The process of replacing Common Core standards in Math and English/Language Arts is well underway. The State Department of Education and the State Board, as provided for in state law, will formulate new South Carolina standards based upon a review by panels of subject experts. Those standards must go to the Education Oversight Committee for its sign off, and then our teachers will begin using them in the 2015-2016 school year.
I think that it may help to revisit exactly what we expect from education standards and why it is important that South Carolina develop those standards instead of outsourcing it to a centralized entity. State law requires that educational standards be designed to promote the abilities to:
(1) Read, view, and listen to complex information in the English language.
(2) Write and speak effectively in the English language.
(3) Solve problems by applying mathematics.
(4) Conduct research and communicate findings.
(5) Understand and apply scientific concepts.
(6) Obtain a working knowledge of world, United States, and South Carolina history, government, economics, and geography.
(7) Use information to make decisions. Standards are developed from this basic framework which became law in 1998. The standards are used in the four core subject areas—math, English/language art, science and social studies (history, government, economics and geography).
South Carolina for over a decade had very good or excellent standards as measured by various entities, and they all were developed right here at home. South Carolina standards always were well regarded for their rigor and depth and many states looked to South Carolina as an example of how standards should be developed. South Carolina standards historically have been developed over a two-year period during which subject experts gathered several times to review current standards and adapt new information to them. This “cyclical review,” as the law calls it, ensured a deliberate and thorough approach to generating world class educational standards for our kids. Why then, did we change our approach and adopt a centralized, one-size-fits-all approach. Money—as with most things governmental—made the difference.
Then-Superintendent of Education Jim Rex decided in 2010 to adopt Common Core standards in Math and ELA as part of a federal government program called Race to the Top which promised between $40 and $50 million for each state that began the adoption of Common Core. States like South Carolina not only would have to adopt national standards but also would have to adopt them within just a few months and thus forego the deliberative and thorough process that had served us so well for a decade. Jim Rex convinced the State Board to take the money and the EOC went right along in the handover of South Carolina’s standards in Math and ELA to a central authority. Please keep in mind that the General Assembly (your Senators and House Members) never had any input in this matter.
It also is important to remember that a key component to the use of educational standards is, of course, the assessment of those standards, i.e. the test that measures if teachers taught and students learned the standards. Most, if not all, of you are familiar with South Carolina assessments called PASS (formerly PACT) that third through twelfth graders take each year in the core subjects. The two subjects in which South Carolina had adopted Common Core, Math and ELA, were set to be assessed beginning this year by a national tool called Smarter Balance. So, in the two CC subjects South Carolina was set to use a national test completely out of the control of educators and policy makers here at home. I trust that you’re beginning to see a pattern.
Full credit for the early warning on Common Core goes to Senator Mike Fair of Greenville who took the Senate floor often beginning in 2010 to denounce the handover of our children’s education to a centralized authority. He actually was successful in 2011 in stopping the adoption of CC science standards through a yearly budget proviso that held the line until we mustered the forces for this year’s repeal of the other two subjects. His leadership on this issue deserves a great deal of praise as he truly was a light in the darkness.
I am not qualified to judge the CC ELA standards, but I can tell you that the CC Math standards simply made no improvement on our old standards and, more importantly, proved debilitating to many teachers and students. The CC emphasis on “critical thinking” led, apparently, to the decision by CC creators that solving the problem never was enough but the student must also explain how they solved it. Recall our state law that says, “solve problems by applying mathematics” is the goal. CC, however, requires more and thus even if the student got the right answer, they still might be “wrong” if they couldn’t explain how they got the right answer. This seems a lot less like education and a lot more like bureaucratic hogwash, which it is. Teachers and students and parents began living this nightmare over the previous school year, and their outcries led finally to action by the full General Assembly.
The other lesson here is that one-size-fits-all works no better in education than it does in any other walk of life from your car to your food to your choice of movies. I care that children in Wyoming or Massachusetts or Arizona get a good education, but they’re not my responsibility. South Carolina is my responsibility, and I have no interest in turning over that responsibility to someone that I never will meet or talk to. I can’t think of one thing that Washington does very well, and while South Carolina has its problems, education standards was not one of them. Why we would jump on the federal bus when we actually have something that works is beyond me, but thankfully we’re getting off at the next stop.
Common Core in South Carolina has been a four-year mess. South Carolina basically sold its rights to the federal government and put its teachers and students and parents through a period of misery from which it now must move on. The one-year mandate on new standards really is too short of a period, as mentioned earlier, but we must extricate ourselves from CC as soon as possible. I am hopeful that the State Superintendent of Education will lead the Department of Education in developing very good standards in Math and ELA that we can use again like we always did before CC. I hope that the EOC will comply with the law and move the new standards through the process quickly so as to avoid needless delays for our teachers.
That is the point that I want to conclude with—the effect of all of this on schools and principals and teachers and students. Most teachers will tell you that what they need most in directives from above, such as what standards will be used; in order to teach effectively is clarity and stability. It makes sense, of course, that a teacher who will spend months developing a new course and years honing their craft in the delivery of that course will be undermined if the standards to which they must teach that course constantly shift. That is why current law calls for a review of standards only every seven years.
The sell out for Common Core, on the other hand, means that for the third time in five years math and ELA teachers will receive (next school year) a new set of standards. That is completely unfair to them and to their students. I hope, and I ask you, therefore, to be understanding of your schools and teachers, and of your students. They are being asked to stop and go very abruptly, and they need some time and space to adjust and adapt. I hope that all of us will take the results of the switch next year in this context and allow for the time needed to get back to the proper way of doing things.
I also hope that policy makers will learn a lesson from this. We have plenty of issues in South Carolina that need our attention and need action. The last thing we need to be doing is fixing something that’s not broken, even if the federal government is dangling dollars in front of us!
--------------------------------------------
Shane Martin is a South Carolina State Senator for District 13.