Common Core: We Hardly Knew Ye

Will the SS Common Core make it?
Tune in next legislative session.
Figure 1. (Wallpaperpin.com, 2013)

If you have been an educator for at least a year (less in some districts), you understand that the proverbial pendulum swings with a steadfast resolve in one direction, only to abruptly retreat. If education were a ship, everyone aboard would be seasick. If education were a business, it would be out of business, or apologizing to its customers for its trespasses, like many companies in the past. Flip-flopping is common—people and organizations make mistakes—, but the race to accept the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) juxtaposed to the growing cry to repeal them makes for some interesting policy shifts, and educators are just along for the ride. Is this flip flop the right one?

Education Week created a "Bill Status Tracker" to track introduced, passed, and defeated bills in states considering a repeal of the CCSS. While one would assume that the states considering a repeal are Southern, several are Midwestern: Indiana, Missouri, and Michigan (Minnesota and Nebraska never adopted the standards). The only Southern state actively attempting to repeal the CCSS is Alabama (Texas and Virginia never adopted the standards).

If you want to understand the growing interest in repealing the CCSS, you must look to the early years of the United States. Since McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), determining where federal authority ends and states' rights begin is a matter of interpretation (some call it opinion). Using the CCSS as a states' rights issue is a growing trend in many state houses around the country.

Proof that the dismantling of the CCSS is about states' rights and not directed toward the substantive parts of the standards, look no further than Alabama State Senator Dick Brewbaker, who said he favored the repeal of the CCSS because they placed "far too much reliance on other people developing our content standards" (Belanger, 2013). Although Alabama is a unique state, it is difficult to imagine that the CCSS does not focus on the needs of Alabama students.

The CCSS provides convenient ammunition for politicians who want to use education to fight an ideological battle. The difficult truth for most politicians is that the CCSS were overwhelmingly approved. "Forty-five states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity have adopted the [CCSS]" (Common Core, 2012). The misguided attack on the CCSS should be directed at Race to the Top (RttT).

It is RttT, not the CCSS, that has created a multitude of tests and an evaluation system that does not evaluate as much as it punishes. The strings, held mostly by the US Department of Education, are leveraged with money (NC received $400 million). As a result of accepting the money, many conditions had to be met by the state:

• Measures of Student Learning (Common Assessments) in all subjects,
• evaluations with an accountability component,
• among other conditions.

The loser, among this political game, are the students. While the CCSS are not perfect, they do represent an improvement in what most states developed as their curriculum. Perhaps most important are the critical thinking skills inherent in the standards, which are important, no matter the state. 

If states' rights seems like a flimsy excuse, consider the history: states' rights was used by Southern states to justify slavery and deny people their civil rights. It's only fitting that this argument be used to deny students in public schools an education.

References

Belanger, E. (2013, June 3). Common core: Roby proposal not enough to stop local repeal efforts, state senator says. Retrieved from http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/06/common_core_roby_proposal_not.html

Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012). In the states. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/in-the-states

Wallpaperpin.com (2013, April 22). Waves best size wild in fantasy world. Retrieved from http://www.wallpaperpin.com/wallpaper/1280x1024/waves-best-size-wild-in-fantasy-world-15898.html