How Washington lawmakers can save $300 million: Cancel the Common Core Standards
Washington state is in the process of implementing the Common Core Standards Initiative, which the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has reported will cost $300 million in professional development for teachers, the cost of new books and new tests, as I have written about here, here and here.
Yesterday, the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute released its 2012 report on American education. Tom Loveless, author of the report, describes their findings like this:
When it comes to the Common Core, the study that we conducted anticipates very little effect of the Common Core on future national (academic) achievement. Despite all of the controversy about the Common Core, despite all the dollars that are being poured into the Common core, we think it is going to have actually little impact.
The Common Core Standards Initiative is yet another expensive top-down, command-and control education reform imposed on states by the federal government, and on local schools by the state government. Proponents hope these expensive programs will somehow trickle down to the classroom to help young Sally and Roger learn. Remember Goals 2000? Remember No Child Left Behind? Remember the WASL?
The most valuable resource we can give our school children is to allow their schools the freedom to act, the freedom to control the actual dollars in their budgets, and the freedom from doomed-to-fail mandates like the Common Core Standards Initiative.
Comments
Common Core Standards
Liv,
We agree on a lot of things, this won’t be one of them. Core Core Standards are essential to move this country forward so our students can compete in a 21st century global economy. This also makes the essence of No Child Left Behind feasible, since every state will eventually be graded on the same plane. The cost of curriculum would be a huge savings over time, because organizations like the Gates Foundation plan to do free open source material for all Common Core courses. This would save the country billions, and it would help us move technology into education like never before. Every industry has massively improved their output through techonological innovations, except for schools. We basically teach the same today as we did 100 years ago.
Sen. Rodney Tom
Common Core Standards
Facts have never been useful in convincing the leaders in our state legislature about education issues. Power, arrogance, and ignorance are tough to overcome. The only affect the CCSS will have is to waste huge amounts of resources and keep us from addressing the real problems in education.
The CCSS standards are so poorly written and non user friendly that they will barely be used as a reference by the majority of public school teachers. Anyone who has actually used standards in the classroom knows that. But why listen to those who actually use standards? No one who uses standards was involved in writing them.
How many times as a senator
How many times as a senator have you written the word "essential" before a program that’s written in the "essence" of a another failed program and supporting the belief that we may receive federal pork and private money in the future to make it work on paper. Are we agreeing to this program so we can plan on "saving" money we dont ever have to spend in the first place? Common Core is the same old reform sign repainted so maybe stop trying to gather pork money and think hard if your state ED system would actually benefit more by staying away from federal incentives that reduces the states liberty and ability to operate in its own self interests.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. I learned that in a Washington public school.
Dave Petersen