Horrific Common Core Standards Move Forward

The Common Core Standards have finished the public comment phase and are now undergoing final revisions.  There has been much criticism of them from individuals and groups, both parents and experts, across the country.

The following testimony was prepared for the Minnesota House Education Policy Committee informational meeting on the Common Core Standards Initiative that was held April 7^th.  Due to time constraints, not all of Dr. Effrem’s testimony was given.  The audio is available here (Follow link for April 7, 2010 hearing starting at 1:29:45).

Much alarm was raised by all of the testifiers that included two outside experts  intimately involved in the development of Minnesota’s nation leading math standards, Dr. Larry Gray of the University of Minnesota and Ellen Delaney, a veteran math teacher, about the math standards.  Minnesota Department of Education staff raised some concerns about the English standards, but not enough in our view, especially when compared to the written comments of national experts.  No teachers or others involved with the development of the English standards post Minnesota’s disastrous Profile of Learning testified at the hearing.

The Common Core Standards are an absolute requirement for the Race to the Top (RTTT) federal grant program.  Failure to adopt them by August 2, 2010 will lose partial points and failure to show evidence of adoption by December 31, 2010 will result in loss of 20 points in the RTTT application.  Failure of evidence of implementation of them and the aligned national assessments will result in loss of another 10 points, according to the scoring rubric.  The standards must be adopted verbatim and there is no alternative to them, such as certification by a higher education institution.

This hearing comes at a time when many states are both deciding on adoption of the Common Core Standards and whether t o apply for the second round of RTTT funds.  The second round applications are due June 1^st.  Sadly, despite both the grave implications of nationalizing curriculum and assessments even more than under No Child Left Behind and the very poor quality of these standards, states are seriously considering adopting them.  For instance, despite comments to the contrary, putative conservative presidential candidate Governor Tim Pawlenty introduced a legislative proposal on April 20^th to have legislative leaders provisionally adopt these standards.  The state department of education would then adopt them by expedited rulemaking authority without any public input whatsoever.

This appalling nationalization of education needs to be discussed in legislatures across the country, as well as with state legislative and gubernatorial candidates and those running for Congress.

Thank you for this opportunity to present EdWatch’s views on the Core Standards Initiative.  We have many concerns.  Even before discussing the quality and the details of the standards, the largest and most important issue that must be addressed is whether it is right to do this at all

“The standards’ “leisurely development of basic arithmetic skills and failure to prepare students for an authentic Algebra 1 course in grade 8 mean that Common Core’s mathematics standards are at a significantly lower level than those in California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Indiana and in the highest-achieving countries… Our basic concern is whether final decisions not to align with the most demanding mathematics standards in this country and elsewhere have already been made.”

“Considerable progress has been made in addressing the deficiencies in the January draft of Common Core’s grade-level standards for reading and the English language arts, but much more work remains to make its ELA standards as good as, if not better than, those in the top rated states in this country (California, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Texas). The most serious problem with Common Core’s ELA standards remains its organizational scheme. A set of generic, content-free, and culture-free skills do not serve as the basis for generating grade level academic standards, especially at the high school level, and as the basis for reliable and valid common assessments. Until the damaging limitations of the current organizing scheme are removed and an academically sound organizing scheme is used, Common Core’s draft writers will not be able to generate developmental progressions of coherent and academically sound grade-level and high school exit standards that lead to common curricular expectations in reading through the grades. Nor will they be able to assure the states that common assessments based on the kind of standards we see in the March draft will lead to valid and reliable assessments of student learning.”

EdWatch shares these concerns as well.  Given all of these problems combined with constitutionality, sovereignty, process, and content combined with the fact that research shows that two parent families and religious involvement not just reduces but actually erases the achievement gap making all of these faddish, ineffective, invasive, and expensive programs unnecessary, we strongly urge rejection of the common core standards.  We also strongly support HF 3677 authored by Representative Pelowski and SF 3181 authored by Senator Hann to remove Minnesota’s involvement from Race to the Top, especially because of these standards.