Education Week - February 13, 2019 - 7

Florida Mulls Next Move After Governor Scraps Standards
New plan must be
in place by 2020
By Stephen Sawchuk
Of late, the Common Core State
Standards have seemed to fade from
public view, with either familiarity-or possibly neglect-providing
some respite from years of political
brouhaha.
But the decision by Florida's
newly elected governor to scotch
the standards has again thrust the
shared expectations into the limelight, and could prove to be costly for
the Sunshine State.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the executive order
to end use of the standards late last
month.
By January 2020, the state education department must make
recommendations on how to eliminate those standards "and ensure
we return to the basics of reading,
writing, and arithmetic," the order
states. The state education commissioner, Richard Corcoran, will
submit the plan in time for the legislature's 2020 session, DeSantis
said.
The order fulfills one of DeSantis'
campaign promises, but leaves plenty
of open questions about how long it
will take for the state to untangle itself from the expectations and write

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new ones. Content standards are the
foundation upon which the state's
year-end tests, textbooks, and curriculum choices ultimately rest.
It is also a sign of just how much
Florida's education politics have
changed. Former Gov. Jeb Bush,
also a Republican, and his nonprofit, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, were unabashed
champions of the common core.
Florida was one of 45 states, plus
the District of Columbia, that adopted the common-core standards
after they were rolled out in 2009.
But as in dozens of other states, the
standards ultimately became a political football in Florida, especially
after the U.S. Department of Education encouraged their adoption.
Florida already made one batch of
revisions to the standards in 2014,
adding cursive writing and calculus
pieces, among other things, and rebranding them to the "Florida Standards." But they remain substantially
similar to the common core.

Short- and Long-Term Impacts
In announcing the executive order,
DeSantis noted that some parents
had found the math standards confusing, but he steered clear of any
specific references to the expectations. Despite the wording of the
executive order, the standards currently do require students to read,
write, and learn "standard algo-

rithms" for arithmetic.
There has long been political pressure from some parts of the state to
drop the standards, however. The
Florida Stop Common Core Coalition,
for example, argues the standards
aren't as rigorous as proponents
claim. It also contends the standards

I would hope that
timing for the
transition is carefully
considered..."
ALBERTO CARVALHO
Superintendent
Miami-Dade district

and related tests "psychologically
manipulate" students and are meant
to inculcate them in various social
values.
Concerns about supposed liberal
biases have been ascendant in Florida education policy circles. A 2017
state law permits anyone in the
state to challenge any part of local
curricula on the grounds that they
contain bias. Early challengers have
asserted that history textbooks are
too left-leaning and have contested
the teaching of evolution and climate

change in science texts. DeSantis has
been receptive to those claims, even
appointing two proponents of the law
to his transition team.
Just how extensive the changes
could be remains unclear, which
made it difficult for superintendents
to assess their impact on students,
parents, and teachers.
Alberto Carvalho, who heads the
Miami-Dade district, which serves
more than 350,000 students, said
the impacts could be "virtually
none" in the short-term and "potentially substantial" over time.
Carvalho said he supports the revision if state officials truly scour
the nation for the best possible replacement and consider slimming
the state's testing schedule. But,
he said, there's always a "domino
effect" when states switch out their
standards, which typically happens
every seven years. For example, his
district spent about three-and-ahalf years before, during, and after
the adoption of the common core to
give teachers professional development and put materials in place.
"I would hope that timing for the
transition is carefully considered,
that it's inclusive of appropriate
PD for educators, that the review is
carefully done in collaboration with
practitioners, and witnessed by the
parents," Carvalho said.
Potentially, the changes could also
gunk up the state's latest textbook
adoptions, which are well underway

in math and set to begin this year
for English/language arts. A spokeswoman for the state education department didn't address those timelines when asked about them.
The Florida Education Association, a longstanding critic of standardized testing, said it sees the
announcement as a chance to continue the conversation about ways
to reduce testing burdens.
"A deliberate look at what students must know is always appropriate, and it's very encouraging to
hear that Gov. DeSantis and Commissioner Corcoran plan to bring
teachers and parents to the table
as they go about reshaping Florida's standards," FEA President
Fedrick Ingram said in a statement. "We're also pleased to hear
that the administration will look
at streamlining testing. Parents
and our members cite time spent
on testing-as versus on genuine
teaching and learning-as one of
their top concerns."
The executive order also asks the
commissioner to recommend ways
to improve high school civics, "particularly the principles reflected in
the United States Constitution,"
so students are ready for citizenship. The state already has one of
the most extensive civics education
mandates in the country, requiring
all students to study the topic and
take an end-of-course test in middle
school.

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Education Week - February 13, 2019

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