Common_Core_SecretWeapon_large (Photo credit: The Daring Librarian)
For those long skeptical of the decade-long improvement in the standardized test scores of New York high school students, the August 7 release of the state's Common Core test results was bittersweet redemption. New York is the second state in the country, after Kentucky, to test its students under stringent Common Core learning standards adopted across the nation to bring uniformity to student testing.
And the results are not pretty.
31% of New York students in grades three though eight met or exceeded math and English competency standards on tests given over six days this past April. In 2012, under the older, far easier, standards, 65% of New York students were proficient in Math and 55% proficient in English. Moreover, according to the Summary of Statewide 3-8 Exam Results, “only 16.1% of African-American students and 17.7% of Hispanic students met or exceeded” the English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency standard, far lower than in years past.
Though these results should come as no surprise to anyone who has worked inside your average New York public school, they are actually a sign of hope. By effectively tying Common Core adoption to a state’s receipt of Race to the Top funding grants – 45 of 50 states have adopted Common Core Standards -- the Department of Education has indicated that it is no longer willing to enable states to game the achievement metrics mandated by No Child Left Behind. This is particularly refreshing news, given that the Obama administration’s earlier NCLB compliance waivers -- albeit, often tied to Common Core adoption -- suggested that they were not serious about demanding excellence across school districts.
Rather than viewing New York’s results as an indictment of Common Core -- or the allegedly speedy, haphazard way in which the standards were adopted -- we should applaud the state’s courage in demanding that all New York students empirically demonstrate the writing, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills necessary for success in a global information economy.
Moreover, we should remember that the bipartisan standards-based movement is not of recent vintage. It dates back to the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk and subsequent teacher-lead initiatives, such as the 1989 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. These early documents were followed by President H.W. Bush's standards-focused 1989 national education summit, the Clinton administration's 1996 National Education Summit, and the stepped-up call for common standards that came with both 2001's No Child Left Behind and the 2004 report, Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts. These efforts collectively made clear that the standard American high school diploma had lost its brand value, as the real world demands of colleges and employers had become more rigorous and exacting.
Today’s Common Core State Standards are simply a more evolved version of those original standards. A curriculum that is more transparent and work-relevant -- with clear benchmarks for success -- helps parents, teachers, and students gain clarity on what is expected for career and life success in an intensely competitive marketplace.
Opponents of uniform higher standards describe them as unfair, too rigorous, and with intrusive data tracking systems that violate privacy. Moreover, they castigate Common Core as a stalking horse for school privatization, and a paean to vested corporate “special interests,” such as Pearson, which would ostensibly benefit from an easily replicable set of common core textbooks. Weirdly, as opponents decry Common Core as a push for decentralized privatization -- egged on by the likes of that evil no-good Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- they simultaneously rail about the increased centralization of standards out of Washington, DC, forgetting that DC has for decades set benchmarks for academic competency, regardless of state and local wiggle room in meeting those benchmarks.
In addition, contrary to heated claims of Common Core opponents, no set of standards emanating out of DC has ever precluded schools and teachers from making allowances for different student “learning styles, preferences, and paces.” Moreover, Common Core Standards do not preclude schools from adding back a cornucopia of important subjects -- from art to music to great books shared inquiry -- as required courses or electives. In addition, as noted by education consultant, and former Assistant Secretary of Education in the G.W. Bush administration, Christina Culver, "these standards are designed to raise the bar, but no one is stopping schools and teachers from exceeding the bar. In fact, the BASIS charter schools claim they complete the K-12 Common Core Standards by the 9th grade. I am sure many great schools with high bars could do this."
While privacy concerns, in particular, should be taken seriously in light of the recent NSA and IRS scandals, a primary reason given for opposing “common core data mining” – it might, God forbid, lead to the empirically beneficial mandatory early childhood education -- seems specious. The problem is that extreme privacy activists see better tracking as invariably Orwellian when, in fact, better tracking of student attendance, participation, and academic progress has been a key component in finally tackling the nation’s debilitating dropout epidemic.
Taken as a whole, these concerns strike me as the same tired, regressive apologies for failure that have kept the U.S. mired in the middle of the pack on global tests of academic excellence. All of the countries leading the U.S. in academic achievement – e.g., Singapore, South Korea, and Finland – have a common set of academic standards. Moreover, Common Core’s opponents have yet to empirically show why lowering standards based on the random criteria of state, district or locality is somehow better for students and the country. As report after report documents, if the U.S. is to continue to lead the world in economic growth – and the innovation that feeds such growth – we must start, at the very bottom, to demand more from our students, parents, and educators across all localities, regardless of race, income, or geography. With 48% of college graduates working in jobs that do not require a four-year college degree, and 75% of underemployed college graduates working in jobs that require no more than a high school diploma, clearly leaving the solution up to the sole discretion of states and localities is not working.
By providing consistent and practical guideposts -- and long-term data analysis that tracks whether educational programs actually help students learn -- Common Core learning standards are a long-awaited first step to closing the talent gap that bedevil college admissions officers and employers alike.
But, hey, I am not the final word on Common Core. If there are legitimate reasons why you think this national effort should be halted in its tracks, let me know in the Comments area below.
