Imagine what would happen if our decisions in education were actually made with the well-being of students in mind. This is only appropriate considering that the students are the reason for education. Such policies and reform should center first and foremost on what is best for them.
However, with the roller coaster of the Common Core Standards over the past year, we’ve seen what happens when children take a back seat to ideology. Right now, I’m afraid. Afraid that we’ve taken a huge step forward with Common Core in the past few years, but that we’re about to take a huge step backwards as well. Most importantly, I’m afraid for what it means for our kids and their future.
In 2007 Tennessee came under fire for inflated test scores and subpar standards when it received an “F” in advertising. We were telling our kids that they were “on track” when the reality was that they continued to fall further behind. And we took action to move forward. The Department of Education and legislators worked together to “raise the bar” and adopt new standards and assessments.
However, it wasn’t enough. Improvement was slow and data still showed that only 18% of graduates were college ready which meant that we were still losing ground.
In the spirit of the Volunteer State, Tennessee lead the way and dove into the Common Core State Standards. Modifications to the math and English/language arts standards made their way into the classroom, followed by the talk of a new rigorous assessment that would finally push us to the next level.
We worked hard on it on the implementation side as well. The TN Department of Education formulated and executed a historical plan on an unprecedented scale to train almost 30,000 teachers on how to implement Common Core all in one summer and throughout the next school year.
In Summary, while the standards were still being debated in other states, Tennessee was already preparing for the change in assessment and evaluating teachers on Common Core aligned teaching methods.
And unlike the first time, our volunteer spirit paid off. We were number one across the nation in student growth on the NAEP test. Teachers who understood the shifts required to teach the Standards reported that their students made higher gains on the TCAP test. A feeling of “this just might work” seemed to replace the hesitation and frustration we’d seen in the past with the hasty process of implementation.
This transformation is also personal for me, because as a Common Core Coach for Tennessee, I underwent a pedagogical reformation of my own. As I implemented the new standards in my own classroom, I noticed that students were more engaged and willing to work. I became much more intentional about the content in our reading passages and spending time going deeper into topics and discussion. Eventually, students led group and class activities and watched their words turn into charts and work samples on the walls of the classroom. I could see that the change in me was a catalyst for a change in them. As I transformed my education, my alternative students transformed their own learning! I wasn’t just being told that this was working by a far off government bureaucrat; I could see it with my own eyes!
Given my experiences, imagine how frustrating it has been to see the war against Common Core gaining momentum. After testifying several times before Tennessee legislators, I realized that those who are making these decisions for “our students” are not people who have taught in a classroom. They are not people who spend time in schools and they have never worked with the standards themselves. They are politicians, business leaders, and social representatives who have been easily swayed by the outcry against the standards because the homework is “too hard” (even though much of what they see is not truly common core) and they have been told this is the beginning of a federal takeover of education (which it isn’t). This movement is too often driven by irrational fears based on fabrications and faulty ideology.
We raised the standards, showed the other states that we could rise to the competition, and have seen them start to pay off in the classroom and in student learning. And now, we declare it is just too hard or too unacceptable from an ideological perspective, and that we need to pull them out.
This movement has only snowballed in recent months. After legislators pulled us from the PARCC testing consortium to make a Tennessee-appropriate test, Governor Haslam announced that we will review the standards to decide if we need to make them more Tennessee-appropriate standards. The implication is disturbing; that Common Core might be TOO hard for Tennessee.
It says that in order to protect our students from failure, we must make our own test that will be relevant for them. In order to protect our students from failure, we must withdraw them from testing that will measure them against other states and allow us to compare ourselves to others. And in order to protect our students from failure, we must re-write our own standards to fit the needs of the Tennessean economy.
We don’t know what will come of this review process, but in the end, the message is clear. Tennessee lacks faith in its teacher and students when we have already shown we were ready to face the challenge and were already improving. Because of these actions, I am afraid that we will slide backwards to where we were in 2007 when our Tennessee minded testing and standards were ranked as failing. We can’t afford this to happen, for our state, for our cities and most importantly, for our students.
What we must do is continue ahead with the Common Core standards and the PARCC assessment. The public needs to hear from teachers like myself who see that the shifts in instruction and how we teach are helping students meet the rigor of the standards. Districts must keep training teachers in more complex reading strategies, writing higher-level questions, and engaging students in taking responsibility for their own learning. Tennessee must communicate to parents that the assessments will be more challenging but that we are all committed to helping our students rise to the expectations and compete on a national level. Student achievement will be gradual but the end results will be a more productive work force of students who hold a diploma that carries its weight in gold. We owe it to our students to demonstrate commitment to a plan that took guts to implement and will bring glory if we do not give up!
By Casie Jones
As a reminder, inflammatory or defamatory comments will not be posted per our comment policy. Please ensure all comments are constructive and add to the conversation. Follow Bluff City Education on Twitter @bluffcityed and look for the hashtag #iteachiam and #TNedu to find more of our stories. Please also like our page on facebook.
The post Sabotaging Common Core Sabotages Teachers, Students appeared first on Bluff City Education.