And how does Achieve, Inc. fit in?
This from Chapter 2 of Combs & Fair (eds.) Meet Me at the Commons, New Forums (2015). Whose Standards Are These?: A Brief Historical Timeline of the Development of the Common Core State Standards with References to Next General Science Standards, and the C3 Framework for Social Studies by Richard Day
1989: The National Center on Education and the
Economy (NCEE) published their highly influential report, America’s
choice: High skills or low wages! which called for new set of national
educational performance standards to be benchmarked to the highest educational
standards in the world and met by American students by age 16. Many states
began enacting policies recommended by NCEE (National Center on Education and
the Economy, 1990).
• 1989: President George H. W. Bush invited
the nation’s governors to an education summit, where influential AFT President Albert Shanker urged them to
begin creating a national system of high standards and rigorous assessments
with real consequences. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton took charge of the
governors’ effort to draft national goals for the year 2000, a major
policy shift away from keeping students in school without any real standards of
achievement.
• 1989: Kentucky 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
court accepted a standards-based rationale for determining whether the state
had met its constitutional obligation, and that launched another wave of
school reform litigation based on both equity and adequacy claims
as expressed in state constitutions (Day, 2011).
• 1990: In response to the Rose decision, the Kentucky General
Assembly passed the nation’s most ambitious statewide school reform
package, the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA) (Day, 2011;
Guskey & Oldham, 1997). Arguably, KERA’s most powerful feature was the
advent of a new kind of high-stakes accountability system based on student
achievement outcomes (test scores). The old method of reporting only
school-wide means concealed the substandard performance of as much as a third
or more of the student population. The new data, disaggregated into subgroup
performance, revealed those short-comings and changed the way educators talked
about student success. The public reporting of student test score data by
subgroups, along with the ranking of schools – a contribution of the news media
- proved to be a powerful tool for driving change in this new era of high-stakes
assessment. The promise of equality of educational opportunity that
had guided American schools for a century was effectively replaced by a new
goal – equity of student achievement outcomes (Day & Ewalt, 2014).
• 1993: Separately, the National Research Council issued a set of national
science standards, and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science published its Benchmarks for Science Literacy (U.S. Department
of Education, 2010). The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute for
Advanced Study publish The Opportunity Equation calling for a
common set of science standards (National Research Council, 2012).
• 1994: President Bill Clinton’s 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 (in Ravitch, 2010, pp. 16-22). 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).
• 1996: The National Governor’s Association, in concert with
corporate leaders, created Achieve, Inc., an independent, bipartisan,
nonprofit education reform organization based in Washington D. C. that focused
its efforts on helping states raise academic standards and graduation
requirements, and strengthen accountability (American Diploma Project, 2011).
• 2001: Achieve
sponsored a National Education Summit and joined with the Education
Trust, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and the National Alliance of Business
to launch the American Diploma Project (ADP) to identify the must-have
knowledge and skills most demanded by higher education and employers.
• 2001: When President George W. Bush signed the bipartisan No
Child Left Behind Act into law, a new definition of school reform became
nationalized, one characterized by accountability (Ravitch, 2010). The Act
required states to test every child annually in Grades 3 – 8 in reading and
math and report disaggregated test scores. This reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act was built upon a standards-based reform
whose roots were found in policy responses to A Nation at Risk (Kaestle,
2006). Nationally, there was concern over the “vast differences in educational
expectations [that] existed across the states” (Conley, 2014, p. 1).
• 2004: The American Diploma Project (ADP) published, Ready or not:
Creating a high school diploma that counts which 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, p. 7).
In 2004, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher’s (R-Lexington)
education agenda featured the idea of getting high schoolers ready for college
and the workplace, including year-end assessments and better curriculum
alignment across all core content areas. Fletcher’s plan was developed based on
research conducted through the state's participation in the American Diploma Project,
a
joint effort of three Washington-based education reform groups: Achieve
Inc.,
the Education Trust, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation – which are
not coincidentally, also the groups behind the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS).[1]
When Fletcher’s Education Secretary Virginia Fox met
with the National Governor’s Association in February 2005, she reported that
Kentucky already had a pre- K-16 council working to forge stronger ties between
high schools and higher education. "We've been working very hard on the
issue of alignment," added Ms. Fox. "That's a track we're on, and
we'll continue aggressively - and, in fact, probably accelerate."[2]
• 2005: At the National Education Summit on high schools that
year, governors from 45 states joined with business leaders and education
officials to address a critical problem in American education – that too few
students were graduating from high school prepared to meet the demands of
college and careers in an increasingly competitive global economy. The result
was ADP’s creation of a set of benchmarks that were proposed as anchors for
other states’ high school standards-based assessments and graduation
requirements. ADP identified an important convergence around the core knowledge
and skills that both colleges and employers – within and beyond ADP states –
require (American Diploma Project, 2004). The American Diploma Project set five
goals and the criteria against which participating states were measured to
determine if the goal had been met:
Common Standards – The criteria are
met if the standards’ writing process is guided by the expectations of the
state’s postsecondary and business communities, if those communities verify
that the resulting standards articulate the knowledge and skills required for
success in college and the workplace, and if an external organization verifies
the standards’ alignment to college- and career-ready expectations (American
Diploma Project, 2011).
Graduation Requirements – High school graduates
need to complete a challenging course of study in mathematics that includes the
content typically taught through an Algebra II course (or its equivalent) and
four years of grade-level English aligned with college- and career-ready
standards (American Diploma Project, 2011).
Assessments – States must
have a component of their high school assessment system that measures students’
mastery of college- and career-ready content in English and mathematics. The
assessment must have credibility with postsecondary institutions and employers
such that a certain score indicates readiness (American Diploma Project, 2011).
P-20 Data Systems – States must have unique student identifiers to
track each student through and beyond the K-12 system and must have “overcome
all barriers to matching” and have “the capacity to match longitudinal
student-level records between K-12 and postsecondary, and matches these records
at least annually” (American Diploma Project, 2011, p. 18).
Accountability
Systems – States must value and reward the number of students who earn a
college- and career-ready diploma, score college-ready on high school
assessments, and enter college without the need for remediation (American
Diploma Project, 2011).
• 2006:
ACT’s report, Reading between the lines argued 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 suggested that
students were 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 (ACT, 2006). NAEP reading results
from 1971-2004 showed average reading scores for 9-year-olds were the highest
on record but scores for 13-year-olds had risen only slightly since 1975.
Reading scores for 17-year-olds, however, had actually dropped five points
between 1992-2004 (Perie, Moran, & Lutkus, 2005).
• 2007: The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) issued
a report that established the lack of any continuity among the various state
accountability systems. Under the provisions of the bipartisan No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLB), states were required to report annually the percentages of
students achieving proficiency in reading and mathematics for grades 3 through
8. But the law allowed each state to select the tests and set the proficiency
standards by which it determines whether the state has met its adequate yearly
progress (AYP) goals. The NCES report revealed that proficiency standards
varied so much from state to state that comparisons were impossible. Students
in states where cut scores for proficiency had been set low appeared to be
achieving at remarkable rates. But when the performance in these states was
mapped against the estimate of students achieving a “proficient” rating on the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), there were substantial
differences found. The variations could be explained by differences in both
content standards and student academic achievement from state to state, as well
as from differences in the stringency of the standards adopted by the states.
As a result, there was no way to directly compare state proficiency standards
in an environment where different tests and standards were used (National
Center for Educational Statistics, 2007, p. 482).
• November 2007: The Chief Council of State School
Officers (CCSSO) policy forum discussed the need for one set of shared
academic standards.
• 2008: Achieve report Benchmarking for success: Ensuring U.S.
students receive a world-class education recommended states upgrade state
standards by adopting a common core of internationally benchmarked standards in
math and language arts for grades K-12 to ensure that students are equipped
with the necessary knowledge and skills to be globally competitive (National
Governors Association, Council of Chief State School Officers, & Achieve
Inc., 2008).
• July 2008: With the release of Out of many one:
Toward rigorous Common Core Standards from the ground up, CCSSO Executive
Director, Gene Wilhoit, argued that all students should graduate from high
school prepared for the demands of postsecondary education, meaningful careers,
and effective citizenship, and that a state-led effort is the fastest, most effective
way to ensure that more students graduate from high school ready for college
and career, a universally accepted goal. “ADP Core has become the common core
as a byproduct of the alignment work in each of the states.” (Achieve, Inc.,
Press Release, July31, 2008).
• Summer 2008: CCSSO’s Executive Director Gene Wilhoit and
Student Achievement Partners Co-founder David Coleman convinced philanthropist
Bill Gates to spend more than $200 million advancing Common Core. Over
the next two years, Gates would fund groups across the political spectrum and
by June 2009, CCSS would be adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia
(Layton, 2014).
• April 2009: NGA & CCSSO Summit in
Chicago called for states
to support shared standards.
In April 2009, Stephen Pruitt was selected as Chief of Staff for the colorful Kathy Cox, in the Georgia Department of Education. He had been with the department in various capacities since 2003. He had previously been a high school AP Chemistry teacher.
• May 2009: The CCSS Initiative development
began on the college and career ready standards (National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2014).
In 2009, the Kentucky legislature passed
Senate Bill 1 which was sponsored by a host of Republicans
including former Senate President David Williams (R-Burkesville) along with Sens. Katie Stine (R-Southgate)
and Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) who have recently had second
thoughts. SB1 directed the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and the
Council of Postsecondary Education (CPE) to plan and implement a comprehensive
process for revising the core standards so they are fewer in number, more
focused and in-depth, evidenced-based, incorporate international benchmarks
where possible, and are common from high school to postsecondary introductory
courses.
• July 2009: Based on positive responses from the states
Common Core State Standards Writing Panels began their work.
• July 2009: President Barack Obama and Education
Secretary Arne Duncan 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, para 4). 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.
Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday had been on
the job less than a week, in August
2009, when he sat before the Interim Joint Committee on Education to
talk about the implementation of Senate
Bill 1. Listening were many of the key crafters of the bill including
Rep Katie Stine (R-Southgate)
.
“Kentucky has long been known for national leadership in
education reform,” said Holliday. “Your insight and preparation in Senate Bill 1 will lead us into the
next generation of education reform.” He made it clear that he was ready and
able to follow their game plan.
A key provision of the bill seeks to ensure high school graduates are prepared for college or jobs eliminating the need for zero-credit developmental classes in the process. Holliday and CPE President Bob King confirmed to the SB1 sponsors that they understood the legislators’ desire for a Kentucky high school diploma to truly indicate the student has completed work which is synchronized with the course requirements needed for college success.
A key provision of the bill seeks to ensure high school graduates are prepared for college or jobs eliminating the need for zero-credit developmental classes in the process. Holliday and CPE President Bob King confirmed to the SB1 sponsors that they understood the legislators’ desire for a Kentucky high school diploma to truly indicate the student has completed work which is synchronized with the course requirements needed for college success.
• September 2009: 48 states (not Texas or
Alaska), Washington, D. C., the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were counted as participating in the CCSS
effort (National Governors Association, 2009).
• January, 2010: Responding to fears that Common Core might
squeeze social studies out of the curriculum, an alliance of social studies
organizations, including a state collaborative working under the CCSSO called
the Social Studies Assessment, Curriculum and Instruction (SSACI), the
National Council for the Social Studies, and the Campaign for the Civic Mission
of Schools (CMS) began an initiative to focus on the four state standards
identified in the No Child Left Behind Act: Civics, Economics, Geography and
History. The group expanded to include 15 organizations and formed the Task
Force of Professional Organizations to work with SSACI (Swann &
Griffin, 2013).
• February 11, 2010: Kentucky adopted CCSS, the first state to do so.
• March 2010: First draft of CCSS was
officially released.
• June 2, 2010: The standards-development process was completed
in approximately one year by Achieve, Inc. (Mathis, 2010). The Common Core
State Standards (English Language Arts and Math) were finalized on June 2,
2010 (Porter, McMaken, Hwang, & Yang, 2010).
• July 2010: Kentucky launched 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.
• September 2. 2010: Education Secretary Arne Duncan 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) (U. S. Department of Education,
2010)
• July 1, 2011: The Carnegie Corporation of New York and
the Institute for
Advanced Study published A Framework for K-12 Science Education
Standards: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas, the
guiding document for Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
• 2011: Achieve began managing the state-led development of the K-12
Next Generation Science Standards.
At this point, Stephen Pruitt was in his first year at Achieve, serving as Vice President for Content, Research, and Development and developing instructional materials, including rubrics to assess the quality of instructional material.
• Spring 2012: Kentucky assessed CCSS in a new accountability system.
In May 2013, Stephen Pruitt was promoted to Senior
Vice President and coordinated the Next Generation Science Standards
(NGSS) Network and led the development of science materials.
• 2013: 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 states that remained committed. 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 (Ujifusa, 2013).
• April 9, 2013: The final Next Generation Science
Standards were released. The standards required evidence of three-dimensional
learning (including practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas) and
learning progressions outlined with standards at all grade levels, including
engineering, and connections with common core standards (NGSS Lead States,
2013).
• April 2013: The Republican National Committee
surprised many educators when it passed a resolution bashing the standards.
In a letter to colleagues on the appropriations subcommittee that handles
education funding, Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) calls CCSS an “inappropriate
overreach to standardize and control the education of our children” (Strauss,
2013, para. 3). Grassley asked Congress to 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 said 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, para. 2)
Once a public policy issue becomes politicized, it is difficult to accurately predict its future. But a report from the Center on Education Policy (CEP) found that, while concern over funding for CCSS implementation was high, state education leaders said that the effort would go forward. In their report, Year 3 of Implementing the Common Core State Standards: State Education Agencies Views on the Federal Role, CEP found that the majority of the 40 states responding to the survey, said that it is unlikely that their state would reverse, limit, or change its decision to adopt CCSS this year or next. Few state education leaders said that overcoming resistance to CCSS was a major challenge in their state (Renter, 2013).
2 comments:
For reasons I can't explain, Skip Kifer is experiencing difficulties posting to KSN&C!! So, I am posting this on his behalf:
This from Skip Kifer:
A couple additions to your timeline and thoughts:
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) released a standards document in the late 1980's. They were, I believe, the first content standards. Those were followed a couple of years later with assessment standards.
The Clinton administration created two voluntary national tests, one for 4th graders in reading and one for eighth graders in mathematics. They were "formative" in their nature without the heavy handiness of the accountability stuff. Republicans in congress refused to fund their implementation. Instead some years later come up with the grades 3 through 8 tests, heavily in the accountability realm.
I disagree with your statement that outcomes rather than opportunities were the modus operandi for the Kentucky assessment, at least initially. (I know there are those who interpreted the much earlier Coleman report in that way.) In the document to which companies responded to compete for the assessment contract there was a heavy emphasis on Continuous Assessment, teachers being involved, and building a test "worth teaching to." Accountability, although a piece of the document, later took on a huge life of its own. We have suffered ever since. The opportunities were reinforced by after school stuff, Saturday meetings and summer school.
Richard,
This is an interesting compilation, but I question the comments for the 1990 entry about the new data being disaggregated into subgroup performance.
I don't recall seeing consistent, annual disaggregations until they were required by No Child Left Behind after the turn of the century.
I pulled my old file on the KIRIS Biennium 3 closeout reports and could find nothing about subgroup scores. If there were separate reports issued, I didn't see them and they were not being discussed at Kentucky Board of Education meetings (which I am sure they would have been) in that time frame, either.
If you can provide KIRIS era reports that show disaggregation, I would like to see that.
Also, while it is Kentucky-specific, Senate Bill 1 from 2009 played a notable role in Kentucky’s early adoption of Common Core and possibly needs inclusion for that reason.
You also might include Kentucky Senate Bill 130 from the 2006 Regular Legislative Session which led to statewide testing with EXPLORE, PLAN and the ACT. The 2015 EXPLORE test results in particular may prove important for the credibility of Common Core and could have some impact on the credibility of the 2015 NAEP Grade 8 math and reading results when those come out around the end of the year, as well.
Overall, very interesting list.
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