Standards on trial in the court of public opinion

Abraham Lincoln once said, "Public opinion in this country is everything." And whether you subscribe to that notion or not, the recent release of two national polls on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) would seem, at least on the surface, to be a blow to standards supporters.

The first results came from the Education Next (EdNext) poll that has been given annually for about 14 years. When asked the question about support for the Common Core State Standards the following groups responded.

EDUCATION NEXT POLL

Support for CCSS

	2013	2014
Public	65%	53%
Republicans	57%	43%
Democrats	64%	63%
Teachers	76%	46%

In another poll released last week, we saw similar results.  The PDK/Gallup poll, which has been around for more than 50 years and is one of the most respected of the polls, indicated 60 percent of respondents oppose using CCSS in their local schools to guide what teachers teach; 18 percent of respondents said the standards were too challenging; 40 percent said the standards were not challenging enough; and 36 percent said the standards were just right.

Both polls showed an erosion in support for the CCSS from the previous year. In 2012, hardly anyone in the general public had even heard of the CCSS. Why such a steep drop in such a short time and why do we see such a steep drop in teacher support?

In a pre-release media call for the PDK/Gallup poll last week, I made the following points.
     1) There has been a significant increase in media reporting about CCSS. Depending on your media source, the public has been confronted with a barrage of information, some factual, some not, that has led to a polarization of opinions with regard to the Common Core State Standards.
     2) With the rush to implement No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver requirements for standards, assessments and teacher evaluations, the general public and especially teachers have connected CCSS with federal overreach.
     3) With the rush to implement NCLB waiver requirements in some states, teachers feel they have not been provided adequate support in training or resources to implement the standards. With the rush to assess the standards and utilize the results from testing in waiver-required teacher evaluation systems, again, teachers feel they are being held accountable for implementing standards, assessments, and teacher evaluation systems without adequate support and time.

When we dig deep and go back to the PDK poll in the late 1980’s, we find tremendous support for the concept of more rigorous standards that all states would adhere to in order for more students to reach college- and career-readiness. Even in the current polling, when the term Common Core was removed, there was a majority of support for more rigorous state standards across all states.

Several positive things happened last week as the polls were being released. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that the United States Department of Education (USED) would relax the timeline for states that need more time to implement teacher evaluation systems that use test scores as part of the evaluation. Also, Sec. Duncan announced his concerns about “too much testing” in our schools. The PDK/Gallup poll indicated that the general public would support Sec. Duncan’s concerns about too much testing. More than 50 percent of those polled said standardized tests are not helpful; however, in excess of 80 percent support college placement tests, grade placement tests, and exit exams. It appears the public supports testing as long as the purpose of testing is clear.

A few other items of note from the recent polls:
     • Charter Schools – the PDK poll shows 70 percent support, EdNext shows 54 percent support
      • Vouchers – the PDK poll shows 63 percent oppose with EdNext showing 51 percent support

While the department's own anonymous survey of nearly 7,000 Kentucky teachers earlier this year showed stronger support for the standards than is evidenced nationwide, Kentucky is being proactive with regard to CCSS. This week, I announced the Kentucky Core Academic Standards Challenge, which will inform our regular review of the standards taught in our classrooms. I urge all readers, regardless of your opinion on the standards, to take the challenge.  It will be open until April 30, 2015.

Americans’ confidence or lack thereof in institutions

Every year, the Gallup organization conducts a poll on the level of confidence Americans have in institutions. For the 4th consecutive year, Congress is at the bottom of the list with a confidence rating of 10 percent (down from 13 percent in 2012).

Pollsters stated, “I am going to read you a list of institutions in American society. Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one—a great deal, quite a lot, some or very little?”

Here are some of the results from the 2013 poll sorted by most confidence to least confidence (based on “a great deal” and “quite a lot” percentages combined).

The Military	76%
Small business	65%
Police	57%
Church or organized religion	48%
The presidency	37%
The medical system	35%
U.S. Supreme Court	34%
Public schools	32% (up from 29% in 2012)
The criminal justice system	28%
Banks	26%
Television news	23%
Newspapers	23%
Big business	22%
Organized labor	20%
HMOs	19%
Congress	10%

                               

While the Congressional rankings are no surprise to educators given the lack of progress Congress has been able to make on reauthorization of major education bills, I do think educators should look at the rankings for public schools. It is a concern that only 32 percent of Americans polled have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in our public schools.

PDK/Gallup Poll
Another poll that has been taken for many years is the annual PDK and Gallup poll on education. For years, the results of this poll have revealed the interesting finding that public school parents and Americans grade their children’s schools and local schools very high, however, when we ask about schools in general, the ratings dip significantly.

Here are some select questions from the 2012 PDK/Gallup poll on education.

Students are often given the grades A, B, C, D, or Fail to denote the quality of their work. Suppose the public schools themselves in your community were graded in the same way. What grade would you give the public schools here — A, B, C, D, or Fail?

National Totals (shown in percentages)

	2012	2007	2002	1997	1992
A & B	48	45	47	46	40
A	12	9	10	10	9
B	36	36	37	36	31
C	31	34	34	32	33
D	13	14	19	11	12
Fail	4	5	3	6	5

Using the A, B, C, D, and Fail scale again, what grade would you give the school your oldest child attends?

Public School Parents (shown in percentages)

	2012	2007	2002	1997	1992
A & B	77	67	71	64	64
A	37	19	27	26	22
B	40	48	44	38	42
C	16	24	20	23	24
D	6	5	6	7	6
Fail	0	3	2	4	4

What grade would you give the public schools nationally — A, B, C, D, or Fail?

 National Totals (shown in percentages)

	2012	2007	2002	1997	1992
A & B	19	16	24	22	18
A	1	2	2	2	2
B	18	14	22	29	16
C	47	57	47	48	48
D	23	18	13	15	18
Fail	7	5	3	6	4

What are the implications for local schools/districts and state education agencies? The major implication is that communication about progress schools are making and the great things happening in public schools must expand beyond parents and local communities. Americans are bombarded by many of the negatives about schools -- low test scores, dropout rates, shootings in schools, and the like. We must do a better job about communicating our successes.

Restoring Faith in Public Education

A good friend and professional colleague, Malbert Smith, sent me this article from Education Week. Malbert co-authored the article and the white paper that supports it. Malbert is research professor for early childhood, special education and literacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I encourage readers to review the article, but here are a few highlights.

The premise of the article is that America is losing faith in public education. Gallup’s June 2012 Confidence in Institutions survey shows confidence in public schools has eroded from 58 percent who have a “great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in public schools in 1970 to 29 percent in 2012. Of course, the good news is that public schools rank much higher than the U.S. Congress, but, that is indeed a low bar.

Malbert shows the interesting paradox between public confidence and actual school performance. Measures such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show significant gains in math and reading scores since 1970. Dropout rates are down, and graduation rates are up. While many think that our international rankings were once among the top in the world, this assumption is incorrect, and actual international rankings have actually improved in a few areas and remained flat in others. Certainly, there are many who debate the international rankings and the national test scores; however, the bottom line is that public faith in public education has eroded as has public faith in most institutions. The real question is what can we do to restore public faith in education? Malbert suggests a couple of strategies.

1 – To remain economically and politically relevant, our high school graduates must be prepared for the demands of a global economy. Adoption of college- and career-ready standards for all graduates is a good first step. Kentucky has led the way in these efforts with Common Core State Standards.

2 – Implementation of the Common Core Standards will help restore confidence. Again, Kentucky has led the way with the implementation of Common Core in 2011-12 and with testing and accountability models implemented in 2011-12. Readers should look to the results of our measures for college and career readiness to be released at the end of the month.

3 – Our leaders of both political parties have to take responsibility for restoring confidence in public education by being clear about priorities and strategies to improve public education.

4 – Educators must improve outcomes for children, and we must share not only our areas for improvement but also our success stories.

From my experience this week at the Kentucky Board of Education meeting, I would add another strategy. The media has to become more balanced.

This week, the Kentucky Department of Education reported the results from our field test of a common kindergarten screener and estimates of the number of 2012 graduates who reached college- and career-ready standards. The media only picked up on the kindergarten screener results, since the numbers indicated that only one in four students are ready for kindergarten. The media completely ignored the great news that we had seen double-digit gains in students graduating college/career-ready.

We increased the number of high school graduates who met college/career-ready standards by over 4,000. We helped parents and students save more than $5 million in cost avoidance for developmental courses. We doubled the chances of these students to graduate from a two- or four-year college. As we prepare our communities for the release of the new accountability results, hopefully this article will help you in addressing public confidence in public schools.