Getting The Details With Common Core
6 min read
On Wednesday, OPB ran one of the better stories I have heard within mainstream media on the Common Core standards; the piece was reported by Rob Manning. The piece focused on adoption within Oregon, and contains gems like this quotation from a district superintendent:
“In eastern Oregon, we have a saying that cattle get bigger because you feed them, not because you weigh them.â€
However, the story also fails to nail down some key details.
Adopting the "Smarter Balanced" Assessment
The Manning piece describes how the Oregon Board of Education recently voted to adopt the currently incomplete Smarter Balanced assessments.
The tests are a work in progress and are still two years off. But hundreds of Oregon students and teachers have already tried the new “Smarter Balanced†assessment.
While the tests are two years off, there has been concern about whether or not the tests are on schedule to meet that timetable. Recent large scale failures of online tests (see previous link) do not allay these concerns. A lack of internet connectivity required to administer the tests is also a recognized problem.
Additionally, even Arne Duncan admits that the new tests will lead to “a couple of choppy years†for schools.
So, while the tests are technically a work in progress, not acknowledging that there is uncertainty about whether the tests will be ready when they are needed is an omission that glosses over the scope of the challenges involved in rolling out the tests accompanying the new standards.
Moreover, there are some concerns about the quality of both PARCC and Smarter Balanced questions.
A more accurate description here would read:
The full content of these tests is not yet finished, and there have been concerns that the tests won't be fully ready in time. However, hundreds of Oregon students and teachers have already field-tested a draft version of the new “Smarter Balanced†assessment.
The Origins of Common Core
The original piece at OPB contains scant and incomplete information about the origin of the Common Core standards, and the conditions that led to their widespread adoption.
Unlike "No Child Left Behind," this didn’t come through Congress. State-level officials put it together -- though the Obama Administration is on board.
State level officials did not put this together. The original group that put this together consisted of a small group of people working for testing organizations, with support from the major textbook companies and Edison Learning, a charter school operator and "school turnaround" specialist with a spotty record of success. The fact that the Common Core standards are called "state" standards is good marketing, but it ignores the reality that these standards were designed at the national level, by people and organizations doing work both nationally and internationally.
Also, saying that the Obama administration is "on board" misrepresents the level of support from the Obama administation for the Common Core standards. As noted in an earlier post, the Obama administration set the adoption of Common Core standards - and of tying teacher evaluations to standardized test results - as weighted criteria in Race to the Top, and as a requirement for NCLB waivers. When federal funding is tied to adopting both a set of standards, and assessments tied to those standards, that goes far beyond being "on board."
A more accurate description here would read:
The Common Core standards were developed by representatives from textbook companies, educational organizations, testing organizations, and other individuals, with lead authorship generally attributed to David Coleman, Sue Pimentel, Bill McCallum and Jason Zimba. While the Obama administration has been careful not to advocate for the standards by name, federal education policy has provided funding incentives for states that adopted the standards, and assessments aligned to the standards.
Field Tests
Students in Oregon were subjects in field testing, but the method of choosing schools for these field tests remains unclear.
David Beasley, superintendent of the Gaston District in western Washington County, says “Well, I’d like to say we volunteered, but we didn’t.â€
Unfortunately, there is no follow up here to learn why or how this district was chosen. It's clear that students were made to take the tests, and we can only assume that this was done at the expense of instructional time. In New York, Pearson was paid millions of dollars to administer field tests, sparking parent outrage and a larger Opt Out movement.
Why was this district chosen? Did they have a choice? How much instructional time was devoted to these tests in this district? How many other schools in Oregon took these tests?
The superintendent clearly is not completely pleased here. It would have been interesting to hear more - even just one or two sentences - about the backstory.
With All That Said...
The rest of the story is pretty solid. They get student observations on the tests, which is an interesting perspective that most education writers overlook or ignore entirely. But the details matter.
The Common Core standards, much curriculum aligned to those standards, the tests measuring progress relative to the standards - these different pieces were all developed by the same people. Some companies or organizations had representation in all of these elements, and Federal education policy - and more importantly, Federal education funding - supported the adoption of the Common Core standards. Adopting the standards, of course, creates an immediate need for the new tests and the new curriculum.
With this much business at stake, it's no surprise that the people working on Common Core also spend a good chunk of money lobbying:
- Pearson, Inc and Pearson Education;
- Scholastic;
- Houghton Mifflin;
- EdisonLearning;
- McGraw-Hill;
- Wireless Generation
However, the adoption of Common Core standards, the rollout of the tests related to these standards, and the need for new curriculum that supports these standards, are often treated as separate entities. On the one hand, that's technically true - the standards are just standards. But, the federal policies, especially incentives in the various strands of Race to the Top and the NCLB Waiver process, helped ensure that Common Core standard adoption and new standardized assessments occurred together.
The origins of the standards, and the web of policies tying together the standards, the assessments, and the new curriculum, is very opaque. The complexity is made worse when one starts to look at the financial interests of the organizations that played a role in developing these new standards, as many of the companies and organizations involved in developing the standards could make enormous sums of money from services ranging from textbooks, testing, teacher training, and school turnaround support.
This complexity, however, is all the more reason why stories about the Common Core need to get the background right. If you miss the background, you miss the story, and everyone remains underinformed.
Image Credit: "Lazy Cow" taken by sarah white, published under an Attribution Share-Alike license.
