TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
(copyright 2009 Texas AFT)
 
* Common Core Standards--An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
* New School Ratings Make an Unintended Point
 
Common Core Standards--An Idea Whose Time Has Come? The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers today published draft standards that seek to define what students need to know and be able to do to succeed in college and the workplace. The draft standards could be a vehicle for real standards-driven reform. But caution is in order, because they also have their limitations.
 
The American Federation of Teachers, Texas AFT's national affiliate, has been supportive of this standards-writing experiment. Two groups of AFT members have taken part in a preliminary review of the draft released today. The NGA and CSSO invite comments from the public and from educators via the Common Core Standards Initiative Web site: www.corestandards.org.
 
AFT President Randi Weingarten had this to say: "There is a compelling need for common standards that are higher, fewer and clearer. We are pleased that many of the comments from teams of teachers were heard and are reflected in this draft.

"We expect to see even more teacher input during the comment period and in future effort s to develop standards to guide the work of K-12 teachers. We encourage math and language arts teachers from across the country to make suggestions throughout this process.
 
"The question is: Do these standards reflect what we expect our children to know and what they should be able to do upon graduation whether they enter the workforce or go on to college? We realize the answer is far from simple, but these draft standards are a solid first step.

"Much has been learned from past failed efforts to develop and implement common core standards. Key to the success of this initiative, in addition to developing assessments that are aligned to standards, are the implementation pieces that make standards real: curriculum, professional development, and other resources teachers and students need."
 
One concern already raised about this attempt to draft "common core" state standards is that it focuses just on reading and math. We already have seen under the No Child Left Behind Act a narrowing of the curriculum caused by an extreme focus on basic reading and math skills. A key question about the "common core" initiative as it evolves will be whether this pitfall can be avoided. Common core standards will be no improvement if they mimic NCLB by encouraging neglect of subjects important to a well-rounded education and drive state standards toward the lowest common denominator.
 
New School Ratings Make Unintended Point: A Houston-based advocacy organization called Children at Risk has just published its own version of school ratings for Dallas, Houston, and Austin, based on a number of factors, including scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and scores on college-entrance exams such as the ACT and SAT.
 
We're sure the folks from Children at Risk are well-intentioned, but their new report illustrates the fallibility of school ratings that attempt to reduce a complex reality to a single numerical ranking. Dr. Robert Sanborn, who heads up Children at Risk, says, "The numbers don't lie." But Ed Fuller, a highly regarded education researcher at the University of Texas, looked at the report's methodology and found it wanting. Fuller contended, according to the Austin American-Statesman, that the study placed undue weight on college-entrance tests and played down the significant impact of poverty on student achievement.
 
A Children at Risk project coordinator, Caroline Holcombe, noted in response that the study deliberately reduced the importance given in this year's study to the effects of poverty and gave it no more than equal weight with other variables, because in prior years "people became more concerned with the poverty issue than with what the study was trying to say." And there's the rub. The numbers may not lie, but the framework of a study ("what the study was trying to say") can give a distorted view of factors influencing student achievement in our schools--just like the framework of assumptions underlying current state and federal performance rankings.