We’ll be examining a subject that has very real-world implications for this and future generations in a two-part story that starts this week: the new Common Core Learning Standards.
On page 1 (Cracking the Common Core), we bring you now a breakdown of exactly what the Common Core is, why it was adopted by the Board of Regents in 2011 and how educators and administrators are reacting on the macro level. To come, look for a comprehensive report on what the effects might be in the classroom itself: test anxiety, scheduling and what it means for students’ futures.
The state Education Department notes correctly that New York is one of the last states to adopt the Common Core Standards. No one can reasonably argue New York’s students should ever be behind learners in any other state in the union. Also at issue is the performance exhibited by graduating high schoolers. The state Education Department figures just 74 percent of incoming high school freshman will graduate four years later. And of those who do, an increasing number must take remedial coursework upon entering college because their skills are not up to snuff.
This is a serious issue, especially here in the Capital District, where much has been said about the transformative power of the high-tech industry. If families want their children to have a chance to stay in the area and raise families of their own, they’re going to need a good education. Otherwise, those shiny new jobs will be given to transplants, plain and simple.
So the Common Core Standards, the Education Department would argue, are a way to jump-start education in New York by bringing everyone onto the same page, instituting rigorous standards in the classroom and painting a true picture of the state of education in our schools, one to which teachers and administrators can be held accountable.
It sounds sensible. So sensible, in fact, that we’ve in theory been doing just that for years.
In addition to testing mandated by No Child Left Behind at the elementary and middle school levels for about a decade now, New York already has a battery of standardized testing in high school: the Regents.
Since 2005, the Board of Regents responded to concerns about student readiness by ratcheting up the Regents requirements. Now, all students must earn at least a 65 on their Regents exams to graduate. A Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation is also available to students who excel.
The result?
“Although we have raised expectations for what students must know and be able to do upon graduation, student performance has not risen sufficiently to meet those expectations,” wrote Ken Slentz, deputy commissioner in the Office of P-12 Education, in a memo to district superintendents and principals.
When it comes to testing, the approach to address student underperformance has been to adjust the standards – and it would also seem this strategy has been largely ineffective. The minds behind education in this country have seemingly been so preoccupied with testing as a way to measure the breadth of the learning problem that they never considered the way to close it might be through a different mechanism.
It can be said with certainty a sizable chunk of a student’s primary education is now concerned with preparing to fill in bubbles with a No. 2 pencil. Not many of today’s leading universities or high-tech employers will hold regurgitation ability above critical thinking, though.
Spending hours deciphering the structure of a standardized test might be a good formative exercise, but it should be a complement to a good educational environment, not the basis of it.
By its own admission, the Education Department’s demands for better performance from students on their Regents exams has not resulted in a better education for graduating seniors. We wonder exactly how the Common Core Standards will succeed where the Regents has failed.