Those 24 Common Core 2009 Work Group Members
In May 2009, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former State Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This CCSS MOU would become “Appendix B” for the US Department of Education’s (USDOE’s) Race to the Top (RTTT) program.
In June 2009, the National Governors Association (NGA), in conjunction with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, announced that 46 states were already signed on for what would become CCSS.
The formal document, the CCSS MOU, outlines in detail the different groups of individuals and what their roles would be in “developing” CCSS.
The document signed by Jindal and Pastorek in May 2009– the CCSS MOU that would become RTTT Appendix B– is the same document I wrote about in this post.
The CCSS MOU makes it clear that the chief decision makers for CCSS were the individuals on the CCSS English Language Arts (ELA) and math work groups.
The CCSS copyright owners, NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) wanted to keep CCSS work group membership a secret but bowed to public pressure to reveal the names and affiliations of the 24 work group members.
In its July 01, 2009, press release, NGA makes it clear that these work groups were dominated by three affiliations, one standards-writing nonprofit (Achieve) and two Those 24 Common Core 2009 Work Group Members | deutsch29:
