Joy Pullmann - The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids

2017 by Joy Pullmann

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

First American edition published in 2017 by Encounter Books,

an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc.,

a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Pullmann, Joy, 1986

Title: The education invasion: how Common Core fights parents for control of American kids / by Joy Pullmann.

Description: New York: Encounter Books, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016011694 (print) | LCCN 2016024531 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594038822 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Common Core State Standards (Education) | EducationStandardsUnited States. | EducationParent participationUnited States.

Classification: LCC LB3060.83 .P85 2017 (print) | LCC LB3060.83 (ebook) | DDC 379.1/58dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016011694

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

M ICHELLE FURTADOS SON and twin daughters attended the same schools in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. When the girls started middle school, three years after their brother, Furtado began noticing a marked difference in their school experience. Her sons education had been very disciplined and structured since kindergarten, she told me over the phone, but with her daughters, now we hold hands instead of doing our work.

There was worry in Furtados Boston-accented voice. Her daughters were spending a lot of time in assemblies talking about feelings and playground altercations, leaving less time for class. Teachers had stopped assigning homework. To learn about medieval history in middle school, the students watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a campy British spoof film. At Christmastime, they saw the movie Elf. Furtado considered such things a huge waste of time her kids could otherwise spend actually learning.

Had I not noticed what my son had, I would not have known what my daughters were not getting, she said. My daughters are getting far less than I got. She thought the instruction had lost rigor and expectations had become too lax. I dont want my kids to have a pretty close answer. I want them to have the right answer. Declining academic quality in American schools has been a subject of concern for nearly a century, but the recently launched Common Core State Standards Initiative, touted as a remedy, has hastened the intellectual and cultural descent.

Furtado views the loosening academic standards as a breach of contract. She has done her part for her childrens education, volunteering at school about twenty hours a week through the years, attending school board meetings or watching them on local television, and refusing to let her kids watch TV or play video games until their homework is finished. But her local schools are no longer doing their part.

What I see just aches me, she said. I tell teachers, I send my sponges to you. My kids have been read to and read to and read to.... When I see the school trying to destroy what I tried to build, it bothers me. If kids parents are not paying attention, theyre not going to see this.

The biggest change Furtado noticed was in her daughters math classes. Like their brother, the girls had earned a place in advanced math when they entered middle school, which would have put them on track to complete algebra in the eighth grade. This in turn would have meant they could finish calculus in high school, giving them a high chance of success in any college pursuits involving math and science.

Massachusetts was one of only two states (along with California) that had rearranged its elementary curriculum in 2001 so more students could take algebra in eighth grade, which is standard in high-achieving countries. In 2010, more than half of Massachusetts students were completing algebra on that timetable. The states restructuring of its curriculum requirements, combined with tougher exams for teachers, was key to propelling Massachusetts from mediocre K12 achievement to international distinction. In 2005, it became the first state to attain the top ranking in both math and reading at both of the tested grade levels on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a set of tests the U.S. Department of Education administers to random samplings of children in every state at least every two years. Massachusetts repeated that feat in 2007 and 2009. It wasnt only rich, white kids who benefited from high academic expectations, either. In fact, poor and minority children made the greatest gains. The states high expectations gave any child who happened to live in Massachusetts an edge over kids everywhere else in the country.

Furtado had been looking forward to seeing her girls achieve the same success in math that got their older brother into one of the states prestigious, competitive-entrance technical high schools. But when her daughters started attending Hastings Middle School in Fairhaven in fall 2011, she found that advanced math classes had suddenly disappeared. All the students in a grade were placed in the same math class. High achievers like the Furtado girls could take an additional enrichment period every other day, but would not receive advanced instruction in the new, mandatory math class.

Alarmed at the loss of high-quality math instruction for her daughters, Furtado emailed a math teacher to ask what happened. The teacher explained that a consultant had ended the advanced math classes and recommended a new curriculum called the Connected Math Program (CMP). Over protests from the math department, administrators insisted that teachers use the program, which is notorious for promoting fuzzy math in which kids spend more time discussing hypothetical scenarios that involve math than learning to do math procedures. Many students struggled with the program, the teacher wrote to Furtado, but we were told by [the consultant and the principal] that we were not getting rid of CMP and that the students would get better with it as time went on.

After a few months of talking with other parents and quizzing teachers and administrators to find out why her daughters were getting less rigorous math instruction than her son had received, Furtado stumbled onto something much larger than the Connected Math Program. She learned that Massachusetts had recently joined most of the other states in replacing their curriculum requirements with a new set of national standards. I finally came across Common Core, she said, and all the puzzle pieces fell into place.

What Is Common Core?

The Common Core State Standards are a 640-page set of blueprints for K12 math and English curriculum and tests. This initiative is the biggest education overhaul in the United States since No Child Left Behind, which in 2001 mandated that schools focus on standardized tests in math and reading in exchange for a gush of federal funds, and established penalties for low-performing schools such as forced restructuring, mass staff layoffs, open enrollment in nearby districts, and loss of funds. But NCLB left it to the states to formulate their own standards and tests. Common Core goes further: it specifies what a set of unelected committees thought every child should know and be able to do at each grade level. The introduction to the curriculum requirements says the document lays out a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century. That vision somewhat resembles the way we think of our electronic devices: The Standards are intended to be a living work, the introduction explains, so as new and better evidence emerges, the Standards will be revised accordingly.