Education Week - February 6, 2013 - 26

EDUCATION WEEK

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Common Core
Facing Barrage
In Several States
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

point, for example, to the foes’ setback in the
American Legislative Exchange Council, a
conservative think tank in Washington that
provides model legislation on a number of issues. In November, alec rejected an internal
push against the standards and announced
a policy of neutrality.
But opponents aren’t fazed.
“All of a sudden, I find myself in opposition to some of the most politically powerful
people in our state,” said Stephanie Zimmerman, a public school parent in Boise, Idaho,
who testified last month against the common core before state legislators. “My goal
is to educate people.”
The common-core initiative was shepherded by two major organizations of state
leaders, the National Governors Association
and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Groups of experts were assembled to
write the standards, which were issued in
2010 and are aimed at ensuring students’
readiness for college and careers.
But critics say the position of the nga and
the ccsso as the public-sector face of the
push masks what they assert is a strategy
of coercion by the U.S. Department of Education. They note, for example, that the agency
has tied federal Race to the Top grants to
adoption of college- and career-ready standards.
State and federal officials deny charges
that Washington is pulling the strings.
Time is short for opponents of the common
core, as states get ready for assessments
aligned with the standards starting in the
2014-15 school year.
“At least in some states with politically
conservative voters or tea-party–influenced
legislators, it’s more than just venting,” said
Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the director of
the Brown Center on Education Policy at
the Brookings Institution, who led the Education Department’s research agency during
the George W. Bush administration.

Hoosier Hearing
Perhaps no state epitomizes the pushback
better than Indiana.
When state schools Superintendent Tony
Bennett, a Republican and a champion of the
standards, lost his November re-election bid
to a common-core skeptic, Democrat Glenda
Ritz, opponents of the common core attributed his loss in part to his support for them.
Then, early last month, state Sen. Scott
Schneider, a Republican member of the Senate education committee, introduced legislation that would require the state to drop the
common standards.
Mr. Schneider said that the standards are
inferior to Indiana’s prior academic-content
standards, and that the common core has
frustrated legislators because it was adopted
behind a “veil of secrecy” and without good
estimates of its financial costs.
“We really lose a lot of local input and a lot of
local control,” Mr. Schneider said. “And there’s
no parental input, there’s no teacher input.”
The Indiana Department of Education
disputes such assertions. It says the state
board of education discussed, provided input
on, and received public feedback about the
common core from February to August 2010,
when the board adopted the standards.
Mr. Schneider argued, in addition, that the
common core would corrode Indiana’s school
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choice program, because some private schools
would eventually feel compelled to bend their
curricula in order to prepare for the commoncore-aligned tests, which they would have to
administer to get state voucher money.
At a hearing on Jan. 16 on Mr. Schneider’s
proposed Senate Bill 193, former Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott told Indiana lawmakers, “These standards have not
been piloted anywhere to show that they lead
to better student performance.” (Texas has
not adopted the common core.)
Mr. Scott said parents and teachers have
had little input on the common core.
Sandra Stotsky, a professor emerita of education at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, told lawmakers the common core
“makes it impossible for English teachers to
construct a coherent literature curriculum.”
Ms. Stotsky, who helped develop highly
regarded state content standards in Massachusetts, an adopter of the common core,
has also testified against the new standards
before state officials in Colorado and South

in its direction, said Mr. Schaffer, who is the
principal of Liberty Common High School, a
charter school in Fort Collins, Colo.
Legislators previously desperate for federal
cash attached to the standards, he said, are
“just becoming alerted to what’s going on.”
In early December, anti-common-core
advocates like Emmett McGroarty of the
American Principles Project, a conservative
Washington think tank, and Williamson
Evers from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, were interviewed on Denverarea radio stations.
On Dec. 6, opponents also spoke at a discussion about the common core hosted by
the state board with Mr. Schaffer presiding.
On the same day, Mr. Schaffer participated
in an event at the pro-free-market Independence Institute in Denver, where analysts
criticized the standards.
Mr. Cohen dismissed those he called outof-state advocates lecturing states that
have already made their own decisions:
“State legislatures have been no more cut

“

When there’s a potential market
for high-quality digital instruction, it’s a
game-changer.”
STATE SEN. RICHARD CRANDALL
Arizona Republican

“

These standards have not been
Carolina.
piloted anywhere to show that they lead
Michael J. Petrilli, a vice
president of the Washingtonto better student performance.”
based Thomas B. Fordham
Institute, who served as a fedROBERT SCOTT
eral education official under
Former Texas Commissioner of Education
President George W. Bush,
told the lawmakers that the
U.S. government may have
pushed for the standards inappropriately out now than they were when the stanby what he called the “heavy handed” way dards movements began in the ’90s.”
it tied adoption of college- and career-ready
Others applaud what they see as the comstandards—in effect, the common core—to mon core’s ability to create a national margrants for states. But he stressed that drop- ketplace for innovative K-12 technology.
ping the common core would be like reverting
“When there’s a potential market for
to rotary phones.
high-quality digital instruction, it’s a game“Indiana has been this classic case of good changer,” said Arizona state Sen. Richard
standards not actually having an impact in Crandall, a Republican who fought in supthe classroom,” Mr. Petrilli said, referring to port of the common core within alec.
what he said were the state’s relatively low
score gains on the National Assessment of Interstate Aid
Educational Progress in recent decades.
Mr. Schneider said his committee was set to
In Idaho, the support of conservative ofvote on his bill Feb. 13.
ficeholders hasn’t assuaged some fears.
Although Ms. Zimmerman, the Boise
parent, was initially comforted that Gov.
Private-Sector Role
C.L. “Butch” Otter and Superintendent of
Support for the standards from the pri- Public Instruction Tom Luna, both Republivate sector and higher education is clear, cans, supported the common core, she soon
said Michael Cohen, the president of learned more that disturbed her.
Achieve, a Washington nonprofit group
In her view, the common core was conthat helped develop the standards and now ceived by Bill Gates, the Microsoft cohelps state governments and others prepare founder who co-chairs the foundation that
for the common core and its assessments.
bears his and his wife’s names, to advance
“These standards reflect the knowledge the agenda of the United Nations Educaand skills needed to go on for higher educa- tional, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and careers,” said Mr. Cohen, who was tion, or unesco.
an assistant education secretary during the
As evidence, she referred to an agreement
Clinton administration.
Mr. Gates signed with unesco in Paris in
But the private sector’s involvement and 2004 to promote shared educational objecsupport are seen very differently by oppo- tives. Mr. Gates, in turn, would benefit, she
nents of the standards.
said, through “crony capitalism” benefiting
Through the common core, public schools Microsoft.
will be used to foster “economic fascism” in
In response, the Gates Foundation said
education, charged former U.S. Rep. Bob in a statement: “The Gates Foundation is a
Schaffer, a Republican from Colorado, who strong supporter of the Common Core State
until the start of this year served as the Standards, a state-led initiative focused on
chairman of the Colorado state school board ensuring all students in U.S. public schools
before he left the board.
are taught to the same high standards. The
“This is a 100 percent government-regu- foundation’s work has nothing to do with Milated industry emerging before our eyes,” crosoft’s efforts to support education in dewith potentially billions of dollars being sent veloping nations as part of the unesco plan.”

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(The Gates Foundation helps support Education Week’s coverage of business and K-12
innovation.)
“Assessments drive curriculum. Standards
drive curriculum. We are on the road to a national curriculum,” Ms. Zimmerman said.
Some common-core opponents say it is
part of an intricate web of K-12 policy decisions designed by a few powerful groups in
order to gain authority over public schools.
According to the group Restoring Oklahoma Public Education, which opposes federal involvement in public schools, those
forces include Teach For America, the Civil
Rights Data Collection program (maintained by the office for civil rights at the
federal Education Department), and the
international publishing and testing company Pearson, based domestically in New
York City.
Ms. Zimmerman said she has relied on
the Boston-based pro-free-market Pioneer
Institute for information, as well as Hoosiers Against Common Core, a group run by
two private school parents in Indiana, Erin
Tuttle and Heather Crossin.
Ms. Tuttle said she and Ms. Crossin
called Sen. Schneider’s attention to the
common core in 2011 after seeing math
material that matched the common core in
her child’s textbook, published by Pearson,
that in her view was not as rigorous as previous standards her children had learned.
She said proponents of the standards are
proclaiming a national crisis
by saying that current standards don’t prepare students
for college and careers, then
exploiting that crisis.
“It’s like a snake-oil salesman standing up in the town
center,” she said.
In response, Mike Evans,
the senior vice president for
mathematics at Pearson,
said in a statement: “We realize that there are some who are opposed to
the [common core], but we agree with the
creators of the standards that these new,
more rigorous requirements will set our
U.S. students on the track to move ahead
to college and career readiness so that they
will be competitive with their global peers.”

Testing Concerns
In Indiana, Ms. Ritz, who drew strong
teacher support in winning the state chief’s
job, has made a case against the common
core echoed by many self-described progressives. She bases much of her opposition on
the additional—and in her view improper—
emphasis on testing she believes the new
standards will create. She told state lawmakers the common core should be studied
further, though not yet voided in Indiana, because “so many concerns are coming up,” the
Evansville Courier & Press reported.
The common core also is likely to negatively affect disadvantaged students as well
as teacher evaluations, argued Robert A.
Schaeffer the public education director of the
Boston-based National Center for Fair and
Open Testing, or FairTest, which opposes
basing high-stakes decisions on standardized tests.
An “elite-versus-grassroots” dynamic has
evolved, he said, in which those closest to
the classroom, like parents and teachers, are
most skeptical about the increased amount of
testing under the common core, while Washington think tanks and others are pushing
for it.
“The amount of testing will increase, and
the misuse of testing will be unchanged,”
he said.
Contributing Writer Michele Molnar provided
reporting for this article.

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Education Week - February 6, 2013

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