It seems to me that the Common Core State Standards
(CCSS) are tightly fused in the public’s mind with increased and more stringent
standardized testing, and that this close association with testing has created
a lot of resistance to Common Core. Here in New York that's certainly the case,
with this year (2014-15, the first year common-core-oriented tests have been
introduced) 20% of students/parents opting out of the testing.
I've been holding a minimally informed view that the
standards are a reasonably good idea undermined in the public perception by
being saddled with contentious assessments that may be serving other purposes
entirely. I wanted to take a closer look. How real is that linkage between CCSS
and onerous assessment? What caused that perception to arise? And how are the
major educational organizations responding to it? I looked at the websites of
some of the major US educational organizations to find out.
I
began with the Common Core State Standards Initiative, because it gives the appearance of being the central
online advocacy force on behalf Common Core. So I was surprised to find it did
not have a lot to say about the assessment side of the coin. They emphasize
that data collection is not required, but up to each state individually.
Perhaps they are reluctant to wade into the controversy, but if so, my casual
observation of P.R. strategy tells me they’re dropping the ball, because the
perception “out there” is so strong that Common Core is all about the testing
and “teaching to the test.” And that’s ironic because, by the definition of
Common Core’s learning objectives, one would expect the methods for assessing
achievement to be quite different from and more meaningful than the customary,
rote-questions, fill-in-the-bubble methods. They need to address the
controversy if they want to make a stronger case for CCSS and help get it
through this difficult roll-out.
Before
going any further, it’s worth quoting this concise statement by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
as to what Common Core is basically about:
The Common Core State Standards have the potential
to transform teaching and learning and provide all children with the
problem-solving, critical-thinking and teamwork skills they need to compete in
today’s changing world. This approach to learning moves away from rote
memorization and endless test-taking and toward deeper learning.
The
AFT is very supportive of Common Core. But they strongly assert that there is a
need to extensively field-test the assessments before rolling them out. They
make the comparison with how businesses methodically field- and market-test their
products before introducing them, to prevent commercial failures. The
implication is, why would education administrators handle such a large and
important “product roll-out” any differently, and risk blowing the necessary positive
impression and goodwill? They suggest a moratorium on the testing, asserting
that it is too rushed, and they also argue against jumping into using test result to determine such
things as student advancement or penalties or rewards for school performance.
I’m
sure I’m not the first one to make this comparison, but this “botched roll-out”
thing reminds me of the drastic effect the failed opening days of the Obamacare
online exchanges had. It just gives the whole project a bad image, painting program
elements that are totally unrelated to the testing problem and otherwise
potentially easily accepted with the same discolored broad brush.
The
National Education Association (NEA)
stakes out a position close to identical to the AFT’s. They are very opposed to
high-stakes testing, and one gets the sense they are representing a group of
teachers who are weary not only of having to teach with these test in mind but
also of being associated by default with standardized testing, as if it was
somehow their idea. They propose delaying any testing until the teaching side
is rolled out smoothly. Indeed, they published an article back in 2012
expressing concern that when the tests arrived, they could undermine the effort
to establish Common Core.
All
these organizations point supportively to the “next generation of assessments”
being produced by Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) for some states and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC) for others. I did not find either the SBAC or PARCC website
particularly informative on the subject of the timing of initial testing and
what effect is was having on public support for the Common Core, but at least
PARCC was direct and explicit in stating that their assessment project is all
about supporting implementation of Common Core.
So
at least they are not abashed about it, and I get the sense that they are
earnest, research-based, and creative about getting the assessments right. But
they do not seem to address the issue of timing or argue that allowing more time
to pass would be a good thing. I imagine that, like the Obamacare
administrators, they have been under tremendous pressure to get it done and out
yesterday, to (theoretically) lend credibility to the whole project and
generate an evidence base. But that pressure is probably also coming from
political interests wanting to use results to “incentivize” schools and
teachers, long before the linkage between test results and appropriate consequences
can be demonstrated.
PARCC
has an interesting description of how the two major evidence-based principles
on which the standards are based are focus and coherence. It is not my topic here and I don’t have time to
discuss it, but they do a careful and effective job of explaining how this is a
rational and testable basis to do assessment better than it has been done in
the past. It lends confidence about the
project in the long term, but will they get there before the political winds
change, weighed down with negative impressions?
I
presume PARCC and SBAC are predominantly researchers into effective educational
methods and assessment design, rather than interest groups pushing for testing
in the ways it is sometimes used to reward and punish schools and teachers. It’s
not clear whether or not they are supportive of the immediate requirement of
using the tests in the initial implementation of Common Core standards.
So
who is? I’m guessing it’s political leaders more than anyone else, but to finish
my roundup, I took a look at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). A section of their website titled “Standards, Assessment & Accountability” ties these
subjects more closely together than any other source I examined. By “Accountability,”
they mean consequences for professional educators and institutions for their
results. So I’m guessing they have a strong interest in seeing to it that these
three aspects are very tightly knitted together. They do come across as a group
of technocratic believers, particularly in their statement about
accountability, which seems to be their culminating, unifying concern – and which
likely plays best with the political class. No mention of a testing moratorium
there.
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