One often quoted piece on the "Conservative Case for Common Core" was written by former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett. The article appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 2014, and is often promoted as the raison d'etre for conservatives to back the common core.
However, Mr Bennett's notions of conservatism are quite misguided. Let's examine some of Mr. Bennett's statements and given them consideration. Let's begin with Bill Bennett's original premise:
"Let's begin with the ideas and principles behind the Common Core. These educational principles have been debated and refined over decades."
That is about the only place I might agree with Bill Bennett. Certainly there is a consensus on some basic issues, such as reading and multiplication. However, nothing in the common core actually reflects that consensus or research. The use of what was once regarded as non-standard, inefficient algorithms has never been widely accepted. Whole language which rejects standard phonics instruction has never been entirely embraced at the national level. Indeed, these issues, along with the use of controversial curriculums like Everyday Math and Turk Investigations have continue to be controversial even in areas where Common Core was adopted. Further, the rejection of cursive writing was never on the national curriculum controversy radar, and yet Mr. Bennett's broad assertions suggest that these were entirely settled matters.
For this reason, I would have to reject, at least in part, Mr. Bennett's original proposition on educational consensus.
Indeed, the standards on "informational texts" and the emphasis on writing over reading are contrary to nearly 100 years of research on teaching reading and writing. The informational texts in the curriculum crowd out the teaching of complex literature needed to produce critical thinking skills and to develop proficiency in reading and writing. Dr. Stotsky, the engineer of the very Massachusettes Miracle you seek to emulate through the common core, has warned of this in her testimony in several state legislatures and national forums. You would be well served to read her work and testimony on the matter.
Let's take a look at his next statement.
"First, we can all agree that there is a need for common standards of assessment in K-12 education."
No, Mr. Bennett, I cannot and will not concede this point. First, I don't see the need at all for these common assessments. Who needs them? Certainly not I, and certainly not most of America's children. American children may need many things, but "common standards of assessment" is never on the list of anyone except "educrats" who seek to make money or federal research dollars. Second, the only way that this "common standard" to work is if the federal government gets involved in education. As a conservative who regards the US Constitution as a document worthy of defending, what you are actually asking is an end to the 10th Amendment. Mr. Bennett, my "need" to support and defend the US Constitution is prior to your "need" for common standards funded by the Gates Foundation. Indeed, Mr. Bennett, one of the cornerstones of the American Conservatism is the support for the US Constitution--the very document you would trash to achieve your ends.
"Nearly all Americans agree that to prepare a child for civic responsibility and competition in the modern economy, he or she must be able to read and distill complex sentences, and must be equipped with basic mathematical skills."
Mr Bennett, this is a rather broad sweeping statement that is not even a central tenet of American Conservatism. Besides that point-- What poll do you reference? Your statement suggests that there is some sort of agreement on the goal of public education being something thataccommodates the needs of global elites rather that local communities. Mr Bennett attempts to equate civic responsibility with global competitiveness two very different ideas. Furthermore, the point of education is not to "compete in a modern economy" but to prepare students to lead and serve in a free society. The point of post secondary education may have the goal of producing competitive worker bees, but that has never been the goal of primary and secondary education. Furthermore, the point of disagreement among Americans is not "Should children be able to read, write, and understand complex sentences," but in the "How." This answer varies greatly across communities in the United States, even among teachers in the same community. Common Core undermines this by dictating a pedagogy and a scope and sequence and by subverting the 10th Amendment. This is something that no conservative would ever concede.
What is regarded as a "modern economy" is a very nebulous concept that will vary greatly across the United States. Mr . Bennett would destroy the very foundation of our civil society as understood by the American people to achieve a system that would be competitive with nations that are less free. Strangely, people from these "less free" nations strive to immigrate to the United States so they may be free to compete. Mr. Bennett would destroy local control of education as preserved by our founding fathers in the name of international competitiveness and less freedom. I regard that as neither civil or competitive.
But, if for some reason I thought "American competitiveness" was a worthy goal, I certainly would NOT have selected the common core. The research on both the Darro Standards in California by Dr. James Milgram and on the Common Core from the Hawaii Department of Education using the P-20W have shown that if students do not make it beyond Algebra 2 in High School, they have less than a 2% chance of graduating with a STEM Degree and have less than a 30% chance of graduating with ANY four year degree--even English. Because the Common Core Standards, by their very design, prevent the average student from progressing beyond Algebra I in high school, these standards actually reduce America's competitive position in the global economy.
"When I was chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the 1980s, I asked 250 people across the political spectrum what 10 books every student should be familiar with by the time they finish high school. Almost every person agreed on five vital sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, America's founding documents, the great American novel "Huckleberry Finn" and classical works of mythology and poetry, like the Iliad and the Odyssey."
Strangely, Mr. Bennett, these very topics have been scrubbed from most of the curriculum that presumably meets the common core standard. The Odyssey and the Iliad, standard stories used in Alaska to discuss native literature is no longer on the list. Shakespeare has been reduced as well, all to make way for the "informational texts" that the common core standards dictate must be covered. The Common Core actually reduced these very concepts, it does not increase them. Even more so, the religion that is emphasised in these curriculums have an overwhelming bias toward Islam and the Koran over Christianity, the Bible, and other religions. Huckleberry Finn has also hit the dustbin, or have been greatly modified, to make way for teachings on "White Privilege," or other more banal pieces of literature that are in the text exemplars. If getting these literary topics into classrooms was your goal, Mr. Bennett, then you have failed in epic proportions. Mr. Bennett, I suggest you read Dr. Sandra Stotsky's analysis of the common core and how it has greatly reduced classical literature in favor of "informational texts."
The same goes for math. Certain abilities—the grasp of fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios and the like—should be the common knowledge of all.
Mr. Bennett, have you actually read the common core standards? Do you realize that these very topics are either absent, or have very little coverage in the common core? Have you not looked at the work by Dr. James Milgram and Professor Ze'ev Wurman on the common core math standards? The very topics you claim to want to promote are absent from the curriculums that meet the very standards you are promoting.
In 2009 the Education Department created Race to the Top grants, federal funding for states that met certain educational benchmarks. To qualify, states were required, for instance, to demonstrate that they had a common, high-quality set of standards. Common Core standards satisfied the criteria.
How strange it is read something that is being deemed "conservative" by consenting to more federal mandates! Indeed, the ONLY standards that qualified for Race To The Top funds were those that were Common Core or a rebranded variant of those standards. Besides being illegal for the federal government to dictate standards and curriculum, there is no evidence that common standards actually produces a better result or high student test scores. Indeed, if one looks at countries at the top and at the bottom of the standardized testing rankings on tests like the TIMSS, countries that have both common national standards can be found. Common national standards does not make an education system great--at best it only codifies mediocrity.
In conclusion, I find nothing particularly conservative in any of Bill Bennett's arguments for the common core--conservative or otherwise. There is nothing in American conservatism that calls for compitulating to illegal federal mandates and national data systems. There is nothing in conservatism that calls for the end of the 10th Amendment. There is nothing conservative about the standards, and the curriculum that is being promoted as meeting these standards does not even reflect anything that Mr. Bennett seeks to promote!
But American Conservatism aside, the very goals that Mr Bennett seeks to achieve through the common core remain unmet. Anyone who values the US Constitution, Christianity, or American exceptionalism or American competitiveness should be promoting these standards and the curriculum that is being promoted by the major publishers in the United States as fulfilling these standards.
If fifty years of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have shown anything, federal involvement in education has stifled American achievement in test scores and reduced America's competitiveness on the national stage. They are not conservative or worthy of being promoted by a former member of Ronald Reagan's cabinet.
How can a school board president not possibly have a clue as to the cost that her regime has imposed on borough and district budgets? This is irresponsible in good times--and even worse in times of austerity.
This crisis is much bigger than any of you realize. It has two components: a fiscal crisis and a constitutional crisis. First is the fiscal crisis that was created by Common Core that is coming to light at the state level, but the bigger crisis has been at the local level for quite some time. Our state has been dipping into the Constitutional Reserve longer than most realize. To meet the requirements of ESEA local districts have also been dipping into their reserves-- and for many those resources are nearly depleted. This spending has largely been disguised, but won't be for much longer.
We must change those who are in leadership. However, we must also fix the structure of education administration and restore it to the way in which the Alaska Constitution had it designed. However, it should be noted that our fiscal crisis in education is direct result of the constitutional crisis that most do not realize is upon us. It is this second one that has allowed Common Core into this state and will continue to allow all manner of horse hockey without voter approval. That will be the subject of a subsequent blog post.
First, the fiscal issues. Many Alaskans may not realize that the Alaska Department of Education and its rapid growth in employment and contracts is funded by federal funds--state funds are a lesser majority of dollars. This means that federal concerns are the majority of their day.
Commissioner Mike Hanley has repeatedly stated that there is no funding associated with the ESEA Flexibility waiver. However, there are a few inescapable facts.
1) Elizabeth Nudleman, Director of School Finance testified before the House Education Committee on February 25th, 2015 that 97% of all money that goes to the districts is in the form of Federal Impact Aid. This has NOTHING to do with the ESEA Flex waiver. This is strictly a function of federal lands and employees in the state of Alaska.
2) Several positions at the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development are federally funded positions that are tied to giving the adaptive common core test called the AMP. Deputy Commissioner Les Morse testified in House Finance that several staff positions were predicated on the ESEA test. (start at the 1:59 mark here).
3) Title funds pay for administrative overhead. Over 53% of staff at the Alaska Department of Education per the testimony of Dr. Susan Macaulay of the Teach and Learn Division, as shown in the video below and the pages from her testimony included below.
This waiver has done nothing more but kept a bloated education establishment afloat and imposed unfunded mandates on the district. A large number of positions at the Alaska's Education Department of Education are paid by the Federal Government.
This is the document that DEED presented in Senate House Education Testimony on February 10, 2015.
So, since these positions are not costing the state money, this might be good, right? Well, not really, because what it really means is that they are beholden to the federal mandates that justify their position. It means that over half of the work of the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) is federal compliance work.
They impose mandates--and those mandates have gone unfunded. The funding goes to pay DEED, and not fund the mandates. It means that the implementation of Common Core and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is largely at the district level.
That explains why the reserves at the district level, those back up funds to cover unintended circumstances.... they are quite depleted across the local districts and boroughs.
So let's take a look at how the ESEA waiver is affecting borough budgets.
Anchorage School District adopted the Common Core outright before the Alaska State Common Core standards were adopted. They have been in and out of a budget crisis for a while. They had projecting a $20 million budget shortfall earlier this year, but they magically emerged with a surplus. They have already raised property taxes and now they have accumulated a bit of a rainy day fund. However, that will quickly being spent down. ASD has also resisted releasing figures on how much they have spent implementing Common Core. The Common Core implementation is wrapped around their Social and Emotional Learning curriculum, so it seems they are unable to come up with a figure. However, if their per capita student expenditures on ESEA are on par with other districts, then a lower end figure of $35 million might be a good estimate.
The Fairbanks North Star School District has an $11 million shortfall, and discussions are underway to raise property taxes. The rainy day fund is gone. Rumors about about cuts to Response To Intervention (RTI) programs, which are suppose to part of ESEA and IDEA federal legislation. In 2014, the district estimated it would need $15 million to complete implementation of the standards. This did not include digital assets (computers, broadband, etc). The district will not release figures from 2012-2013 on the standards, but this would have been the purchase of Envision math common core texts and teacher inservice training. There is a very large homeschool community in Fairbanks, and they have faced significant enrollment declines due to the common core and other issues.
Mat-Su School District The deficit projection for this borough begins at $6.4 million for the 2016 fiscal year, and grows to $10.6 million by 2019. Let's not forget last year's headline with a $7 Million short fall for Mat-Su. The enrollment in the Mat-Su district is close to the enrollment of Fairbanks, but they can piggy back off of the Anchorage in-service circuit to save costs. Mat-Su also had optic lines in place, funded by earlier grants from the Department of Commerce, so some of their digital costs have been offset. Nevertheless, Mat-Su has been hit hard from a budgetary standpoint too.
Delta Junction also faced a deficit. They closed Delta Greely Middle School and may take additional measures.
Sitka faces $600,000 in budget cuts. While this seems paltry compared to the other districts, Sitka is at least honest about what it has spent thus far on the standards--$1.8 Million. Their reserves have been depleted. Listen to how Lon Garrison gives a fairly honest account of what is going down in Sitka. They have been taking money out of their reserves to pay for mandates.
Notice what Lon Garrison says--$1.6 million in additional cost, and he placed it squarely on the ESEA waiver which required the Alaska Common Core Standards, the AMP, and the teacher accountability system based on those scores. Notice what else he says... that no money came with the mandates. They are taking the money out of their reserves to do that... that figure comes out to $1,400 per student.
Then there is Kodiak Island School District. They came to the Fly-In to request a reduction in regulations regarding day care inspections. However, I am certain that Kodiak would not find that requirement excessively onerous if they had not spent over $1.8 million to comply with the ESEA Flexibility waiver and spent off their reserves. With 2,500 students, Kodiak has spent roughly $720 per student to comply with that waiver. While enrollment fell by 3%, they have had to reduce staff at Kodiak Island by 20%.
But let's note something here about perspective. Katie Oliver was there to lobby to eliminate the secondary inspections for pre-schools housed in local schools--not to eliminate the unfunded mandates. Perhaps it escaped her notice that Kodiak might be overly burdened by that regulation if they had not just spent $1.8 million to meet the requirements of ESEA.
One thing I noticed is that legislators began to listen very closely when districts began to talk about their unfunded mandates, particularly ones that they could do something about. If I was one of those Fly-In people, I would make certain that I had those cost figures for the next Fly-In. I would be looking to impress upon the legislature how much property taxes might have to rise to meet unfunded mandates. See, for legislators, THAT is something they CAN do something about. They can get those things off the plate.
If the required local contribution is upheld, there will be some really ugly elections. If Common Core and its accompanying requirements don't get repealed, property taxes will rise. If the Required Local Contribution is struck down, as I expect, then the state budget crisis will force its repeal. Either way... The ball is in the courts and the legislature, and the standards, structure and the governance must change.
Addendum: In a presentation by Bering Straight School District in 2013, requirements by DEED are listed above fuel costs as a cost driver in delivering education (second to the last slide).
RE: Kline/ Rokita HR5 the so called "Student Success Act of 2015”
Dear Senator Murkowski:
You are my U.S. Senator. You are also a ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee (HELP). I am asking that you stop HR5 should it make its way to the U.S. Senate because if a state legislature accepts federal funding for education, a host of parent and local rights are waived.
HR 5 may have been stopped in the House of Representatives. In the event it creeps its way in the middle of the night to the United States Senate, it would most likely be assigned to HELP or brought to the floor in a late night vote. With all due respect to Speaker Boehner, this bill is a disaster. Maybe they would like it in Ohio, but it is not suitable for the rest of America and decidedly not for Alaska.
Please do not let HR5, the so called "Student Success Act of 2015" or any similar legislation, out of the HELP committee and do all you can to keep it off the U.S. Senate floor. Please use every procedural trick you might have to stop it.
HR5 masquerades as schools choice, but it is not. It is fascism with a government monitor, called an ombudsman who will enforce federal mandates in public, private, and homeschools, even those schools who do not want funds or reforms, but will be compelled to accept funds and reforms. This "ombudsman" gains his authority from the state legislature acceptance of federal funds. Thus, whether a family accepts funds from the state is irrelevant, the critical issue is that the state legislature accepts the funding.
Because of the character limits on email I refer you to details on the bill at http://tiny.cc/HR5
One thing that emerged from the presentation of Dr. Paramo and subsequent conversations with other superintendents of schools in Alaska is that they have not looked at the flow of data from their school from OASIS, KITE, the P-20W, and the digital platforms in use in schools like Math 180 and APEX. I would have thought that Commissioner Hanley would have been crystal clear with his front line people, the Superintendents, about data flows. Apparently, this has not been the case or they are feigning ignorance. This article is intended to help public officials and the general public in Alaska gain an understanding of how students data is at risk. I have tried to keep this information at an elementary level. In that effort, I may not have entirely conveyed all the problems as clearly as I intended. It may be of interest to those in other states, because Common Education Data protocols have been followed in the other 48 states, and similar challenges may exist, particularly in SBAC member states.
Sometimes people ask, "If you aren't doing anything wrong, why are you worried about others having your data." Well, if the reader has ever had their identity stolen, been the victim of Phishing (false websites seeming real), and other nefarious activity, then one might understand that it is not that anyone is doing anything wrong. Privacy is a right, and in Alaska the state constitution has a strong statement on the matter, per section 22 where it states:
The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section. [Amended 1972]
The Common Core Standards, and the Alaska variation of these standards is at the heart of the matter. Through the uniform electronic numbering of the standards and the tagging of the words in the content, some strange things are taking place that could be posing a serious threat to student privacy. The Permanent Fund Dividend is being used for purposes for which the people did not give their consent, and that is the tip of the iceberg.
Many public officials believe that the data is secure, and they seem to be either unaware, or in denial, about where that data goes and what is done with it. There are two fundamental types of data addressed here: the traditional data that one would expect schools to have for the purpose of keeping transcripts and other traditional services of K-12. The other kind of data is psychometric in nature that is generated from student responses in digital learning platforms, also known as "fine grain" data, that is more detailed than the metadata the NSA tracks.
Traditional Data. When a parent in Alaska takes their child to school, their data is entered into the school computer with a variety of other information. The Online Alaska Student Identification System, or OASIS began as a mechanism for the State of Alaska to assign a unique number to a student in an attempt to keep the funding with the student. But over time, the system has become a bit more than simply a student number system. It is now a comprehensive database that contains medical information in addition to information needed for federal funding of programs (e.g. school lunch), as well as traditional information needed for transcripts.
Some schools have some of this data is viewable in an interface called Powerschool by Pearson, which poses other interesting problems that will be discussed in the section on meta-data. Because of the way that Powerschool has been set up, the metatags actually attach themselves to the student. It may not be visible in the Powerschool or Oasis side of the application, but it does appear on the Pearson side.
Today, OASIS is far more than a database of students as they progress through the K-12 system. It now includes staff data and other district, or Local Education Agency (LEA) data.
screen shot of the top level screen in OASIS
As show above, there is a main screen, and underneath this screen there are subsequent screens of data; sometimes as many as 4 screens in depth. Medical information can range from vaccine data to date of the mother's first prenatal visit and weight gain of the mother before the student was born, as show below. No matter that the child was not born in Alaska-- the database is interoperable with other states and agencies, so if the data is electronically held anywhere, it can be located and attached.
Originally, school enrollment was the basis of OASIS. That architecture was modified in 2004 for reasons beyond this blog entry, and later again modified after the creation of the P-20W. It is in ASCII delimited format and now resides in the enterprise system. The inclusion of the clearinghouse and other areas ensures that students can be tracked once they leave the state.
Once that data goes is into the P-20W database from OASIS, it has to be validated. Because OASIS data does not typically contain the Social Security Number, other data attributes (name of student, maiden name of mother, address, etc) is used to match the record to the PFD database for validation and matching to social security numbers. To do this, the state makes use of the Master Person Index from the Alaska Permanent Fund (PFD) and the Department of Labor wage database. A P20W-ID number is generated based on the Social Security Number (SSNs). This is show in the diagram below.
Those who understand SSNs quickly realize other data is embedded in this number itself which can be added to the file.
The data is then matched with data from other state agencies, such as the Department of Labor, the University of Alaska, and other agencies at the state and federal level. Once the verification process occurs, similar matching is done on staff members and their alumni institutions. In this way, not only does a student's test reflect the performance of the teacher, but also counts toward the value of the school and program that the teacher attended. This forms a system of information that flows into a continuous loop among government agencies and the federal government. While the federal role is not displayed in this diagram, the DOL wage data goes to the federal government, the PFD data goes to the federal government, and the federal government pays for the construction of the P-20 in exchange for data that is at the individual level. Therefore, even if school records are not directly handed over to the federal government, the data gets attached to data that does.
KITE Data: When these drawings were conceptualized, Alaska's consortia was not finalized. The data set was also designed to receive the consortia data from Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBAC). For Alaskans, the KITE client, or software application from Kansas AAI testing folks that delivers the test to students, sends their data to Questar, and returns the information to the P-20W. KITE appears to be based on an open source application from an India based firm known as Agile Technology Solutions (see custom application development). Like SBAC's (see pages 34-38 at the link) delivery system, KITE appears to be open source, which means the programing language is openly available. While it is unclear at what point in the loop the test data and the psychometric data enters, it seems likely that it enters into the loop through "external researchers" in the diagram below.
The data from OASIS has been preloaded into KITE in Kansas and Questar in Minnesota; this is per the contract timetable shown below. It also seems likely the data could have been backed-up at the Institute for Education Sciences at the National Center for Testing at the U.S. Department of Education. This data exchange should have happened in November of 2014 before the December test run in Fairbanks. From KITE, the data will join the data from the other consortia at Questar, the grading company in Minnesota. Questar then relays the results into KITE and then into the P-20W or OASIS.
In addition to test scores, various psychometric metrics are gleaned from the test. KU as hired a psychometricians for this purpose. Each verb on the test is mostly likely tagged to one of the many "Domains of Knowing" or DOK of Common Core. Those parents who have students in CTE should also consider the verb list at this link from questions and how it is coded to the Common Core DOK; a similar activity in undertaken in the AMP test.
My guess on the next part is that the data is downloaded to the P-20W and into OASIS and then becomes available on the Enterprise system server for school district personnel.
Metadata, fine grain data, and psychometric data: Metadata is the data comes from a variety of sources that is generated by your student's on-line interactions. Various software packages, like Powerschool, contain some of that data and offer a portal for the meta data to be matched to the student and to enter OASIS and the P-20W. The CEO of Pearson, the publisher of Powerschool used throughout Alaska, specifically names Powerschool as one of the software items in which metadata is gleaned because all their digital learning platforms are connected to it.
Metadata is generated by online digital learning platforms. Since the questions are tagged in the learning platforms they can be analyzed to present a whole new set of variables. Further, because the standards each have a uniform electronic number (UEN), the data from digital learning platforms and student response theory can be used to determine how your child processes information. In this method, your child's mind can be mapped and identified through their mental process. The data is housed in open application program interface (API) that anyone can access, change, or modify.
When combined with psychometric theory such as item response theory, this information can be a powerful tool for misuse and nefarious activity. This data is being captured in a variety of digital learning platforms and maintained in an open environment that is accessible to anyone. The data can also be altered by anyone and deposited over the prior data. Sound like a conspiracy theory? Below are some excerpts from a conference called Datapalooza held by the White House in 2012. Notice that the Common Core Standards is what holds it all together.
Notice that the Common Core Standards is what holds all of these projects together.
Does your superintendent even know that this data is being generated? Does your superintendent know that it is being linked to Powerschool? Did parents consent? Did the Borough Mayor's consent? If Dr. Paramo did not know about the state P-20W and thought the grant had been given back, how much does she know about the other meta data being generated? How much less would the other superintendents know?
There is also a question of data ownership here. In some cases, borough taxes pay for some of these digital learning platforms; is the data the property of the software company or local government or the parent? Further, as is indicated at the end of the video, more databases will be combined with this digital data over the long term. To what use will that data be used? One can only imagine the usefulness of this data for those in the field of marketing: it is the ultimate in inside information. Millions will be made from this data that no one consented to giving, except perhaps in some obscure EULA that parents most likely did not agree to and may not even know about. Who is entitled to these revenues?
Security also seems to be problematic. The notion that anyone can get the data out and plug it back in sounds like a system that people interested in identity theft or other mischief might find useful, particularly if this can be mapped to the brain to determine likely course of actions. Imagine this information in the hands of a vengeful lover? A stalker? An ex-spouse? Or perhaps used by a future government that has gone rogue, a corrupt public official, or other possible scenarios?
Can you imagine how this information comprises the nation's defensive posture? Imagine an enemy in a state of war having a future general's psychometric data and predicting their next move?
As a side note, parents who are using K-12 login would be wise to ask about the tagged data and the analysis that emerges.
State Senator Gary Stevens has a bill to encrypt the data and expand the data network under the guise of data security. The bill woefully misses the mark, fundamentally misunderstands the Alaskan concept of privacy. It codifies the P-20W and permits expansion into new areas. The bill goes in the wrong direction and and is aimed at the wrong level of government. It isn't worth a reading of the rules committee. OASIS needs to be taken off the enterprise system and retained at the district and in some way walled off from the rest of the P-20W. There needs to be real teeth on allowable uses of metadata, and open APIs are prima facia unacceptable.
Time for borough mayors and school districts to unplug from OASIS and give a serious review of the meta data generated in those platforms. That may be where parents and citizens need to make their first line of inquiry. While there is certainly a "Wow" factor in the presentations by these vendors and the potential for good things, there is also the potential for extreme abuse. As the vanguards of privacy and freedom, local officials would do well to start asking questions and deciding for themselves if what they have to offer districts is worth the risk. Parents would be wise to ask the same.
My children are grown. But if they were still young, they would not be taking the AMP or be engaged on tagged digital platforms. I won't tell others what to do, but I can say what I would do today. I can tell you that years ago I moved to the edge of no-where to reduce the temptation of online gaming for my own children before this potential was anywhere near the state of development it is today. How much more so would I do today.
On January 20th, the Mat-Su Borough asked the Dr. Deena Paramo, the Superintendent of Mat-Su Schools to debrief them on the Common Core and the relationship between education in Mat-Su, Alaska, and the Alaska Academic Standards. Boroughs are limited in what they can determine regarding education policy, and many mandates come from the state department of education. The borough wanted to understand what the district is doing and gather information to intelligently answer questions by residents.
What this blog seeks to do is unpack some of the information that came from that meeting. There is a podcast on RadioFreePalmer.org and on the Mat-Su Borough website. There is far more than is presented here, so this is just a small gleaning. This is not in a spirit of "I got you" sort of thing. This is in the spirit of trying to determine what district superintendents know and don't know. After all, if Commissioner Hanley is being less that straightforward with the Alaska Legislature, then why would one expect him to be honest with the superintendents? If Dr. Paramo regards this as an attack on her or her district, it is not. They do some great things in all the big four districts, and this is not a slight on her district. As one of the more tech savvy and "in the know" Superintendents, Dr. Paramo is likely to best reflect the state of understanding of the superintendents in the districts.
Sadly, one area where the discussion did not go was the structural deficit looming in the district's near future and its relationship to the common core. Budget issues did not get addressed in the discussion. Dr. Paramo spent a considerable amount of time highlighting district programs and features that were superfluous to the topic. While she did present answers to the questions submitted, some of her information detracted from the discussion. No one doubts that Dr. Paramo is committed to a strong math curriculum, and the large segment of time that she spent on that detracted from what the overall discussion was about Common Core implementation, the Danielson framework for teacher evaluation and the psychometric indicators from some of the digital learning platforms that are being generated for vendors for which the district is paying. One can hardly blame a superintendent for pursuing such a path, but it only delays the discussions that are likely to ensue in the coming weeks on the budget.
However, some insight did emerge. At this meeting, she actually was willing to talk about Common Core more freely and display her knowledge of matters. She also revealed many tidbits and insights, and thus it is useful to unpack those statements. There are many things to "unpack" but I will highlight only a few items.
One highlight of the meeting was an exchange between the Mayor and the Superintendent. As Dr. Paramo turned her discussion from a general overview of Common Core to the district itself, she said the following:
"We have done absolutely zero in language arts in the Mat-Su Borough School District. We are not ... it is not in our classrooms, we don't have any new text books, we are still using the textbooks that we have. Teachers are getting familiar with them, but we are not teaching any kind of new standards, our Alaska Academic Standards. We are not doing that right now. We are just focused on math, that is the biggest change."
That is when the Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss interrupted for clarification. "You need to back up for the farmer," he stated, "you are doing math?"
Dr. Paramo replied, "We are currently teaching the new Alaska Standards in Math, yes."
Mayor DeVilbiss followed up, "Is that Common Core?"
Dr. Paramo replied, "I'll get to that. It is very close to Common Core, yes, uhum, yes, yes, yes." She continued, "There is a nuance of change, but it isn't really that big."
She never did really did get back to it because of her need to expound on her well known commitment to rigorous math education. But I am left wondering if they have the reading books and they haven't rolled them out yet because the teachers are 'getting familiar with them' or is it the standards they are getting familiar with? Is Dr. Paramo waiting for the Common Core Career Curriculum, believed to be the substance of the "informational texts" which begin in Kindergarten? It seemed unclear from her presentation. That statement also seemed to conflict with other evidence from schools in the district that is beyond the scope of what will be covered here.
But if you are in the Mat-Su Borough, you now know the official answer. You are very close to Common Core. How close? You are snuggled up against it. Here is the sound bite with additional comments on the math curriculum.
Here are some things to take away from Dr. Paramo's presentation.
A) Dr. Paramo appears to be a follower, or is highly influenced by the works of social justice Professor Dr. Linda Darling Hammond. Paramo's major defense of the Common Core rested on a book which she referenced at least twice in her presentation, The Flat World and Education by Linda Darling Hammond. She also quoted several statistics from that book without referencing it directly on other occasions, particularly as they apply to Finland outperforming the United States. Thus, Darling Hammond's book and philosophy appears to have a role in forming the direction of policy in the Mat-Su's Schools.
Paramo repeats the data on Finland in several places in her talk, particularly in her answer to board member Mr. Steve Culligan. Kudos to Mr. Culligan for pointing out the flaws in many of these international comparisons.
So who is this person that Paramo holds in high regard? Currently, Dr. Darling Hammond is the Senior Advisor to Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia and to UNESCO. Hammond ruined a generation of educators with nonsense such as the Learning to Teach For Social Justice, and now she wants to inculcate a generation of Americans with her socialist predilections and a math curriculum rejected by the Soviet Union long ago that uses psychometric indicators to math students to career paths suitable for their talents in a managed economy. Well, perhaps she doesn't realize that is what is going on, and perhaps she thinks that Dr. Darling Hammond is just a sweet ol' gal. Well, those who were faculty in the Illinois University system know better. Here is an excerpt from the audio of Dr. Paramo's presentation followed by Dr. Darling Hammond's views and products.
If you listen to no other audio clip in this blog, listen to this one. The volume varies in the clips.
In addition to her work in educational research, Dr. Darling-Hammond is also involved with the Gordon Commission that is setting the standard on the use of fine grain data that companies accumulate from digital platforms. Programs like Math 180 and APEX generate "fine grain data" on students and companies use that information. The Gordon Commission addresses how the information should be shared.
B) Dr. Paramo defended the Alaska Math and Common Core Standards based on flawed TIMSS Study. Notice in the clip above, Dr. Paramo also discusses "TIMSS," which is the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study test (TIMSS). Several counties consistently score high on the TIMSS and the material they have in common have been collated and are referenced as the A+ TIMSS concepts. So it is believed by many people, right or wrong, that covering these same concepts will also result in a high TIMSS score and international rank.
Dr. Paramo appears to be a great deal of stock in the study by Schmidt and Huang's (Michigan State University) of the similarity of math topics in the Common Core covered by the A+ performing countries based on the test scores in the (TIMSS). While Paramo didn't cite the specific study, she repeated the talking point from the Council of Chief State School Officers. The Schmidt and Huang study comparison made its way into powerpoints presented to several state school boards, state legislatures and business groups. This study has been thoroughly debunked by several mathematicians, including Dr. Ze'ev Wurman, Hoover Institute Fellow and Silicon Valley Executive. (His most recent piece on the Common Core Math is here.)
Here is what was shown to those state officials and business leaders from Schmidt and Huang, which has been quoted several others to support the use of the Common Core Math.
The TIMSS topics are on the right and the Common Core topics are on the left. To the casual observer sitting in a lunch hour power point at a Chamber of Commerce or professional society banquet, it appears that the math topics in the Common Core follow the nice triangle of the TIMSS A+ countries. But a careful inspection shows that the authors of the study rearranged the topics to give the common core topics the nice smooth triangle. When the Common Core topics are placed on the TIMSS's topics, there are glaring gaps in the topics included and it becomes apparent that the Common Core topics are in no way aligned to the TIMSS. Thus, to suggest that any scores generated by a Common Core math curriculum will result in higher TIMSS scores is at best naive.
The interested reader may find Ze'ev Wurman's written comments on the Common Core and TIMSS data here. Mat-Su is supplementing their Common Core math with another Common Core program. This isn't going to eliminate the problem in topic coverage.
As a side note, Schmidt has a separate study that he shows in his powerpoints on the degree agreement between current state standards and that of Common Core. That shows Alaska's new Standards to be completely Common Core. We are more Common Core than Louisiana, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Jersey, and Kentucky. That is what has been presented before several state legislatures. Thus, efforts to attempt to deny that is what Alaska is doing is futile, at best. How Common Core are we? More that most of the nation. We are 17th in Common Core "closeness."
If Dr. Paramo had really paid as much attention to Dr. Milgram and Stotsky as she claims, she would be aware that 2/3s of the mathematicians who were were on the Common Core math writing team were not satisfied with the math standards in Common Core. They are clearly NOT College and Career ready. The Common Core Standards were not written for higher end colleges and they are not for STEM. Jason Zimba, the principal author of the Common Core math writing team made this quite clear.
In addition to Jason Zimba, another member of the math writing team has been less than enthusiastic about the Common Core math. Bill McCallum, at a society for mathematicians stated in January 2010 stated regarding the Common Core Math Standards:
“It's not what we aspire to for our children. It's not what we as a nation want to set as a final deliverable. I completely agree with that, and we should go beyond that.”
The only member of the math committee that has not come forward with a perspective on the Math standards on the record is Mr. Phil Darro. His background is in English, and he is noted for writing the California Math Standards that brought that state to the bottom of the nation in Math. His influence in the writing of the common core is quite telling. Any mother who has had to help her child with math homework can see the clear influence of an English teacher on those standards.
C) Dr. Paramo continues to insist that Alaska did not take Race To the Top money. Perhaps Dr. Paramo is not as knowledgeable as many give her credit. She may simply be repeating Commissioner Hanley's talking points and perhaps she honestly doesn't know that the I-3 money was Race To The Top.
The very letter that she refers to, the Patrick Gamble letter, was written by University President Patrick Gamble to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan for the No Child Left Behind, or the ESEA Flexibility, waiver. The same letter and in the same paragraph in which the waiver is discussed, a validation grant is mentioned. That validation grant was on teacher education and was given under the I-3 program that was part of the Race To The Top package. But the I-3 priorities included standards writing and enhanced data systems (P-20W) and School Improvement Grants (SIGs). Below are screenshots from the I-3 program powerpoint given by the U.S. Department of Education.
It is possible that Dr. Paramo was not aware of the total parameters of the grant. She was assistant superintendent who became superintendent through the sudden death of a boss, who was probably a good friend and mentor. That is a fairly stressful event and she probably accepted the Commissioner's talking points on the matter. While she is aware that the I-3 program exists and that it is from the University, and it hires retired teachers to help new teachers, the priorities of the grant in the slide above are pretty clear, and teacher improvement is a small part of the matter. The I-3 was a bit more than the mentoring component that she addressed later in the meeting. What extent she is aware of the rest of it remains uncertain.
However, U.S.Secretary was pretty clear that Race To the Top and I-3 were integrated. From his speech on June 8, 2009, before the Fourth Annual Institute of Education Sciences Research Conference, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated,
"Today’s speech is the first in a series of policy speeches around those four assurances, leading up to the Race to the Top and the Invest in What Works and Innovation grants that will be coming soon. Race to the Top and Invest in What Works and Innovation funding provides $5 billion in discretionary money."
Arguing "Alaska did not take Race To the Top funds" is about as old and tired as "Alaska isn't implementing Common Core." Clearly, it is the same program; Race to the Top created the consortia; I-3 went to the states to develop the system to plug into the consortia. The money went to the University rather than DEED, but that doesn't mean the state isn't doing it.
D) Dr. Paramo's discussion of FERPA was quite dated. Either she was being rushed to cover everything or she is unaware of the changes in FERPA and the White House directives regarding FERPA. Simply put, FERPA was gutted, and just about any corporation or entity can access student data without the permission of the parent if the request is crafted correctly. Dr. Paramo would be wise to listen to Jane Robbin's presentation that applied to FERPA and other matters of digital privacy that was in the December 9, 2014 administrative review. Robbins is an attorney that specializes in this area. I won't belabor the point here, but perhaps the boroughs and school boards, not just in Mat-Su, should review these changes.
E) Dr. Paramo incorrectly represented the testimony by Dr. Stotsky and Milgram in the State Senate. Their testimony on January 7, 2014 was not that of mere professionals; they were on the Common Core validation committee. She stated they have put their name on the standards and took them off. That is not correct. They never put their name on the standards to be removed from it. In fact, only 6 of the 25+ members of the validation committee signed off on the standards. Not all of them are able to speak freely about the experience for a variety of reasons. Milgram and Stotsky have.
Their objections were not merely "how it was moving" or "how it was implemented." Their objections, were far more detailed than that, and to suggest that is the corpus of their critique is almost insulting. Dr. Stotsky's did discuss the committee, but her comments were quite pointed on the standards. Further, she was not merely "a professional." Dr. Stotsky's standards resulted in Massachusetts having test scores that were well beyond the rest of the nation.
Bill Gates and Dr. Stotsky can hardly be viewed as members of each other's fan clubs, yet even Bill Gates has to admit that the MA standards, crafted and implemented by Dr. Stotsky, were the best in the nation.
Dr. Milgram's comments are quite pointed toward Superintendents who use his words to defend Common Core adoption. On page 10 of Lowering the Bar, published in September 2013 by Stotsky and Milgram, they stated:
"..Milgram’s remark that Common
Core’s standards are better than 90% of the
state standards should not be construed as
a compliment to Common Core but as an
indictment of most state standards. Milgram
is saying that as weak as Common Core’s
standards are, about 45 states had even
weaker standards. This situation requires
something other (and much more) than the
weak Common Core standards to correct."
More Common Core (Math 180) to supplement Common Core isn't the answer.
F) Dr. Paramo also seemed unaware of the P-20W database. Dr. Paramo was asked about OASIS, KITE, and the P-20W. Her answer on OASIS was rather dated and would have been fine back in 2004. She seemed to think it was only a student ID and it is almost inconceivable that a Superintendent of Schools believes that OASIS is merely an ID system (turn details on if you go to the link). Her knowledge of KITE appeared to be limited to the test delivery system component, and she clearly either did not understand the backdoor of the data when it leaves KITE to Questar as is indicated in the AAI contract, or the feedback into the P-20W as is indicated in the Governance document for the P-20W. BTW, does Dr. Paramo know that KITE is open source and what that means?
[PS: KITE is an open source application from Agile Technology Solutions (see custom application development) based out of India with offices in Dallas, Ipswich, and other places].
As the vanguard of data privacy for her district data, she didn't seem to grasp the data flows or didn't want to be forthcoming.
Dr. Paramo's comment that the P-20W is a grant system and that she had never seen it in our state is laughable. Yup, that is what she said! It is not a grant system, it is a database housed at the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education. It rather shocking to find out that she thinks the grant was given back to the federal government. It is on the website of the Alaska Council on Postsecondary Education, better known among Alaskans as the "student loan people."
Now, I am not an expert on the School Superintendent of Mat-Su's social life, but I am reasonably confident that Dr. Paramo is at least casually acquainted with Mrs. Rebecca Huggins. She runs a charter school in the Mat-Su and is the wife of the State Senate President; she is also a Commissioner of the entity that houses this database. State Senator Dunleavy is likewise a Commissioner and Dr. Paramo may remember him from the "old days" when he was President of the Mat-Su School Board. If she doesn't recall who he is, then she should reacquaint herself as he is now the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee. Dr. Paramo could also ask Mr. Jerry Covey, who I suspect she also knows who might know something about this data. I believe the P-20W and the data quality campaign was also the subject of the Sustainability Task Force that was chaired by Rep. Lynn Gattis. I might be overreaching here, but I suspect Dr. Paramo knows Rep. Gattis from her days on the Mat-Su School board and her time as Chairman of the House Education Committee. Dr. Paramo may even have heard of this fellow named Click Bishop, who is now a State Senator. He could also provide insight too, just in case she didn't want to ask the Commissioner of Education or any of her Mat-Su acquaintances. I think she knows Patrick Gamble, too, and he also knows a bit about P-20W. Given how many people Dr. Paramo probably knows who have something to do with this database, it is inconceivable that she knows nothing about it.
Further, Dr.Paramo has referenced the "enterprise system" numerous times, both in Regulatory Review and in this presentation. Perhaps she doesn't understand what that is? From the federal government's' own request for proposals (RFP)
It is data on the personal level, not aggregated data.
The plan to track students interact with Alaska's education system even after they leave the state. At least, that is what Alaska's application says.
The P-20W is funded by the federal government, but all the data from Alaska's OASIS and fine grain data from digital learning platforms goes into it. It is interoperable and completely sharable with other states and the federal government. Since the federal government is paying for it, you better believe they have access to it.
In fact, Alaska is so far advanced, that they are helping other states set up their databases!
The 2014 update on the database management is listed in a powerpoint here. Alaska's program is highly touted on the national scene, as this National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education shows on page three of this brochure. Alaska is so far ahead of the game they helping other states set up their P-20W systems, like Mississippi and Arkansas.
If Dr.Paramo really doesn't know about the P-20W, she had better learn. All the data from her school goes into this data set and it goes to the federal government after it has been identified through PFD matching and validated and cross referenced with the UA and DOL data sets and other state agencies. It circulates at the individual level.
Note the reference specifically to OASIS in the K-12 data from DEED below.
The whole point of the data set is to "inform instruction" so it is quite remarkable that Dr. Paramo doesn't know about. All the data entered into OASIS from her school district goes into the P-20W as well as other schools and state entities with whom she would interface, such as UA and the Alaska Department of Labor and other agencies. Even data on the "lunch room lady" and the secretary goes into it. Probably, Dr. Paramo only sees this portion of the dataset.
While the claim is that the data is "de-identified," it takes very little to re-identify someone in the database.
The database is operated by the Teach and Learn division of the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. It is built on the PFD architecture. Alaska is regarded as a leader in the nation in data providers, and digital learning platforms in schools contribute a considerable amount of "fine grain" data. It links to other states and the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education. How do I know? It was a condition of the grant.
It includes meta data generated by digital learning platforms from external providers. At least, that is what the governance document of the grant states. Typically, metadata is generated in digital learning platforms about a student, and that data can be linked back into the database. I would imagine that Questar is in the feedback loop.
The P-20W also appears to have the ability to match social security numbers from the PFD to various attributes of a student to ensure data validity. This is done through a Master Person Index that is generated from the PFD. As Dr. Paramo may be aware, the maiden name of the mother is also included in the file, as well as some very interesting attributes about the student's family. Religious preferences are included in the data set, as well as medical information. I was hoping to find out how from the questions posed to Dr. Paramo how key variables such as weight gain of the mother when pregnant with the student would support instruction of 2nd grade teachers or even facilitate an AP teacher.
Lest anyone believe that this data is merely on students, rest assured that all employees at the school are also in this database; indeed, all members of the Alaska workforce are in it. Ever file a grievance? Well in the P-20W, that becomes part of your permanent record. So, all you people out there with moms who porked out during pregnancy and all you who filed grievances, know that this is part of your permanent record. Since mother's maiden name is part of the database, there is an ability to track family lines in a way that the DAR could never do.
A large amount of data from Dr. Paramo's district goes into this database. Yet she seemed unaware of its existence. Well, maybe Dr. Paramo wasn't being very forthcoming on purpose, or perhaps she has not been well briefed by the Commissioner of Education or her colleagues. I leave it for the residents of the Mat-Su Borough decide.
Dr Deena Parmo should start asking some questions. The other superintendents should take notice too.
