In
Huffington Post, education powerhouses, Linda Darling-Hammond and Randi Weingarten, argue that the problem with Common Core is not Common Core but instead how we assess. The Common Core Standards, which was at first eagerly embraced, has seen
wilting support over the past few months. For those unfamiliar with them, Linda Darling-Hammond is a professor at Stanford University with a long history in education and Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the national teachers' union. The two education thinkers make some important points, mostly, that assessment cannot happen just at the end of each year through a standardized, multiple-choice test the outcomes of which are held over school districts with a giant stick.
Instead, they suggest accountability needs to be used to support and improve education. Not really a novel idea, but important in this day and age. Say Darling-Hammond and Weingarten:
"The way in which policymakers treat accountability determines how standards are implemented and how they are received by parents and educators. That is why the Common Core is embraced in California and feared in New York -- two states we know well that have taken very different approaches.
New York, like some other states, is stuck in a narrow test-based accountability system adopted under NCLB and reinforced by federal Race to the Top rules. This approach has driven the use of high-stakes tests to hold students back, deny diplomas, fire teachers, and close schools in an education system that has, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, become increasingly unequal in what it offers rich and poor students and their families. This strategy has not worked: National assessments show that, whereas New York outperformed the national average in fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics a decade ago, now it lags behind. In reading, as well, gains in the rest of the nation have outpaced those in New York."
They go on to cite California as an example of improving accountability, although to be fair the results they quote in this article are not a result of Common Core which is finishing its first year being implemented.
"A new Local Control Accountability Program will guide and evaluate school spending using multiple assessments of learning (such as Common Core assessments, English-language proficiency, and AP scores), as well as other indicators, like students' access to strong college and career-going curriculum, parent involvement, graduation rates, attendance, and school climate. Communities are directly involved in decisions about how to use resources and how to measure success."
"This new path has been succeeding. In addition to registering the highest graduation rates in its history last year, at more than 80 percent, California had, between 2011 and 2013, the greatest growth it has ever had in student achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, with gains three times larger than national averages in eighth-grade reading and math, far surpassing the improvements in most other states."
And, also, full disclosure here, Dr. Darling-Hammond is an advisor for the
Smarter Balanced Assessments Consortium which is promoting their new assessments to the states. So, while I agree with the important argument being made here, it is also important to know all the facts. And as always, the truth is in the details. The success of common core is largely in the implementation, and assessment is just a part of that.