Teacher tells Congress: ‘We simply cannot ignore the stunning impact of income inequality and high child poverty’ - The Washington Post

Teacher tells Congress: ‘We simply cannot ignore the stunning impact of income inequality and high child poverty’ - The Washington Post:

Teacher tells Congress: ‘We simply cannot ignore the stunning impact of income inequality and high child poverty’

Congress is finally attempting to rewrite No Child Left Behind — a task it was supposed to accomplish in 2007 — even as Education Secretary Arne Duncan has predicted a 50-50 chance that the task will be completed. Hearings by legislators have started, and this past week Democrats in the House held a forum to hear testimony from educators and others about how the education law should be changed, saying that they were concerned that the Republican majority on the committee was pushing a “partisan” approach.

A lot of the discussion has focused on whether or not students should be given standardized tests for the sake of “accountability” on an annual basis and how much weight those test scores should carry. But other issues are important as well, as one teacher Katrina Kickbush, a special education teacher at Wolfe Street Academy in Baltimore, explained in her testimony to the forum, which was headed by Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, who is now the senior Democrat on the House education committee. Kickbush writes about what she sees as the central problems facing many children — a lack of health and other supports that influence their academic achievement — and she calls for the expansion of community schools that provide a range of services to students and their families.

No Child Left Behind is the current version of the Elementary and Secondary School Act, known as ESEA, to which she refers in the following testimony that she gave to the forum:

Ranking member [Rep. Bobby] Scott and members of this committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss how the Elementary and Secondary Education Act can better meet the needs of students and families through innovation. My name is Katrina Kickbush, and I am a special education teacher at the Wolfe Street Academy in Baltimore. Over the course of 20-plus years, I have taught prekindergarten through eighth grade in a wide variety of educational institutions, including private schools, special education settings, and currently the Baltimore City public schools, where I serve as our school’s current building representative for the Baltimore Teachers Union.

Every day, teachers work tirelessly—before school, during school, after school, and even after they return home to their own families—not only to develop their instruction so their students can have rich lessons and classroom experiences that will help them excel academically, but also to also ensure students have the supports they need to access those lessons and experiences. With the majority of kids in American public schools living in poverty, this has become the normal job for thousands of teachers across the country.

Every family, no matter what their socio-economic level, knows that bad eyesight, poor mental and physical health, hunger, housing problems and joblessness are barriers to effective education and learning, and thus are barriers to successful student growth, to strong families, to thriving cities and to a 

Teacher tells Congress: ‘We simply cannot ignore the stunning impact of income inequality and high child poverty’ - The Washington Post:

Say goodbye to public schools: Diane Ravitch warns Salon some cities will soon have none - Salon.com

Say goodbye to public schools: Diane Ravitch warns Salon some cities will soon have none - Salon.com:

Say goodbye to public schools: Diane Ravitch warns Salon some cities will soon have none

"Why destroy public education so that a handful can boast they have a charter school in addition to their yacht?"

Once a George H.W. Bush education official and an advocate for greater testing-based accountability, Diane Ravitch has in recent years become the nation’s highest-profile opponent of Michelle Rhee’s style of charter-based education reform (one also espoused by Barack Obama).

In a wide-ranging conversation last week, Ravitch spoke with Salon about new data touted by charter school supporters, progressive divisions over Common Core, and Chris Christie’s ed agenda. “There are cities where there’s not going to be public education 10 years from now,” Ravitch warned. A condensed version of our conversation follows.

The conference of your Network for Public Education closed with a call for congressional hearings on high-stakes standardized testing. What would those hearings look like and what do you think they’d uncover?

I think they would ask, for example, about costs. There are many states that are cutting the budget for public schools at the same time that they’re paying a lot out for testing… Texas, for example, a couple of years ago… cut $5.3 billion out of the public schools, and at the same time gave Pearson a contract for almost $500 million… They said that there would be 15 end-of-course exams in order to graduate high school and caused a parent rebellion: There were so many angry moms, they organized a group called TAMSA – Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment — better known as Moms Against Drunk Testing…

There are school districts where a very significant part of the school year is spent preparing to take the tests… Testing companies are selling what they call “interim assessments”… So kids are getting test prep for test prep. And the more time that is devoted to testing and preparing for tests, the less time is devoted to actual instruction…

I was in Pittsburgh last fall, where the budget cuts were so severe that [a] high school marching band has no instruments, but they have testing…

Los Angeles just made a deal a few months ago to spend $1 billion to equip every student and staff member with an iPad. The money was taken from a 25-year bond for school construction, to buy disposable equipment. The iPads will be obsolete in three or four years… Meanwhile, the schools have unmet repair dates… And at the same time, art teachers have been laid off. They’re talking about integrating the arts into other subjects, which means no art teachers… They’ve also closed half the libraries in the elementary and middle school. So what are the opportunity costs of spending all this money for testing?

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And I don’t think we’ve even begun to understand the bill that’s going to come in. Because as part of the move to Common Core, all testing is supposed to go online, across the nation. Well, this is a bonanza for all the vendors — and nobody has even investigated the question: How many billions are going to be spent to put every school and every child in front of a computer? … Kindergarten kids don’t know how to keyboard a computer.

We’re also interested… [in] abuses of standardized testing… This story that was all over that national media a few weeks ago, about this child who was dying in hospice — and the state of Florida insisted that he had to take his test… Then there was the child born without a brain stem — they wanted him tested too.

The iPads that you mentioned — were the iPads for the purpose of taking tests?

They were taken solely for the purpose of preparing for Common Core testing…

In New York State when they gave the Common Core testing last spring, 3 percent of the English [language] learners passed it. 97 percent failed it…

It’s gotten out of control… Arne Duncan and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top requires states to use the test scores to judge the teachers… It’s not valid, it’s not accurate. You’re really grading the teachers by who are the kids in her classroom.

In a piece earlier this year critiquing high-stakes testing, [American Federation of Teachers President] Randi Weingarten maintained her support for the Common Core standards themselves, on the grounds that they are “a set of standards designed to help make the transition from just knowing and memorizing information to having the skills and habits to apply knowledge, which is critically important in today’s world.” Why do you disagree?

Well, we don’t know that. The fact is, we have no evidence that the Common Core standards are what we say they are until we’ve tried them. They haven’t been tried anywhere, they’ve been tested — and we know that where they’re tested, they cause massive failure. So I would say we need to have more time before we can reach any judgment that they have some miracle cure embedded in them.

I know, and a lot of teachers know, they’re totally inappropriate for children in kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade, because when they were written there was no one on various writing committees who was an expert in early childhood education… They’re also totally inappropriate for children who have disabilities — they can’t keep up. There’s an assumption in the Common Core that if you teach everybody the same thing, everybody will progress at the same speed. And that’s not human nature. It doesn’t work that way.

But I think Randi also said — and she’s been evolving in her position — that the Common Core standards should be decoupled from the testing. And we’re on the same page. She also agrees — we’ve talked about this — that the standards need to be reviewed by expert teachers, and wherever a fix is needed, fix them. That’s my position. I’m not opposed to them, I’m opposed to them in their current form, and I’m opposed to the standardized testing that’s linked to them.

More broadly, how do you assess the roles of the national AFT, and the [National Education Association], in the fight over education reform? Are there transformations that you want to see within those unions?

The teachers across America are being crushed… Experienced teachers, veteran teachers, excellent teachers, are feeling that it’s not a profession anymore — it’s just become a testing technician. It’s not the job they signed on for.

I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago — they’re having a massive brain drain of teachers. Florida just released the results of their teacher evaluations, and almost half of their Teachers of the Year were called “ineffective teachers.” I mean, there comes a point where, who would want to be a teacher in this country?

So I’d like to see the NEA in particular become more outspoken. I think Randi’s quite outspoken. But what’s happening at the state level is a nightmare for teachers, and for the teaching profession. What’s happening with federal policy is part of what’s encouraging an assault on the teaching profession.

The idea that you can judge teachers by the test scores of their students is not supported by evidence or experience. It is encouraging “teaching to the test.” It’s encouraging a narrowing of the curriculum. It’s encouraging massive outlays for standardized testing. And it just has no evidence behind it.

In 2012, when the Newark Teachers Union announced a deal to institute peer evaluation of teachers, but also [Mark] Zuckerberg-funded, testing-influenced performance bonuses, you told me that there was “a very good possibility that the Newark Teachers Union, and Randi Weingarten, is taking Chris Christie to the cleaners” in terms of the amount of money in the deal –

Right.

– but that paying teachers based on test scores is “treating them like donkeys rather than professionals,” and that teachers elsewhere were saying “How are we going to Say goodbye to public schools: Diane Ravitch warns Salon some cities will soon have none - Salon.com:

Shanker Blog » Relationships Matter: Putting It All Together

Shanker Blog » Relationships Matter: Putting It All Together:

Relationships Matter: Putting It All Together

Posted by Esther Quintero on January 28, 2015

About six months ago, we published a post entitled The Importance Of Relationships In Educational Reform, by Kara S. Finnigan and Alan J. Daly. This post was the first of an ongoing series on the social side of education. In addition to Finnigan and Daly, scholars such as Carrie R. Leana and Frits K. Pil, Kenneth Frank, and William Penuelhave joined this effort by writing about their research and sharing their perspective.

If there is one take away about the social side approach, it is the idea that relationships matter in education. Teaching and learning are not solo but rather social endeavors and, as such, they are best achieved by working together. The social side perspective: (1) shifts the focus from the individual to the broader context in which individuals operate; (2) highlights the importance of interdependencies at all levels of the system – e.g., among teachers within a school, leaders across a district, schools and the community; and (3) recognizes that crucial resources (e.g., information, advice, support) are exchanged through interpersonal relationships.

In my previous post I shared a list of resources (e.g., videos, news articles, papers etc.) that I compiled, and which I will periodically update, on the research underpinning the social side lens. Today I want to share two additional materials: First, a short video that I created, which summarizes, in a visual way, the ideas outlined above; second, an interactive image to help you explore our collection of content on this topic.

Click on the boxes in the image below to learn more about these various sets of relationships by reading related posts within the social side series.

Feel free to use and share these two resources. Also, stay tuned and register for our upcoming session on the social side of education at the 2015 Teaching & Learning conference in Washington D.C., with Andy Hargreaves, Pasi Sahlberg, Susan Moore Johnson, Carrie Leana and Thomas Kane (invited).

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- Esther QuinteroShanker Blog » Relationships Matter: Putting It All Together:

Diane Ravitch What's wrong with public Ed 101 - YouTube

Diane Ravitch What's wrong with public Ed 101 - YouTube:

States should decide their own policies for schools | New York Post

States should decide their own policies for schools | New York Post:

States should decide their own policies for schools

In 1981, Tennessee’s 41-year-old governor proposed to President Ronald Reagan a swap: Washington would fully fund Medicaid and the states would have complete responsibility for primary and secondary education. Reagan, a former governor, was receptive.

But Democrats, who controlled the House and were beginning to be controlled by teachers unions (the largest, the National Education Association, had bartered its first presidential endorsement, of Jimmy Carter, for creation of the Department of Education) balked.

In 1992, the former Tennessee governor was President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of education. He urged Bush to veto proposed legislation to expand federal involvement in K-through-12 education.

He said it would create “at least the beginnings of a national school board that could make day-to-day school decisions on curriculum, discipline, teacher training, textbooks and classroom materials.”

The veto threat derailed the legislation.

Today this former governor and former secretary (and former president of the University of Tennessee), Sen. Lamar Alexander, is chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Modal Trigger

Sen. Lamar AlexanderPhoto: AP

He is seeking 60 Senate votes to, he says, “reverse the trend toward a national school board,” which the Education Department has become.

Time was, before Congress acted on any subject, it asked: Is this a legitimate concern of the federal government? The “legitimacy barrier” (a phrase coined by James Q. Wilson) collapsed 50 years ago, particularly with passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which No Child Left Behind (2002) was the 12th major reauthorization.

NCLB mandated that by 2014, every school would have 100% proficiency in reading and math. So, Alexander says, “almost every one” of America’s approximately 100,000 public schools are officially failures.

This, he says, exacerbates “the irresistible temptation of well-meaning Washington officials” to assert a duty for Washington to approve schools’ academic standards (hence Common Core), define success, determine how to evaluate teachers and stipulate what to do about failing schools.

NCLB is more than seven years overdue for the reauthorization/revision that will impact 50 million children and 3.1 million teachers. Hence a recent hearing of Alexander’s committee attracted a crowd, with hundreds overflowing into the hall.

Alexander hopes to have a bill on the Senate floor by late February and to get 60 votes with the help of some of the six Democratic senators who are former governors.

And perhaps some others. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the purity of whose liberalism is wondrous, says education today consists of two worlds.

One is “of contractors and consultants, and academics and experts, and plenty of officials at the federal, state and local level.”

Modal Trigger

Sen. Sheldon WhitehousePhoto: AP

The other is of those who teach, and “the footprint of that first world has become way too big in their lives.”

Existing law forbids federal officials from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution.”

Existing practices ignore the law, especially by using $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funds to bribe states to accept the Common Core standards (to which tests and hence texts are “aligned”).

Alexander understands the futility of trying to lasso the federal locomotive with a cobweb of words. His solution is a portion of his 1981 proposal: Devolve to states all responsibility for evaluating schools, students and teachers.

If Alexander succeeds, this will have an effect on the Republican presidential race. Jeb Bush, who supports Common Core, can say to the Republican base, which loathes it: Never mind, imposing Common Core has been outlawed.

Teachers unions hostile to teacher evaluations have part of a point: Schools are States should decide their own policies for schools | New York Post:

Charter school founder facing trial on federal bank fraud charges

Charter school founder facing trial on federal bank fraud charges:



Charter founder facing trial on bank fraud charges

At the start of each academic year, Steven Ingersoll's company took cash advances from the Grand Traverse Academy's bank account as his fee for managing the charter school. By June 30, 2013, school auditors found, Smart Schools Management had accumulated prepayments totaling $2.33 million.

As his liabilities to the school mounted over the years, federal prosecutors say, Ingersoll tried to repay the Traverse City school with proceeds from a bank loan he had received to renovate a building for the Bay City Academy, a second charter he also founded and managed.

Ingersoll is scheduled to go on trial Tuesday, accused of steering $934,000 in loan funds for the renovation project into his own bank account, and sought to use the money to repay Grand Traverse. He is also charged with failing to pay federal taxes on the money. His wife, Deborah Ingersoll, and brother, Gayle Ingersoll, are also charged in the case, which will be heard by U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington at the federal courthouse in Bay City.

If convicted of charges that include conspiracy to defraud Chemical Bank of Bay City, wire fraud and tax evasion, Steven Ingersoll faces up to 30 years in prison and $1 million in fines and restitution.

The issues raised by his case mirror the findings of an eight-day Free Press series, "State of Charter Schools," that found Michigan's charters receive nearly $1 billion a year in state taxpayer money, often with little accountability or transparency in how those dollars are spent. The June series also found conflicts of interest, insider dealings, and boards that were not aware of their management companies' business practices.

As Ingersoll awaits trial, similar questions of cronyism, conflicts of interest and questionable business practices swirl around his charter schools:

■ Ingersoll was able to advance money from Grand Traverse to his companies without informing the board. Experts say the amount of the advance was unusually large.

■ Shortly before his indictment, the president of the board of Grand Traverse formed a new management company, Full Spectrum Management, to replace Charter school founder facing trial on federal bank fraud charges:

Ohio's new charter school "reform" effort: What's all this talk about sponsors? | cleveland.com

Ohio's new charter school "reform" effort: What's all this talk about sponsors? | cleveland.com:

Ohio's new charter school "reform" effort: What's all this talk about sponsors?

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio doesn't have a simple plan to weed out its bad charter schools.

The state instead has an indirect strategy.

It puts agencies known as "sponsors," called authorizers in most states, in charge of overseeing charter schools, of fixing struggling charters and of closing the ones that can't be fixed. We'll be hearing a lot about Ohio's 69 sponsors this year, since both Gov. John Kasich and House leadership have made them the focus of charter reform plans.

What are they, exactly? Who are they? And why is Ohio just not cleaning up the charter school mess on its own?

We talked this week to Gov. John Kasich, state Superintendent Richard Ross, and State Sen. Peggy Lehner, who heads the Senate Education Committee, about the state's focus on sponsors.

Kasich and Ross said sponsors are the best way to push for improvements at charter schools quickly, without overburdening the Ohio Department of Education. And the governor said having sponsors overseeing the schools will prevent a future governor from undermining them.

Lehner, a Republican from Montgomery County, thinks Kasich's approach may be too narrow. She said she hopes the Senate will come up with changes for other parts of Ohio's charter system this spring.

We also talked to Cleveland officials, who have a head start on looking at sponsor standards and quality, thanks to 2012's Cleveland Plan for Transforming Schools. 

What is a sponsor, or authorizer?

Charter schools are public schools, just like your local school district.

Should sponsors police charter schools, or should the state? Tell us below.

But they are privately-run and states like Ohio appoint different agencies -- like school districts, state or city panels, colleges and nonprofits -- to "authorize" them to run as a public school.

Those agencies then are responsible for the performance of schools they allow to operate under their good name.

Who are they?

Nationally, 95 percent of authorizers are school districts who agree to back charter schools in the district to give families a choice, according to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA).

Some states also allow the state boards of education or a special state charter board to authorize schools too. 

How is Ohio different?

According to NACSA, Ohio and Minnesota are the only states that allow nonprofit agencies to authorize charter schools in a significant way. In Ohio, according to Ohio Department of Education data, nonprofits authorize more than 40 percent of the state's general education charters.

Some of Ohio's nonprofit authorizers are not education institutions at all. Cleveland has Ohio's new charter school "reform" effort: What's all this talk about sponsors? | cleveland.com:

National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) Group: 1 in 5 charter schools not doing well enough to stay open

A group that oversees more than half of the nation's 5,600 charter schools said as many as one in five U.S. charter schools should be shut down because of poor academic performance. 

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019784379_charterschools29.html

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS WEBSITE

Yong Zhao's "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon" Should Wake Us Up - Living in Dialogue

Yong Zhao's "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon" Should Wake Us Up - Living in Dialogue:



Yong Zhao's "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon" Should Wake Us Up 

 By John Thompson.

Yong Zhao’s Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? is a wake-up call. Zhao warns of a “rising tide of authoritarianism” which test-driven reformers have released on American education. He explains how “high-stakes testing is America’s Faustian bargain.” It risks our greatest democratic and dynamic values in order to make statistics look better.

Top-down accountability hawks have often praised Chinese education outputs. They have pushed a single path to school improvement without considering the long historical effects of high-stakes tests. Zhao, however, explains “the ghost inside” China’s record of creating illusory metrics for students, and for other parts of their economy.

Whether in ancient or modern China, or 21st century America, test-driven accountability “sees education as a way to instill in all students the same knowledge and skills deemed valuable by the authority.” By now, all but the most ideological of American reformers must be growing aware of the damage that has been done by bubble-in accountability, and many say that we need to reign in its worst abuses. However, Zhao makes the case that, “the damage done by authoritarianism is far greater than the instructional time taken away by testing, the narrowed educational experiences for students, and the demoralization of teachers.”

Americans glorifying China don’t understand that they are trying to copy “a survival strategy the Chinese people developed to cope with thousands of years of authoritarian rule.” Zhao explains how China produced the world’s best test scores, but how they did so at the cost of undermining “diverse, creative, and innovative talents.”

Chinese testing grew out of its 1300 hundred year-old keju system that was administered by the empire. But, during the last century, it has deferred to a different authoritarian power structure. Regardless of the persons on the top, testing is a “powerful and cost-effective tool of social control.” It still rewards “obedience, compliance, and homogenous thinking.”

Lest Americans conclude that the harm done by testing is due to the way it was conducted in China and that it is not inherent in the nature of top-down, test-driven accountability systems, Zhao’s accounts of recent incarnations of educational authoritarianism is a must read. It is the nature of such institutions that when the people on top seek an outcome, participants in the system “make it happen” at any cost. The obvious first response is fabricating miraculous data. For instance, China has used schemes known as “small cleverness” to produce a deluge of junk scholarship papers and so-called inventions. Worse, it has created an institutional dynamic so powerful that not even the government has been able to stop the testing epidemic.

In China, the damage done by “upward accountability” is extra extreme because it is the career ladder to a centrally governed society. But, I doubt many open-minded readers of Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? will say that it can’t happen here. Zhao has written a poignant narrative of how human beings conform to enduring historical forces. Humans trapped in top-down systems often do terrible things that they as individuals would never do.  American history is not as long as China’s and we have sought individuality, freedom, and creativity, but we are not some sort of anointed people immune to authoritarianism.

If Americans were not as susceptible as any other people to the coercive power of top-down control, we Yong Zhao's "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon" Should Wake Us Up - Living in Dialogue:

Teachers: A Call to Conscience | Teachers' Letters of Professional Conscience

Teachers: A Call to Conscience | Teachers' Letters of Professional Conscience:

Teachers: A Call to Conscience

FEBRUARY 8, 2015 ~ TEACHERS'LETTERSTOBILLGATES

“My conscience leaves me no other choice.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “Beyond Vietnam”speech, declaring “My conscience leaves me no other choice.”  Dr. King went on and “insisted that it was morally imperative for the U.S. to take radical steps to halt the war through nonviolent means (King, ‘‘Beyond Vietnam,’’ 139).  In a Q & A following his speech, Dr. King said:

As I said earlier in the speech, I think the time has come for those of us feel that this war is immoral and unjust to advise young men of the alternative to the draft, which is to serve as conscientious objector. I think this will do a great deal to arouse the conscience of the nation on this whole situation, and certainly if the war is continually escalated I think this will be absolutely necessary. – Dr. King

In a letter to a Navy friend written in 1965, John F. Kennedy wrote on the topic of conscientious objection:

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector
enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.   ~ John F. Kennedy, Letter to a Navy friend, quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), p. 88.

Through No Child Left Behind, through Common Core and its subsequent tests; our own Congress, the US Department of Education, the National Governor’s Association, and the Council for State School Officers have joined corporate education reformers declaring war on America’s public schools. (This war is actually global.)

As a result of this declaration of war – aligned with the passions ofconscientious objectors of previous wars, a spark was lit in the hearts and minds of teachers. As teachers, we passionately object to the way testing dominates and distorts instruction and learning for children, preventing teachers from teaching in ways we know are good for children.

A new movement has risen in the Teachers’ Letters of Professional Conscience.  We believe it is morally imperative to take radical steps to halt toxic high stakes testing around the globe.  We write these letters to arouse the conscience of each nation and believe our actions are absolutely necessary.

A re-write of JFK’s quote is meant to inspire our movement:

Governmental and corporate-led war on public schools will exist until that distant day when the Teacher of Professional Conscience enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the corporate reformer does today.

~ Susan DuFresne

On January 28th, 6th grade teacher, Becca Ritchie delivered her letter of professional conscience to our local school board, re-writing and speaking her words echoing Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, as found here.

“Remember that fear is natural, but there is greater fear in knowing what will happen if we don’t take a stand.”  

- Jia Lee 

Taking this step is a serious matter, and as you can see by the expression on our faces, we knew the seriousness of putting our objections into words, and Teachers: A Call to Conscience | Teachers' Letters of Professional Conscience:

Laura Ingalls Wilder Meets Common Core:

Laura Ingalls Wilder Meets Common Core

FEBRUARY 7, 2015 BY NANCY BAILEY 7 COMMENTS

When I was a child, in 3rd grade, I fell in love with Little House in the Big Woods. I distinctly remember locating it in the little classroom library. I am not sure if I read it before or after Caddie Woodlawn, another fine chapter book about strong pioneer girls. There were no benchmarks—I don’t recall even doing a book report.

Now, if you Google Little House in the Big Woods you will find a gazillion ways to address the Common Core. The books are considered a must read, and it appears that if you aren’t exposed to reading them, early on, you will not go far in life. There are even picture books to pave the way for the chapter books to make sure teachers and their students don’t flub up and miss out.

Those books were not made to appear like I would be a failure if I didn’t read them when I was young. No one warned me that I wouldn’t be able to get into Harvard if I didn’t read them. I, quite frankly, never heard of Harvard or any other college in third grade.

When I first read Little House in the Big Woods, I wasn’t made to learn about Laura Ingalls Wilder the author, or given a whole long list of vocabulary words out of the book to define. I didn’t have to locate descriptive words—no one graded me down if I didn’t know what quinine meant.

I didn’t have to identify alliteration and the syllables in the words. I didn’t need to prove I could identify singular and plural nouns or the parts of speech. I wasn’t made to go back and describe the cliffhangers, although I probably did tell my little friends about some of them. I didn’t even have to write about the story using graphic organizers.

I only remember yearning for time after school and on the weekend to be able to immerse myself in the story. And, much to my delight, when I finished Little House in the Big Woods, I discovered On the Banks of Plum Creek!

I am not saying that it isn’t nice to learn additional things surrounding a novel. I think Laura Ingalls Wilder Meets Common Core: