Principal: How Common Core testing hurts disadvantaged students
This is the third in a continuing series of letters between two award-winning school principals, one who likes the Common Core State Standards and the other who doesn’t. The debate over the Common Core State Standards has become so polarized that it is hard to get people who disagree to have reasonable conversations about it. The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news Web site focused on inequality and innovation in education, is hosting a conversation between Carol Burris of New York and Jayne Ellspermann of Florida (in a format that Education Week once used with Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier as the authors). The Report’s editors as well as both principals have given me permission to republish each letter.
Burris has served as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York since 2000. In 2010, she was recognized by the School Administrators Association of New York State as their Outstanding Educator of the Year, and in 2013, she was recognized as the New York State High School Principal of the Year. Ellspermann is principal of West Port High School in Ocala, Florida. She has served as a principal in elementary, middle, and high schools for the past 24 years and is the 2015 Principal of the Year for the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
The first letter was written by Burris, a Core opponent, to Ellspermann, a Core supporter. Burris explains why she once liked the Core but changed her mind after New York State schools began to implement them several years ago. You can read her letter to Ellspermann here. Ellspermann’s replay letter, which you can read here, explains why she thinks the schools in her district benefit from the Common Core.
Here is the third in the series, from Burris back to Ellspermann:
Dear Jayne,
I am grateful to have the opportunity to respond to your letter. In it, you attribute my disappointment with the Common Core to poor implementation in New York State, which you contrast with Florida’s. Although New York’s experience has indeed been rocky, the problems I see go beyond the mechanical issues of implementation. I blame the standards themselves, and I am not sure from your response whether my concerns were heard.
For example, you justify the early childhood standards because your grandsons are comfortable with them. I have no worries that my four-year old granddaughter will also be fine. She attends an outstanding pre-school, and her college-educated parents have jobs that allow them to spend ample time with her. My granddaughter can describe a tide pool because she saw one in Scotland, and she can explain the differences between bison and buffalo from having visited Grand Teton National Park.
If only every child in America grew up in a financially secure home and had Principal: How Common Core testing hurts disadvantaged students - The Washington Post: