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Nationwide Panel Evaluates "Common Core State Standards," Obama Administration Supports Effort A group of educators convened by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is gathering comment on a recently proposed draft set of English and math standards – a project that advocates hope will establish common standards defining “college ready” skills for high school graduates in states around the nation. The Common Core State Standards Initiative, as the effort is known, released the proposed draft standards last week (available at www.corestandards.org), and will be accepting comment from states into October. The group announced a 25-member validation committee that will work on the standards through the winter, with the process for state-by-state adoption of common core standards beginning sometime in 2010. Some 48 states and the District of Columbia are participating (with Texas and Alaska being the exceptions). The Obama Administration backs the project. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said “I applaud the leadership of this coalition of states in joining together to develop a common core of academic standards. The draft set of college- and career-ready standards are an important step forward, and it is now in the hands of the public to provide critical feedback to state leadership.” Duncan has set aside $350 million in Race to the Top (RTTT) funds to encourage states (or groups of states) to develop common standards and tests. The Washington Post summarized the proposed draft standards in these terms: “In math, the proposal envisions that students would be able to solve systems of equations; find and interpret rates of change; and adapt probability models to solve real-world problems. In English language arts, they would be able to analyze how word choices shape the meaning and tone of a text; develop a style and tone of writing appropriate to a task and audience; and respond constructively to advance a discussion and build on the input of others.” Proponents insist that the process will not lead to establishment of federally-defined “national standards.” Rather, they say the initiative is driven by collective state action, and states will “voluntarily adopt the standards” based on “the timeliness and context in their state.” Chester E. Finn, Jr., a former Reagan administration education official, described the release of the draft standards as a major development. He told the Washington Post that “We have now a public working draft of what could turn out to be the beginnings of national standards for K-12 education. That’s potentially a very big deal.” Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, poured cold water on the proposal. McCluskey told the Post that “previous efforts to create national standards failed utterly because Americans have extremely varied educational wants and needs . . . efforts to address all of them with one-size-fits-all Beltway diktats will be fruitless at best, and quite harmful at worst.” Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, said “Progress in this area has been painfully slow, and it is a very long road from agreeing on standards to fully implementing them and ultimately addressing their effectiveness. But every journey starts with a first important step.” The possibility of a national set of academic standards poses interesting questions for education leaders in California. The state is widely recognized as having some of the toughest core content standards in the nation. Rather than altering its K-12 academic standards in the face of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements, as many states did, California chose to use its standards as its primary benchmark to achieving district and school site NCLB academic performance targets. How these proposed national standards compare to California’s is the first question. A second question is to what extent will national academic standards influence California’s standards-based accountability system? The state was one of the first to embrace the standards-based reform movement, and has spent over 12 years and countless billions of dollars putting its current system in place. Will national standards one day usurp California’s system in favor of a more universal accountability system that would stretch over multiple states, or even all states? Under our federalist system, education policy has historically been left up to states. The federal government has traditionally had a limited role in the development and implementation of instructional strategies at the state and local levels. Although NCLB represented a significant expansion of the federal government’s role in education, it primarily has focused on accountability requirements for specified schools receiving Title I funds. The development of national academic standards represents a dramatic departure from the federal government’s traditional role in an otherwise state jurisdictional issue. Editor's Note: Jeff Hudson is the editor of EdBrief and an award-winning education reporter and writer in print, radio and television media. Brett McFadden is Management Services Executive at Association of California School Administrators (ACSA). |
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