does not have to worry over her job by my child taking a test, I as a parent don’t have to worry whether all my child is learning is… how to take that test…. I would much rather know the she doesn’t understand indirect objects, or can’t tell the difference between a preposition and an adverb.  That is useful, and the tests can continue, if they are used properly.

 

This amendment assures they will. 

Can the House please vote unanimously on this Bill as did the Senate? 

 

Paul Baumbach today is the hero of every parent of a school aged child…… 

Driving In The Wedge

Diane picked up that the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting Wall Street investors are getting a little shaky with UNO, a quasi-government-private partnership that was supposed to rapidly expand charter schools in and around Chicago.

An expansion that was to be partially funded by $37.5 million of Wall Street’s money.

A crack has just opened in the impenetrable fortress wall. A pinpoint of light is shining through.

The easiest way to stop the charter school process may not be through legislation, but by an actions far simpler to achieve: Make charter schools unprofitable… A philanthropist will invest in a charter if it earns no money. But Wall Street investor certainly will not.

That is the problem they have with Chicago.. Chicago points the way on how to organize and hit Wall Street where it hurts…

A. Picket Charter Schools as unfair to Labor. Who wants to sign their children up in a school with picket signs outside protesting the destruction of the middle class by Wall Street? What kind of status symbol would that be, to have to tell your boss where your kids go to school? An embarrassment, that’s what.

B. Call state legislators to complain about anything negative you can find out about the “new” charter school. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone. Truly, you are doing that lawmaker a favor; you are saving his butt from being blindsided by parents back home. All he hears from lobbyists in his office, is how great charter schools theoretically are. Reality is far different…

C. Threat of unionizing all Charter School Teachers… And why not? Why not enlist Charter School teachers and help them get organized to demand higher wages or strike? Aren’t they people too? Why should they work for a lot less than public school teachers, when they could easily be making the same salaries if they would just organize into a union, as do public teachers? What Charter School teacher would say no to higher wages? What Charter School Teacher could say no to higher wages… It is time to aggressively recruit.

D. Investigate all transactions to insure no embezzlement. Check over state funding to Charters which is published and look aggressively for corruption, nepotism, and anything to taint the charter school in bad light, thereby jeopardizing state funding…

Arne Duncun said… we would learn a lot from Chicago… and he was right.

In short, UNO obtained $98 million from the state legislature to build new charters. It turns out that $8.5 million of that money went to companies owned by two brothers of UNO’s number 2 official, Miguel d’Escoto. When the scandal broke, he stepped down from his $200,000 job, resulting in then Governor Pat Quinn to halt payment on the balance still owed to UNO…. Investors got worried and question UNO in a conference call, over the scandal, over the unionization of Charter teachers taking place, over the halt of construction on one of the new schools for failure to pay the bills, The governor has suspended payments of the remainder of state money until satisfied that the Charter is performing as promised. And this just in, UNO spokesperson confessed to the Chicago Sun-Times that “future funding may be at stake..”

The lesson here, is that getting a legislator to part with his campaign money coming in, is a lot harder than making Wall Street’s return on investment extremely risky. When Wall Street starts consistently losing money each time it invests in education, it will move on to something more prosperous.

We see what we have to do,…. Now, lets make it happen…

Union leaders. Start pressing charter schools to join.

Bloggers. Start pouring over the balance sheets on line of your nearest Charter School.

Parents. Write you legislator on how much Charter Schools have destroyed the educational experience for you child…

Yes we can do this… We can learn a lot from Chicago.

Vote Like A Goat

Today is School Board Elections…Polls are open 10-8…  If anyone is sponsored by Markell or Rodell or RTTT or WSFS, don’t vote for them.. If anyone is sponsored by DSEA, they are on the students side. They are safe.

So go out and vote like a goat… Be…  B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-D

Why We Should All Be Against Raising Teacher’s Standards

I’d never thought I’d write that.  How could anyone in their right mind be against raising teacher’s standards… After all it is our kids we are talking about who will suffer….

Exactly,  Passing SB 51 with S/A 1 Amendment attached, will cause our kids to suffer. That’s how I can write that. Otherwise I’d be full force behind this bill just as was every senator who voted for it….

You ask, how can raising standards on teachers, hurt our children?

I will ask you back;  ”How would you like to take your brand new car you just purchased to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop and have him work it over? How could that possibly hurt your car?”

Basically that’s what this law does for education. It is as if we passed a law for cars that said every new car purchased had to be re-certified by Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop.  The entire premise on this auto legislation lies in this one single question: gee, who is Joe?

If Joe is someone who is the world’s best mechanic, factory trained by every car manufactured, a man or woman who can analyze myriads of problems by just with listening with a fine-tuned ear, then maybe this bill could possibly be ok.  But if Joe has no knowledge of electronic computers, but learned his mechanics back in the days of steel and oil, and is a complete loss when he sees a car with no distributer cap,  then taking your car that runs perfectly to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop, can damage your car pretty darn bad.

And THAT is the problem with SB 51…  We don’t know who Joe is….

What we do know, is that our car is purring perfectly, heck we just bought it, everything was tuned at the factory.  Since it is straight from the factory, it is running very well,  no play in the wheel, clean car smell, all items are working, and even our factory tells us to make sure we take it back to a “factory approved shop” for all repairs in order not to void the warranty….  But our government is making us take it to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop.… And we still don’t know who Joe is?

And we are not too enthralled by all the junk cars piled up in its back lot…….

That is what is wrong with SB 51….

Our great educational  training program that is functioning very well, is going to be tested and inspected by someone who doesn’t know crap…

That should scare the hell out of every single parent….

The educational system of America over the last 13 years has been disrupted. Good teachers have been fired, to be replaced with bad ones.  Students used to read literature, and now they are handed “packets” and read test questions. Schools that have been opened for a century,  have been closed…. The educational system is in disarray; a disarry that appears to have been forced down from the top.

We’ve all been there… The new boss walks in, and yells “things are going to be different now”.  Some are excited, some are afraid, but this boss is out of control… He arbitrarily fires, can’t hire fast enough, and the  business breaks down.  It becomes broken.  He came into fix, and it got put… into a fix.  So he storms out, blaming all those left for his need to make an exit.  And then everyone is asked to put it back together, and they do, then the next boss is hired…  If you work in America, you’re guaranteed to have  been through this scenario.

We are going to do that with teachers?  Who’s this guy, Joe again?  Is this test going to be made by the same ones that lowered Delaware’s results?  Is this test going to be like those 5th grader tests loaded with 7th grade questions using letters a,b,c in algebraic math?

As that car owner, we have the best educational system bar none.  Delaware educators have among toughest standards in the country. Counting every school, even the most stringent Ivy League schools, the University of Delaware is ranked 37th in the nation. That’s ahead of  Rutgers, Temple, and even Boston University. Delaware State University is solid Tier 2 school.

Currently in Delaware’s educational programs, only one third make it through the tough gauntlet into teaching. All students graduating from UD, DSU, and WU have passed Praxis I and II; have logged hundreds of hours of observation and additional hundreds more hours of supervised teaching under the watchful eye of master teachers in our public schools. Compared to the standards even 10 years ago, new Delaware teachers graduated by these universities are the best prepared to enter the classroom in our history.

Delaware should be pretty damn proud. Instead we appear to be on the verge of committing a rash act full of unintended consequences. Our head is in the sand. Ok, the argument may go…. “If we’re so good, what possiblE harm can befall us if we take our new baby to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop?

Apart from the fact that we do not know who “Joe” is or will be when we get there, there are these reasons. The changes in SB 51/SA-1 actually lower some credentialing standards rather than raise them [see the section on now accepting Composite Scores].

Currently all Delaware student teachers take the Praxis One and the Praxis Two. No pass, no teach. These are the factory cars in the educational equation. There are composed by NCATE, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. This is a very solid organization. If you go to their website right now, you will see that they pre-published their accreditation standards for public view and comments. They also dropped Wesley College’s accreditation for not living up to the standards.

This bill would replace these standards with ones created by the Delaware Department of Education. Returning to the Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop analogy, one has to wonder how a 3 year Phys Ed elementary teacher, can do better than a national organization that accredits schools.

Delaware has the 37th BEST teacher school ranked in the nation. And after this bill is passed, we are going to completely gut our entire program out of all we do so well, and have a 3 year elementary Physical Education Teacher rebuild our entire program from scratch….. One who has never gone through the RTTT testing he inflicts on others? One who quite questionably doesn’t meet the minimum 5 year requirement necessary to be a DOE?

It’s in the bill. that is what it says.

Would we let someone who has never been a doctor create the state’s medical certification program? Would we let a non-lawyer create the state’s Bar exam? Would we let a manager of McDonalds create our state’s nutritional guidelines?

With this administration and this Senate, I really don’t know. We just might, based on what I’m seeing right before me!

So, you are saying you would really take your BMW, Rolls, or Cadillac to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop to be certified to drive it in Delaware? Wouldn’t you be afraid he’d mess it up, especially since it is working rather well right now? Ranked 37th!..

I can hear “Joe” now… “What are all these damn stupid wires for. (Rip,rip,rip) My old Model T never had this crap”…

It’s our kids. We can’t rush this, and this bill has been rushed far too fast through the Senate. The House needs to slow down and debate this one…

We can’t afford to lose our 37th top spot in the nation for which we worked so hard and so long to get….. We got to stop this bill that will make our cars all go to “Joe’s” .