Political Pro, Stefanie Simon, Feb. 20, 2014
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/common-core-teacher-support-103737.html#ixzz2uDjNFUwi
The rollout of the Common Core academic standards is at a “critical juncture,” as teachers are increasingly skeptical of the initiative — and could turn against it in large numbers, scuttling its chances of success, the president of the nation’s largest teachers union said Thursday.
Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, told POLITICO that he intended to sound a very loud alarm bell when he wrote an open letter this week warning that implementation of the Common Core has been “completely botched.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/common-core-teacher-support-103737.html#ixzz2uDjc94A0
The union has been polling its members and conducting focus groups all winter. Early results indicate that enthusiasm for the academic standards has slipped since a poll of NEA members last year found that 26 percent endorsed the Common Core wholeheartedly, 50 percent backed it with reservations and 13 percent didn’t know enough to form an opinion.
Overall support “hasn’t diminished that much,” but the share of teachers who have reservations about the standards has notably increased, Van Roekel said.
What’s more, teachers are deeply frustrated. Asked how this school year has gone so far, large numbers say it’s been worse than previous years. Much of that distress, Van Roekel said, is because implementation of the new standards — which aim to change the way math and language arts are taught at every grade level — has been “completely botched” in most states and school districts.
“We could lose” the teachers’ support altogether, Van Roekel said. “We haven’t yet. But we need to do a course correction or we’ll lose them.”
Losing teacher endorsements would be a serious blow for supporters of the Common Core standards, which were written by state organizations and nonprofit groups and have been heavily promoted by President Barack Obama.
Common Core promoters might be able to win on the policy front, keeping the standards in place in most of the 45 states that have adopted them, even without teacher union support, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of education and political science at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
“But if they’re sincerely envisioning this as a redirection of American education, they need to have teachers working with them, not hiding under their desks or protesting in front of the school,” Henig said.
Indeed, supporters of the Common Core have long said they’re counting on teachers to promote the standards to parents and help quell a growing opposition movement on both the left and the right.
Van Roekel said he still believes his teachers can serve as effective ambassadors for the Common Core — but only if they see changes in their classrooms, and quickly. Their No. 1 plea: More time and more resources to help them make the transition.
“You don’t bull-through-the-china-shop your way through this,” Van Roekel said. “No. You take the time to do it right.”
Supporters of Common Core said they’re eager to work with teachers and are confident most educators are still on board, despite a recent rebellion in New York and Van Roekel’s urgent warning, sent Wednesday to the NEA’s 3 million members.
“All the polling I’ve seen is teachers supporting the standards,” said Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which helped write the academic guidelines.
Proponents of Common Core also dismiss public anger — including moves to scrap the standards in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and elsewhere — as insignificant and blown out of proportion.
“Just as a small minority of the public opposes Common Core, a small minority of teachers do, too,” said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Fordham Institute, which supports the standards.
Until recently, that was probably true, Henig said.
Most teachers had high hopes, he said, that the Common Core would help them move away from a narrow curriculum dominated by prepping kids for multiple-choice standardized tests. They loved the standards’ emphasis on problem solving, critical thinking, analysis and discussion.
Yet the Obama administration has pushed a tight timetable that meant many states rolled out Common Core at the same time as they introduced tough new teacher evaluation systems and pioneered new exams. Teachers overwhelmed by the changes — and frustrated at a rollout schedule that gave them little time to write new lessons or find curricular resources — came to see the Common Core as a disruption, and a menacing one at that, Henig said.
“That’s turned into the beginning of a pretty substantial backlash among many teachers,” he said.
To get teachers to rally behind the Common Core, Van Roekel said, states need to bring educators in to review and possibly revise the standards; come up with the resources to buy new curricular material; and give teachers time to collaborate on strategies for integrating the standards in the classroom. He also called for a two-year moratorium on making high-stakes decisions, such as teacher job performance ratings, based on student scores on the new Common Core exams.
“We have to make a course correction to be sure we do this right,” Van Roekel said, “so we don’t lose the most positive thing we’ve done in education in America.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/common-core-teacher-support-103737.html#ixzz2uDjgBq8i
[Common Core ELA was not by educators from any level; Common Core Math was from college professors, not from any K-12 educators. The impetus came from some CCSSO, NGA and Acheive Inc., the latter of which has changed into Acheive the Core. Notice how until a few months ago Acheive websites referred to no physical address for the organization, and afforded no way to contact them.]
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