Common Core Standards: Should we be rooting for the tortoise, or the hare?
My last post attracted the following comment.
“Because the common core standards were adopted very quickly, under federal government pressure? Please expound on this often heard mantra. What federal pressure? When? How? Quickly? It has been years. I first heard about it in 2010, but full implementation is not until 2014. Isn’t that enough?”
Since I think this reader raised important questions, I want to answer in a new blog post rather than simply replying within the blog.
Actually, this turns out to be a two part question, because adoption of the standards did, in fact, occur very quickly and under considerable federal government pressure. The ongoing implementation of the standards is also, to my mind, proceeding rather quickly, but not at the same breakneck speed.So far, I’d say that the hare is beating the tortoise. I’m less sure that the hare’s victory will benefit our schools.
I’m going to tackle the first part of the question – adoption of the common core standards - in this post, and then open a discussion of the implementation schedule in my next post. As always, I hope that readers will chime in.
Here’s how the New York Times described the adoption timetable in a news story dated July 21, 2010. I could cite many other similar news stories, and will if there’s a demand, but I figured my readers won’t suspect the Times of flacking for the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Less than two months after the nation’s governors and state school chiefs released their final recommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a dozen more are expected to do so in the next two weeks.
The pros and cons of setting national standards for what students should know.
Their support has surprised many in education circles, given states’ long tradition of insisting on retaining local control over curriculum.
The quick adoption of common standards for what students should learn in English and math each year from kindergarten through high school is attributable in part to the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition. States that adopt the standards by Aug. 2 win points in the competition for a share of the $3.4 billion to be awarded in September.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. “This has been the third rail of education, and the fact that you’re now seeing half the nation decide that it’s the right thing to do is a game-changer.”
Even Massachusetts, which many regard as having the nation’s best education system — and where the proposed standards have been a subject of bitter debate — is expected to adopt the standards on Wednesday morning. New York signed up on Monday, joining Connecticut, New Jersey and other states that have adopted the standards, though the timetable for actual implementation is uncertain.
Some supporters of the standards, like Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, worry that the rush of states to sign up — what Ms. Weingarten calls the “Race to Adopt” — could backfire if states do not have the money to put the standards in effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/education/21standards.html
Here’s the Utah timetable. The state school board first tentatively voted to adopt the standards in June, just a few days after they were released, and cast a final vote in favor of the standards in August. I would call this moving very fast. (Utah didn’t end up winning any of the Race to the Top money, by the way. Neither did most of the 46 states that adopted the Common Core at a similar speed.)
I can understand why common core supporters chose a blitzkrieg strategy. Education reform proposals – good and bad – always attract opposition, often from entrenched defenders of a comfortable and inadequate status quo. Moreover, proposed changes to educational standards almost always ignite the culture wars. Why not head the warriors off at the pass?
There is a good answer to that question, even for those who don’t enjoy tossing out conspiracy theory accusations, indeed, even for those who strongly support the common core standards.
Democratic debate is almost always protracted, often rancorous, and sometimes more than a little stupid. But along the way we educate one another and, if we’re lucky and wise, begin to build consensus. Common core supporters, and the Obama administration, decided that the virtues of speed and decisive action trumped the virtues of deliberation.
I taught AP Comparative Government for several years, and one of the countries my students examined was Great Britain. Every year a handful of students – usually especially bright, politically committed, and altogether terrific students – would comment, wistfully, that the United States would be better off with a parliamentary system. In a parliamentary system, governments can promote serious, rapid change. Just look at how Britain created a National Health Service right after World War II . . . and here in America we were still debating what to do about the legions of uninsured. (This was pre-Obamacare.)
I tried to respond sympathetically, especially since I admired these students’ passion and reforming zeal. At the same time, I tried to help them see the benefits of deliberation . . . of rooting for the tortoise rather than the hare.
Utah is not the only state now convulsed with an after-the-fact revolt against the common core. Some of the rancor, I’m persuaded, stems from the stealth strategy that core supporters adopted. Maybe the benefits of the new standards will turn out the exceed the costs. But what troubles me, as I’ve stated before, is what could happen when schools fully implement the new curriculum. All sorts of issues will inevitably surface. What happened to geometry? Why does my kid’s English textbook contain political editorials? Why have statewide proficiency scores gone way, way down? Why has the textbook budget suddenly ballooned?
There may very well be good answers to all of these questions. But I suspect that administrators are going to have a much tougher time persuading the public to accept these answers . . . because they didn’t make the effort to educate, and persuade them, the first time around.
Still, I recognize that the hare has already won this race. Most states have adopted the standards, and school districts are now scrambling to adapt their curriculum and bring teachers up to speed.
So the question for my next post is, should we give the tortoise another chance, and slow down the timetable for implementing these changes? Or are we in fact moving forward at an appropriate, deliberate speed?
Like I said in previous blogs, unless there is more parent accountability along with student accountability to attend class, work harder in school and generally behave better, it won’t matter what the curriculum is.
However, I would suggest slowing down a bit on the common core thing. It might be good stuff but teachers aren’t ready with the knowledge or resources to apply it in mass, thus it will fail because of that (along with what I mentioned in the previous paragraph) when maybe it had merits. The tortoise needs to win here…
Actually, the imperative of encouraging parent accountability is one reason why the pace of the common core changes troubles me. I’d like to see the school districts take more time explaining the changes they’re hoping to make, and maybe even suggesting ways that parents could participate, for example by discussing news articles together. You’ve made a good point about the increased difficulty parents have with math homework. Might there be some ways to help parents get up to speed? Yeah, I know, it isn’t going to work with the totally uninvolved, but I think there are parents who would like to play a more constructive role, if they had the right tools.
The problem with math instruction is most parents can’t really do the math most middle school and high school age students are required to do. It’s no wonder why Sylvan and math tutors everywhere are making bank. The common core will probably only exacerbate that situation. I agree Mary that parents need to be involved and most are as clueless as deer in the headlights on this common core stuff.
Haste makes waste. We are moving much too quickly to this common core. My school district dove in head-first. These two problems are the most troubling: 1) We have no curriculum–we have the core, but really no curriculum. 2) We have no assessment resources. This is very frustrating as a teacher. I am teaching 8th grade math in the new common core. The state told us that our students will take the Pre-Algebra end-of-level test. Most of my students took that test last year and got 4s. So now they have to take it again. They are virtually being held back a year. Back to my analogy–we dove in head-first into a pool of resources only 3 inches deep–ouch!
I think I will be very predictable here and support the Tortoise theory. To often in education those of us who would like to slow things down and solve first problems first are accused of being obstructionists. I have spent almost thirty years in the business of public education and I have seen at least a dozen programs come and go that were going to solve all the “problems” in the public education system. I would argue that all that most of those programs have done over the last thirty years is to draw attention away from the real problems.
Although tuning up the curriculum is never a bad idea, the first problems that need to be fixed are not curriculum related. We must make education important again to parents and students. We must create accountability for parents and students instead of removing it. We cannot continue to allow 10% (that number is growing by the way) of the students to be disrupting forces in the attempt to educate the 90% of students who come to school to learn. We can no longer use a disproportionate amount of our very limited resources on students who do not want to learn. Until we bring consequences and accountability back to not just teachers but parents and students, it doesn’t matter what we do.
Attending school needs to become a privilege. I believe that there are times when it would probably benefit a student to remove their privilege to attend school for a time let them go out into the world and see how that works for them with no education. Some may succeed, good for them others may fail and be forced to humble themselves and come back and learn something.
Today the primary function of public schools is daycare, and keeping kids off the street and causing trouble out in the community. Until we change that mentality the common core is just another distraction from the real problem.
Can I just say that pretty much everyone hates the new curriculum? The students refer to it as “the dumbed-down classes.” Yes, it’s a good idea to cement ideas, but there is such a thing as overkill. I wish that they’d group more by ability than by grade. In every level, elementary on up. Yes, that would result in a huge gap, but then everyone’s happier. The lower kids may be lower, but they’ll actually understand everything up to the level you say they’re at rather than be in 10th grade and be at a 3rd grade reading level. And the higher kids won’t be bored anymore. If you aren’t actually in education, I assure you there are far too many bored “smart” kids and the Common Core Standards will make it worse. If you already are in education, you know this. I don’t see why no one considers this to be a real option. I think it’s obviously the best course. Please correct me if I’m wrong on that, but from everything I’ve seen, I’m not.
The Common Core (or any other standards) are minimal requirements, not the maximum. No one has any excuse for being bored.
That said, we all know standards have a terrible way of becoming an upper limit.
I could argue about boredom, but I won’t. I think your comment about standards becoming an upper limit is much more important. Yes, these standards are meant to be a lower limit, but I have yet to find a public school that sees them as such. I have had teachers for individual classes that see them as such, but those where some pretty cocky teachers and they didn’t teach any core subjects. Since people see these standards as their goal, I think we need to raise the bar a little higher. Yes, these are a good lower limit, but no one sees it as such. And since they don’t, let’s make things so we don’t have to change their view to get the results we want. Much easier to raise the standard than it is to change someone’s view of the standard.
Nice analogy. I definitely think the tortoise method should prevail here given the huge impact a change in standards is going to have on the entire system, including (most importantly) children, and because of the amount of resources involved in this change.