You make a strong logical argument, but it relies critically on the tests being really great. Have you examined the sample questions as well as the standards? And even if the tests are great (they are not) do you have any idea how well this will play out in real classrooms? I ask because, as a veteran teacher, my guess is that CCSS will be great for the top two deciles and a disaster for the rest. The super worst thing is that no one knows because this top-to-bottom overhaul has not been tested/proven anywhere. That is just malpractice, on an enormous scale.

I can't speak for OP, although I basically agree with you and OP simultaneously.

However, look at it as an optimization problem. CC testing standards and format may be ideal testing tools for 49 minutes 5th period after lunch 5 days a week in a 40 person classroom, performed in perfect lock step by all 40 students, only failure mode is repeating the entire class or developing a hatred of the topic, aka standard public school experience.

However, what does "alignment" WRT KA mean when the educational experience has completely changed? Its analog, you can watch a video 50 times will you get it, jump back and forth, all that. I'd propose the "best" testing technique for that environment probably looks a lot like KA and not so much CC because you need instant feedback and simple questions. Its not quite as good as personal 1 on 1 tutoring, but its better than sitting in class, more importantly the experience is inherently different than sitting in class...

The proposal in the linked article seems to be that KA epic fails, solely in "alignment", because it doesn't test like CC, which is trivial to test and prove and analyze statistically. Factually looks like a good study. Maybe it fails the relevance test because "alignment" is fuzzy to me (maybe it has a special jargon meaning among CC teachers?) I think MAYBE OP and I are concerned that KA aligns pretty well to a decent curriculum (CC) WRT topics and order of topics and presentation standards, and I hope KA doesn't ruin the KA assessment portion to better match CC assessments solely to get a checkbox somewhere.

Maybe we can abstract out KA from the discussion. I'm tolerably good at math and have tutored people. If you define alignment with CC as slavishly following their assessment technique at all times even though I'm 1 on 1 in an ongoing human conversation, such that everything I speak must statistically match the CC assessment percentages in style, tone, and technique, that's ridiculous. If you defined alignment as I'm talking about sets of linear equations with infinite solution set the same general time, order, and way the CC talks about it, thats OK, even if I assess a tutored student the "wrong way" by asking the wrong type of questions (which may very well be the right question for that kid at that moment while also being on average the wrong way to teach all American Kids in a 40 person classroom)

Its seems reasonably non controversial that CC curriculum and assessment are local maxima on society wide averages for teaching math. It seems reasonably non controversial that KAs assessment tools seem to be a local maxima for computerized delivery of help to kids that need extra help. I (and possibly OP) don't think it reasonable to trash talk KA because the local maxima of effectiveness for society as an average whole in a classroom setting doesn't necessarily match KAs local maxima of effectiveness for "kids who need help at home". The danger is screwing up KA enough to make it useless for the kids who need it after school, just to achieve a marketing checkmark.

So from what little I've seen, KA is reasonably well aligned with common core already. Most decent curriculums do. Also, I think you are misunderstanding what CC is. CC is just a list of topics students should know - there is no "CC testing standards and format".

If KA doesn't align with CC, it's because there is some particular topic that KA forgot about. E.g. maybe common core requires students to "Solve problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions by using information presented in line plots", but Khan forgot about that one.

I also don't think it would be harmful if KA made sure it covered the basic topics of AIEEE or the IIT-JEE either (important Indian standardized exams). A lot of people want to pass those exams and it would be a marginal amount of extra work for KA to help them.

"there is no "CC testing standards and format"."

I see two. One is called PARC, one is called Smarter Balanced. And they want to use them to close schools and fire teachers, so look for everyone to teach to whatever sample tests they can get their hands on.

PARC and SBAC are indeed tests intended to measure students against the Common Core State Standards. They are not from, or a part of, the CCSSI. People definitely do want to misuse these tests to punish schools and teachers, but none of this invalidates the Common Core. And while people will teach to the sample tests, that's on people who want to use these to destroy schools, not on the Common Core itself.

Ah, but if you check out the Common Core page they go on and on about student performance being comparable between states, which is why the two standardized tests in effect are inseparable from CCSS. btw, I know what you meant by the rhetorical "people...do not want", but the problem is precisely that "accountability" is the other dog whistle never far from any CCSS discussion.

I am afraid your healthy view of CCSS is not widely shared, and the discussion would be much better if CC was offered purely as PD. Teachers love anything that works.

If a curriculum, like KA, is "aligned" to a set of standards, like the Common Core standards, it means that the standards accurately describe what the curriculum teaches. Often, as is the case with the Common Core State Standards, the standards do not address how the items of a particular content standard is taught, preferring to leave such things up to the professional judgement of the curriculum designers. So the Common Core doesn't mandate a "style, tone, or technique." And defining "alignment" as talking about a topic at the same time as other teachers in a certain order is perfectly reasonable. You can even assess a student on that topic any way you want. But don't forget that the ways we assess students also teach them what we care about and what "doing mathematics" means.

One thing that is a big change from most states' previous standard, is that the Common Core includes 8 Mathematical Practice standards--ways that we want students to think about and do mathematics. These are things like: don't give up when solving problems, know and use the right mathematical tools for the right job, be precise, make and critique arguments, and pay attention to patterns. As with everything we learn, students learn to engage in these behaviors by practicing them, and they get practice by engaging in tasks and interactions that require them to draw conclusions, cite evidence, and apply concepts to solve non-routine problems. In a traditional classroom, these standards of mathematical practices should be woven in with all of the lessons that we teach, and we should assess students on their learning on these standards as well as the content standards.

While the Common Core might facilitate an expansion of standardized testing by giving a common set of expectations to assess, many people erroneously conflate the standards with the assessment of the standards. This is understandable --Meyer does not seem to spend any time on drawing the distinction. The CCSS doesn't mandate or recommend any particular test. And while it makes sense to speak of assessment of the Common Core, it doesn't make sense to speak of the Common Core assessment.

Having said that, any tool that claims to assess the Common Core should also assess these mathematical practices. One such tool is the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium's test. Meyer claims that KA doesn't prepare students to be successful on the SBAC test, because students spend most of their interactions with Kahn Academy doing exercises and problems that do not require the depth that the Common Core calls for. This assertion seems supported by his data.

You may be right that KA represents the current local maximum for computerized delivery of mathematics, but Meyer is evaluating KA as a curriculum, not as a resource for kids who need extra help. In this role, Meyer's data indicates that KA's interactions with students falls short of depth of knowledge required by other assessments of the Common Core. His hypothesis that KA focuses on these types of questions because they are easier to be scored by a computer seems pretty reasonable to me. I don't think it is trash talking KA to evaluate the product it delivers against the claims they make for that product.

Finally, suppose KA found a great way to have students engage in higher order thinking skills: maybe require students to explain their thinking or make conjectures or solve multi-step problems that require them to apply concepts in non-standard ways. I don't think this would make it useless for kids who use it for extra help, do you?