My growing concern . . .

At the system level, the proposed national core standards are bothering me for many reasons, one of them being what Ethan and Jonathan share in their comments about mixed messages and the potential for more years of alignment to changing standards, curriculum development, gap lessons, and adjusting assessments. Energy expended on this work is energy and time not focused on the how of implementing Classroom 10 and the heart of learning, the interactions between adult and student in the classroom. We have been engaged in this alignment and development work with the many revisions to state standards for too many years.

The thought of spending two more years on state standards with the potential for federal math and English standards to follow simply frightens and upsets me. If at that time we must or will officially “adopt” them at the state level than why not just bite the bullet and do so now? Please understand, I am not endorsing adoption, but I would like to get a better sense from state level officials about the potential for adoption in two years. Information in the OSPI press release does not provide me with a comfort level or the necessary direction to identify how our system should respond to the potential for these changes in a relatively short period of time.

I am also concerned with the pressure from the federal level to adopt them in order to qualify for billions of dollars in innovation funding. Yes, I know the likelihood of our state qualifying in round 1 or future rounds may not be great because of the other equally disturbing criteria that must be met to qualify, but I don’t like being placed in the position of potentially adopting simply to qualify for enhanced funding. And, isn’t it sad that the Gates Education Foundation or here, located in our back yard, is supporting the work of 15 other states with their proposals. They have recently made the decision to support any additional states that can answer eight questions affirmatively with question two requiring adoption of the national core standards by June 2010. Reading the OSPI press release, the earliest we would do that is in two years leaving us out of any support from the foundation, seen as a critical component of any successful proposal.

I think that there are some good arguments for having a set of national core standards, but NCLB created mandates giving states autonomy over content that should not be expected to change as rapidly as I feel we are being pressured to do with this proposed set of standards. Perhaps this change should be embedded in long needed changes to NCLB legislation that makes sense and provides direction and support that we can all get behind. From information in this article, however, it doesn’t appear that this administration is in any hurry to take on that challenge. It does appear, however, that they are willing to share with us through RttT funding criteria what we should be doing without supporting us or showing us how to do it.

I will continue to follow these developments and periodically share updates and my thinking. I fear that this has the potential to pit state against state at the federal level, to be disruptive and divisive at the state level, to reinforce the perception that all teacher associations are against change, and to make the work at the local level more difficult to maintain focus and use diminishing resources efficiently and effectively. Who knows, maybe this is what “they” want. We certainly know that many in powerful positions see charters as the savior to all our public school problems. Too bad they don’t know about the Tahoma School District and the many others whose teachers are just as committed and successful as those in the charter schools being portrayed as saviors for our youth.