Diane Ravitch defends Louis C.K.'s attack on Common Core

I received a tweet from Alexander Nazaryan, the author of the Newsweek piece rebuking Louis C.K. and defending the Common Core standards, asking me for a substantive critique of his article.

OK, here goes.

He begins by saying that Louis C.K. has a professional habit of being angry, which I suppose is meant to scoff at his anger and say that he should not be taken seriously.

But then we get into Alexander’s views about Common Core.

The Common Core is “loathed” by Left and Right alike, for different reasons. This is true.

Then he makes the claim that the teachers’ unions oppose the Common Core, which is untrue. Both the NEA and the AFT accepted millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core, and both have been steadfast supporters. The leaders began to complain about poor implementation only after they heard large numbers of complaints from their members about lack of resources, lack of professional development, lack of curriculum, etc.

Alexander goes on to say that educators oppose the Common Core because they fear they “will be judged (and fired) if their students don’t perform adequately on the more difficult standardized tests that are a crucial component of Common Core.” Here is where Alexander betrays an ignorance of research and evidence. Surely he should know that theAmerican Statistical Association issued a report a few weeks ago warning that “value-added-measurement” (that is, judging teachers by the scores of their students) is fraught with error, inaccurate, and unstable. The ratings may change if a different test is used, for example. ...