Fordham’s new report on Common Core draws quick, compelling criticism

Fallout: Does Common Core really get students ready for college and careers?

It’s no secret: the Fordham Institute has weighed in heavily in favor of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) over the past six years. Unfortunately, critics charge with increasing justification that Fordham seems to be straying from objective and useful research into something more like being a sales director for Common Core.

The latest example of Fordham’s Common Core activity drawing fire is hot off the press and hot into credibility trouble. Yesterday Fordham released "Evaluating the Content and Quality of Next Generation Assessments." Fordham supposedly compares the alignment of PARCC, SBAC, and two other tests, the ACT, Inc.’s Aspire tests and the old Massachusetts MCAS tests to Common Core. But, the report uses a dubious approach to perform this process, and more importantly totally ignores more fundamental questions such as whether or not the Common Core even represents the right set of standards to do what it claims: prepare students better for college and careers.

I am disappointed in this new Fordham product, and I am far from alone, as you can learn by clicking the “Read more” link.Fordham’s new report is already drawing well-developed, authoritative criticism. One key critic is nationally-known testing expert Richard Phelps. Phelps pretty well demolishes the Fordham paper in his new and rather detailed blog and our more technically inclined readers will find his comments well worth reading.

Aside from Phelp’s many criticisms, one of the report’s authors, Morgan Polikoff, surprisingly provided still more credibility pyrotechnics when he admitted in yesterday’s press conference that the new study actually ignores basic and fundamental issues for any useful evaluation of testing: validity and reliability.

It was an astonishing admission. Why bother to check if a test agrees with a set of standards if both the standards and the tests might not really produce what they claim they produce?

In this case, recall again that Common Core says it will help get students ready for college and careers.

That college and careers claim makes objections from another Fordham critic even more attention-getting. Fordham’s second critic is another highly authoritative source on testing, namely the ACT, Inc. This group creates the ACT college entrance test and a number of other successful tests, too.

If we are talking about real college readiness, ACT probably houses some of the best expertise in the nation.

However, aside from the ACT’s obvious and very extensive expertise in dealing with what real college readiness looks like, ACT has a long history with career readiness, too. Well over a decade and a half ago ACT, Inc. created the Work Keys examinations. These were created at business and industry request to determine if applicants had minimum necessary job entry skills. Work Keys was needed because the high school diploma could not be trusted as evidence that job applicants had necessary skills.

So, ACT, Inc. has a ton of expertise with both parts of the college and career ready equation. Bluntly put, I think ACT’s credibility in this area far exceeds the Council of Chief State School Officers and the people who did Fordham’s study.

So, what did ACT say in response to the Fordham paper?

Among other things, the ACT reply raises some VERY interesting questions about whether the Common Core really is aligned to what is needed for success in college and/or a career. Here is a key quote from the ACT response:

"The finding that ACT Aspire assessments adequately assess many but not all of the priority content reflected in the Common Core standards is not surprising. Unlike other assessments included in the study, ACT Aspire is not and was never intended to measure all of the CCSS. Rather, ACT Aspire is designed to measure the skills and knowledge most important in preparing students for college and career readiness. This is a significant philosophical and design difference between ACT Aspire and other next generation assessments. ACT has made the choices we have to align with college and career readiness standards, rather than specifically to the Common Core, and we intend to keep it that way." (Emphasis Added)ACT additionally says:

“Where ACT Aspire is not fully aligned to the CCSS is where we have no empirical validation of the importance of those skills to college and career readiness.”

Did you get that? Basically, it looks like ACT is saying that they looked at Common Core and found that Common Core really didn’t get at what is needed for college and career readiness. So, drawing on their extensive experience, ACT designed their new tests to include other things – essential things for true readiness – apparently not included in Common Core.

Kentucky currently does not use PARCC or SBAC tests or ACT’s Aspire, either. But, folks like Bill Gates are throwing lots of money around trying to tempt states to use these tests. According to Phelps, that includes passing several million dollars over the years to the Fordham crowd.

Also, while Kentucky currently uses its own tests for Common Core, the KPREP tests, those Kentucky tests are supposed to be aligned to Common Core, too. But, based on what ACT, Inc. just said, alignment to Common Core is not good alignment to true college and career readiness. In fact, Common Core itself is apparently not the right answer for college and career readiness according to this major national college and career testing organization.

All of this provides some real food for thought as the Kentucky legislature works through Senate Bill 1, a major proposal to change our state’s education system. Right now, SB-1 does not call for outright repeal of our Common Core based standards. It only calls for standards reviews. Based on what the ACT, Inc. just said about Common Core, maybe we need to rethink that.