Strategic planning, de-professionalizing teachers and what’s a power standard?
I went to my first meeting for strategic planning this afternoon. Everyone had to.
I was assigned to the committee for student learning. Odd really. A committee for the main thing that should go on in a school.
Does Ford have a committee for making cars? Does Crest have a committee for making toothpaste?
Over the next year our committees (plural because there are subcommittees based on subject areas) are to come up with power standards.
Apparently a national core curriculum, state standards and several standardized tests a year with the accompanying prep are not enough. We need power standards or priority standards. What are they? I’m still unsure, but I’m thinking something like über standards.
I’m also thinking it has something to do with de-professionalizing teachers.
Curiously they have taken a progressive critique of the common curriculum that folks like Ted Sizer first raised and they have turned it upside down. One power point slide said that our curriculum is an inch deep and a mile wide. That’s what Sizer said.
But in his writings and in the essential schools movement that Sizer pioneered, the goal was to open up the curriculum and to base it in part on student interest. Rather than rely on standardized high stakes testing, Sizer emphasized deeply researched projects and the use of teachers as guides, coaches and facilitators of learning.
Our strategic planning threatens to result in just the opposite: A few common core standards linked to state standards and state assessments with teachers teaching the same thing on the same day year after year.
Teachers as crew, not as professionals.
It looks to be one hell of a strategy.
With statements like, “what students need for success – in school, in life and on state assessments,” is all it took to let me know what a joke this process is.
I’ve been teaching 19 years.
Today was one of the lowest points. Ever.
The Common Core State Standards have the opportunity to become the cornerstone of a revamped curriculum that will prepare our students for the 21st global workplace. The power standards are a necessity to improving academic achievement. As an educator of 21 years, I understand what the standards mean because I have read the standards and understand that it is the standards that should drive curriculum, not content. I have revised my curriculum, creating power standards and assessing student mastery in them. We need to explicitly teach the skills and assess them. I ask that you review your assessments to see if you are assessing content or skills. If you are assessing specific skills (identifying the main idea in a text, write arguments to support claims, determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words), then I applaud you. Please take the time to understand the Common Core State Standards. They are rigorous and just what this nation needs.
You’re kidding? Right?
Nope no kidding here. All honest and give it a chance.
I am not interested in preparing students for the 21st century workplace. My students are 5 through 12 years old. The 21st century workplace is the farthest thing from their minds, as it should be. Skills not content? What kind of theory is this? How can you separate skills from content? How can you separate process and results? Experience and reflection? Your approach divides the very essence of knowledge from practice. It is the opposite of everything that is humane and important about education.
I’m sorry you are not kidding.
Mr. Klonsky, student preparation for the careers begins early on in life, starting with the family. It continues as a child begins his schooling in elementary on through high school and beyond. We all play an integral part in preparing our youth for the future. I would like to provide you with an example on how we can focus on skills and content using “priority” standards. If you have an opportunity, please choose a standard from the Common Core (www.corestandards.org) that is grade-level appropriate along with the content that you are teaching. I will provide you with an example of how focusing on the Common Core can improve student achievement. Thank you.
No thanks.
With all do respect, your approach is terrible. But if anyone is interested in pursuing it, they now know where to go.
I wish you continued success with your students.