When did the Chicago Teachers Union vote to support a major speaker on 'standards' in support of the Common Core?.... April 14 event features an apologist for Common Core on the topic 'Equity and High Quality Education for Urban Students'....
Is the Chicago Teachers Union saying that those who oppose Common Core are racists who oppose educating "urban students"? That's at least one reading of an event being sponsored by the Chicago Teachers Union at Wells High School on April 14, 2015 and featuring Pedro Noguera, who has long specialized in a subtle "progressive" brand of teacher bashing.
The questions isn't whether Pedro Noguera will sound like those who opposed the CTU on Common Core at the July 2014 AFT convention, but how much he will continue his slick support for the Common Core, "Race To The Top," and other programs.On the morning of April 14, 2015, a number of people received what can only be characterized as a last minute invite to a union-sponsored event featuring Pedro Noguera and supporting the Common Core. One of the many ironies for those who received the invitation is that on April 13, 2015, the union's own Testing Committee had a debate over many of these issues, and there was no one at the meeting of more than 30 union members and others who supports Common Core. In fact, a growing number of union leaders will be pushing the union to challenge the Quest Center's support of Common Core.
But on April 14, 2015, is the CTU talking out of two or three sides of its corporate mouth on this stuff? At the American Federation of Teachers convention in Los Angeles, the CTU sponsored a major resolution in opposition to Common Core. The New York leadership of the union manipulated the debate to claim that the "real issue" is "standards," and not Common Core. This is the same angle now brought to Chicago, without union rank and file discussion, in the Noguera event, which is receiving CTU sponsorship on April 14, 2015.
A message From: Lynn Cherkasky-Davis went To: ______ (a number of recipients among community leaders and activists) and was Sent: Mon, Apr 13, 2015 12:36 pm Subject: YOU'RE INVITED: Dr. Pedro Noguera on April 14
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION
Equity and High Quality Education for Urban Students
Pedro Noguera, Ph.D. Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development; Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Wells Community Academy High School
936 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
Registration and light refreshments begin at 4:00 pm.. Program beings promptly at 4:30 pm.
There are two parking lots near the school and plenty of free and non-zoned street parking available around the building. The CTA #9 Ashland bus stops right in front of the school and the Division Blue Line stop is a few blocks away.
One of the critical factors helping to perpetuate race and class-based disparities in education in the U.S. is the profoundly unequal learning standards that students are exposed to. The Common Core State Standards have been designed to address this issue but few of the advocates of the CCSS have acknowledged the great challenge facing under-resourced urban schools in meeting the higher standards. Higher standards alone are not enough. A focus on equity is necessary to achieve deeper learning outcomes for all students. Dr. Noguera will address this challenge by drawing lessons from schools here and worldwide where higher standards and the necessary supports, resources and learning opportunities to achieve them are already in place
Comments:
By: Neal Resnikoff
Common Core--Fight it. No conciliation with it
Common Core must be fought, not conciliated with
The Common Core standards are not state law in the sense that there was a law passed by the legislature. The history in Illinois (and other states) is that governors, such as Governor Quinn, were talked into signing on to Common Core standards, in some cases before they were even written. This was done without any public notice, let alone discussion and debate. A bribe of big money through the Race to the Top contest was offered for those who signed onto the Common Core standards, and to the so-called standardized testing that would go with them.
Just because Governor Quinn agreed to put Illinois under the Common Core standards, with their narrow educational content so as to serve the needs of the big corporations of the Business Roundtable, does not mean we have to go along with them.
Parents and students have a right to defend themselves by opting out of harmful tests and the Common Core standards and curriculum that the tests are based on.
Many teachers, parents, and students have decided to opt out of taking the Common Core PARCC tests, rather than go along, even in the face of threats.
Teachers, parents, and students who are clear about how the Common Core standards are no good need to figure out how to develop a strong opt out movement against implementing those standards.
Facilitating the implementation of Common Core, as the Chicago Teachers Union�s Quest Center has been doing, using money provided by the Gates Foundation, is not the way to go. And it goes directly against resolutions against the Common Core standards unanimously passed by the Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates.
By: Rod Estvan
Common Core is part of the IL Admin Code
Neal you are actually incorrect. Here is how it went. The Illinois State Board of Education initially reviewed the standards on June 24, 2010. The standards were also published in the Illinois Register on July 9, 2010, which initiated a 45-day public comment period. The record will show that I filed comments in objection to aspects of these standards at that time as did many others. No attention was paid to these objections because the State would have lost grant money if any modification was made to the standards. So my effort was really a waste of time.
The full Board adopted the rulemaking on Sept. 24, 2010, and the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, a bipartisan legislative oversight committee, issued a Certification of No Objection on Oct. 19, 2010. The rulemaking incorporating the standards took effect on Oct. 28, 2010 and was published in the Illinois Register on Nov. 12, 2010.
The Common Core did not need to be voted on by the full General Assembly because curricular standards have historically been under the purview of ISBE which is a constitutional agency in and of itself. The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules spoke on behalf of the Assembly when it acted on Oct. 19, 2010.
Rod Estvan
By: Fred Klonsky
Common Core, CTU, and Noguera
Aside from the fact that I think your characterization of Pedro Noguera is one-sided at best, the CTU seems clear on its critique of Common Core, PARCC and opt-out, at least to this outsider. I have to say that Neal is just wrong in describing Quinn as being forced to do anything. He applied for a Race to the Top Grant. He established a committee to write the grant chaired by IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin. A DOE requirement for receiving the grant was a legislative adoption of standards (soon to be Common Core) and testing tied to teacher evaluation. The legislature did, in fact, pass the bill. Quinn was not coerced.
By: Neal Resnikoff
On Fighting Common Core
Thanks for the clarifications on how the s(ausage) of Common Core was instituted in Illinois.
Now let's join in to figure out how to mobilize lots of people to get rid of it, and to substitute sound all-around education, sensible means of assessment, and no private data on students and their families going to private vendors.
By: Rod Estvan
explain Quest Center comment
I am unclear on the comment "the Quest Center's support of Common Core." Are you saying that all the staff of the center including Carol.Caref and Sarah Hainds are now promoting the Common Core uncritically? Or are you saying that the Center's publication of teacher created model instructional units based on Five Common Core State Standards-driven units equates to an endorsement of those standards?
The standards are after all state law and while many teachers and parents may oppose them they are required to be implemented or teachers face potential insubordination charges. It seems that the Quest Center is attempting to implement those standards with as much control afforded to teachers as is possible.
I am not sure that is necessarily the same thing as supporting those standards. But I would like Substance's thoughts on that issue and the thoughts of the teachers who helped to develop those units.
Rod Estvan