GUEST POST by Senator Steven Thayn (Gem County, Idaho) —
The primary concern I have with Common Core Standards and public education is that the state, local educators, and parents control the content of education. America has a long tradition of local control over education that must be protected.
Common Core State Standards represents a potential threat to this local control. The level of this threat is, to me, unclear. However, I want to error on the side of caution. At the end of this paper, I offer several policy recommendations for your considerations. Before I give them, I feel it important to give background information concerning education.
Four Components of Education
Quality education requires four important components: the desire of students to learn, level of parental support, quality of the teacher, and funding levels.
More money, by itself, will not improve education. Policies need to be put in place that recognize the value of parents and the role of the student so as to make the investment of funds and teacher training effective.
Education Reform: Two Approaches
The first approach to education reform, the one that has been and is still being used, is systemic change or make an ideal system, and require the parents and students to adapt, the best they can, to the new system. This is a systems-based approach to reform. This is the reform that has been implemented in the Unites States for over 150 years, it is costly and doomed to fail because a systems-based reform largely ignores the role of parents and students.
The second approach is to empower the students and parents with choices; then, let the choices of parents and students drive reform. The system has to adapt to the choices of the parents and students and teachers.
Common Core could have elements of both system dependent upon how Common Core is implemented.
The advantages of letting the choices of parents and students drive reform is that great improvements can take place without increasing funding.
Common Core: A Description
What are Common Core Standards? They are a set of standards that have been agreed upon by about 45 states that deal with two subjects: Language Arts and Math. Standards are a set of goals or objectives that lay out to teachers and others what a student should learn in grades k-12.
The idea of standards is a good one. Standards can be seen in computers, automotive industry, etc. Measurement of length and weight are a set of standards. The two issues of concern is if the standards are good standard or not; and, if they are voluntary or not. A voluntary set of standards can be abandoned at any time; whereas, a set of compulsory standards cannot be abandoned without permission.
Primary Concern with Common Core
The primary concern with Common Core is if they will lead to the federalization of public education. State, local, and parental control must be maintained over public education. We do not want a local parent or teacher to get permission from Washington D. C. before they can change the curriculum.
I am not making the case that this will happen. I am simply making the case that we do not want it to happen, and therefore, caution is in order.
Five Areas of Concern with Common Core
Most of the concerns with Common Core fall into five main areas:
Focus on Math Standards
Good math standards can be implemented well or poorly. To understand the recommendation that I am going to make on the math standards, I need to take some time to explain mathematics and how it is learned.
In my research, I have looked at four different sources: Ray's New Arithmetic which was printed in the 1880s, a home school math curriculum, my experience in public schools over the last 40 years in math instruction, and Common Core Standards as they were explained to me by Ryan Kerby and Michelle Carney a BSU math professor who oversees Common Core issues.
The enemies of math understanding are abstractness and too many variables. Numbers are abstractions. As adults, we tend to forget this fact. Ray's New Arithmetic worked very hard to make numbers concrete. It always used an object with a number until the student understood that numbers stood for an object.
For example, "James had 1 apple, and his brother gave him 1 more: how many had he then?" 1 is always pared with an object.
One should also note that it did not read 1 + 1 = 2 because that would be 5 variables instead of three. A mind cannot comprehend more than three variables. Once the numbers become concrete, then symbols like: +, -, or = can be used.
The next step is to understand the use of zero and place value. 1 means something different in the number 1 than it does in the number 10 or 101. The next step is to gain fluency my memorizing or setting to memory the math tables (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). I have found that those that struggle in math also struggle with the math tables.
The use of story problems is key in order for a student to learn mathematics. The purpose of math is to describe the physical world. If story problems are not used, math cannot be understood.
Public instruction of math, in my lifetime, relied heavily on doing the same type of equation over and over again.
Home school textbooks tend to review every day, introduce a new concept, and have story problems.
Ray's New Arithmetic always used story problems.
Common Core uses story problems.
My conclusion is that Common Core math standards are superior to what we have been doing in public school in my lifetime. This is not to say that Common Core standards are ideal. They suffer from one major fault. The language to describe the standards is difficult to understand. The practical problem with this is that Common Core standards tend to separate the parents from the child. This separation violates my basic assumption that parents are a key player in the learning of any child. It also does not acknowledge the fact that many parents understand math better than the elementary teacher.
The second problem with Common Core math standards is that the way they are being introduced by different school districts. Common Core math, by the 7th grade, is one year ahead of what has been taught in Idaho schools. This means there must be a transition period between previous Idaho standards and Common Core. Some school districts are not making this transition and are trying to simply jump ahead one year. This is not fair for the teachers or the students.
SBAC Test
I need to spend a short time on the test that accompanies the Common Core. An assessment has been developed by about 25 states to test the Common Core standards in Math and Language Arts called the SBAC test. The standards, by themselves, represent little threat to local control; however, added to the test the concerns grow.
The questions center around what is on the test and if Idaho has any leeway in creating and using test questions. Part of the SBAC test is hand graded which should increase cost and will require up to 8 hours for a student to take the test.
Recommandations
The primary concern I have with Common Core Standards and public education is that the state, local educators, and parents control the content of education. America has a long tradition of local control over education that must be protected.
Common Core State Standards represents a potential threat to this local control. The level of this threat is, to me, unclear. However, I want to error on the side of caution. At the end of this paper, I offer several policy recommendations for your considerations. Before I give them, I feel it important to give background information concerning education.
Quality education requires four important components: the desire of students to learn, level of parental support, quality of the teacher, and funding levels.
- Desire of students
- Role of parents
- Funding
- Teachers
More money, by itself, will not improve education. Policies need to be put in place that recognize the value of parents and the role of the student so as to make the investment of funds and teacher training effective.
The first approach to education reform, the one that has been and is still being used, is systemic change or make an ideal system, and require the parents and students to adapt, the best they can, to the new system. This is a systems-based approach to reform. This is the reform that has been implemented in the Unites States for over 150 years, it is costly and doomed to fail because a systems-based reform largely ignores the role of parents and students.
The second approach is to empower the students and parents with choices; then, let the choices of parents and students drive reform. The system has to adapt to the choices of the parents and students and teachers.
Common Core could have elements of both system dependent upon how Common Core is implemented.
The advantages of letting the choices of parents and students drive reform is that great improvements can take place without increasing funding.
What are Common Core Standards? They are a set of standards that have been agreed upon by about 45 states that deal with two subjects: Language Arts and Math. Standards are a set of goals or objectives that lay out to teachers and others what a student should learn in grades k-12.
The idea of standards is a good one. Standards can be seen in computers, automotive industry, etc. Measurement of length and weight are a set of standards. The two issues of concern is if the standards are good standard or not; and, if they are voluntary or not. A voluntary set of standards can be abandoned at any time; whereas, a set of compulsory standards cannot be abandoned without permission.
The primary concern with Common Core is if they will lead to the federalization of public education. State, local, and parental control must be maintained over public education. We do not want a local parent or teacher to get permission from Washington D. C. before they can change the curriculum.
I am not making the case that this will happen. I am simply making the case that we do not want it to happen, and therefore, caution is in order.
Most of the concerns with Common Core fall into five main areas:
- Loss of local control
- Protection of individual student data from federal access
- The quality of the standards
- How the standards will be taught or the content of the curriculum
- Testing: Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium (SBAC)
Good math standards can be implemented well or poorly. To understand the recommendation that I am going to make on the math standards, I need to take some time to explain mathematics and how it is learned.
In my research, I have looked at four different sources: Ray's New Arithmetic which was printed in the 1880s, a home school math curriculum, my experience in public schools over the last 40 years in math instruction, and Common Core Standards as they were explained to me by Ryan Kerby and Michelle Carney a BSU math professor who oversees Common Core issues.
The enemies of math understanding are abstractness and too many variables. Numbers are abstractions. As adults, we tend to forget this fact. Ray's New Arithmetic worked very hard to make numbers concrete. It always used an object with a number until the student understood that numbers stood for an object.
For example, "James had 1 apple, and his brother gave him 1 more: how many had he then?" 1 is always pared with an object.
One should also note that it did not read 1 + 1 = 2 because that would be 5 variables instead of three. A mind cannot comprehend more than three variables. Once the numbers become concrete, then symbols like: +, -, or = can be used.
The next step is to understand the use of zero and place value. 1 means something different in the number 1 than it does in the number 10 or 101. The next step is to gain fluency my memorizing or setting to memory the math tables (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). I have found that those that struggle in math also struggle with the math tables.
The use of story problems is key in order for a student to learn mathematics. The purpose of math is to describe the physical world. If story problems are not used, math cannot be understood.
Public instruction of math, in my lifetime, relied heavily on doing the same type of equation over and over again.
Home school textbooks tend to review every day, introduce a new concept, and have story problems.
Ray's New Arithmetic always used story problems.
Common Core uses story problems.
My conclusion is that Common Core math standards are superior to what we have been doing in public school in my lifetime. This is not to say that Common Core standards are ideal. They suffer from one major fault. The language to describe the standards is difficult to understand. The practical problem with this is that Common Core standards tend to separate the parents from the child. This separation violates my basic assumption that parents are a key player in the learning of any child. It also does not acknowledge the fact that many parents understand math better than the elementary teacher.
The second problem with Common Core math standards is that the way they are being introduced by different school districts. Common Core math, by the 7th grade, is one year ahead of what has been taught in Idaho schools. This means there must be a transition period between previous Idaho standards and Common Core. Some school districts are not making this transition and are trying to simply jump ahead one year. This is not fair for the teachers or the students.
I need to spend a short time on the test that accompanies the Common Core. An assessment has been developed by about 25 states to test the Common Core standards in Math and Language Arts called the SBAC test. The standards, by themselves, represent little threat to local control; however, added to the test the concerns grow.
The questions center around what is on the test and if Idaho has any leeway in creating and using test questions. Part of the SBAC test is hand graded which should increase cost and will require up to 8 hours for a student to take the test.
- Adopt the Common Core math standards
- Work in the coming years to change the wording so parents can understand them.
- Only require the SBAC test be given to students beginning in the 7th grade. The SBAC requires high level of reading and may not be appropriate for younger students.
- Give questions from the SBAC test, after they are released, to the younger grades so that the students have exposure to the questions.
- Continue to use the Common Core language arts standards; however, discuss if they are the standards that Idaho wants.
- Not participate in the SBAC language arts test.
- Do not send the individual student data out of state to SBAC.
- Review all data being collected by the Idaho State Department of Education with an eye to limiting this data collection.
- Give more power to parents to control curriculum especially for elementary math and government class.
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