Common Core - Part 1

 



          In my community, and apparently in many communities around the country, a battle is waging over the adoption of the Common Core State Standards.  In my position on the school board, I have been in the center of this oft-times heated discussion.  I have heard a wide variety of concerns, fears, and sometimes downright lies about what Common Core is, where it comes from, and what it means for the future of education in this country.  I have listened, asked questions, researched, and pondered each point I have heard both for and against this new set of education standards.  I should mention here that the adoption of standards for our schools does not now, nor has it for some time been a school board decision.  This decision has been made at the state level for many years.  However, as one who is passionately interested in K-12 education, the debate has weighed heavily on my mind and in my heart.
         In response to the things I have seen, heard, and considered, I have decided to resurrect the blog I had heretofore used very rarely and not for some time and use it as a place to organize and articulate  both the facts and my opinions concerning Common Core and the debate around it.  One of the things I hope to do in these posts is to clearly differentiate between documented facts, opinions of others, and my own opinions.  Wherever possible I will even indicate who's opinions they are (or at least who has expressed these opinions publicly).  In each post, I plan to address one issue related to Common Core; to articulate both the pro and con viewpoints, to post any relevant documented facts with links to primary sources whenever possible, and then to conclude with my own opinion on the topic.
         Whether anyone reads my posts or not, my goal is to do the research, uncover the facts, and solidify my own opinion on each subtopic.  If people choose to comment, please be aware of the following:

• I will delete any comments with profanity, all-caps, or completely off topic.
• I will not delete comments with which I disagree.  I believe conflicting viewpoints are a healthy ingredient to any productive discussion.
• I may use comments to spark ideas for future subtopics (especially once I run out of the ones I currently have in mind).
• I would greatly appreciate it if statements made in comments include supporting documentation for any relevant facts.

         And so, with no further ado, I will begin my first subtopic.  I have chosen to start with information about the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Waivers and its relation to Common Core.

No Child Left Behind Waivers

 The Facts: 

• The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required all states to adopt "challenging academic content standards."  They were then required to test students on their proficiency in these standards.  By the end of the 2013-2014 school year all children would be required to "meet or exceed the State's proficient level of academic achievement on the State assessments."  This included English Language Learners (students who were not yet proficient in the English language) and those with special needs (including students with severe mental handicaps).  If this goal was not met, Title I funding would be withheld (federal money intended to help disadvantaged students) and schools where those students attended would be required to make various changes based on how many consecutive years they failed to meet this mandate.  Quotations are from the actual legislation which can be viewed here: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
•  Congress failed to reauthorize ESEA (the Elementary and Secondary Education Act).  NCLB is the 2001/2002 reauthorization of ESEA and another authorization and review was scheduled for 2007.  It was expected that the original 100% proficiency requirements would be changed long before they were to take affect.  I am writing this in June of 2013 and ESEA has not been reauthorized since 2002.
• In 2011, with no reauthorization in site, Secretary Arne Duncan, the head of the US Department of Education was instructed to develop a process through which states could apply for waivers that would release them from the stringent requirements of NCLB.  As a result of meeting the requirements, states would be granted more flexibility in choosing the type of interventions to use and when to use them.  A list of documents was released detailing the requirements and procedure for obtaining NCLB/ESEA waivers.
• One of the requirements for a state to receive a waiver is the development and implementation of "college- and career-ready standards."  As defined in the ESEA Flexibility Policy Document, "'College- and career-ready standards' are content standards for kindergarten through 12^th grade that build towards college and career readiness by the time of high school graduation.  A State’s college- and career-ready standards must be either (1) standards that are common to a significant number of States [Common Core]; or (2) standards that are approved by a State network of institutions of higher education, which must certify that students who meet the standards will not need remedial course work at the postsecondary level."  (Note that the addition of [Common Core] in the quote is my own addition.)
• 45 States and the District of Columbia chose to adopt the Common Core State Standards.  47 States have submitted waiver applications and 37 of those states have received waivers.  Two of the states who have been granted waivers (Alaska and Virginia), chose not to adopt Common Core but instead developed their own college- and career-ready standards.
• NCLB/ESEA Waivers are a separate issue from Race to the Top grants.  I will probably discuss Race to the Top and its correlation to Common Core in another post.
• Both NCLB and NCLB Waiver requests required states to adopt standards.  In both cases, states were given the option to choose which standards they adopted.  The more stringent requirement in the NCLB Waiver is that the standards be either Common Core OR standards approved by a state network of colleges/universities.

My Opinion:

          I do not believe that the US Department of Education had the proper authority to create NCLB Waiver conditions.  Unelected officials should not be writing our nation's education policy.  In fact, I believe our nation's education policy should consist mainly of the requirement that each state provide for the free education of all children ages 5 through 18 (if their parents choose to take advantage of said education).  Our founders did not envision education as a role of the federal government and I believe all education decisions should reside at the state and local level. 

          However, I do not see the standards requirement included in the NCLB Waiver as any sort of coercion forcing states to adopt Common Core.  It seems clear to me that states were given a choice between Common Core and developing their own standards.  The fact that two states chose to develop their own standards and were still granted waivers makes it clear that there was in fact a legitimate choice and there was no punishment for choosing not to adopt Common Core.  States who chose Common Core, then, either really liked it and felt it was the best option for their students, or lacked the funds or initiative to create their own standards that would ensure students were prepared for freshman level college courses.  Either way, the sentiment that has been commonly expressed that states were "forced" or "coerced" to adopt Common Core seems blatantly false as applied to NCLB/ESEA Waivers.