As a common core supporter I continue to appreciate the NEA’s President, Dennis Van Roekel. Throughout the development and roll out of common core, the NEA and Mr. Van Roekel in particular have publicly supported the new standards. They’ve dedicated considerable resources to the common core effort which has included sponsoring workshops for teachers, creating high quality sample lesson plans for each content area and actively promoting the standards with both parents and teachers.
However, recent unrest across the country regarding the standards has forced Mr. Van Roekel to call for a common core course change. He continues to acknowledge the standards as a positive step towards a more rigorous and unified curriculum but he also accepts the reality that many teachers and parents across the country (including in Tennessee) do not feel adequately prepared for a full common core implementation this coming year.
This Wednesday, Van Roekel authored a letter on the NEA’s website outlining seven recommendations that would help states take decisive steps to ensure successful implementation by building the public’s trust in the standards. They include the following proposals:
1. Governors and chief state school officers should set up a process to work with NEA and our state education associations to review the appropriateness of the standards and recommend any improvements that might be needed.
2. Common Core implementation plans at the state and local levels must be collaboratively developed, adequately resourced, and overseen by community advisory committees that include the voices of students, parents, and educators.
3. States and local school districts must place teachers at the center of efforts to develop aligned curriculum, assessments, and professional development that are relevant to their students and local communities.
4. States must eliminate outdated NCLB-mandated tests that are not aligned with the new standards and not based on what is being taught to students in the classroom.
5. States must actively engage educators in the field-testing of the new assessments and the process for improving them.
6. In any state that is field-testing and validating new assessments, there must be a moratorium on using the results of the new assessments for accountability purposes until at least the 2015-2016 school year. In the meantime, states still have other ways to measure student learning during this transition period—other assessments, report cards, and student portfolios.
7. Stakeholders must develop complete assessment and accountability systems. It takes more than one piece of evidence to paint a picture of what students are learning. Testing should be one way to inform effective teaching and learning—not a way to drive it.
As both a teacher and a common core supporter, I believe that Mr. Van Roekel’s framework would strengthen the support for common core in Tennessee in three ways. First, it would directly involve teachers and parents in both the role out and the improvement of the standards (yes, like anything else, they can be improved!) Second, it would push back accountability tied to testing and ensure that teachers have the time and the resources necessary to acclimate themselves to the new standards and their accompanying assessments. Third, it would give students and parents time to acclimate themselves to the new standards and their requirements for multiple years before they face any new high stakes testing.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that our current trajectory will not get us to a place where the public fully accepts and trust these standards. I’ve had a great experience with the standards at my school and I will continue to support and share my experience with the common core state standards as I implement them in my own classroom. But the reality is that not everyone has shared my experience with the standards. As a result more and more teachers, parents and students are losing trust in the process. Implementing the course corrections outlined by Mr. Van Roekel here in Tennessee (note: the TEA is an NEA affiliate, so it makes sense to do it here) would send a message to the public that policy makers in our state want to ensure that these standards are rolled in a way that is fair and responsive to our concerns.
Feature Image from neatoday.org
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Posted on February 21, 2014
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