Withdraw from the Common Core? What's all the fuss about?

Indiana made headlines this week with their decision to withdraw from the Common Core State Standards.  Maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t get it.  Why do so many people have an issue with the Common Core State Standards?  As I’ve scanned a variety of articles, here is what I found.  

Complaint #1 - WE didn’t write them, somebody else did.  The somebody else was a group of teachers and standards experts.  Also involved in the development process were the International Reading Association, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.  So maybe the teachers who were involved were different teachers than some would have chosen, but the reality is that teachers and national organizations focused on the subject areas of English language arts and mathematics were directly involved in the process.

Complaint #2 - The Feds are telling us what to do.  Maybe to some extent they are but I ask the question…don’t our students deserve a common baseline of what they should know and be able to do?  The “Feds” that started this initiative in the first place are the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).  Aren’t our chief state school officers charged with providing leadership at the state level for public education?  Also, in the end, it was up to each state to decide whether to adopt the Common Core State Standards or not.  

Complaint #3 - Our state standards are already more challenging.  If this is truly the case, then it should be a breeze to incorporate the Common Core State Standards.  I haven’t seen anything that indicates that states or school districts have to limit themselves to the Common Core.  If your students are capable of more, then do it.  

Complaint #4 - The Common Core State Standards are too hard.  This may be true for some states and some districts.  If it is true, isn’t this an indication that we should raise the bar for our students and push them to achieve more?  The intent of the standards is to provide the stepping stones to help students be college and career ready.  If our current standards aren’t rigorous enough to do that, then we need to raise the bar for our students.

Complaint #5 - The Common Core is telling me how to teach.   The Common Core outlines what we students should know and be able to do.  It helps define what students should but leaves the teaching (the how) to the teachers.  

In the end, if you look at the content of the Common Core State Standards, I really don’t see a lot to argue with.  In English language arts there is a significant focus on non-fiction reading and writing.  The research from the 90-90-90 schools and many other sources support a focus on non-fiction as one of the most powerful ways to improve student performance.  I would also argue that 90% or more of what we do as adults in whatever job we do involves some form of non-fiction reading and/or writing.  Also, remember that the Common Core doesn’t throw literature out the window, but it does provide a more balanced approach.  

In the article about Indiana withdrawing from the Common Core, there was an interesting addition at the end.  The original author of the legislation, state Senator Scott Schneider, pulled his name from the bill late in the process.  Apparently he objected to a component that other legislators added that required the state to still meet national education standards so they wouldn’t jeopardize federal funding.  So, in the end, is what Indiana ends up with going to be that much different than the Common Core?

I don’t see the Common Core as evil.  It is simply a recommendation of what students should know and be able to do in each grade level in English language arts and mathematics.  Frankly, it is a better starting point and guide than we have had in the past.  We still need to work with it at the local level to develop an understanding of Common Core, translate it into student friendly language, and determine how we are going to help students achieve the standards.  That is our job as educators.

Inventing the Future for Our Students

As superintendent of a one school K-8 school district, I have the advantage of seeing the entire continuum of our students’ experience all in one place.  We recently began registration for our kindergarten students that we will welcome in August 2014.  We are responsible for creating their educational experience that will help them be successful for not only the next nine years (K-8) but for the eight years (high school and college) or so of school that will follow that in addition to their life beyond that.  We need to project what will their experience and their life be like 9 or 13 or 17 years from now and begin to prepare them for that.  This is both exciting and scary at the same time.  

At the same time, we are getting ready to send our 8th grade students off to high school.  As we prepare to say goodbye to our 8th graders and welcome our new kindergarten students, I have been reflecting back to August 2005.  That is when our current 8th graders started kindergarten. I did some digging to remind myself of how things were in 2005.  

• Did you know that four months before our 8th graders started kindergarten YouTube was launched?  Did any of us predict at that point that by the time they graduated more than 1 billion unique users would visit YouTube…EACH MONTH!  Who would have thought that the YouTube channel for the band One Direction would have over 12.6 million subscribers?
• iTunes was only selling music when they started kindergarten and made up a little over 4% of the music industry market.  A quote from a November 21, 2005 article indicated "Apple Computer's iTunes music store now sells more music than Tower Records or Borders, according to analyst firm the NPD Group.”  iTunes recently sold its 25 billionth song and has sold more than 1 billion TV episodes and 380 million movies. iTunes users are spending $1.75 billion a year on videos alone and iTunes accounts for $6.9 billion a year spent on digital music. In addition, the App store has hit over 50 billion downloads and Apple has paid out over $10 billion to developers.  
• Facebook only had 5.5 million users.  Today 1.184 billion people are on Facebook.
• Twitter was created in the spring of their kindergarten year.
• Just before they started 2nd grade, the first iPhone was released.  Now many of them have the 4th or 5th generation iphone.
• In fourth grade soon after they returned from winter break, the first iPad was released.  

The bottom line is that when today’s 8th grade students started kindergarten, none of us would have predicted things as they are today.  As I mentioned at the beginning, in August 2014, a new group of students will start kindergarten at Park View.  It is our job as educators to prepare them for success in the future.  We don’t know what that future will look like but it is safe to say that it will be continually changing.  New tools and new opportunities are created every day.  What it means for us as educators is that we need to continue to learn and grow and adapt to provide the best educational experience we can for our children.  Years ago a colleague of mine gave me a pen for my desk with a quote by Alan Kay that says, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”  We need to continuously work on improving what we do and inventing and reinventing the future for the sake of all of our children.