Critics of new national education standards and accompanying exams that are being put into place in 45 states, including Arkansas, told state lawmakers Monday that the standards will prove to be expensive, usurp local control and threaten personal privacy.
And states will do all that without providing any assurances of higher student achievement or improved competitiveness in a global economy, the critics said.
On the first day of a two day hearing, members of the Senate and House education committees listened Monday for more than five hours to members of national policy-advocacy organizations, a retired University of Arkansas at Fayetteville faculty member, an Arkansas mother of four and a Little Rock Central High English teacher relay their objections to the Common Core State Standards.
“We the people of Arkansas and you, our elected representatives, were bypassed in this sweeping change in education,” Grace Lewis of Mount Vernon, a nurse and mother of four, told lawmakers, adding that “private trade groups” such as the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Achieve Inc. are the driving forces behind the change from state to national education standards.
“I am fighting for our constitutional right to make these decisions for ourselves,” Lewis said.
Others are scheduled to speak today in favor of the new standards and describe how they are being implemented.
The national standards in English/language arts and in mathematics replaced Arkansas’ own teacher-written curriculum standards in grades kindergarten through eight over the past two years.
The new standards will be be used this school year in grades nine through 12. New exams, based on the new standards and developed in collaboration with 21 other states, are to be administered beginning in the 2014-15 school year. Plans call for those exams to be administered to students on computers, prompting concerns and efforts to ensure that schools will be ready with the necessary technology to handle online testing.
Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell told the lawmakers that the Arkansas Board of Education approved the move to the national standards in July 2010. That happened after Arkansas educators - including former Arkansas Education Commissioner Ken James - were involved in their formation. The new standards, he said, mimic standards used in other countries that require teachers and students to cover fewer concepts but address them in more in depth.
Legislators made no recommendations and took no actions on the testimony given Monday.
But Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, the father of five young children, declared “Touchdown!” in response to Lewis’ comments and expressed frustration at the lessons his public-school children are receiving in which “4 plus 4 isn’t 8 any more” and that students have to do the school work in different ways that parents have difficulty following.
Virginia Wyeth, an English teacher at Little Rock’s Central, told the lawmakers that teachers oppose the Common Core standards not because they are lazy or are afraid of change.
Most teachers are apathetic toward the new standards, Wyeth said, “but every single teacher believes testing is excessive and destroying meaningful education.” The new standards and testing program will mean “significantly” more testing and a greater expense in terms of student instruction and dollars for the technology, she said.
A number of national organizations have raised questions and voiced opposition to the national standards in recent months. And some states, such as Oklahoma, Indiana, Georgia, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have slowed the implementation of the standards or their testing programs in response to concerns from organizations and lawmakers.
Three people - Joy Pullmann, a research fellow and managing editor of School Reform News for The Heartland Institute in Chicago; Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom for the Cato Institute in Washington D.C.; and Sandra Stotsky, professor emerita from the University of Arkansas and a member of the committee that validated the English standards - addressed the Arkansas lawmakers Monday, by telephone, about their opposition to the national standards and the testing program.
Pullmann called the standards - the goal of which is to produce students ready for college and careers - too narrow.
“Common Core transforms public education’s broader civic purpose into narrow, technical skills training,” said Pullmann.
Pullmann also rejected the contention that the new standards were the result of a state-led initiative. She said most lawmakers and the public didn’t learn of the standards until after they were established in large part with funding from private organizations, “big business” and the federal government.
She said that the organization developing the new exams at the request of the states has committed to providing the federal government with any and all data collected at the state level, a move that she said will provide federal agencies with the right to state databases - student, health and financial - without parental consent.
McCluskey objected to the one-size-fits-all approach to the standards, preferring that individual communities set their own standards and that the education of students benefit from that competition.
McCluskey and the others discounted the argument that national standards would make U.S. students more competitive with other countries where students on average outperform American students. He noted that many of the countries that currently achieve at lower rates than the United States have national standards. He said American students have critical-thinking skills that students in other countries lack but desire.
Stotsky told the lawmakers that the new standards are not rigorous and for the most part were not written by educators. She said the new standards are “minimal competencies” and will not prepare students for real college work. Arkansas policymakers and lawmakers would be better served by relying on their own university educators in math, engineering and other fields for guidance on public school standards, she said.
Stotsky objected to the reliance the standards have on informational text rather than literature. She said literary study results in the development of analytical thinking skills. She said the English standards are “empty skills” that do not require the study of British literature apart from Shakespeare. There also is no required study of authors from the ancient world and no study of the Bible as literature.
“Without requirements in these areas, students are not prepared for college coursework,” she said.
The lawmakers peppered the speakers, including Education Commissioner Kimbrell, with questions about the history of the new standards and whether Arkansas was coerced into adopting the standards as a way to qualify for the federal Race to the Top grants that were offered in 2010.
Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, asked Stotsky whether the standards are a product of the federal government. She called the development of the standards “a careful dodge” and their “voluntary” adoption by the states “a game of charades” fostered by the Race to the Top grants. She noted that the standards have been copyrighted, causing the states to lose the right to alter them.
The lawmakers also asked about the cost of implementing the standards, whether state databases of personal information will be shared with federal agencies, and whether the state has the authority to alter the national standards.
Kimbrell said the state was interested in qualifying for the federal grant money, but downplayed that as a primary reason for adopting the standards. He said the state could not afford to develop on its own internationally competitive education standards. The state was unsuccessful in winning one of the multimillion-dollar Race to the Top grants.
In response to other questions, he said the state agency collects information on whether students are eligible for free and reduced-price school meals but not family income. He said he will research and report to the legislators today what other information would be available to the testing coalition or the federal government.
He said the state can add to the national standards by about 15 percent, which would allow the addition of information important to Arkansas to be taught.
Other speakers argued that the added Arkansas information won’t be tested and will be devalued in its importance in the classroom.
Rep. Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma, a retired science teacher, said that she has received a positive response from teachers about the standards and its emphasis on inquiry based learning and real-life applications.
“I’m seeing real good things pushed into the curriculum,” Douglas said.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, also a former classroom teacher, said state lawmakers were included in the discussion of the new standards and have not been blindsided by them.
Elliott disputed the argument that standards restrict what teachers teach in the classrooms.
“The creativity and the imagination is limited only by the person who is teaching - and not dictated by the standards,” she said.
Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, voiced concern about the cost of the computers for testing and the Arkansas legal requirements to provide adequate and equitable education.
“That act alone is going to put us in a whole bunch of hurt,” he said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/23/2013