Common Core of Data II

[Chris_Wendt]

II - Where is the Common Core and Who is in the Common Core (or, is the Common Core really "Common")? (Second edition in this series).

First, here is a high-level schematic of the Common Core Concept:

There is an umbrella concept which encompasses all the potentially good things about the "Common Core".

Within this umbrella concept there are two major components:

• Common Core Curriculum
  
• Common Core Assessments

The first, the curriculum piece, envelops the subject matter and the learning standards and expected outcomes for/from the Common Core concept.

The second, the assessment piece, ensconces design, methodology, metrics and schedules for implementing assessments, scoring, and then evaluating and distributing the results of the assessments where they are already inculcated under federal and state laws for use in determining remedial and supportive services (AIS) to children under NCLB (NCLB 1-2-3-4 ratings), and for evaluating teachers under APPR.

Initially, the Assessment scores will inform instruction, but ultimately, the Assessments will inform the Curriculum, i.e. what works and what didn't work, even after instruction had been adjusted to compensate for flagging scores.

Now let's look at the commonality of the Common Core.

• Five states & Puerto Rico have not adopted the Common Core Curriculum. Those states have 8 million public school students enrolled, or 16% of the nation's student body.
  
  
• The rest of the states and entities (DC, Indian Reservations, Virgin Islands & Guam) have adopted the Common Core Curriculum for their 42 million public school students, or 84% of the nation's student body.

However, the commonality of the Common Core Assessments is another story altogether.

• There are four separate groups of states that have adopted the Common Core Curriculum but which are approaching the Common Core Assessments differently:
  • The Partnership to Assess Readiness for College & Careers (PARCC) has 18 member states plus DC, representing 21 million students, or 42% of the nation's student body
    
    
  • The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) has 22 member states representing 17 million students, or 35% of the nation's student body
    
    
  • Four states representing 3.8 million students, or 7.5% of the total are not aligned with either Assessment Consortium (PARCC or SBAC).
    
    
  • New York, although having adopted the Common Core Curriculum and being a member of the PARCC consortium, is not following the PARCC assessment implementation schedule, and is not using PARCC assessments with its 2.7 million students (5% of the nation's student body).
    
    
  • The combined Non-aligned and non-Common Core adopting states represent 8 million students, or 16% of the total.
  
  
  
• This diaspora of curricular and assessment approaches, then, has created a fragmentation of the "Common" essence of the Common Core: SBAC, PARCC, New York, Texas, Virginia, Minnesota, Alabama, Georgia, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah, and Alaska each doing something different with respect to Common Core or their non-common core Assessments.
  
  
• count 'em up: that is twelve (12) non-common versions of assessments! Among those dozen non-common approaches, none covers a majority of the nation's students; PARCC, the largest enrollment group, represents only 42%, but that gets reduced by 5% (to 37%) because NY has effectively dropped out of PARCC.

Big deal? Yes, for these reasons:

• There will be widely varying assessments across the nation attempting to evaluate students, teachers, principals and schools using significantly different approaches.
  
  
• These different approaches will inform instruction among nation's schools and districts, who will adjust teaching methods and focus differently, depending one which flavor or assessment they use. That will fracture the commonality of teaching under the common core concept.
  
  
• Ultimately, the assessments will inform the Common Core Curriculum itself, and with so many version of assessments, the curriculum is bound to become confused by vagaries of the different assessment systems providing feedback.

However, I do not think the confusion will last more than a few years, as I predict that either the SBAC or the PARCC consortium states will rise as a group to the top state performance rankings, and then the opposite group of consortium states will convert to the more "successful" assessment system. At that point, academic rigor, at the very heart of the Common Core Concept, will have all but vaporized.

Sincerely,

Chris Wendt

[rr]

Chris, can you expand on your last statement?

[Chris_Wendt]

Re my statement:

" I predict that either the SBAC or the PARCC consortium states will rise as a group to the top state performance rankings, and then the opposite group of consortium states will convert to the more "successful" assessment system. At that point, academic rigor, at the very heart of the Common Core Concept, will have all but vaporized."

This is a prediction based upon reviewing PARCC and SBAC websites, and considering the composition of their member states.

Personally, I feel the SBAC assessment product will be better "balanced" than the PARCC product, and much more so than the already-launched NYS assessments. Ergo sequitur, the SBAC state results should be higher, on balance (no pun intended) than the majority of PARCC state assessments, and higher than the NYS assessments. I am talking 2015 or 2016, here. I may have it wrong about SBAC being the "winner" over PARCC, meaning producing higher scores. But regardless, whichever states wind up at the bottom of the rankings (as a group identified with one or the other assessment consortium) they are not just going to suck-it-up; they will jump ship and move to the other, better, higher-scoring assessment system.

Of course we both know that one key reason this assessment will have higher scores than that assessment would be that this assessment is easier (less rigorous) than that assessment. Then it will be bye-bye Common Core rigor, as everybody will dumb-down to the lowest common denominator, the easier assessments.

Of course, this presupposes that the Common Core will even survive to or beyond 2015 or 2016. Take a look at this article about Why States are Backing Out on Common Standards and Tests (link). If what some of them are saying is true, then Common Core may not be what many are expecting.

Sincerely,

Chris Wendt

[rr]

Kind of a rhetorical question, but why would a state choose the less rigorous assessment? With the taxes we pay why would I, as a taxpayer, want an easier assessment for my district? Shouldn't we be asking for the most rigor in assessments in order to raise our standards for the teachers in our district?

I have opinions on the questions above and to be honest, I think it's a separate topic, not related to Common Core but related to union power, job security and politics.

[Chris_Wendt]

rr asked...

"... a rhetorical question, but why would a state choose the less rigorous assessment? "

This could be a semantic argument or mincing words. I said that if those states using the PARCC Assessments rank lower as a group than the other group of states rank using the SBAC Assessments (or vice-versa), then the lower-ranking group will switch to the Assessment plan that produces the better ranking results. This will certainly hold true wherever the disparate assessment plans result in reversals of state rankings respective of one another (especially their "rivals" and competitors for new businesses and jobs) as compared to their ranking positions before the consortium-based assessments are (were) implemented.

These decisions will NOT be made by any state stating that they prefer a less rigorous assessment plan, but instead, that they are interested in regaining their rightful place (ranking) in the hierarchy of states educational results.

Looking ahead to 2016 or 2017, one or two years after the two consortium assessment plans have been initiated and with 2-3 years of results in the books, consider the high likelihood that New York will have slipped to fiftieth or fifty-first or fifty-second place among all states (50 + DC + Puerto Rico) because of our MOST RIGOROUS ASSESSMENT PLAN in the country. What do you think would happen then?

rr then also indicated a personal expectation...

"With the taxes we pay why would I, as a taxpayer, want an easier assessment for my district? Shouldn't we be asking for the most rigor in assessments in order to raise our standards for the teachers in our district?"

Thinking of linking the taxes you pay (I, we pay) with either academic rigor or teacher performance is a non-sequitur. We pay high taxes because our Board of Education has cottoned to lavish pay scales for teachers and administrators, and because the state requires us to fund platinum pension plans for all school employees, and to provide health care to the families of educators from cradle to grave, but then that same government reduces and limits the amount of State Aid to support that spending, telling us on the one hand to spend-down our reserves, while on the other hand criticizing us for having reserves. Academic rigor and teacher qualifications do not figure into taxes one iota, or even a scintilla (if anyone prefers the Latin to the Greek).

Now, back to cases. After three years of New York's rigorous assessments, under APPR some teachers will need to have improved or be let go, under APPR. In Wantagh, the number who, at that time should be let go may be something as large as two. But the vagaries of testing and the blood-lust of parents upset over flagging assessment scores for their child, their child's school, or our district as a whole, will militate for more heads to roll than just one or two. So let's say the Administration targets 5 teachers and one principal for termination under APPR. Uh-oh! The State Legislature never amended Education Law Article 61, § 3020-a (link)!

So there we may be, with 6 suspect career educators on payroll waiting for arbitration and collecting their salaries and benefits, while 6 new people are added to the payroll doing the jobs of the Six Suspect Educators, and also collecting pay and benefits. And there you will be, trying to explain this to your children, and dealing with those other parents who will rally around the Suspect Six! And me, I will be in Florida, still blogging here occasionally, this time under a new post headed "I Told You So!"

You? Your kids will then enroll in a private religious high school, taking advantage of the new Tuition Tax Credit which will then apply to tuition in any school of your choice.

Or maybe not. I really don't know.

Musing and prognosticating,

Chris Wendt