Unsolicited Advice to Betsy DeVos

Dear Ms. DeVos,

I haven’t seen you in the news lately, which makes me think that you are probably settling into your new role as the Secretary of Education and gathering intelligence from various sources to find out what this field is all about.  I have advice for you.  It’s really great advice.  Trust me.  You’re going to love it.  And it’s free.

You may be wondering what makes me qualified to give you advice.  And I know that you might be hesitant to ask given all the memes the haters made about your own qualifications.  But I don’t mind.  I am going to limit my advice to just the Mathematics Education section of your job,  because I am a math teacher.  I have a degree in mathematics, a Master’s in Education, and the state of Illinois has granted me a certificate to teach grades 6 - 12 not only Mathematics, but also ELL, Bilingual Education, and Russian as a foreign language.  I realize that none of these things are necessarily sufficient qualifications for me to advise you.  But I am also American, white, and upper middle class --  in other words, entitled enough to believe that my opinion matters.

You have said that you do not support the Common Core standards.  I think a lot of your supporters probably agree.  But the actual Common Core standards themselves are not the problem.  They say things like

In Grade 2, instructional time should focus on four critical areas: (1) extending understanding of base-ten notation; (2) building fluency with addition and subtraction; (3) using standard units of measure; and (4) describing and analyzing shapes.

Can you really argue with that?  But if the standards themselves aren’t the problem, then what went wrong?   Two things:  marketing and implementation.  

As a parent, the only thing scarier than the second grade “old math” you forgot is the “new math”  that you don’t understand.  There was not enough done to educate teachers on the new standards and practices.  There was not enough money or time for adequate professional development.  There was even less done to educate and “sell” it to the parents.  Do we expect the parents to just trust the school?  This is America we’re talking about. This was definitely a marketing failure.  

Implementation is trickier still.  As you probably know, Ms. DeVos, before a student gets to my 9th grade Geometry class, she must complete eight grades where she is presumably taught some math.  The Common Core standards were rolled out at every grade level at the same time.  In fact, the high school where I teach had to align the curriculum to the standards before the elementary schools in my neighborhood did.  The standards tell me that a student will come into my class already knowing certain material.  This material is introduced in kindergarten and built upon between 1st and 8th grade.  

This is your chance to shine, Ms. DeVos. Take the Common Core standards and rebrand them.  Definitely get rid of “common” in the title.  That sounds like Communism, doesn’t it?  Call it something that all Americans can agree on.  I don’t know what that is anymore.  Something neutral.  Maybe “Math with Kittens Standards.”  Everybody loves kittens.  Actually, maybe don’t even use “math” – it’s a trigger word for most Americans.  I know because whenever someone asks me what I do and I tell them, they make the funniest awkward face and proceed to tell me how traumatized they are by math.  Snowflakes, amiright?  Anyway, after you’ve renamed it, introduce it to the kindergarten teachers and parents.  For about 5 years.  Maybe more.  In the meantime, everyone else can get all the professional development they need and get on board.  Then you roll it out one grade at a time.  

Yes, I know that means that I might retire before I get the students who are proficient in the standards.  But I’m willing to wait because Education is a complex system.  Like other complex systems, it does not respond well to sweeping reforms and frequent changes, and it takes a long time to see any results.  

While you learn what the Common Core standards were envisioned to do, my colleagues and I will continue trying to teach our students to develop number sense, think critically, and problem solve, just as we have before these standards were created.  Just as we will, after you destroy them or -- hopefully -- rebrand them.  But what you do will undoubtedly impact my work and my students.  So please, Ms. DeVos, take your time, listen to the educators who have dedicated their lives to this profession, and choose wisely.  If you ignore everything else I wrote, at least know that we will have to live with the results of your work for many years after you are done serving the public in this capacity.