page
Editor’s Comments
Thoughts
from the Editors
219
CCSS:
Tales ofAre We
Achievement
Supposed to Write
Folktales
in First
Denise Davila,
Theresia Grade?
Anggraini, Bettie Barger,
Allyson Bowcutt, Hilary Brewster, and Patricia Vocal
Amy Seely Flint, Teri Holbrook, Laura May, Peggy Albers,
and Caitlin McMunn Dooley
R
ecently, a group of first graders was asked
to compose and illustrate their own folk
and tall tales as part of a unit of study
focused on National Heritage. The three teachers
had been instructed to integrate writing as much
as they could in various disciplines such as science
and social studies. In this unit, the teachers were
required to include the folk and tall tales of Paul
Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, Annie Oakley, John
Henry, and Davy Crockett, since these figures comprise part of the mandated Standards for first-­grade
social studies on historical understandings.
The teachers read aloud stories of these “larger
than life” figures and facilitated discussions of
tall-­tale and folktale elements and how these figures characterize the national heritage of the USA.
From these activities, the students were then asked
to create their own oral versions of tall tales, drawing on their shared knowledge of what it meant to
include story elements and exaggerate a character’s
traits. Later they were to write these stories. While
the focus of the unit was on national heritage, the
teachers also wished to bring in folktales that more
closely represented the students’ cultural and ethnic
backgrounds, stories such as Why Mosquitos Buzz
in People’s Ears (Aardema, 1978), Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti (McDermott, 1987), or
The People Could Fly (Hamilton, 2004). Yet, there
was never enough time to incorporate these culturally relevant texts and discussions that could have
built a more relevant curriculum.
Districts throughout the country, located in
large urban cities and small rural towns, have
adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
in language arts and mathematics. These new
Standards come at a time when budgets for education are tight; cutbacks are required in subjects such
as drama, art, and music; and there is little professional development to help teachers fully deliberate
the implications of the Standards on their practice.
As illustrated in the above example, the result is that
teachers often find themselves creating lessons that
don’t meet the developmental needs of the students
in their classrooms. And they are not alone. Around
the country, state-­level educators have developed
curriculum pacing guides and frameworks intended
to help teachers implement the Standards effectively and students to achieve predetermined goals
outlined in the new CCSS initiative.
The CCSS initiative is part of the Race to the
Top federal policy that the Obama administration
put into place following
State-­level educators have
No Child Left Behind. At
the time of this writing,
developed curriculum pacing
45 states and the District
guides and frameworks.
of Columbia have adopted
CCSS and have revised
their curricula to align with this set of Standards.
Involved in writing and disseminating these Standards across the country are corporations and organizations that seek market-­based reform efforts for
public schools (McDermott, 2013; Shannon, 2013;
Zancanella & Moore [this issue, p. 273]). McDermott’s analysis, in particular, has uncovered a network of connections among corporations, organizations, foundations, and individuals who have
been instrumental in the design and dissemination
of these Standards. She has constructed a visual
map to show how entangled the connections are
among the various stakeholders and corporations,
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all invested in supporting and promoting Common
Core Standards for all (http://www.truth-­
out.org/
news/item/18442-­flow-­chart-­exposes-­common-­
cores-­myriad-­corporate-­connections).
This investment, however, is being challenged
by educators and politicians who claim that the
CCSS represent an overreaching of federal influence on education (e.g., Heritage Foundation,
Badass Teachers Association, and Pioneer Institute, to name a few). Many—­
including leading
educational historian Diane Ratvitch and NCTE
Past President JoAnn Yatvin—­fear that the federal
government is controlling the national agenda for
education, establishing intrusive student data tracking systems, overemphasizing assessment, and de-­
professionalizing the teaching force.
While there are vigorous debates in legislative hearings and meetings, parents (of the children
affected by this reform effort) and community members are asking what the Standards are all about and
if CCSS will really make a difference in closing our
most pressing issue—­the achievement gap between
poor and not-­
poor students, and between white
and non-­
white students.
Perhaps the CCSS make According to the latest
PDK/Gallup poll on the
it difficult to disrupt the
public’s attitude toward
status quo by dictating that public education (Bushaw
& Lopez, 2013), 62% of
all learners must strive to
Americans have never
achieve the same goals. heard of the Common
Core State Standards, and
of those who have heard of the CCSS, only 40%
believe that the Standards will actually make education in the United States more competitive globally.
Many believe that implementation is only
successful if there are accountability and assessment measures in place to evaluate the teaching
and learning of these standards (Shannon, Whitney, & Wilson, “Conversation Currents,” this issue,
p. 295). Currently, two consortiums, the Partnership
for Assessment of Readiness in College and Careers
(PARCC) and the Smarter Balance Assessment
Consortium, have created computer-­based student
assessment systems to align with the CCSS. Seventeen states have adopted PARCC; another 25 have
signed on with Smarter Balance. After originally
signing on with one of the consortiums, a handful of
states have pulled out (e.g., Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Utah, Oklahoma) or have put the assessments
on “pause” (e.g., Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania).
These states are creating their own assessment systems to determine student achievement.
States cite cost as a contributing factor to this
decision, as well as limited flexibility and technical concerns. A recent report from the Pioneer
Institute (AccountabilityWorks, 2012), a public
policy research firm, notes that the ongoing costs
for participating in one of the two consortia will
reach approximately $177.2 million per year, with
a seven-­year total of $1.2 billion. The majority of
these costs are related to the infrastructure necessary
to administer computer-­based assessments, including hardware and software upgrades, increased
bandwidth, and technical support and training.
Even with states reconsidering their involvement in
the assessment consortia, state-­level educators and
districts continue to implement and monitor curricular frameworks that align with the adopted CCSS.
Administrators, teachers, and students at the
school level feel these pressures of ongoing alignment and monitoring of the CCSS. Effective
implementation of curricula, improved student-­
learning outcomes, and increased college-­and
career-­readiness indicators are the stated goals of
the CCSS. Perhaps this is why the first-­grade teachers in our opening example didn’t have a chance to
explore other more culturally relevant and meaningful folktales that represent the diversity of National
Heritage. Perhaps, the teachers also did not have
time or opportunity to take on a more critical perspective and challenge the commonplace assumptions that these historical figures embody positive
character traits. Perhaps the CCSS make it difficult
to disrupt the status quo by dictating that all learners must strive to achieve the same goals (Flint &
Laman, 2014; Lewison, Flint, & Van Sluys, 2002).
In this issue of Language Arts, we take a look
at the impact of the CCSS on the teaching profession, on En­glish language arts curricula, and on students’ abilities to advocate and take a critical stance
on issues most pressing in their lives. Stergios
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Botzakis, Leslie Burns, and Leigh Hall’s article
“Literacy Reform and Common Core State Standards: Recycling the Autonomous Model” offers a
historical tracing of how the CCSS embrace a simplistic view of the literacy process and are virtually
inadequate for the intended goals of participating in
reading and writing in the 21st century. They provide
a thought-­provoking description of how the CCSS
have embraced the autonomous model of literacy
development wherein the focus is on standardization
rather than student learning. Botzakis et al. argue
that one of the CCSS’s exemplars, teaching “The
Gettysburg Address,” requires six days of “close
reading.” They note how the exemplar assumes that
all students would be motivated to engage in the
repeated close readings, which further highlights the
point of standardization for standardization’s sake.
In contrast, the ideological model views reading and
writing as a socially complex practice that “cannot
be isolated or treated as ‘neutral’ or merely ‘technical’” (p. 228). These authors go on to argue for a
balanced perspective that emphasizes literacy learning as both a technical and a contextual endeavor.
Following the discussion on the broader positioning of literacy in the CCSS is Douglas Fisher
and Nancy Frey’s article about ELA Anchor Standard 10 that focuses on range, quality, and text complexity. Fisher and Frey define text complexity as
a “set of quantitative and qualitative attributes that
collectively describe the features of a text” (p. 237),
and they offer a description of these attributes as a
way to begin to know which attributes will stretch
readers. These authors then put these descriptions
into practice in their work with 380 teachers. Teachers used a rubric to examine texts for complexity
and used this information to plan curriculum. Fisher
and Frey write, “To teach reading comprehension
well, teachers can determine which factors contributed to the complexity of the text and then make
instructional decisions about how to support students’ understanding of each factor such that they
can apply that knowledge to new texts that they
read” (p. 248). This rubric will be a helpful tool
to teachers around the country as they seek ways
to increase students’ knowledge of more complex
texts in the classroom setting.
221
The third article in this issue is by Katherine
Grindon, “Advocacy at the Core: Agitation and
Empowerment in the time of Common Core State
Standards.” In this piece, Grindon shares her journey of using the CCSS in student-­generated advocacy projects. Grindon
For the first time, Language
explains how she has
participated in statewide
Arts has included a new feature
committees to deconstruct
entitled “Commentaries” written
the Standards. She then
considers ways of impleby LA readers. . . . We think of
menting the CCSS in
the commentaries as a way to
the classroom that reach
beyond the surface level,
take the pulse of the field on a
thus encouraging her stugiven topic.
dents to adopt critical perspectives as they develop
their own advocacy projects on socially significant
and local issues. By sharing her process with readers, Grindon brings to life an authentic and meaningful approach to implementing the CCSS in
En­glish language arts classrooms.
For the first time, Language Arts has included a
new feature entitled “Commentaries” written by LA
readers. These brief writings provide a range of perspectives on the CCSS and the impact on our educational system. We think of the commentaries as a
way to take the pulse of the field on a given topic.
Patrick Shannon, Anne Whitney, and Maja Wilson provide us with a critical view of the CCSS in
this issue’s “Conversation Currents.” They invite
readers and podcast listeners to consider how arguments for the CCSS are framed and reframed by
business roundtables and corporations. Their discussion reminds us of the visual map that McDermott created and the backstory of the implications
of CCSS on our educational system.
Our regular departments also weigh in on the
Common Core State Standards. The Research and
Policy department (guest-authored by Donald Zancanella and Michael Moore) offers an important
historical look at where the CCSS come from and
the various influences in their development. In this
piece, Zancanella and Moore share with readers
the actions and decisions of Sir Michael Barber
and Bill Gates in forming alliances and consortia
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to encourage adoption and implementation of the
CCSS. The Professional Book Reviews highlight
a number of professional resources that support
teachers as they navigate the terrain of implementing CCSS in their classWe hope that you begin to rooms. The books offer
consider the impact of CCSS important insights for
teachers to regain their
on your own teaching and look professional voice and
to submit a commentary and/or invite a critical and rigorous curriculum that
manuscript for our follow-­up draws on the strengths
themed issue. and knowledge of the students they teach. Finally,
the Children’s Literature Reviews (guest-authored
by NCTE’s Children’s Literature Assembly) feature
the award winners for the 2013 Notable Children’s
Books in the Language Arts.
We hope this issue on the Common Core State
Standards sparks conversation, discussion, challenges, inquiry, and a further look into the development, implementation, and alignment of CCSS.
We also hope that you begin to consider the impact
of CCSS on your own teaching and look to submit
a commentary and/or manuscript for our follow-­up
themed issue: Common Core, Rotten Core—­Part II
(March 2016; submission deadline is November 2014). And please join the conversation about
CCSS by offering your own comments on our Facebook page: Language Arts Journal.
References
Aardema, V. (1975). Why mosquitos buzz in people’s ears.
New York, NY: Penguin/ Putnam.
AccountabilityWorks. (2012). National costs of aligning
states and localities to the common core standards:
A pioneer institute and American principles project
white paper. Boston, MA: Pioneer Institute.
Bushaw, W., & Lopez, S. (2013). The 45th annual PDK/
Gallup poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public
schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 95, 9–­25.
Flint, A. S., & Laman, T. (2014). Where poems hide:
Finding reflective, critical spaces inside writing
workshop. In J. Avila & J. Zacher Pandya (Eds.),
Moving critical literacies forward: A new look at
praxis across contexts (pp. 72–82). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Hamilton, V. (2004). The people could fly. New York, NY:
Knopf Books for Young Readers.
Lewison, M., Flint, A. S., & Van Sluys, K. (2002). Taking
on critical literacy: The journey of newcomers and
novices. Language Arts, 79, 382–­392.
McDermott, G. (1987). Anansi the spider: A tale from the
Ashanti. New York, NY: Henry Holt.
McDermott, M. (2013). Flow chart exposes common core
myriad corporate connections. Retrieved September
30, 2013, from http://www.truth-­out.org/news/
item/18442-­flow-­chart-­exposes-­common-­cores-­
myriad-­corporate-­connections.
Shannon, P. (2013). An evidence base for the common core.
In P. Shannon (Ed.), Closer readings of the common
core (pp. 1–­20). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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