Common Core

The Common Core State Standards Initiative website states the following Mission: The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy. Unfortunately, the feedback is not that glowing. Confusing, destructive and dismal results are terms used to describe the initial implementations. However, 46 states are already implementing these standards, so we are already well down a path that does not look promising. Only Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia have not signed on to the standards.

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Financial Woes Plague Common-Core Rollout

11/3/15

from The Wall Street Journal,

11/2/15:

After 45 states adopt educational standards, many have second thoughts.

Educators in this Oklahoma City suburb jumped into action when state leaders in 2010 adopted the Common Core academic standards that were sweeping states across the country. The Edmond school district has a big military population that moves frequently, so officials liked the idea of using the same standards as other states. They also saw Oklahoma’s old standards as inferior. They spent about $500,000 preparing teachers and students, collaborating with educators in other states and buying materials and computers for a new Common Core test, finishing a year in advance. Then state politicians backtracked, for reasons both financial and political. They dropped plans to give the new test, and during an election campaign in which the standards were hotly debated, they repealed Common Core. Edmond employees came in at the end of the summer last year to rewrite their curriculum again. “The cost for me in time and training was phenomenally huge,” says Tara Fair, Edmond’s associate superintendent. “That’s one of the things that made me really sick when we went back to the old standards.” Five years into the biggest transformation of U.S. public education in recent history, Common Core is far from common. Though 45 states initially adopted the shared academic standards in English and math, seven have since repealed or amended them. Among the remaining 38, big disparities remain in what and how students are taught, the materials and technology they use, the preparation of teachers and the tests they are given. A dozen more states are considering revising or abandoning Common Core. One reason is that Common Core became a hypercharged political issue, with grass-roots movements pressing elected leaders to back off. Some conservatives saw the shared standards as a federal intrusion into state matters, in part because the Obama administration provided grant funding. Some liberals and conservatives decried what they saw as excessive testing and convoluted teaching materials. The standards are a hot topic in the Republican presidential race. Last month, Barack Obama recommended limiting the amount of class time students spend on testing, saying excessive testing “takes the joy out of teaching and learning.”

Money trouble But politics isn’t the only reason for the turmoil. Many school districts discovered they didn’t have enough money to do all they needed to do. Some also found that meeting deadlines to implement the standards was nearly impossible.

But after a burst of momentum and a significant investment of money and time, the movement for commonality is in disarray. Some states, including South Carolina, Indiana and Florida, have either amended or replaced Common Core standards. Others, including Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, New Jersey and North Carolina, are in the process of changing or reviewing them. A total of 21 states have withdrawn from two groups formed to develop common tests, making it difficult to compare results. The issue has become so politicized that some backers have stopped using the name.

“Common Core is a phrase that—we don’t use it anymore,” says John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who leads the Business Roundtable, an association of corporate chief executives that believes the changes will make U.S. students more competitive globally. Mr. Engler says they now refer to them just as “higher standards.”

Computer challenge For many urban and rural districts, enabling students to take the test on a computer—a goal of advocates—proved another hurdle. Some districts needed more equipment and better Internet connections. Some big states, including New York and Pennsylvania, have given tests almost exclusively on paper because of technology shortcomings.

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Financial Woes Plague Common-Core Rollout