Guest Column—On “Learning to Read”

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyne Ender ◽  
Deidre Shauna Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Common Core ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Good Readers ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Teaching Objectives ◽  
The Common ◽  
K 12

The theories and methodologies feature of this issue of PMLA contains a cluster of essays devoted to the subject of reading. At a time when many states in the United States are in the throes of a major public-education reform designed to prepare better-educated, more literate citizens for tomorrow's world, we collected these essays in the belief that scholars belonging to the MLA might be interested in reflecting on this effort in the light of their research. Hence our title, “Learning to Read,” and our appeal to our contributors to consider what they, with their scholarly expertise and pedagogical experience, might contribute to the charged debates about the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)— debates that remind us of the high stakes involved in training good readers. We hope that PMLA readers will agree with us that the question of how the architects of the Common Core have defined the uses and measures of literacy education affects much of the MLA membership—professors, adjuncts, and graduate instructors alike.For some years now, test results have indicated that American schoolchildren read more poorly than many of their peers abroad (Heitin). A distinctive feature of the Common Core (the shorthand title for an extraordinary effort to align educational requirements and standards nationwide) lies in its effort to devise a graduated progression in the standards for the English language arts (ELA) that is anchored in the skills of close reading. Given that the changes in teaching objectives defined and prescribed by the standards might transform the way children in America learn to make sense of the written word, it is only natural that our professional body would respond. The decisive, and some might say aggressive, manner in which the architects of the Common Core have recast the fundamentals of the ELA has provoked strong reactions, not only among K-12 teachers but also in higher education. Concerns were voiced early on in sessions at MLA conventions starting in 2013, and those conversations have continued on MLA Commons (e.g., Ferguson).

The Common Core and the Evasion of Curriculum

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 666-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guillory
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Common Core ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Standards ◽  
National Standards ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
K 12

Although the common core state standards initiative was adopted with little controversy in forty-eight states, it soon became the target of attacks both on the right, for the mistaken perception that public education was being taken over by the federal government, and on the left, in response to the institution of an all-too-real draconian testing regime that served the needs more of the testing companies and other corporate agents than of students or teachers. Despite these attacks, it seems likely that the initiative will prevail in most states, perhaps both for better and for worse. My position is that real national standards—not simply state standards— are a desirable goal for the United States today, and long overdue. The “local control” of public education by states and school districts has been, let us admit, the greatest flaw of the K-12 system and a powerful obstruction to the reform of that system. On the other hand, I agree with many (Bryant; Hacker and Dreifus; Ravitch) who see the Common Core as a misguided effort at reform, fatally undermined by the use of punitive, high-stakes testing as the driver of implementation (Loveless). Opting for this strategy, the promoters of the Common Core unfortunately imposed a top-down procedure just where it is least appropriate. Testing, by its very nature, ought to arise from the classroom, the scene of a unique relation between teacher and students. This is not to deny that universal testing is possible and even necessary but rather to acknowledge that the more distant tests are from the scene of teaching, the more limited their informational value.

Opting Out of the Education Reform Industry

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (10) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Au ◽  
Jesslyn Hollar
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Education Industry ◽  
Education Market ◽  
K 12

Big business has long been enamored of public education. Whether shaping systems of schooling along the lines of factory production, dictating what children should learn, or cultivating private-public partnerships to gain access to government monies, corporations and their owners have insisted on being key players in the formation of education policy and practice in the United States. Analysts estimate the value of the K-12 education market at more than $700 billion dollars. Beyond their calls for students and workers to adapt to the global capitalist economy through increased competition and "accountability" in public schools, business leaders crave access to a publicly funded, potentially lucrative market&mdash;one of the last strongholds of the commons to be penetrated by neoliberalism.&hellip; In an education industry dependent on market competition to increase profitability, there is no better tool to turn teaching and learning into products&mdash;ready to measure, compare, and sell&mdash;than the high-stakes standardized tests championed by the contemporary education reform movement.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-10" title="Vol. 67, No. 10: March 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

Improving Low-Performing Schools: A Meta-Analysis of Impact Evaluation Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 000283122110608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth E. Schueler ◽  
Catherine Armstrong Asher ◽  
Katherine E. Larned ◽  
Sarah Mehrotra ◽  
Cynthia Pollard
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
English Language ◽  
Evaluation Studies ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Low Performing Schools ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
K 12

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K–12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of post–No Child Left Behind Act turnaround policies. On average, policies had moderate positive effects on math and no effect on English Language Arts achievement on high-stakes exams. We find positive impacts on low-stakes exams and no evidence of harm on nontest outcomes. Extended learning time and teacher replacements predict greater effects. Contexts serving majority-Latina/o populations saw the largest improvements. We cannot rule out publication bias entirely but find no differences between peer-reviewed versus nonpeer-reviewed estimates.

scholarly journals The Common Core State Standards and Intellectual Freedom: Implications for Libraries

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Loretta M. Gaffney
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
Common Core State Standards ◽  
English Language ◽  
State Standards ◽  
Core State ◽  
Teachers Union ◽  
Bill Gates ◽  
The Common ◽  
Gates Foundation ◽  
K 12

The Common Core State Standards are a single set of codified, grade-by-grade K-12 educational standards in both English/language arts (ELA) and math that were intended to replace previous state K-12 standards and align them with one another. The National Governors’ Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) developed Common Core in consultation with educational testing companies and with funding from the Bill Gates Foundation. While Common Core has enjoyed bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans, opposition to Common Core has also generated strange bedfellows, mingling groups that would ordinarily clash, such as the Tea Party and teachers’ union locals. Disparate challenges to Common Core are best understood not as individual curricular challenges, but as moving pieces in a larger social movement context.

Educational Meaning Making and Language Learning: Understanding the Educational Incorporation of Unaccompanied, Undocumented Latinx Youth Workers in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 003804072199600
Author(s):  
Stephanie L. Canizales
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Immigrant Youth ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Language Learning ◽  
Youth Workers ◽  
K 12

Immigration scholars agree that educational attainment is essential for the success of immigrant youth in U.S. society and functions as a key indicator of how youth will fare in their transition into adulthood. Research warns of downward or stagnant mobility for people with lower levels of educational attainment. Yet much existing research takes for granted that immigrant youth have access to a normative parent-led household, K–12 schools, and community resources. Drawing on four years of ethnographic observations and interviews with undocumented Latinx young adults (ages 18 to 31) who arrived in Los Angeles, California, as unaccompanied youth, I examine the educational meaning making and language learning of Latinx individuals coming of age as workers without parents and legal status. Findings show that Latinx immigrant youth growing up outside of Western-normative parent-led households and K–12 schools and who remain tied to left-behind families across transnational geographies tend to equate education with English language learning. Education—as English language learning—is essential to sobrevivencia, or survival, during their transition to young adulthood as workers and transnational community participants.

“Some Vital Religion”: Social Religion and the Science of Character Education in the United States, 1918–1932

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane McCamant
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Character Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Common Morality ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Social Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Role Of Religion

Abstract The history of American public education has generally been considered as a steady transition from religious and sectarian to secular and pluralist, with the role of science in education increasing as the role of religion decreased. This article examines a conception of the role of religion in education that does not fit this narrative, the “social religion” of theorists of moral and character education in the 1920s. Relying on ideas of religious naturalism and with an orientation toward the practical effects of religious belief, this community of scholars asserted a concept of religion that would allow it to be at the heart of the common school project, uniting all under the common morality of the social good. Influenced both by liberal Protestant humanism and the scientific worldview pervasive in education reform at the time, these character educationists’ ideas remind us of the historical contingency of categories like “religious” and of the antiquity of ideas we might classify under the heading of spirituality in American culture.

Teaching World History in a Swirl of Standards

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Common Core ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
World History ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
State Standards ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Single State

Standards-based education reform efforts that began in the 1990s resulted in social studies standards by grade level in every single state, stretching from kindergarten to grade 12. All of these standards single out history as a separate subject or strand, and many include world history as a subset within history as a whole. These standards are highly variable, idiosyncratic, and sometimes error-ridden, and they have been the source of enormous controversy. Some world history standards are completely skills-based, with only one sentence about content, and many are very Eurocentric, especially in the lists of individuals and events students should know. Recent efforts to develop better standards, such as the C3 Framework, have become embroiled in the controversy over Common Core, but because high-stakes testing is often based on state standards, world historians should get involved in improving them, and advocate for better world history teaching.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document