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Heritage Foundation
More States
Push Back Against Common Core
By Brittany Corona
Common Core continues to be a top concern in the states, with
Mississippi and Wisconsin being the latest states taking steps to
distance themselves from the controversial standards.
Mississippi is considering full repeal of the Common Core standards.
State senators Michael Watson and Angela Burks introduced legislation
to repeal the standards last month, with Watson telling GulfLive.com
Mississippi “will end up with our own standards that are better, higher
and cleaner than Common Core.”
This measure follows Republican Gov. Phil Bryant’s December 2013
executive order affirming Mississippi’s right to define their education
standards.
The bill would create an advisory board to evaluate other state
standards (using resources such as Fordham Institute’s State of State
Standards), and introduce new Mississippi standards to the state
department of education. This way the advisory board could craft a set
of standards exclusively for Mississippi students, by borrowing from
rigorous standards like California’s math and Massachusetts’s language
arts standards, but also keeping strong standards of their own.
In addition, in January, the Mississippi Board of Education voted to
withdraw from the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers (PARCC) consortium, which is one of the two tests
aligned to Common Core, and requested proposals for new state tests on
Feb. 2. Until a new test is adopted, however, the state will use NCS
Pearson Inc. assessments. This was met with skepticism because Pearson
signed a contract with the PARCC last year, leading to concerns that
the new tests will be influenced by Common Core standards.
Mississippi is practicing competitive federalism, which is the process
of states evaluating their current standards, keeping what is good,
discarding what is bad, and using what has worked in other states.
Competitive federalism is the opposite of one-size-fits-all approaches
like Common Core.
Wisconsin is also moving away from Common Core standards. Earlier this
month Gov. Scott Walker, R., Wis., cut state funding for the other
Common Core-aligned exam, the Smarter Balanced assessment, in his
budget proposal. The proposal doesn’t prohibit schools from using
Common Core, but encourages district level innovation.
“I want high standards—and those decisions should be made by school
board members and parents and others at the local level,” said Walker
in his budget address.
Withdrawing from the Smarter Balanced consortium gives Wisconsin the
opportunity to use a new test—perhaps approved by the University of
Wisconsin-Madison—that could reflect state and district-driven
standards.
Common Core began as an effort to establish uniform national standards
and tests, and was incentivized by billions in federal funding and
waivers from the onerous provisions of No Child Left Behind. It was
developed in 2009 by Achieve Inc. with oversight from the privately-run
National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School
Officers, but was then promoted by the Obama administration. In the
midst of a recession, 46 states signed on to the standards, agreeing to
implement them by the 2014-15 school year.
To aid the implementation process, the federal government created two
national tests aligned with the standards: the Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter
Balanced Assessment Consortia. The Department of Education also created
a “Technical Review Panel” to oversee the validity of assessment
questions.
But as the deadline for implementation loomed closer, states began to
realize the costs of adopting Common Core, both financial and in terms
of their educational decision-making autonomy. By February 2015, 19
states have either withdrawn from the tests or paused implementation of
the standards. Four of the 19 (Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and
Louisiana) had exited the national standards completely.
Opposition to Common Core continues to build across the nation, driven
largely by parents. Quality education is best supported and fostered by
those closest to the children—local leadership, teachers and
parents—who are best equipped to craft an education system that fosters
upward mobility and opportunity for children in their state.
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