I taught in North Carolina for 6 years so I was incredibly
lucky when my husband got stationed in Maine. Well, I didn’t really see it as
lucky at the time, I think my actual words were “it has been nice knowing you”.
Then when I could not get a call back for a teaching job I felt incredibly
troubled by the move to Maine. However, I am now in the most incredible job for
my past experiences. I am the Proficiency-Based Project Manager for RSU 13 and one of my responsibilites is to help teachers with new standards. A job I have done in North Carolina and internationally.
When learning about Maine’s educational policies I felt like
I was in a different world with local control being such a strong force,
compared to North Carolina with much larger school districts and more state
control. I was excited to find out how similar these two Pine Tree states
actually are though. Both states were early adopters of the Common Core State
Standards, both have commissioned with the Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium and both were apart of the 16 original lead states for the Next
Generation Science Standards. Maine adopted the Common Core State Standards
almost a year after North Carolina, however both states tried for
implementation in the 2012-2013 school year. Maine pushed theirs back to full
implementation in the 2013-2014 school year. Working as an instructional
facilitator during the 2011-2012 school year in North Carolina, I trained
teachers during 5 workdays on the implementation of the Common Core and how to
read the standards as well as during many faculty meetings and early release
days.
The state of North Carolina created documents called “Crosswalks”
which outlined the differences between their previous Standard Course of Study
and the Common Core. North Carolina has more required workdays and Early
Release days for teacher training. I’m not saying this to make North Carolina
sound glamorous, honestly, I talk about Maine’s school systems and often I see
green in my former coworkers eyes. I’m just trying to stress how hard North
Carolina worked on the standards, yet as of this week there is legislation
pending to throw out the Common Core and adopt new standards. Maine has had far
less training with the standards and has less time for it in the teacher
calendar, and I fear we will fall into the trap NC legislation has. I beg Maine
educators, community members and legislation to not forgo the Common Core State
Standards.
Teachers and administrators are working hard to learn as
much as possible about the standards. We are working on professional
development calendars to make sure we that we have time to train teachers on aligning
our current resources to the standards, because, the standards are not
curriculum. We as a district get to decide the curriculums, but with budgets
what they are, we have to just alter what we have instead of purchasing new, a
problem North Carolina faced.
Getting rid of the standards will not change the fact that
we have to work on standards. According to the Fordham
Institute Research, Maine’s previous English-Language Arts Learning Results
received two out of three points for clarity and specificity, however only four
out of seven points for rigor and content; the math only received three out of
seven points. The Common Core State Standards received the two out of three
points for clarity and specificity, however the rigor and content was increased
to six and seven points out of seven for English-Language Arts and Mathematics
respectively. So even if the Common Core State Standards are revoked, work will
need to be done on the old Maine Learning Results.
Getting rid of the standards will not change the fact that
we have to test our students. According to No Child Left Behind each state must
assess their students at the end of third through eighth grade and their third
year of high school. Maine has been behind in this aspect adopting the New
England Common Assessment Program that was not truly aligned to the Maine
Learning Results, and also tested students on their end of grade learning, in
the next school year. The third year of high school students have been taking
the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). While this is test that is beneficial for
students applying to colleges, it is in no way an assessment on their
understanding of the Maine Learning Results. By becoming members of the Smarter
Balanced Assessment Consortium, students will take tests at the end of the
current year of learning, that are completely aligned to the Common Core State
Standards. However, our adoption of the standards has nothing to do with us having
to test our students, with or without the Common Core, standardized testing
will still happen.
Getting rid of the standards will not help Maine collaborate.
Maine is one of two states with a declining population according to a July 2013
report from the United
States Census Bureau. Maine needs to be collaborating with other states to
continue to build on their educational background (this is true of all states).
I know our Maine Department of Education has been working with states, and
recently traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to continue the work. Students
move; we live in a transient time and by having common standards throughout the
state, let alone the country. will benefit our students greatly. Eliminating
the Common Core State Standards will only bring us back to 2009 when the
National Governors Association and the Chief Council of State School Officers
decided they were needed.
Getting rid of the standards will not eliminate poorly
worded questions, ill advised homework or any of the other propaganda
you have seen on the internet about why the Common Core is bad. The standards
indicate to teach students multiple ways to understand why addition and
subtraction are needed and work, not just the old algorithms taught long ago. The
standards also do not indicate to NOT teach the algorithms. The idea is that
students understand the whys before they memorize a formula that has no real
meaning to them, but can explain why the formulas work. Parents upset that
their student were marked down on tests for not giving the exact terminology
should not be upset about the Common Core, but rather the directions for the
test that did not clarify this. Terminology taught at a younger age means
students in high school will have an easier time understanding more complex
concepts. We cannot bare witness to this now, because we do not have enough
years of the system to show it working. When reading through parental
complaints about the “Common Core” ask yourself if it is truly a problem with
the Common Core State Standards or if it is the assignments problem.
To those that argue that the Common Core State Standards are
“bad”, I ask why are they so bad? When the
standards are read through, many have few complaints about the actual standards.
It is the testing, the lack of resources and training that they complain
about-not the actual standards. So Maine, I beg of you, do not fall in to the
trap that other states have and trust the system that you fought for since the
beginning. Teachers, trust yourselves, colleagues and administration and try to
learn as much as you can. This is a process that will take time and you are in
the hard part, jumping ship will only take more time and work. The testing will
still be there, but it won’t be aligned to the new standards, unless we want to
work harder and create our own. We will be a lone state recreating the wheel by
ourselves again and there will still be poorly worded assignments still out
there. The Common Core State Standards are not the evil in education right now
and the longer people keep acting like they are the more of a standstill we as
a state, and an education system will be in.
Fight for more resources, not undoing things that do not need to be undone.
