Common Confusion

Forty-five states including Iowa have adopted the Common Core standards. Strike that, I mean forty-four states have adopted the Common Core. Earlier last week, Indiana became the first state to back out of the Common Core. There seems to be quite a bit of confusion about what the Common Core is and what the Common Core is not. The first myth that needs to be addressed is this idea that the Common Core is a curriculum movement designed to eliminate local control of school boards and to limit the selection of curriculum material for schools. The Common Core is not a curriculum and does no such thing.

The Common Core is an internationally benchmarked set of standards that articulate what students should be able to do at each grade level. Is a 4th grader in Seattle for example, exposed to the same standards as a 4th grader in Des Moines? Is a Senior in high school from Hudson as prepared for college as a Senior in a high school in Peoria? I know these are questions that we want answers to, because we are constantly comparing our students to students in other states and in other countries using tools like the NAEP and PISA! I have written about those very comparisons right here in this article! The trouble is, unless we identify what it means to be a 4th grader or Senior in high school, we can't really answer those underlying questions can we?

Furthermore, teachers expect that students will enter their classrooms with a certain amount of background knowledge. Standards ensure that background knowledge and material has been covered, and an assessment was administered to the pupils that demonstrates their level of mastery. If no one has an idea of what that background knowledge is or it is different from school to school or state to state, how can the teacher be expected to craft instruction to meet the needs of students in an efficient manner?

Assume the 4th grade student in Iowa learns how to multiple fractions whereas the 4th grade student in Seattle isn't exposed to that skill until the 5th grade. Then assume we test both groups of students using the NAEP and the 4th graders from Iowa outscore their counterparts in Seattle. The reason? The students in Seattle haven't been exposed to that content yet! That most certainly does not suggest one group of students are more intelligent than the other. You can apply that same logic and scenario to any grade level in any state in the country or even internationally.

So the point should be very clear that the Common Core is not a curriculum, but is a set of standards with an assessment component which accurately measures the learning of students based on those standards. Curriculum decisions remain under the purview and decision making ability of the local school board. We can drive this point home with two very clear examples. Last spring the Hudson Board adopted a new math curriculum, and the faculty is currently in the process of studying an ELA curriculum that will be recommended for adoption by the Board of Education yet this spring.

For the sake of argument, we could say that school districts can go ahead and set their own standards and benchmarks--which would be the antithesis of the Common Core. But that would make it impossible to compare how our 4th graders were doing compared to students in Waterloo or Cedar Falls, let alone Seattle! It is also important to note that is how we kind of got into this mess to begin with. Before the Iowa Core (of which the Common Core is a part of), each school district did just that. While similar in nature, they were not standardized, which caused a patchwork of inequity in our education system that made it impossible to provide a guaranteed and viable curriculum to the students of Iowa. To further compound this very unclear picture of student learning in Iowa, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills were selected as the assessment instrument to measure student progress. This assessment was not aligned to the standards--but how could it be if every district is doing something different in terms of standards?

The other myth about the Common Core is this idea that it is a Federal intrusion into a local issue. This is not true! The Common Core was not conceptualized by the U.S. Department of Education. It came from the National Governor's Association along with the Council of Chief State School Officers:

"The state-led effort to develop the Common Core State Standards was launched in 2009 by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia, through their membership in the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State school Officers (CCSSO). State school chiefs and governors recognized the value of consistent, real world learning goals and launched this effort to ensure all students, regardless of where they live, are graduating high school prepared for college, career, and life." (www.corestandards.org)

So in closing, let's just say that if we think it is important to measure how our students stack up against students in other states or countries--let's at lease make sure we are measuring them all on the same thing!

Stops and Starts at the Statehouse

It's been a few weeks since we talked about the status of the legislature, so I thought it would be appropriate at this time to revisit what is new in Des Moines. Last Friday was the second funnel day, meaning that in order for a bill to stay alive it must have passed at least one full chamber and sub-committee in the opposite chamber. However, bills that have an appropriation tied to them are funnel proof. The goal of the legislature remains ending early--you have to remember that this is a campaign season and our lawmakers would like to get home early to begin campaigning. The entire House is up for reelection, half the Senate, and the Governor is running for his 6th term. 

We all took government class in high school as a requirement for graduation, so I am pretty sure we all understand the basics of how laws get passed. Remember that old Schoolhouse Rock song: "I am a bill, yes I'm only a bill, and I'm stuck up here on Capitol Hill" I think that I may have just dated myself there...pretty sure none of our current students have any idea what I am talking about! Nonetheless, this catchy little tune would lead us to believe the process by which a bill becomes a law is a well oiled machine, with proposed legislation moving efficiently from one chamber to the other to be voted on and turned to law. No one I know is naive enough to believe that is how it happens. Legislation is subject to multiple starts and stops, political maneuvering, lobbying from special interest groups, and funnel deadlines. Most of the time it is not very much fun to watch, and the finished product often looks very different from how it started out. Sometimes it takes the work of several legislative sessions and constant persistence to move a bill from conception to law. That has been the case of SF 220, which has been a cause the Hudson Board of Education has been championing for years now. This bill is in the final stages of becoming law.

This original bill was designed to provide retirement incentives to employees from the ages of 55-65 to encourage turnover. This serves multiple purposes. First it honors the work and career of veteran teachers, and second it provides cost saving to the school district. How does it do this? When a veteran teacher retires, they are typically replaced by someone at a lower salary. Also, this law allows school districts to pay for the retirement incentive outside the general fund--which has the added benefit of preserving general fund budget authority. The main problem with the current law was that anyone who was above the age of 65 could still retire and have access to the incentive--but it had to be paid from the school general fund. This made it much more difficult to recognize cost savings, but the solution was simple: remove the top cap. We started out by discussing the idea with Senator Danielson years ago. Senator Danielson took up our cause and was able to move the bill to a committee hearing. The next year Senator Danielson was able to make even more progress, with the bill moving through the Senate and getting the file name SF 220. Unfortunately, upon reaching the House it was never taken up for debate. You will recall that last year the focus was on the education reform legislation that Hudson is now the proud beneficiary of! This year's General Assembly began with the the customary visits of both Senator Danielson and Representative Rogers to our school board. We knew that SF 220 existed in the halls of the House, we just needed to get it moving through the Iowa House. Representative Rogers stepped in and helped navigate the bill through the House. It was tentative at times, and I was not all that confident until this week. Representative Rogers gave me a call on Monday and told me that he was planning on running the bill the next day for debate on the House floor. It passed 100-0! There were two minor amendments to the bill, one was to change the date, and the other is to make it retroactive to last year. Both are great amendments, but do mean that it needs to go back to the full Senate for approval. I anticipate no trouble in the Senate. Once it clears the Senate, it is off to the Governor where he will have three days to sign it and make it law.

Although it has taken roughly three years to get the bill to this point, I will have to admit that the process has worked as it is supposed to. It should be difficult to change laws, and probably not something that should be done without careful deliberation and debate. I am also very heartened with the bi-partisan nature of this bill. It started with Democratic Senator Jeff Danielson moving and advocating for the bill through the Iowa Senate, and  Republican Representative Walt Rogers moving the bill through the Iowa House. SF 220 hasn't gotten a lot of press and probably won't, but it is an important bill that will help school districts control costs and provide fiduciary flexibility in a way that will ultimately enable us to provide top notch educational programs to students.

Now that we almost have that out of the way (we still have a few, very important stops to make this bill law), it sure would be nice if supplemental state aid was determined before everyone goes home to begin campaigning. The Senate has passed a 6% increase, that bill is sitting in the House waiting for movement.