The Adoption of Common Core State Standards
in Kentucky
This is an excerpt of my recent article in the Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning. For the complete article go
to my section of EKU's academic repository, Encompass.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission
on Education published its catalytic report, “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative
for Educational Reform” (ANAR) and the late twentieth century “corporate school
reform movement” was launched. The report decried “a rising tide of mediocrity”
in American high schools (National Commission on Excellence in Education 1983,
9). While the report’s statistics were disputed, the nation’s attention was
galvanized around the idea that American schools were failing. The era of school
accountability had arrived. The Commission made findings in four areas:
Content, Expectations, Time, and Teaching. In the area of content, the
commission recommended an examination of curriculum standards in light of other
advanced countries, and higher college admission standards. (National
Commission on Excellence in Education 1983, 25)
While shocking at the time, the vision of school
reform as drawn by ANAR was mild compared to the 21st century vision
that would develop around President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind
eighteen years later. ANAR was a response to the freewheeling reforms of the
1960s and early 1970s which sought to “free the children,” and led to
experimentation, challenges to authority, and a focus on social justice issues.
ANAR called on states and the nation to craft genuine curriculum standards and
strengthen high school graduation standards. “Far from being a revolutionary
document, the report was an impassioned plea to make our schools function
better in their core mission as academic institutions and to make our education
system live up to our nation’s ideals.” It did not advocate market-based
competition, school choice through charter schools and vouchers, privatization,
or high-stakes assessment and accountability (Ravitch 2010, 22-26).
At this point in the history of compulsory education
in Kentucky it is fair to say that the Commonwealth never led the nation in financial
support for its schools, literacy, availability of highly educated teachers, or
any other historical measure of educational excellence. But that was about to
change...
Kentucky first drew national attention when its
Supreme Court declared the entire system of schools to be unconstitutional in Rose v Council for Better Education, 790 S.
W. 2d 186, (1989). The Rose
case, argued by former Kentucky Governor Bert Combs, launched a third wave of
school reform litigation based on both equity
and adequacy as expressed in state
constitutions (Day 2011, 2-4)...
An equally important contribution to the policy
dialogue in Kentucky was the Prichard Committee’s publication of The Path to a Larger Life: Creating
Kentucky’s Educational Future, in 1985. The Prichard Committee for Academic
Excellence had formed in 1983 as an independent citizen’s advocacy group for
better schools and was named for its first Chairman Edward F. Prichard who
believed that, “Education is a seamless web running from the earliest years
through the highest levels of educational achievement.” (Prichard Committee
1990, xiii) Path to a Larger Life was influential to the Rose court and proposed
major changes in seven areas, including curriculum, teacher preparation,
assessment of student performance, and education finance (Day and Ewalt in
press, 263-264).
Prichard’s plan outlined a desirable set of
knowledge expectations, and anticipated a connection with postsecondary
education, such as “early admission of students,” but a set of curriculum
standards that anchored a high school diploma to entry-level college standards
did not yet exist (Prichard Committee 1990, 34). Prichard pushed for the
publication of school goals, the “identification of the competencies expected
of all Kentucky high school graduates,” measurement of “the mastery of these
competencies,” and assuring that a diploma is only awarded “when the student
demonstrates that he or she has mastered the desired competencies…” (Prichard
Committee 1990, 32).
The General Assembly’s response to the Rose
decision came in the form of the sweeping Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990
(KERA), the nation’s most ambitious statewide school reform package ever (Day
2011, 60; see also Guskey and Oldham 1997, 40)...
The Rose decision, and KERA, energized a
number of education public interest groups especially the Council for Better
Education and the Prichard Committee, who were largely responsible for creating
the demands and supports that made education reform possible. They acted at the
state level, but had an additional impact on national education policy as
Kentucky became the state to watch (Day and Ewalt in press, 271)...
In the early 1990s, an effort to create
voluntary national standards fell apart when history standards, which included
social justice issues, were attacked by conservative groups as “the epitome of
left-wing political correctness” during the George H. W. Bush administration.
President Bill Clinton backed away from national standards and provided funding
under his Goals 2000 program for states to write their own standards, pick
their own tests, and be accountable for achievement (Ravitch 2010, 16-22).
By 1996, a new national movement began when the
National Governor’s Association, in concert with corporate leaders, created
Achieve, Inc. Achieve is an independent, bipartisan, nonprofit education reform
organization based in Washington D. C. that helps states raise academic
standards and graduation requirements, improve assessments, and strengthen
accountability (American Diploma Project 2011, i).
When President George W. Bush signed the bipartisan
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) into law a new definition of school
reform became nationalized; one characterized by accountability (Ravitch 2010,
21) This reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act built
upon a standards-based reform whose roots were found in policy responses to the
1983 A Nation at Risk report decrying
mediocrity in public schools (Kaestle 2006, xii).
In many ways, the law was consistent with KERA’s
emphasis on performance outcomes and since Kentucky had already implemented its
own standards-based education system, much of the legislation fit fairly well
in current practices in the state (KDE 2010). NCLB required states receiving
federal funding to implement a system of annual assessment of student progress
for schools and districts. As initially enacted, the legislation allowed states
to set the standards to which they are held accountable and a limited form of parental
choice was provided for schools that persistently failed to make adequate
progress. But a major accomplishment of the law has been its unapologetic
national focus on measuring student outcomes and holding schools and districts
accountable for those outcomes – a focus Kentucky began in 1990 (Day and Ewalt
in press, 268).
By 2004 the American Diploma Project (ADP) produced
its report, “Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts.” The
report described “specific content and skills in English and mathematics
graduates must master by the time they leave high school if they expect to
succeed in postsecondary education or high-performance, high-growth jobs.” The
standards were said to be “considerably more rigorous than [the existing] high
school standards.” (American Diploma Project 2007, 5)...
Kentucky’s legislators have remained steadfast
in their emphasis on assessment and accountability measures for Kentucky
schools. When the state’s CATS test came under attack, in the mid-2000s, education leaders capitalized on the state’s
participation in ADP and moved to a new era of education policy which looked
toward national test instruments, while the state embraced a focus on college-
and career-readiness and norm-referenced testing, built around a set of national
curriculum standards. The establishment of the high school diploma as an
indicator of college and career readiness was made at last (Day and Ewalt in
press, 268).
The Republican-sponsored Senate Bill 1 (SB1,
codified as KRS 158.6451, 2009) completely dismantled the Kentucky-based CATS
testing system and phased in new standards designed to be shorter, clearer, and
better focused on students being ready for college, work, and global
competition.
SB1 called for the Kentucky Department of
Education (KDE)
·
to
revise the statewide assessment program; criterion-referenced test;
end-of-course examination; formative assessment; interim assessments; and
national norm-referenced test.
·
mandated
revisions to the annual statewide assessment program; removing writing
portfolios, arts & humanities, and practical living/career studies from
being scored as part of the student assessment.
·
called
for a longitudinal student data system in compliance with NCLB, for use by
teachers and for school accountability.
·
and
importantly, required that KDE, in collaboration with the Council on
Postsecondary Education (CPE), utilize input from teachers and postsecondary
faculty to plan and implement a comprehensive process for revising the academic
content standards in all areas. SB 1 also specified that national standards
(where available) must be considered. The new standards had to be aligned with
entry-level college course requirements and be included in teacher preparation
programs, so that teachers will know how to use them.
As it turned out, national standards were
becoming available. A few months before the passage of SB1, the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS) initiative was launched. Thirty years after A Nation at Risk called for the
establishment of a clear set of Academic standards in core subjects that
describe what students must know and be able to do, a voluntary interstate
effort to write them began.
The CCSS initiative is a state-led effort
coordinated by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief
State School Officers. During the early years of implementation, the states
using the Common Core Standards were expected to develop new, shared methods for
testing and reporting student progress to parents, teachers, officials, and the
general public (Day and Ewalt 2013 in press, 269). The standards-development process was
completed in approximately one year by Achieve, Inc., (Mathis, 2010). These
standards were finalized on June 2, 2010 (Porter et al., 2010). By September
2009, 48 states (not Texas or Alaska) Washington, D. C., the Virgin Islands and
Puerto Rico were counted as participating in this effort (NGA Sept. 1, 2009).
But on July 24, 2009, President Barack Obama and
Education Secretary Arne Duncan had announced $4.35 billion in competitive “Race
to the Top” (RTTT) grants. To be eligible, states had to adopt
"internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare
students for success in college and the work place (U. S. Department of
Education 2009). But the support of the Obama administration for this hitherto
voluntary national effort would create confusion as to whether CCSS was a national effort or a federal effort. When viewed as a federal
effort, CCSS became ripe for politicization.
Arguments in support of common core standards,
as advanced by ADP and others, focused heavily on connecting a high school
diploma with college- and career-readiness. Supporters of common core said that
American high schools had changed little since the mid-20th century
and graduates were leaving high school unprepared to meet the demands of
college and careers. They pointed to disappointing high school graduation rates
and high college remediation rates...
The solution CCSS supporters said was to anchor
high school graduation requirements and assessments to real world standards –
the knowledge and skills colleges and employers actually expect if young people
are to succeed in their institutions (“Ready or Not” 2- 6)
ACT’s 2006 report, “Reading between the lines” the
authors argue that there are high costs ($16 billion per year in lost
productivity and remediation) associated with students not being ready for college
level reading and suggest that students are actually “losing momentum” during
high school, that poor readers struggle, are frequently blocked from advanced
work, that low literacy levels prevent mastery of other subjects, and is
commonly cited as a reason for dropping out (“Reading between the lines” 2006, 2-6)...
Kentucky’s early adoption of the
not-yet-written CCSS standards, in February 2010, was met with great fanfare. SB1
had created the first time in history that the three governing boards affecting
P-20 education in the state had met -- and for the first time, considered how
to build the seamless educational system of Ed Prichard’s dreams. SB1 called on
state education agencies to revise Kentucky’s academic standards to:
- focus on critical knowledge, skills and capacities needed for success in the global economy
- result in fewer, but more in-depth standards to facilitate mastery learning
- communicate expectations more clearly and concisely to teachers, parents, students and citizens
- be based on evidence-based research
- consider international benchmarks ensure that the standards are aligned from elementary to high school to postsecondary education so that students can be successful at each education level.
The joint effort of the Kentucky Board of
Education, the Council on Postsecondary Education, and the Education
Professional Standards Board in adopting CCSS was hailed as an “historic moment”
and the most important education reform initiative since KERA. Governor Steven
L. Beshear said, "These standards will move us closer to our ultimate
goal, a K-12 system that positions our children for success" (“Historic
Cooperation” 2010, February 11)...
Perhaps thinking about the challenges of
implementing common academic standards in a large education system, Prichard
Committee Executive Director Bob Sexton said, “Now it is critically important that we provide our schools
and teachers with the support and resources they need to make sure these
standards do what they are designed to do - ensure the success of students in
every part of Kentucky" (“Historic Cooperation” 2010, February
11).
Kentucky did not wait to get started.
Governor Beshear had created the Task Force on Transforming Education in
Kentucky by October 2009. The group was tasked with envisioning a statewide
system of schools that would meet the emerging and complex demands of 21st
century life in a global economy. The Task force created a state policy
blueprint that called for improved pre-school programs and accessibility,
raising the compulsory school age from 16 to 18, and funding to expand the
state’s ability to recruit high-quality teachers. KDE, CPE and EPSB had already
begun developing a unified strategy to reduce college remediation rates and
provide accelerated learning opportunities for secondary students (Kentucky
2011).
Using the educational reforms of Senate
Bill 1 (hereafter known as Unbridled Learning to distinguish it from later SB1s
which occur in every legislative session) and its status as the first state in
the nation to adopt the common core standards as the foundation of its
application, Kentucky took part in the RTTT grant competition as a means of
funding its recently enacted, but under-resourced, reforms. Through RTTT the
federal government sought to encourage education reforms in four areas: new
standards and assessments linking primary and secondary education to success in
college and the workplace; improved data systems to measure student performance
and contribute to formative assessment; enhancing the recruitment and retention
of effective school personnel, particularly in poor performing districts; and
reducing the performance gap for the lowest achieving schools. Although
Kentucky would be recognized twice as a finalist, the state was unsuccessful in
securing first- or second-round funding from RTTT. In
December 2011 Kentucky was awarded $17 million, much less than the $175 million
it requested, to implement reforms designed in part to prepare students for
more rigorous science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) course work (Day and Ewalt in press, 269).
But the application process solidified
the state as an early adopter of most RTTT reform ideas, particularly common
core state standards, and that drew the attention of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. In February 2011, KDE announced that it had received a two-year, $1
million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support
implementation of the new Common Core Academic Standards. Focused on improved
classroom instruction and alignment with common core standards as required
under Unbridled Learning, KDE partnered with the Prichard Committee to expand
existing work being done through the Literacy Design Collaborative and Mathematics
Design Collaborative. The grant was part of a nationwide effort by the Gates
Foundation to develop and test prototype classroom assessments and
instructional tools (“KDE Receives Grant” 2011).
According to KDE’s Director of Program Standards
Karen Kidwell, the Gates money allowed the state “to scale up work” with eight
different regional leadership networks. The leadership networks were
multi-agency teams of K-12 and higher education professionals whose purpose was
to provide the necessary instructional support for successful implementation of
CCSS, and the assessments based on the new standards (Kidwell 2013). Kentucky’s
approach was strongly influenced by “Professional Learning in the Learning
Profession,” a report of the National Staff Development Council which argued
for a “professional learning system” that was responsive at the individual
teacher/grade and content-area level, and sought to build capacity in every
teacher to refine “new learning into more powerful lessons and assessments,
[and] [reflect] on the impact on student learning.”...
Nationally, with bipartisan support for a
conservative proposal, and much evidence-based rationale, CCSS seemed to be on
track for a relatively easy adoption among the 45 adherents that remained by
2013. The thornier issue appeared to be whether a set of national exams based
on the CCSS could be agreed to, and would be affordable. But backlash against
CCSS was surfacing in state legislatures in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan,
Missouri, Pennsylvania Missouri, Georgia, South Dakota, and Kansas (Exit
Strategy” 2013).
In April, the Republican National
Committee surprised many educators when it passed a resolution bashing the
standards. The resolution says that the Republican National Committee
recognizes the CCSS for what it is — an inappropriate overreach to standardize
and control the education of our children so they will conform to a
preconceived “normal…” Claiming that the Obama administration’s RTTT incentives
had clouded the picture, states’ rights issues were resurrected among
conservatives (“Common Core Standards Attacked” 2013).
Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican
from Iowa, followed the RNC’s denouncement by starting a bid to eliminate federal
Education Department funding for the CCSS effort. Education Secretary Arne
Duncan had supported the standards, and awarded $360 million to two multi-state
consortia to develop standardized tests: The Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
(SBAC). Grassley called CCSS an “inappropriate overreach to standardize and
control the education of our children” and saying that the RNC “rejects
this CCSS plan” (“Common Core Standards Attacked” 2013).
In a letter to colleagues on the
appropriations subcommittee that handles education funding Grassley asked that
they cut off all future funds for CCSS and its assessments, and “restore state
decision-making and accountability with respect to state academic content
standards.” The letter says in part:
While the Common Core State
Standards Initiative was initially billed as a voluntary effort between states,
federal incentives have clouded the picture. Current federal law makes clear
that the U.S. Department of Education may not be involved in setting specific
content standards or determining the content of state assessments.
Nevertheless, the selection criteria designed by the U.S. Department of
Education for the Race to the Top Program provided that for a state to have any
chance to compete for funding, it must commit to adopting a “common set of K-12
standards” matching the description of the Common Core. The U.S. Department of
Education also made adoption of “college- and career-ready standards” meeting
the description of the Common Core a condition to receive a state waiver under
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Race to the Top funds were also
used to fund two consortiums to develop assessments aligned to the Common Core
and the Department is now in the process of evaluating these assessments
(Grassley 2013).
Once a public policy issue becomes
politicized, it is difficult to accurately predict its future...
The history of education in Kentucky is littered
with examples of legislative action followed by prolonged periods of disregard
for the schools. In 1990, when the General Assembly passed KERA, the public
perceived education as the top priority in the commonwealth and the state met
the challenge with its largest one-time infusion of education funding. But since that time, Kentucky has shown significant
progress in national rankings and concern has eased in relation to other
pressing problems (Day and Ewalt in press, 267). A 2012 survey of Kentuckian’s
views on key issues conducted by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky during
the presidential race identified the economy (65%) and healthcare costs (42%)
as far outpacing public concerns over education (8%) (Foundation for a Healthy
Kentucky 2012) . Given the underfunded pension programs and existing structural
imbalances in the state budget along with an antiquated tax structure, it
remains to be seen whether the state legislature will provide adequate
financial support for its Unbridled
Learning
mandates. Hanging in the balance will be the dream of a seamless education
system, where every teacher knows how to use the more rigorous,
internationally-benchmarked academic standards, and every student who earns a
high school diploma is truly ready for career- and/or college success.
Common Core Development Milestones
- November 2007 - CCSSO policy forum discussed the need for one set of shared academic standards
- December 2008 - NGA and ADP report urges states to create internationally benchmarked standards
- April 2009 - NGA & CCSSO Summit in Chicago called for states to support shared standards
- June 2009 - 46 states publicly proclaimed support
- July 2009 - Writing panels were announced
- July 24, 2009 - Race to the Top competitive grants announced. To be eligible, states had to adopt "internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place.”
- February 11, 2010 – Kentucky adopts CCSS
- March 2010 - First draft officially released
- June 2010 - Final draft released (English Language Arts and Math)
- July 2010 – Kentucky launches Leadership Networks for teacher, school, and district leaders around the implementation of the common core state standards within the context of highly effective teaching, learning, and assessment practices.
- October 2011 – Kentucky selected as model Demonstration State for Transforming Professional Learning to Prepare College- and Career-Ready Students: Implementing the Common Core by Learning Forward/Council of Chief State School Officers
- Spring 2012 – Kentucky assesses CCSS in new accountability system
- April 2013 - Common Core opposed by Republican National Committee
1 comment:
I suspect this was probably the last time they all smiled together since the photo. Fun to make plans in your own house, not so much so to implement them throughout the town.
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