As Jindal Presses to Scrap Common Core, Controversy Simmers Nationwide

When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal decided in June to jettison the “Common Core” educational standards he’d been embracing for years, he cast a promising reform initiative into the cauldron of partisan politics.

Jindal, a Republican with national aspirations, was aligning himself with rightists’ suspicions that the Common Core initiative is extending the long arm of government into K-12 educational policies that have long enjoyed a measure of state and local control. Last week, Jindal filed a lawsuit against his state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to dissolve a legal agreement that pledged Louisiana to join the Common Core consortium.

At the same time, the federal education secretary Arne Duncan also seemed to back away from “Common Core,” the phrase if not the substance. In a June 20 speech about raising educational standards the words “Common Core” never passed his lips, even though he was obviously alluding to the program and its goals.

Criticism from the right may have muted Duncan’s remarks, but so too may have opposition from some teachers’ spokesmen who anticipate new kinds of pedagogical demands. Duncan and President Obama have embraced the Common Core objective of higher standards, and made it a key criterion for grants to states in their $4.4 billion  “Race to the Top” program.

Common Core continues to serve as a lighting rod for controversy across the country. Last week, South Carolina state lawmakers were told that Common Core standards would be examined and considered by teachers reworking state reading and math standards after the state superintendent had declared they’d be ignored. In Ohio, state lawmakers will hold legislative hearings hearings this month on a bill that would scrap Common Core standards previously adopted by the state Board of Education. And in Utah, a Libertarian think tank is backing a new lawsuit against the state, which adopted the standards four years ago.

All of the criticism has cited Common Core as a federal overreach into local affairs.

Ironically, the federal government had little to do with development of the the standards. In fact, it arose in part from educators’ negative reaction to aspects of the last big federal initiative—the No Child Left Behind program begun under President George W. Bush. That program’s emphasis on testing was at once praised for promoting accountability and condemned for promoting a kind of rote learning and “teaching to the test.”

No Child Left Behind did not attempt to establish national standards of excellence. And as evidence mounted that U.S. students were falling behind, governors and their education advisers concluded that the content of the K-12 instruction was simply not competitive on an international scale. Indeed, U.S. students rank abysmally low in international comparisons of math, science and language arts skills.

It was a governor who spearheaded the move to create a nationwide set of standards, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, who later became Obama’s Homeland Security secretary.

In 2009, the National Governors Association, which she led for two years, and the Council of Chief State School Officers got behind an initiative to create what became known as the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics in grades K-12. Drafting was done by a small group led by David Coleman, now head of the College Board, and was largely financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The final draft of the Common Core standards was published in 2010. Forty-five states moved to adopt them. Texas, Alaska, Virginia and Nebraska did not, and Minnesota adopted only the English Language Arts standards.

Common Core standards for English Language Arts, including history, seek to slow down the pace of learning to spend, say, three days on the Gettysburg Address, and to examine original text without the kind of preview of meaning and context provided by traditional history textbooks. So students are asked to derive from the text itself the writer’s purpose, voice, arguments, types of evidence, and meaning of key words. In classroom discussions and later reading, they can place the text in its historical context. Common Core insists on grade-appropriate readings even for struggling students—rather than dumbed down “readiness” materials.

The standards suggest but do not dictate the reading of key authors—Shakespeare, Turgenev, Yeats, Hawthorne and writers of literary nonfiction, such as the founding fathers. But they don’t envision as many readings as predecessor standards.

Instead, the focus is on general literacy—and reading and writing are taught across disciplines, including science. For history, one specific standard for 9th and 10th grade includes comparing and contrasting treatments of a topic in several primary and secondary sources. Another specific standard for 11th and 12th grade history classes asks students to evaluate an author’s premises, claims and evidence by challenging or corroborating them with other information. So history teachers often refer students back to primary documents to analyze arguments and evidence.

Perhaps the most controversial suggestion is that by the 12th grade, students should be reading 70 percent nonfiction vs. 30 percent fiction in the English language arts classes that include history and government. Conservatives have fumed that students are being asked to replace reading of literary works with reading of dry technical information, including documents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or various executive orders.

Math standards, too, emphasize a more conceptual, word-based approach, replacing rote learning of formulas and solutions.

The Debate Continues Amid Progress and Politics

Conservatives see Common Core suggestions as mandates for new curricula. Teachers also have sometimes resisted, complaining that reading of established literary works is being reduced in favor of processes of analysis. History teachers worry about abandoning approved textbooks and a set body of information and focusing on argument, structure and credibility of sources.

In response, Common Core proponents note that nothing requires teachers to assign  manual-type texts and that key literary works remain important. Still, some of the material students are being asked to comprehend is more complex than in the past. That’s in line with the goal of giving students the “ability to infer,” which was identified in a 2006 study by ACT, the college testing service, as key to reading skills that spelled success in college courses where students face complex readings that they must master independently. The idea of “complexity” is so important to Common Core’s creators that they go to great pains, in a detailed addendum, to define what it means.

Not just content but teaching methods are under fire. The lecture system is on the way out, in favor of class discussions about argument and evidence, and writing about how one solves math problems as well. Textbooks are on the wane, and more informational texts are new on the list. Teachers, of course, are having to change classroom routines, and many have complained that they’ve not received the training needed to succeed in the new systems.

After their rollout in 2010, Common Core State Standards were adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. Formal assessments of the new system aren’t scheduled until the  2014-2015 school year, and many participating states are delaying assessments for many years, wanting to wait until robust teacher support is in place.

One early assessment, however, has come from Kentucky, the first state to implement the standards. Testers there saw the share of high school graduates considered ready for college improve from 34 percent to 54 percent two years after implementation.

Although no one argues against higher standards for American students, the Common Core program is increasingly fraught with controversy. Jindal’s statement is only one sign of unrest. His resistance bespeaks, perhaps, uneasiness across the South, where states lagging in educational spending and achievement may be reluctant to find themselves compared to northern and western states with better records.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed legislation in late July that could change the state’s approach to the Common Core. As The Washington Post noted recently, North Carolina’s Republican-dominated government is also cutting education spending, making interstate comparisons all the more difficult.

The Post’s July 23 primer on Common Core included a list of opponents and proponents and their arguments pro and con. The piece is organized as a “what you need to know” analysis of Common Core, with many links to other analyses and organizations surrounding the program.

Notable, perhaps laughable, among recent opposition initiatives was conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck’s two-hour simulcast about “Obamacore,” shown in 700 movie theaters he rented for the occasion.

Other Republican governors also seem to be jumping ship. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in late July asked the legislature to dump the program, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is seeking reexamination of the standards.

Teachers unions are supporting Common Core, but their members are worried about assessments that will measure not only students but also teachers, who, many believe, haven’t had adequate preparation for the new system. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has said that implementation of Common Core has been “far worse” even than implementation of Obamacare.

The Post’s primer lists other categories of worriers, including parents, progressives, literature buffs and “people who hate education-centric corporations” they fear will earn fortunes while dominating the new textbooks and testing regimens Common Core will require.

Opponents may be noisier, but supporters remain numerous. More parents are for than against, for example. Arne Duncan still is a strong supporter. Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, remain in favor of the higher standards for the young people they will employ. And Jeb Bush, Florida’s former governor whom many in the Republican Party favor as a 2016 presidential candidate, continues his campaign to press ahead with adoption of the Common Core.

So even four year into the program, the battle is on to define what Common Core means and how it will affect millions of students, parents and teachers. And in our decentralized system of government, there’s no assurance that we can achieve a national standard of excellence that will keep us up to speed with other advanced nations around the world.

Diane B. Durkin, PhD, teaches in the Department of Education at the University of California Los Angeles. Timothy B. Clark is editor-at-large at Government Executive.