Conservative opposition to Common Core Reading & Math Standards growing
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Conservative lawmakers and governors in
at least five states ranging from Alabama to Utah have begun pushing to back out of or slow down 
implementation of Common Core. Like Texas they now worry adoption of the standards has created a de facto national curriculum that could at some point be extended into more controversial areas such as science.
The Common Core national math and reading standards adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia two years ago are coming under attack from some quarters as a federal intrusion into state education matters.
The voluntary academic standards which specify what students should know in each grade were heavily promoted by the Obama administration through its $4.35 billion Race to the Top education-grant competition. States that instituted changes such as common learning goals received bonus points in their applications.
Supporters say the Common Core standards better prepare students for college or the workforce and are important as the U.S. falls behind other nations in areas such as math proficiency.
A 2010 report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute a right-leaning educational-research group said the Common Core standards are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. For 33 states the Common Core is superior in both math and reading.
Critics argue that the standards are weak and could for example de-emphasize literature in favor of informational texts such as technical manuals. They also dislike that the standards postpone teaching algebra until ninth grade from the current eighth grade in many schools.
Just six months ago in Novemeber Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott announced
Our Texas 8th graders turned in an outstanding performance. They surpassed levels earned in 2009 when the NAEP was last given and clearly our increased training for math teachers and improved math curriculum standards are paying off."
Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott Tuesday while releasing the results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics test.
The states white 8th grade students ranked 4th missing out on the 2nd place position themselves by less than one point.
The latest NAEP results show Texas Hispanic & African-American students earned the 2nd highest
score among their peer groups. Only Hispanic students in Montana earned a higher scale score on the math test than did eighth-grade Hispanic Texans. Only African-American students in Hawaii earned a higher average score than did their counterparts in Texas.
White students in the District of Columbia earned an average scale score of 319 the highest score for that ethnic group. Texas students ranked 4th with less than a fraction of a point separating this group from students in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Massachusetts students had the second highest scale score at 304.2876 while Texas received an average score of 303.5460.
Overall the state ranked 10th among the states with an average scale score of 290 substantially above the national average score of 283.
This summer we learned that the states 2011 graduates earned a record high score on the math section of the ACT. However we know we still have room to grow which is why we are currently revising our math standards to make sure our improvement continues" said Commissioner Scott.
A study released this year by a researcher at the Brookings Institution think tank projected Common Core will have no effect on student achievement. The study said states with high standards improved their national math and reading scores at the same rate as states with low standards from 2003 to 2009.
But mainly critics of Common Core object to what they see as the federal governments involvement in local-school matters.
The Common Core takes education out of the hands of South Carolina and parents so we have no control over what happens in the classroom said Michael Fair a Republican state senator who
plans to introduce a measure that would bar his state from spending money on activities related to the standards such as training teachers and purchasing textbooks.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who took office after the state adopted Common Core wrote in a letter to Mr. Fair that the state should not relinquish control of education to the federal government neither should we cede it to the consensus of other states.
Common Core could take another hit Friday when the 23-member board of the American Legislative Exchange Council a group of more than 2000 state lawmakers and business members who back limited government and free markets among other conservative goals is set to vote on a resolution to formally oppose the standards. The resolution was passed by the ALEC education task force in December.Model legislation often is drafted from the groups resolutions and taken by ALEC members to their state legislatures.
Common Core evolved from a drive by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to delineate world-class skills students should possess. The standards created with funding from among others the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation set detailed goals such as first graders should understand place values in math and eighth graders should know the Pythagorean Theorem.
We brought the best minds in the country together to create international benchmarks that once mastered would make our students more competitive globally said Gene Wilhoit executive director of the
Council of Chief State School Officers. He said his group has no plans to create national science standards.
As the standards were being developed the Obama administration launched Race to the Top in July 2009 which awarded points to states that adopted a common set of K-12 standards that are substantially identical across all states in a consortium according to the grants policies. The
department didnt specifically mention Common Core but it was the only common set of standards being developed.
As a result most states legislatures or state boards of education adopted Common Core.
The standards have yet to show up in many classrooms as states are just beginning to implement them. But in Kentucky where Common Core rolled out this school year teachers are altering instruction and searching for new classroom reading materials.
Jahn Owens a teacher in Owensboro Ky. said the more rigorous standards require her to teach her fifth-graders how to multiply and divide fractions. Previously that was taught in sixth grade. First-grade teacher Heidi Dees has added more nonfiction books to her classroom.
These standards take students much deeper into the subjects and force them to do more critical thinking Ms. Owens said. Its been hard work for the teachers because the implementation was so quick but we are now more purposeful about student learning.
The Obama administration has awarded more than $360 million to two groups to create student assessments aligned to Common Core.
Justin Hamilton a spokesman for the U.S. Department. of Education called Common Core a game changer but said the administration didnt force states to adopt it.
But Emmett McGroarty executive director of American Principles in Action a conservative lobbying group that wrote the ALEC resolution said states were herded into adopting the standards with no time to deliberate on their worth.
He called the standards mediocre and costly to implement.
