Children reading nonfiction.

Here's a NYT article — "English Class in Common Core Era: ‘Tom Sawyer’ and Court Opinions" — about the struggles of English teachers — who'd obviously rather be teaching the good old novels they love and inspiring or trying to inspire kids to get caught up in the love of reading through imaginary characters and the plots that beset them — and the mean old politicians who've imposed the requirement that some percent (50 at first and 70 later) of the reading be nonfiction. And now we've got weird reading plans like "articles about bipolar disorder and the adolescent brain to help them analyze Holden Caulfield" and "The Odyssey" with "sections of the G.I. Bill of Rights, and a congressional resolution on its 60th anniversary, to connect the story of Odysseus to the challenges of modern-day veterans."

Schools generally choose their own reading materials. For nonfiction, however, the Common Core standards specify that students should read certain “seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance,” including the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” as well as presidential addresses and Supreme Court opinions. Many high schools have added these to American literature classes.

There are at least 3 problems tangled up together here.

1. The relative value of nonfiction and fiction in early childhood education. This is a topic I've written about for a long time — under the tag children reading nonfiction — going back to 2005, when I said: "[I]f teachers are just trying to get kids to read, why shouldn't they provide a broad selection and give kids a chance to discover what they find interesting? It looks as though the biggest problem is that teachers are pushing too much literary fiction on kids. English teachers tend to be people who enjoy that sort of thing, but most people don't read it on their own. Why should we have an appetite for stories?" And in 2007, in a post that got a lot of outraged pushback:

And why does reading even need to be a separate subject from history in school? Give them history texts and teach reading from them. Science books too. Leave the storybooks for pleasure reading outside of school. They will be easier reading, and with well-developed reading skills, kids should feel pleasure curling up with a novel at home. But even if they don't, why should any kind of a premium be placed on an interest in reading novels? It's not tied to economic success in life and needn't be inculcated any more than an interest in watching movies or listening to popular music. Leave kids alone to find out out what recreational activities enrich and satisfy them. Some may want to dance or play music or paint. Just because teachers tend to be the kind of people who love novels does not mean that this choice ought to be imposed on young people via compulsory education. Teach them about history, science, law, logic -- something academic and substantive -- and leave the fictional material for after hours.

2. Government — especially centralized government — taking over too much of education and distorting the decisions of those who are closer to the process who now must check the boxes and meet the percentages.

3. Whether the nonfiction reading requirement needs to impinge on the literature class. It might be interesting to teach a class that combines fiction with relevant readings in science, history, or current events. But it's bad if the literature teachers feel they're just being used to meet a government requirement and there's less time to read the great books that belong in the class. I would think that the percentages could be met in the science classes and the social studies classes. Why should it even be difficult? I wonder if perhaps it's not difficult, but the NYT is trying to make Common Core seem especially idiotic by showing an awkward approach deployed by balky teachers and cherry picking grumpy students who say things like "We do so much nonfiction. I just want to read my book." That's from a girl with a name that sounds like it came from a novel, Karma Lisslo.

Teachers' Unions find an issue that can appeal to those who are not big fans of public employee unions.

"Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor and possible presidential candidate, stoked national attention when he stripped collective-bargaining rights from most public-sector unions, including teachers. But testing, [said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara], offers unions a way to join forces both with parents who object to testing and with Republicans who oppose the Common Core standards as a federalization of education. 'It is a powerful issue, by virtue of the fact that the right is also against it,' he said."

From a NYT article titled "Teachers’ Unions Fight Standardized Testing, and Find Diverse Allies."

The teachers’ push on testing comes as Congress is debating how to revise the 2001 No Child Left Behind law...

Critics of the campaigns against testing, including many state and local education officials, say the unions are not acting out of concern for children but are trying to undercut efforts to institute tougher evaluations. They argue that annual testing is critical for tracking how effectively schools are educating poor and minority students and that evaluations based only on subjective criteria like observations typically fail to identify weak teachers....

Secky Fascione, director of organizing for the National Education Association, the largest nationwide teachers’ union, said reining in testing was the union’s top organizing priority. In the past month, Ms. Fascione said, chapters in 27 states have organized against testing, including holding rallies; petition drives; showings of “Standardized,” a documentary critical of testing; and sessions telling parents they have a right to keep their children from taking tests, as tens of thousands of parents around the country have done.

“Does it give us a platform?” said Karen E. Magee, the president of New York State United Teachers. “Absolutely.” 

The union of left- and right-wing ideology. Who's leveraging whom? Or is this the serendipitous coalescing of natural interests?

"These guys are ready to do whatever they can" to get Hillary!

Email, yesterday, from the Democratic Party. Guys are ganging up on Hillary. They'll do whatever they can, those meanies. I'm filing this under "gender politics," but it's rather weak gender politics, deniable gender politics.

It's not like it says "These guys are ready to do whatever they can to make sure that a woman isn't the 45th President"... but "These guys are ready to do whatever they can" is... well... for the sensitive... trigger-warning-worthy....



That reminds me... I just read the Playboy interview with Bill Maher, wherein he was asked "Who’s your money on for the White House race?" And he said:

I’d say Scott Walker will be the nominee for the Republicans. Jeb Bush is building momentum, but he’s attached at the hip to Common Core, which the Tea Party despises. True, he’s not the doofus his brother was, but in today’s Republican Party, that’s actually a huge minus. Then there’s Chris Christie. His numbers with Republican primary voters are horrible, close to Sarah Palin level, though if you like small government, he’s the guy for you, because soon half his administration will be in jail. But Walker? He’s a folk hero with the people from the Tea lagoon and with the establishment wing. His father was an evangelical preacher—a huge plus with the snake handlers and flat-Earthers who make up the base. And he won three times, including a recall, in a blue state, and he faced down public unions. The one problem is he didn’t graduate from college—oh wait, that’s a plus too, because book learnin’ is, you know, suspicious.

"When standardized tests are shared nationwide — as they now are, under the Common Core system that's been adopted in 46 states..."

"... cheating suddenly becomes a whole lot easier. Especially since teenagers now share just about everything on social media."

Computers are undermining efforts to standardize children. That's a turnabout. You'll have to write exams that can't be cheated on. That's hard to do!

"As it turns out, the Common Core standards used by a majority of K-12 programs in the country require that students be able to 'distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.'"

"And the Common Core institute provides a helpful page full of links to definitions, lesson plans and quizzes to ensure that students can tell the difference between facts and opinions."

See the problem? Well, this NYT op-ed writer does, in "Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts." One of the top-rated comments over there begins "I find this entire argument specious from the start. The phrase 'moral facts' is deliberately provocative...." I agree.

The op-ed writer, by the way, is named Justin P. McBrayer. I've got to say the name is just perfect, like a name in a satirical novel about politics.

McBrayer is associate professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, where he teaches ethics and philosophy of religion. That's a nice gig! (Fact or opinion?)

me, this picture, yahoo mail, common core, facebook, my car, the saints, gluten, netflix, my dog.

10 efforts by Google to complete the search "What's wrong with...?"

Bill Gates, running on his treadmill, just loved the DVD of the Teaching Company course "Big History."

And he arrived at the notion that "Big History" should be a regular high school course all over the country. Since Gates is a billionaire, he can think things like that and proceed to cause them to happen... like he caused Common Core.

"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t just bankroll the development of what became known as the Common Core State Standards."

"With more than $200 million, the foundation also built political support across the country, persuading state governments to make systemic and costly changes...."

The movement grew so quickly and with so little public notice that opposition was initially almost nonexistent. That started to change last summer, when local tea party groups began protesting what they viewed as the latest intrusion by an overreaching federal government — even though the impetus had come from the states....

Some liberals are angry, too, with a few teacher groups questioning Gates’s influence and motives. Critics say Microsoft stands to benefit from the Common Core’s embrace of technology and data....

The decision by the Gates Foundation to simultaneously pay for the standards and their promotion is a departure from the way philanthropies typically operate....

Much more at the link.