Common Core Memorandum of Understanding Not Just for “Development”
On June 18, 2014, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced that he had contacted the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to tell them that he was terminating Louisiana’s Common Core State Standards (CCSS) memorandum of understanding (MOU), the document that he and former state superintendent Paul Pastorek signed tying Louisiana to CCSS.
A spokesperson for CCSSO said that the CCSS MOU was only related to developing CCSS:
Jindal wrote to the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governor’s Association notifying them that Louisiana is dropping out of Common Core. He sent a similar letter to Mitchell Chester, director of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, that the state is dropping the test.
PARCC did not respond to a request for a response to Jindal’s letter, but a spokesman for the CCSSO says that agency and the NGA’s only affiliation with Common Core was to assemble states in signing a memorandum of understanding to develop the standards. The NGA referred any questions to Jindal’s office.
“From what I understand, he’s writing the letter to get out of that MOU,” said Melissa McGrath of CCSSO. “That ended in 2010. That initiative was only related to the development of standards….” [Emphasis added.]
That the CCSS MOU was “only for CCSS development” contradicts the language of the CCSS MOU. Here is the opening paragraph of the CCSS MOU (see p. 128):
Purpose: This document commits states to a state-led process that will draw on evidence and lead to development and adoption of a common core of state standards (common core) in English language arts and mathematics for grades K-12. These standards will be aligned with college and work expectations, include rigorous content and skills, and be internationally benchmarked. The intent is that these standards will be aligned to state assessment and classroom practice. The Common Core Memorandum of Understanding Not Just for “Development” | deutsch29: