In Soundview Rising, June 28, 2013
Common Core has been praised as a way to make education for our youth more rigorous. But is it, and will it really improve education? A much talked about article, ‘Who’s Minding the Schools?” by Andrew and Claudia Dreifus (New York Times, 6/8/13) raised many legitimate educational concerns, especially about why this country’s students are scoring well below European and Asian peers. 2009 rankings (PISA) placed the United States 24th of 34 countries in “mathematics literacy” and llth in “reading literacy.” Common Core by using more difficult assignments for students is projected to close this gap.
But Hacker and Dreifus are “not so sure” students will improve their test scores. They feel forcing all students to fulfill Common Core’s aims to make them ready for “college and careers,” while democratic, does not address the already significant numbers of students who do not finish high school. If “one-quarter” of our country’s students do not finish high school, how is a more rigorous curriculum of the Common Core and more difficult tests, going to help these students? Schools whose students mainly are college bound may be able to easily reach more rigorous instructional aims. But, as these authors suggest, is Common Core a program that will cause more failure for many students.
A more pointed analysis by Bob Somerby in the Daily Howler (6/13/13) which compared various ethnic groups average scores in the United States on the reading literacy test in the United States with the students’ country of their native background, e.g. while the average score for all United States was 500 (PiSA, 2009), Asian American United States students scored 541, while Korea score was 539, Finland 536, United States white students 525 and the overall average for all countries was 493. He also cites that in Massachusetts in 2011 Black students outscored Finland on the TIMSS Mathematics assessment. Does this say anything about how ethnic background influences how students study and learn? Are we over generalizing with Common Core assumptions?
Common Core can be considered a left or right wing movement. But it is the students who take these tests and the teachers who will be rated on these students’ scores who will wear the scars of a program if it is not properly implemented. In New York City, State Commissioner John King issued a final decision on the methods the City’s Department of Education, supervisors and teachers’ union must now follow. On June 1, 2013 King said, “Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments will be rated ineffective overall.” Further he said the “key” was the “training and professional development to help students and principals improve these practices. This decision is all part of the nearly $700 million Race to the Top federal mon ey given as a New York State Grant which stated New York City Department of Education goal was a 20% growth of student scores.
One Westchester teacher stated on Feedblitz (6/15/13) she had incorporated numerous texts and articles from the New York Times into classroom assignments. Students had made “sense” of difficult vocabulary and shared their interpretations. But she lamented the Common Core English Language Arts tests “wiped out” her students.
Where will the education in New York State go when rigid Common Core test requirements are used? How will the needs of less academically inclined students, special education, or English as a Second Language students or other categories, be met?
One state, Texas, decided to move in a different direction. Texas Governor Rick Perry has been quoted as repeatedly saying, “The academic standards of Texas are not for sale.” Governor Perry has now signed a law reducing the number of high school tests that must be passed to graduate from fifteen to five. A leader in this fight, attorney and mother, Dineen Majeher, who organized the successful effort, feels other states should follow this initiative.
It will be difficult to predict how the public schools in New York State will adapt to the Common Core Standards but let’s hope that common sense prevails and that students will not suffer during the process.