We thought we’d try to fact-check some of the statements and add some of the missing context.
The point isn’t to shame the speakers or to play “gotcha,” but to add some clarity to the debate. Education policy is complicated, confusing and cluttered by jargon. Often, it’s not clear where one policy ends and another begins, or who is responsible for the decision.
It’s also difficult to disprove the testimony from teachers and others which attributed student success to the switch to Common Core.
So here’s a few things people said Tuesday night:
“These standards are supposed to increase the readiness for STEM (science, technology, math and engineering) of Florida students. Unfortunately, they just do the opposite because the students in early grades are not prepared for challenging math in grade eight, like Algebra. So it doesn’t prepare them – it doesn’t prohibit them from taking – but it doesn’t prepare them. Most students will take no Algebra until grade nine.”
Chris Kirchner, a veteran English teacher at Miami's Coral Reef Senior High School, supports the Common Core in theory, but worries teachers won't have enough support and time to adjust to the new standards.
Editor’s note: This story was written by Sarah Carr for The Hechinger Report.
MIAMI—In Chris Kirchner’s freshman English classes at Coral Reef Senior High School, novels like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Great Gatsby” have been squeezed off the syllabus to make room for nonfiction texts including “The Glass Castle” and “How to Re-Imagine the World.” For the first time, students will read only excerpts of classics like “The Odyssey” and “The House on Mango Street” instead of the entire book. And Kirchner will assign less independent reading at home, but will require students to write more essays, and push them to make connections across multiple texts.
“I’m trying to go big with the change and see what works,” says Kirchner, who has taught English in Miami-Dade schools for more than 30 years.
The “change” Kirchner refers to is the introduction of the Common Core: the education standards adopted by Florida along with 44 other states and the District of Columbia. The standards do not constitute a curriculum, but they lay out general education principles and skills students should master at different grade levels. All Florida public school educators are supposed to start adapting their teaching to the new standards this school year; students will be tested on them for the first time in 2015.
For high school English teachers like Kirchner, the Common Core is prompting consequential and contentious changes in what students read and how the books are taught: The new standards call for a focus on depth over breadth, more challenging readings, and increased emphasis on nonfiction. Students will be expected to make written arguments using specific evidence from reading assignments, often pulling together examples from multiple texts. No longer should teachers ask students to write solely based on their personal experience or opinion—arguing for or against school uniforms, for instance.
“It’s encouraged me to give up some practices I had a great allegiance to,” says Kirchner, “specifically, the teaching of whole novels.”
Wednesday marks the second of three Common Core hearings Florida is holding in an effort to get feedback from parents and communities about the state’s new education standards.
Whether or not you can make it to Davie tonight, we want you to be part of the conversation.
StateImpact Florida is teaming up with our partners at WLRN-Miami Herald news and Florida International University’s journalism program to cover the event. A group of student journalists in our WLRN/FIU Radio Storytelling class will be live tweeting the hearings with updates, context and on-the-ground observations.
Got questions about who’s in the room? What the terms being used mean? How it’s being received? Let us know!
You can join the conversation in the live chat box below or reach us on Twitter with @WLRN and #CommonCore. The Florida Channel will be streaming the proceedings on web channel 7. Continue Reading →
Emma Jane Miller speaks against Common Core State Standards Tuesday. She said using standards developed with support from private groups is education without representation.
Lory Baxley said she drove two hours to discuss her complaints about Common Core standards after checking out her son’s math assignments.
Baxley’s son earned top scores on the FCAT, but now he’s worried if he’ll pass fourth grade. She blamed Common Core.
“About four weeks into the first grading period I noticed a difference in my fourth grader and a difference in his coursework,” Baxley told more than 200 people at Hillsborough Community College. “The math was hodgepodge – no sequence. My son had everything from a line graph to an algebraic problem, as well as numerous different ways to multiply, all on the same homework sheet.”
Florida is one of 45 states to fully adopt the standards. They outline what students should know in math and English at the end of each grade. Kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms are using Common Core now. Other grades are using a blend of Common Core and Florida’s previous standards. Next year, every grade is scheduled to exclusively use Common Core.
Common Core has broad support among educators, but is also facing a rising number of critics.
They say the standards aren’t as good as Florida’s current standards, will require the state to give up local control, and require too much testing among other concerns.
The Florida State Board of Education meeting took a turn for the theatrical on Tuesday.
In all the attention surrounding the Common Core hearings Florida is holding this week, it would have been easy to miss a curious exchange at Tuesday’s State Board of Education meeting.
Going into the meeting, some of the most-watched items included a vote on whether or not Florida should extend a safety-net that prevents schools from dropping more than one letter grade at a time (it should, the board voted) and a decision on whether or not to include reading samples in the appendix of the Common Core standards (Florida won’t, said the board).
But it was during a discussion of a communications strategy around the new standards that things took a turn. At one point, the board members and presenters got into a long debate about how to even use the phrase “Common Core.”
The tussle over language was reminiscent of a scene from Waiting for Godot—ambiguous, circular, full of heady themes. (Alternately, depending on your sense of humor, it had a whiff of Abbot and Costello’s Who’s on First sketches.)
With that in mind, we scripted a few of the more theatrical moments from the meeting. Feel free to give it a dramatic reading of your own: Continue Reading →
Florida is one of 45 state to fully adopt the standards. The standards outline what students should know at the end of each grade, and to emphasize critical thinking skills, ask students to show what they know and prove how they know it with evidence.
The standards are scheduled to be used in every Florida grade at the start of the next school year.
But critics worry the standards aren’t as good as what Florida is currently using, will mean less local control over educational content, are expensive and will increase the amount of time students spend testing, among other concerns.
Before you head to the hearings this week, here’s a selection of StateImpact Florida stories to give you some background on the debate:
1. Your Essential Guide to the Common Core — Find out the basics here, and check out our timeline of Common Core’s development. “The standards set clear expectations for student achievement at each grade level. They also require students to show they understand what they’ve learned. The goal is to tackle learning problems early on — so more students graduate ready for college or a career. Florida is phasing in Common Core over four years. Full implementation is expected in the 2014-15 academic year.”
StateImpact Florida is working with WLRN-Miami Herald News on Elevation Zero, a special series focused on how the state is dealing with rising seas.
And we want to know: What does sea level rise mean to children and teens in Florida? Have you talked to your kids about it? How are they learning about it?
A sign from a California protest against Common Core State Standards.
The Florida Department of Education is holding three public hearings this week to gather criticisms and support of Florida’s new math and English standards known as Common Core.
Florida is one of 45 states to fully adopt the standards, which outline what students should know at the end of each grade. Designers say the standards emphasize critical thinking skills, asking students what they know and to prove how they know it.
But as Florida schools prepare to use the standards in every grade starting next school year, critics are pushing back. They worry Common Core will increase time spent testing, will be costly, will reduce local control over educational content and will not be as challenging as Florida’s current standards.
Florida is three years in to implementing Common Core. The standards are fully in use in kindergarten through second grade, while other grade are using a combination of Common Core and Florida’s previous standards.
Most of the schools in the Florida College System pledged to meet that challenge, but as the Sun Sentinel reported over the weekend, the results so far have been mixed:
“… the degree options are limited, the eligibility requirements are often tough and the marketing efforts have been light.
Broward College opened the program up a month ago, but so far no one has signed up for any of the 80 open slots. … [Broward College and Palm Beach State] have decided against offering discounts in nursing, one of the most popular high-demand degree fields.”
Schools and students in Florida are in trouble if the money runs out.
Going into the weekend, there are a few signs of movement on the federal shutdown drama–which seems like a good time to check in on what the shutdown could mean for education in Florida if it isn’t resolved soon.
We’ve rounded up a few stories that explain who could feel the pinch and why:
PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS
Governor Rick Scott has ordered state agencies not to use state funds to cover things that would otherwise be paid for with federal dollars. CBS 4 in Miami reports that medium-sized school districts and special services are vulnerable:
A legislative review prepared last week for Florida Senate leaders contends that small to medium-sized school districts could have problems meeting payroll after Oct. 14 because of their reliance on federal education aid. The Department of Education disputed that report and said districts received their federal funding back in July and have enough money to make it to the end of the school year.
But a DOE spokeswoman did not dispute that other federally funded programs such as vocational rehabilitation and blind services will probably have to stop making payments to vendors and providers next week.
COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH LOANS
Florida made a top ten list of states that would be affected by a shutdown of the FAFSA process for college students applying for federal aid. WalletHub analyzed which states have been hit hardest by the federal shutdown and crunched the numbers in a few different categories:
From senior citizens who can’t obtain the Social Security money they depend on for survival to students who are unable to secure the loans they need to pursue higher education, the unintended consequences of these nonsensical political games will continue to mount until we hit a breaking point.
COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH FAMILIES
Speaking of higher education, Slate.com has this look at how college students with families rely on federally-funded safety net programs—like housing subsidies and food stamps—that will be held up as a result of the shutdown:
The economic reality for all single parents struggling to get through college is tough: low wages, economic precarity, and a greater risk of dropping out. The No. 1 concern for these parents is child care. When only half of all colleges provide any kind of child care services, student-parents are vulnerable to disruptions to programs like Head Start. … But even those college students who find a way to meet their child care needs during the shutdown may face an even bigger concern: going hungry. As of Tuesday, the government had stopped funding the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children; J’Kai Jackson told NBC News that without support from WIC, she would “have to drop out of school to find work to provide food for my child.”
VETERANS
And college benefits for veterans are at risk, too. As Military.com reports, this is only the latest federal budget squabble to cause trouble for tuition assistance programs:
Every military branch has stopped processing tuition assistance applications until either a continuing resolution — a stopgap spending measure — or budget to fund the government for Fiscal Year 2014 is passed. … In March, the Army, Air Force and Marines abruptly halted tuition assistance because of sequestration budget cuts, but the assistance was reinstated by Congress in an appropriations bill, amid an outcry from service members, veterans groups and military advocates.
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