Common core standards—customized for California—headed to State Board soon
Published: July 12, 2010
Following two days of meetings last week, the California State Academic Content Standards Commission is well on its way to proposing a new blueprint for K-12 English-language arts based largely on those being promoted by the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
After reviewing the CCSSI standards, the 21 commissioners appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders considered ways to add the best from California’s existing standards to create a new set of English-language arts standards they might put before the State Board of Education for adoption. The State Board must act by Aug. 2 if California is to get credit on its application for the federal government’s Race to the Top grant competition.
The common core standards initiative, spearheaded by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State Schools Officers, got a boost from the Obama administration when it made the adoption of common standards a prime consideration in Race to the Top.
Key features of the common core’s grade-by-grade standards in English-language arts are a greater focus on text complexity throughout the grades and an emphasis on comprehending various types of informational texts encountered in everyday life.
Comparing common core and California standards
The legislation establishing the commission charges it with ensuring that the standards it recommends to the State Board “meet or exceed” the rigor of California’s current standards. In English as well as math, the common core omits some standards California currently values.
Staff from the Sacramento County Office of Education, led by curriculum director Sue Stickel, took the commissioners through a comparison of California’s standards with the common core last week, suggesting places where the state’s standards might be added. The common core standards are intended to be retained in their entirety if a state chooses to adopt them, but they can be augmented with 15 percent of additional standards of a state’s own choosing, for an 85/15 split.
The commissioners did vote to add California standards in handwriting/penmanship, and a strand on public speaking was woven throughout the grades.
“There is no mention of formal presentation in the common core, and it needs to be there,” said commission member Bill Evers, a former assistant U.S. education secretary who helped develop the state’s current academic standards.
Commission member Matt Perry, a principal in the Sacramento City Unified School District, agreed about the need for presentation standards, saying, “It helps students reflect on what they’ve been taught and what they believe in. It prepares them for democracy and should be included.”
Instead of adding back everything that might be missing from California’s standards—which have the reputation of being “an inch deep and a mile wide”—the commission ultimately left other specifics to the work of a curriculum frameworks committee. An example is the common core’s standards on pronouns, which Evers and others felt needed greater emphasis to help English learners and students who typically struggle with standard English.
Parliamentary procedure
In a bit of drama, Evers made a motion to adopt the various additions and amendments under discussion, incorporating as an afterthought adoption of the common core itself. Other commissioners favored voting on the common core adoption separately first, which provoked a complicated parliamentary procedure to split the question.
That prompted Kathy Gaither, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s undersecretary of education, to make it clear during a public comment period that the Governor’s Office would not support any motion to adopt the common core without additions to make any new standards the state’s adopts at least as rigorous as they are now.
“It’s clear the general consensus is that the common core is not by itself as rigorous as California’s standards,” Gaither said.
The motion then failed, leaving the vote on the entire package of state-enhanced common core standards for the commission’s next meeting July 14-15. The common core math standards, along with possible California additions, will be considered at the same meeting.
Common core in other states
Other states that have already adopted the common core standards are taking their time to consider incorporating any additional standards under the initiative’s provision to add as much as 15 percent to the common core’s content. Those states often see the common core as a vast improvement over their existing standards.
On the other hand, some states with strong standards, such as Virginia and Massachusetts, have balked at adopting the common core on such short notice. The standards were only released June 2, and the Race to the Top competition rewards states for adopting common standards by Aug. 2. States that don’t base their standards on the common core, though, could end up poorly equipped for the national tests and textbooks that can be expected to come from them.
“If Race to the Top is our reason for adopting the standards, that’s not the smartest thing to do,” said Sacramento COE’s Stickel, repeating the common concern that the tight deadline leaves commissioners little time for thoughtful deliberation. If California adopts the standards, Stickel said, “We need to do it because it’s the best thing for our students.”
Easy links:
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Click here for the California State Academic Content Standards Commission’s agendas, presentations and exhibits, and links to live and archived webcasts of its meetings.
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Click here to visit the Common Core State Standards Initiative’s website for text of its proposed standards and other background.