The ‘common’ in Common Core fractures as state support falters
The Common Core’s main selling point was that new, shared standards would ensure American students were learning at the same rates across state lines. Common standards – linked to common tests – would tell schools in Illinois how they stacked up against schools in Massachusetts or California.
Now, as more states back out of the tests, the “common” in Common Core is threatened.
In 2010, 45 states adopted the Common Core State Standards, a set of skills in math and English students should master in each grade. By 2012, they had all signed up for at least one of two federally funded, multi-state consortia charged with developing new online tests that would match the standards and be shared among the states. Today, that number is down to 36, as states have pulled out to design their own exams or dropped out of the Common Core altogether.
Fewer than half of states that signed up to share exams will administer those tests next year.Seventeen states are planning to use their own tests or other versions, including one created by ACT, the college testing giant. And other states are wavering about whether to adopt the shared tests, including New York and Michigan.
An Education Week analysis found that now just 42 percent of K-12 students will take the tests designed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) if loyalties stick in 2015 and beyond.
A deadline is looming. States must administer a test matched to high standards – for most states, that means the Common Core – by next spring or risk losing federal funding (Race to the Top) or violating No Child Left Behind waivers.
“Are leaders going to feel comfortable sticking with the assessments when the scores drop so dramatically?” -Kathleen Porter-Magee, Fordham Institute
At stake is the ultimate goal of Common Core – consistent expectations for students across American classrooms. Multiple exams may jeopardize that goal, says Kathleen Porter-Magee, an education policy fellow at the Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. But she says states are still moving in the right direction.
“We had 51 standards and 51 tests. Now that we’ve moved to Common Core we’re talking about five or six testing options,” she said. “We’ve moved to more comparability.”
She said it’s good to develop multiple test options in order to see what is and isn’t working. But too many choices might be counterproductive.
“As we see more states peel off, if we go back to one set of standards and 50 tests, we would really The ‘common’ in Common Core fractures as state support falters | Hechinger Report: