Principal: ‘I cannot be part of reforms that eat away at the moral fabric of our schools’
K. Butler, right of Benton, Miss., and Lynn Wagner of Hickory, second from right, speak to students as they are guided past their Opponents of Common Core table in the rotunda of the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015. . (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
This is the ninth 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 explained 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 reply letter,which you can read here, explained why she thinks the schools in her district benefit from the Common Core. In the third letter, Burris explains why she thinks Core testing hurts disadvantaged students. The fourth, by Ellspermann, says that critics should not blame the Common Core standards for bad implementation and she writes why she likes the English Language Arts emphasis on reading text rather than allowing students to rely on personal experience. In the fifth letter, Burris asked Ellspermann why she thinks she needs the Core. In the sixth letter, Ellspermann responds by discussing why she opposes the opt-out movement and how the Core is working in her school. Burris came back, in a seventh letter, explaining why she doesn’t think the Core will do for students what supporters say it will. The eighth letter, from Ellspermann, (which you can read in the post below this one) talks about why she believes all students should have the same standards. This is Burris’ reply, originally posted on the Hechinger Report on June 4.
Dear Jayne,
I appreciate your belief that all states should have the same or very similar standards. I also believed in national standards before the implementation of the Common Core. Now I believe that variation among states is a strength, not a weakness. If there are different models used by different states, we can evaluate the quality and impact of standards, with an eye to improving them.
You wrote that you are concerned that we have “inconsistencies throughout the country, within our states, in our school districts and even within our schools.” Jayne, the Common Core will not fix inconsistencies among schools and districts within the same state. The large NAEP gaps among schools inthe same state indicate that factors beyond state standards are influencing student performance. The state standards did not create within-state performance gaps.
I am equally baffled that you believe it took the Common Core to move your teachers away from 50-minute lectures. “Talk and chalk” has not been the primary mode of instruction at my school since I became principal 15 years ago. Strategies such as cooperative learning, requiring students to justify their answer with text or reason and other active learning techniques have been known and practiced in good schools for decades. There was nothing in any state’s standards that forced teachers to lecture; and regardless of standards, bad pedagogical practices that do not promote learning, should have been Principal: ‘I cannot be part of reforms that eat away at the moral fabric of our schools’ - The Washington Post: