Mercedes Schneider has been an outspoken critic of the Common Core standards.

After she read Bill Honig’s explanation about why California educators support the standards without the testing or market reforms, she wrote the following:

Should California Embrace Common Core? My Response to Bill Honig

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Yesterday, California Instructional Quality Chair Bill Honig published a letter on Diane Ravitch’s blog in which he carefully details his reasons for supporting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in California.

In his letter, Honig encourages California districts wary of CCSS to reconsider their positions. He notes, “In California, there is widespread, deep, and enthusiastic support for the common core standards among teachers, administrators, educational and teacher organizations, advocacy groups, and political leaders.”

When I read Honig’s letter, I wondered how it could be true that CCSS would be so well received in California. I have recently blogged about CCSS unrest in California; namely, that the California Republican Party formally drafted an anti-CCSS resolution and that California Governor Jerry Brown is opposed to “government controlled standards and testing.” Brown has been consistent on his criticism of standardized testing.

I would like to address the context in which Honig’s appeal rests. It is a context unique to California. I also offer some cautions in “embracing” the politically-loaded CCSS.

California: It’s the District That Matters

First, let us consider the context of Honig’s letter:

The letter is an appeal to California districts regarding CCSS. California is a local control state. As such, California school districts may reject CCSS. It is not a state-level decision, as is the case in other states.

In California, the district is the entity that decides whether or not to adopt the CCSS endorsed by the state. This means that districts have the right to opt out of CCSS.

A second point: Even though California’s State Board of Education (CSBE) formally adopted CCSS in August 2010, California as a state did not contract with USDOE for Race to the Top (RTTT) funding.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan apparently does not care for California’s local control. In 2011, seven California districts banded together to apply for RTTT funding. The California application was the only one rejected:

In another cockfight between California and Washington over education, the U.S. Department of Education has rejected California’s application – and only California’s application – in the third round of Race to the Top. The denial exasperated the seven California school districts that led the state’s effort and were counting on $49 million earmarked for California as critical to do the work they had committed to do.

In a recent statement, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and State Board of Education President Michael Kirst each criticized the federal government’s inflexibility in not accepting what they described as California’s “innovative” approach of giving control of the reforms to local school districts. Seven unified districts, including Los Angeles, Fresno, and Long Beach, formed a coalition known as CORE, the California Office to Reform Education, to compete for round three and work together on the reform.

Apparently Duncan prefers to draw entire states into his RTTT reformer web. However, in 2012, USDOE began a RTTT funding competition for districts. Three California districts won money. All three agreed to evaluate teachers using student test scores.

The freedom afforded California districts by the state must really irritate Duncan, who desires to nationalize his slate of reforms without calling his effort a federal push.

Moreover, those federal-but-don’t-call them-that reforms are meant to be inflexible. As such, the CCSS Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) requires states to not remove any CCSS content. In her discussion of CCSS “flexibility” with North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest in December 2013, North Carolina School Superintendent Jan Brewer responded, “If any state wants to change those standards, that’s just fine. It’s just that you do not say that you are implementing the Common Core….” 19:15 -19:24, 12-17-13, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZrMgNJqjh8 ).

In contrast, in his letter, Honig discusses implementing the Common Core, yet he also refers to Brown “readopting [the standards] with some changes, in 2012.” Further in the letter, Honig notes,

This is not to say that the standards are perfect or that they shouldn’t be continually reviewed and modified as the schools across the country implement them. Our math framework committee has already suggested several changes which were adopted by our state board. [Emphasis added.]

Logically, the right to opt out of CCSS brings with it the freedom to modify (i.e., if a district is not pleased with CCSS, it holds the trump card to dropping CCSS entirely). The ability to modify CCSS is evident in Honig’s discussion of the CCSS California consortium and “much of the policy making” being “devolved to local districts”:

…Key educational leaders and organizations in the state have banded together to implement common core in an informal network, the Consortium for the Implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CICCSS). They did so, not because of heavy state or federal mandates, since, as discussed below, much of the policy making has been recently devolved to local districts. [Emphasis added.]

California districts have power. That is why some of them are able to directly deal with Duncan, who apparently decided it a better strategy to contract with “some” of California rather than “none” of California regarding California’s request for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers. In August 2013, Duncan issued such waivers to eight California districts provided they would agree to evaluate their teachers using student test scores, among other conditions:

In addition to using test scores to evaluate teachers, the eight California districts pledged to use other measures to determine school performance, including student growth, graduation rates, absenteeism, school culture and student surveys.

Therefore, for better or worse, California districts have power that school districts in other states do not have. For example, my school district in Louisiana, St. Tammany Parish, formally drafted an anti-CCSS resolution in October 2013. In it, the district reaffirms that it did not agree with the state’s decision to adopt CCSS in the first place and that St. Tammany considered its standards rigorous.

Even though my district formally resolved to reject CCSS, we are still tied to CCSS since in Louisiana it is the state, not the district, that has the power to commit to CCSS via RTTT.

California: Pushing Against Arne

I previously noted that Californiahas accepted no state-level RTTT money. This poses another advantage that California has over other most other states. The states that did accept state-level RTTT money are tied to the federal government’s will regarding the spectrum of reforms promoted by RTTT– including CCSS, its assessments, and the tying of testing results to teacher employment. California’s Governor Brown would not agree to evaluate teachers using student test scores. Thus, California was not eligible for either RTTT funds or NCLB waivers.

California is also unique from many states facing CCSS in that neither governor, nor state superintendent, nor school board president, is a die-hard privatizer. As Honig notes:

Our State Board of Education president, the governor and the state superintendent have repeatedly refused to knuckle under to Arne Duncan’s demands that the state institute teacher evaluations based in large part on test scores.

After considering what I have detailed above– that California districts have control over accepting or rejecting CCSS, and that the governor, state superintendent, and school board president all refuse to grade teachers using test scores (and thereby evidence a healthy distance from the federally-controlled puppeting Duncan so desperately desires of all states)– I understand how it is possible for California teachers to positively receive CCSS.

Indeed, there is still one more important–perhaps the most important– component to CCSS popularity in California: Dislike of the California state standards.

California: Dissatisfaction with Former Standards

According to Honig, California teachers view their previous standards as deficient. As Honig notes regarding California’s math standards:

The standards (CCSS)… shift from the current mile-wide and inch deep approach…. All in all, the standards envision a much more active and engaging classroom….

And California’s English Language Arts (ELA) standards:

Similarly, in English Language Arts the standards also encourage a much more active and engaging classroom….

Here’s an issue to reconcile: According to Honig’s letter, CCSS is a great improvement over California’s standards. However, in its oft-cited 2010 review of all state standards and CCSS, the CCSS-pushing Fordham Institute gave California’s standards higher grades than it gave CCSS– A’s for both ELA and math– as compared to the Fordham CCSS grades of B-plus for ELA and A-minus for math.

This is Fordham’s 2010 overview of California’s ELA standards from its 2010 report:

California’s well-sequenced and thorough ELA standards explicitly address all of the essential content that students must master in a rigorous, college-prep K-12 curriculum. With very few exceptions, the standards are clear and concise and exhibit an appropriate level of rigor at each grade. Minor flaws are noted below, but overall, these standards are exceptionally strong.

And here is Fordham’s overview of California’s math standards:

California’s standards could well serve as a model for internationally competitive national standards. They are explicit, clear, and cover the essential topics for rigorous mathematics instruction. The introduction for the standards is notable for providing excellent and clear guidance on mathematics education. The introduction states simply, “An important theme stressed throughout this framework is the need for a balance in emphasis on the computational and procedural skills, conceptual understanding, and problem solving. This balance is defined by the standards and is illustrated by problems that focus on these components individually and in combination. All three components are essential.” California has provided a set of standards that achieves these goals admirably.

Amazing that Fordham refers to the same standards that Honig believes require replacing.

Whereas Fordham’s review is (bafflingly) considered expert information on the issue of state standards evaluation, the real, front-line “experts” are teachers– those who must convert the standards into a meaningful learning experience for their students.

Fordham forms its opinions from the tower of its own high opinion of itself, not from the classroom.

This begs the question: What does the High and Lifted Up Fordham consider to be “ideal” in a set of standards?

It seems that Fordham places its highest value on standards that are “mile wide, inch deep”– a phrase that former California middle school teacher Anthony Cody has used recently in an email exchange to describe his experience with California’s standards.

Cody’s sentiment is echoed in an October 2013 Los Angeles Daily News article:

The Common Core has also attracted fans because it’s viewed by teachers as “more realistic and smarter” than California’s 1997 standards, which are often criticized as a mile long and an inch thick, says Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association.

“It was impossible for teachers to cover everything,” he says, adding that teachers view the new national standards as “a breath of fresh air” because they require much less regimentation than the earlier standards. Districts have more freedom, this time around, to choose their own curriculum, instructional materials and teacher training programs. [Emphasis added.]

To at least some California teachers, CCSS looks like freedom. For California’s sake, I am sorry that CCSS is inescapably politically infused.

District Danger of Test Worship

In his letter, Honig acknowledges that districts determined to use student test scores in keeping with the privatization agenda will still do so and that such a practice ought not be attributed to CCSS adoption:

If a district is hell-bent to use test scores to evaluate teachers for personnel decisions based on flawed assessment assumptions or narrow the curriculum and instruction to look good on tests, the presence or absence of Common Core Standards and their associated tests will not change that district’s direction.

I agree with Honig’s determination. Nevertheless, CCSS and its tests are promoted as part of a package of Duncan-promoted reforms. I cannot emphasize this enough. CCSS is not neutral. It is not “just” a set of standards. Duncan is pushing CCSS precisely because it is part of a determined reform package.

As for the issue of districts being “hellbent” upon using scores, the “hell bending” precedes the testing. Here is an excerpt of the CCSS-test-anticipated goings-on in one California district (unnamed) (full comment can be seen here):

In my high school district, the preparation for the upcoming tests in California are having a devastating impact on both the more challenged incoming 9th graders and the higher achieving math students. The Superintendent and the Principals of the 8 high schools have decided, against the wishes of almost ALL district math teachers, to narrow the curriculum to fit both the high school standards and the NEW Smarter Balanced Assessment. Thereby, they have eliminated ALL math course offerings below Algebra 1 and therein, forcing ALL students to enroll in an Algebra 1 class even though they may have fallen two or more years behind in their math levels according to where the CCSS would expect them to be when entering high school.

This pressure to conform to CCSS and its attendant outcome (in this case, the Smarter Balanced assessment [SB]), is a national pressure brought on by a federally promoted portfolio of reform.

CCSS cannot be divorced from such federally-promoted pressure. It’s too late for that.

Advice to Honig and All of California: Watch Out for Arne

If required to choose between Fordham’s assessment of California’s standards and Honig’s report of California assessment of California’s standards, I would defer to Honig– since his career has been tied to California education for decades– which means he is certainly closer to the reality of public education in California.

And even though both Fordham and Honig appear to be on the same side of the issue– with both promoting CCSS– Fordham’s motives are suspect for its having taken millions from Gates– even for operating expenses– and Gates– a very rich man who is purchasing his view of education for an entire nation–really wants CCSS.

However, I disagree with Honig’s urging California districts to dismiss concerns about the role of CCSS in advancing a spectrum of reforms:

I know some of you believe that the Common Core Standards are a stalking horse for the detrimental policy measures which have been connected to them and, consequently are so tainted that they can’t be separated. I would plead with you to revisit that question.

California has delayed CCSS testing via the Smarter Balanced consortium (SBAC)— but the tests will come. And even though Brown is fighting Duncan on the (mis)uses of standardized testing, do not underestimate Duncan in pushing the set of reforms for which he has been fighting since 2009.

Those SBAC test scores will be his leverage.

He will insert himself into district affairs. He has done so recently regarding new New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s choice of schools chancellor.

Duncan has repeatedly inserted himself in state and local elections since his appointment as US secretary of education in 2009.

Don’t think he will stop now.

In the case of California, where the power over education policy is at the district level, Duncan will insert himself there. He wants California to be subject to the entire privatizing spectrum of reforms. His foot is already in the door in several California districts.

In Closing

I applaud Honig for his interest in California education and for his detailed accounting of his reasons for promoting CCSS. Whereas one might try to extend Honig’s appeal beyond California’s borders, doing so does not work. As far as other states are concerned that have accepted RTTT funding, the flexibility to alter CCSS to suit a state’s own determined needs in the name of local control is nonexistent.

As to the process of comparing state standards to CCSS and making informed judgments based upon such comparison: This should have been an opportunity provided to all states absent any pre-completion, federal financial bait. The premature federal CCSS lure bespeaks an intent to ensnare– and ensnare it has.

As for the current atmosphere of CCSS unrest in at least half of the states that adopted CCSS: Any individual or group pushing for unquestioned CCSS allegiance has a hidden agenda. Honig is not pushing for unquestioning allegiance– a refreshing statement for me to write. However, his failure to view CCSS as a component of an overall design to completely privatize American public education is not wise given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I wish California my best regarding its decisions about CCSS, wherever those may lead.

Just watch out for Arne.

Many people who post on this blog–including me–have expressed grave doubts about the Common Core standards–about how they were created, funded, evaluated, and promoted, as well as their connection to high-stakes testing and evaluation of teachers by test scores. Others, including me, worry about the Common Core testing and the fact that the two federally-funded testing consortia decided to align their cut score (passing mark) with NAEP proficient, which guarantees that most students will fail. We have heard the many criticisms, but we have seldom heard a strong defense of the standards.

In this post, Bill Honig explains why the Common Core standards have won broad support in California. Bill was state superintendent of California in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is a personal friend. California has not yet implemented the testing that has proved so upsetting to students, parents, and educators in other states. Will California be able to avoid test-based teacher evaluation? Can the state decouple the standards from the tests and the other parts of the market agenda?

Bill Honig writes:

Common Core Standards, YES

High-stakes Testing, Rewards and Punishments, and Market-based Reforms NO

The California Story.

This article is a plea not to let legitimate hostility to pervasive high-stakes testing, rewards and punishments based on junk science, and privatization measures aimed at delegitimizing public education, which too often accompany the adoption of Common Core Standards, blind you to the value of the standards themselves. In California, there is strong opposition to such “reform” efforts, yet widespread, enthusiastic support for the standards. The standards are seen both to embody the kind of education we have long desired for our students, as well as providing a tremendous opportunity to stimulate much-needed discussions on how best to improve practice at each school and district and develop the collaborative capacity to support such efforts.

Leaders in the Golden State have spoken out forcefully against the current batch of “reforms” being peddled nationally and in many other states. Our governor, Jerry Brown, has repeatedly decried heavy test-based accountability attached to severe rewards and punishments. He has expressed concerns about the resultant narrowing of the curriculum, gaming the system, and demoralization of the teaching profession. Our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, unlike superintendents in many other states, has argued against many of the proposed reforms and the overwhelmingly negative rhetoric accompanying them. He has proposed that the primary goal of any testing should be gathering information for instructional improvement and has offered strong suggestions for placing instructional improvement and school site team and capacity building at the center of school improvement efforts. To that end he commissioned a broad-based task force chaired by Linda Darling-Hammond and Chris Steinhauser, the Long Beach superintendent, which issued an excellent report arguing for positive alternative strategies for revitalizing instruction and the teaching profession, Greatness by Design: Supporting Outstanding Teaching to Sustain a Golden State http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/documents/greatnessfinal.pdf

Our State Board of Education president, the governor and the state superintendent have repeatedly refused to knuckle under to Arne Duncan’s demands that the state institute teacher evaluations based in large part on test scores. Despite threatened fiscal punishment by the Feds, the legislature, supported by state leadership, suspended state-wide testing with student results for at least two years to give schools and districts a chance to implement the Common Core Standards. The legislature also revamped future assessment in the state to conform to the superintendent’s vision. Finally, educators in the Golden State have been heavily influenced by Michael Fullan, Jal Mehta and Richard Elmore’s beliefs and the successful experience of such school districts such as Sanger and Long Beach that an alternative strategy of placing instruction and collaborative, continuous capacity building at the center of any reform efforts is key to success.

At the same time, in California, there is widespread, deep, and enthusiastic support for the common core standards among teachers, administrators, educational and teacher organizations, advocacy groups, and political leaders. What gives?

THE KIND OF INSTRUCTION EDUCATORS HAVE DREAMED ABOUT

The first explanation is that the standards are seen to embody the kind of teaching and instruction that our best teachers and educators have been advocating for years. In math, based on what such organizations as the National Council for the Teaching of Mathematics and the National Research Council have been proposing, the standards move away from primarily a procedure-only driven instruction to also stress conceptual understanding and application. They place more emphasis on problem solving, critical thinking, and projects. The math standards also stress practice standards and their integration into daily instruction by calling for modeling, discussing, and explaining. The standards are bench-marked internationally and shift from the current mile-wide and inch deep approach to a more in-depth attention to fewer topics comparable to what the high-performing countries and jurisdictions do. All in all, the standards envision a much more active and engaging classroom which when presented to teachers is immediately perceived as a major change for the better—a difficult change, but necessary.

Similarly, in English Language Arts the standards also encourage a much more active and engaging classroom– more writing, presenting, discussion, and research projects and performances. They propose increased attention to the steady build-up of knowledge of both the world and the disciplines. They underscore the importance of being broadly literate and well-read as well as being able to understand complex literary and informational text.

THE STANDARDS AND CURRICULAR FRAMEWORKS BASED ON THEM HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY VETTED IN THE STATE
Secondly, there has been widespread discussion of the standards and frameworks based on them in the state and extensive opportunities to offer suggestions. While, originally in 2010, the Common Core Standards were adopted by the Republican appointed State Board of Education which included many “reformers”, primarily in order to qualify for No Child Left Behind, the new State Board, heavily populated by educators appointed by Jerry Brown, readopted them with some changes in 2012.

Next, the new California State Board recently unanimously approved a new California Mathematics Curriculum Framework which offers advice for curriculum and instruction to implement the more active curriculum envisioned by the common core math standards. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/draft2mathfwchapters.asp. This document also contains extensive connections to other national and state resources which support this effort. For example, the math framework relies heavily on the well-respected progressions blog by Bill McCallum. http://ime.math.arizona.edu/progressions. I’d encourage readers of this blog to examine this framework and make an independent judgment on whether its advice is sound and whether the instruction being proposed wouldn’t be a significant step forward.

As for the English standards, the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), which recommends frameworks to the State Board, has just approved the draft of the ELA/ELD framework incorporating both the board adopted Common Core English Language arts standards and the English Language Development standards. The framework is undergoing a sixty day review (please feel free to offer us some advice) but the document is also extremely useful now in giving guidance to those currently developing local ELA/ELD curriculum and instruction based on Common Core Standards. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/cf/elaeldfrmwrk2014pubrev.asp

The ELA/ELD framework stresses not only the goals of college and career readiness but also education for citizenship and producing broadly literate individuals. It emphasizes the need to carefully attend to what students read, discuss, and write over their school careers to accomplish these goals both in class and in an organized independent reading program. The framework is structured around five interrelated strands common to both ELA and ELD (with ELD instruction helping EL students master the common core standards)—making meaning such as drawing inferences, language including vocabulary, syntax, academic language, and text structure, written and oral expression, a build-up of content and discipline knowledge, and foundation skills including the skills of decoding, understanding syllabication and morphemes, becoming fluent, and writing and spelling conventions.

These frameworks were created after first obtaining comments in state-wide focus groups with teachers and other educators. The framework committees which worked on the drafts consisted of a majority of teachers. Each framework will have had two 60-day review periods, completed for math and underway for ELA/ELD. Many teachers participated in the math vetting and many more are expected to participate in the upcoming ELA/ELD reviews. Both the math and English drafts were or are being evaluated by some of the most prestigious educators in the country such as Karen Fuson, Carol Jago, and David Pearson and many offered extensive suggestions which were incorporated.

The Instructional Quality Commission also had several public hearings on the documents. Of the numerous comments that were received in all these efforts, only a handful had objections to the Common Core Standards or the frameworks based on them. As an example, the California Mathematics Council at their well-attended annual meeting in October heard presentations on the math framework and members were solidly behind the document unlike the widespread controversy surrounding the previous math framework.

I know many of you have taken issue with various aspects of the standards. Some of the concerns relate not to the standards themselves but to unwarranted classroom practices based on a misunderstanding or misreading of them. Such examples include over-scripted instruction, assigning inappropriate activities to kindergarteners, or abuses at the state level, such as NY state arbitrarily setting cut levels on tests so high that huge numbers of students failed. Others are misinterpretations of what the standards actually say such as stating that the advice that 70% of high school reading should be informational text means English classes will devalue literature. The 70% refers to all high school reading so there is plenty of time in English classrooms for a full literature program. And what is wrong with incorporating some powerful essays, biographies, and books such as The Double Helix into the English curriculum?

Still other objections didn’t stand up to scrutiny in the vetting process such as the argument that some of the math standards were developmentally inappropriate. Not so, said our primary teachers on the framework committee as well as Karen Fuson, one of the most prominent primary math researchers in the country, who went over the framework with fine-toothed comb. Finally, the ELA/ELD framework committee and the IQC were also sensitive to the potential for the English standards to be misinterpreted as overemphasizing instrumental knowledge at the expense of encouraging students be well-read and developing broad content knowledge (even though the standards were heavily influenced by E.D. Hirsch’s insistence on the importance of the “what” as opposed to the “how”). Strong language in our frameworks should dispel that notion.

This is not to say that the standards are perfect or that they shouldn’t be continually reviewed and modified as the schools across the country implement them. Our math framework committee has already suggested several changes which were adopted by our state board. Undeniably, some large issues remain such as whether it is appropriate to force all students into Algebra 2 or its equivalent. For many students, who are not stem bound but tech-prep oriented, a demanding statistics or quantitative reasoning course might be much more useful. Our math framework raised the issue and several states are already moving in this direction.

EVERY MAJOR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN CALIFORNIA HAS ADOPTED THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMON CORE AS A KEY POLICY INITIATIVE

A third reason for the broad support for the standards in California has been the extensive and widespread local discussions over the past several years with teachers and administrators of both the standards and sample assessment questions from Smarter-Balanced based on them. In my opinion, one of the reasons for the lack of opposition to the standards and frameworks in California has been not only their quality but also the fact that most educators have seen, thought about, and approved of the direction the standards are taking us.

As evidence of this support, key educational leaders and organizations in the state have banded together to implement common core in an informal network, the Consortium for the Implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CICCSS). They did so, not because of heavy state or federal mandates, since, as discussed below, much of the policy making has been recently devolved to local districts. They did so because they have determined that common core standards reflect the kind of curriculum and instruction they support, that the local districts are now primarily responsible for successful implementation and need help, and that in a time of local control it was important to develop cooperative efforts to support local efforts.

Members of CICCSS include state policy institutions such as members of the State Board of Education and California Department of Education, district and county offices, the California Teachers Association, the school boards association, the association of school administrators, the PTA, the LA Chamber of Commerce, and advocacy groups such as MALDEF, Californians Together (an ELD advocacy group), and Ed Trust West. At the same time, the Governor and the legislature have provided a major increase in school funding through a weighted pupil formula and a specific allocation of $1.25 billion directly to districts for common core implementation available for professional development, new materials, and technology. These political leaders have also instituted a shift towards more local control by eliminating most categoricals with their state compliance baggage, leaving policy and instructional implementation decisions to local districts.

This consortium, in partnership with the County Superintendents Educational Services Association, has just produced a 60 page leadership planning guide to support common core implementation. Topics include such areas as developing curriculum and instruction based on common core, team building at school sites, developing on-going capacity at schools and districts for continuous improvement based on collaboration, creating social and medical support for students, and using assessments for on-time decision making adjustments in instruction. http://www.scoe.net/castandards/multimedia/common_core_leadership_planning_guide.pdf Significantly, the groups participating in the consortium have agreed to use this planning guide in local implementation efforts.

EDUCATORS VIEW IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMON CORE AS AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO INITITIATE A MUCH NEEDED ON-GOING DISCUSSION AT EVERY SCHOOL AND DISTRICT OF HOW TO IMPROVE INSTRUCTION
Finally, and probably most critically, educators in the Golden State view the need to implement the Common Core Standards as a crucial catalyst to engender a widespread and much needed discussion at each school and district about how best to teach our students. The implementation effort puts on the table a broader liberal arts curriculum much richer than envisioned by NCLB and demands local collaborative management structures as the only feasible method for implementing such a complex instructional set of standards. This is what the most successful jurisdictions in our country and world-wide have done.

As many of you writing on this blog have chronicled, jurisdictions which have gone from mediocre to world-class systems have not primarily pursued a high-stakes testing, reward and punish strategy, or a privatization agenda (Sweden and Chile are at the bottom of PISA scores). These high performers have come to agreement on a strong curriculum, built cooperative capacity to support continuous improvement for the long haul, supported student safety-nets, and adopted measures to support and revitalize the profession. That is what most of us want for California. Even most of the fairly small subset of our districts, which have adopted some of the high-stakes and market-based reforms, believe in the primacy of placing instruction, capacity building, and team building at the core of reform efforts.

I know some of you believe that the Common Core Standards are a stalking horse for the detrimental policy measures which have been connected to them and, consequently are so tainted that they can’t be separated. I would plead with you to revisit that question. If a district is hell-bent to use test scores to evaluate teachers for personnel decisions based on flawed assessment assumptions or narrow the curriculum and instruction to look good on tests, the presence or absence of Common Core Standards and their associated tests will not change that district’s direction. It will just use off-the-shelf tests and continue to practice these injurious practices.

Further, politically, you can’t beat high-stakes, market-based reforms with nothing. Using common core standards as a powerful catalyst for initiating an alternative set of reforms that actually work– deep discussion of practice, attention to improving instruction at each school over time, and developing the support structures and atmosphere to bolster that effort– is just too great an opportunity to ignore. It would be a shame to miss the chance to get it right after years of misdirected efforts.

Bill Honig, former elementary school teacher, local superintendent, and California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and currently chair of the California Instructional Quality Commission

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