Last week, I attended the annual
Policy Forum of the Council of Chief State School Officers. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
delivered a wonderful speech about the importance of the arts in a balanced
education.
Also, U.S. Education Secretary Arne
Duncan participated in a question and answer session with chiefs from more than
30 states. Secretary Duncan, in response to a question about the rising tide of
criticism about the Common Core State Standards, said he was surprised that
“soccer moms” from affluent schools were pushing back on tests over the new
standards because the results showed their students may not be performing at
the levels they had been used to. This comment seemed very reasonable and
factual in context, however, immediately the social media universe exploded
with the “soccer mom” comment. From my point of view, the real issue runs much
deeper.
For years, SAT and ACT data have
told us that many students who graduate from high school are not ready for
college-level work or to enter a career. “Not ready” means that students who
graduate from high school have to take remediation classes in college --
classes that cost parents and students a lot of money and for which students do
not receive credit. Students who graduate from high school college/career-ready
are more successful in college/career. They have a significantly higher GPAs
their freshman year in college, complete more credit hours and are more likely
to return for a second year than those students who are not
college/career-ready.
The Kentucky General Assembly
recognized all of these issues when it passed Senate Bill 1 in 2009 and required
higher education and K-12 education to work together to increase the percentage
of high school graduates who are college-ready by 50 percent by 2015. When we
started measuring in 2010, the percentage of high school graduates who achieved
college/career-ready status was 34 percent. The Class of 2013 had improved to
54 percent. We are well on our way to reaching the goal of 67 percent by 2015.
The work to help students reach
college/career-readiness begins with early childhood programs and continues
through the K-12 experience. Students cannot wait until high school to start
working toward reaching college/career-ready standards. With that
understanding, Kentucky and other states changed state testing to be more
aligned with the results from SAT and ACT. Kentucky aligned tests in grades 3-8
so that parents will know every year whether their child was on target to reach
college- and career-readiness.
What Secretary Duncan was addressing
was the pushback in New York from parents who did not like hearing their
elementary and middle grade students were not achieving at the highest levels.
Parents were upset that in previous years, their child had been “exceptional”
on state tests but under the new state tests, their child may be at the “needs
improvement” level. I believe many parents do not understand the simple message
that we’ve intentionally raised the bar on state tests and from the 3rd grade,
the results provide a clear indication of student progress toward
college/career-readiness. We know these new tests are good predictors of the
percentage of students who will graduate from high school college/career-ready
because the tests are aligned to the SAT and ACT results that we have seen for
many years.
My concern is that much of the
national debate is focusing on the politics of common core, rather than helping children reach higher
expectations. I believe that every parent wants their child to succeed and reach
college/career-readiness. Our challenge as educators is to communicate in ways that parents can understand and fully
support parents in helping their child reach this goal.
While Secretary Duncan’s remarks may
have been taken out of context, I know that his intention is to help more students reach
college/career-readiness so the students will be competitive in the global job market and our national economy
will remain the top economy in the world.
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