Lawmakers asked to require more 'Common Core' study

Almost four years after Missouri's State Board of Education adopted the national "Common Core" standards, in June 2010, two state senators Wednesday afternoon asked the Senate Education Committee to endorse a bill blocking their implementation, for at least another year.

And the committee ran out of time before it ran out of witnesses, so the discussion will resume next week.

The standards began about eight years ago as a joint promotion by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices, and were launched by many states in 2009.

Missouri was one of the last four states to consider adopting the standards when, in August 2009, the State Board of Education voted 6-1 to study the possibility of signing on to the national standards.

After the state board adopted the standards on a 5-1 vote the following June, Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro told the News Tribune: "It's going to mean that we have more fair and understandable comparisons (of education successes) between and among states."

But, state Sen. John Lamping, R-Ladue, told the Education Committee Wednesday: "I came to realize that very few lawmakers, parents (and) students had even heard of Common Core, and few understood exactly what it would mean to our education system."

Lamping wants lawmakers to "halt the implementation of Common Core until we've had an appropriate time to understand exactly how this will change our education system."

Lamping and Sen. Ed Emery, R-Lamar, who's sponsored a similar bill, said adopting the Common Core education standards removed the state's - and nation's - long-held belief that schools should have "local control" of their education and curriculum decisions.

Emery told committee members they also should understand that agreeing to a national standard "eliminates competition - it means we're all going to be exactly alike. We're all going to be using the same things."

And, he said, that won't help Missouri schools "produce the highest quality citizens for our state."

But Michael Brickman, a Missouri native who now is national policy director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Washington, D.C., told the committee the institute has been studying state standards "for about 15 years" and, in 2010, "We reviewed the English and math standards of every single state and compared them with the Core.

"The Core standards were good enough to earn an A-minus in math and a B-plus in English."

According to that study, Brickman said, Missouri's standards for both English and math only scored a D, "making them among the worst in the nation. In both subjects, while not perfect, Common Core standards are clearly superior to those they replaced."

He urged the lawmakers to "stay the course" and continue implementing the Common Core.

Passing either senator's bill "would leave Missouri radically apart from the nation as a whole, and would ensure that Missouri has the single-worst standards in the nation."

Lamping's bill proposes creating a "a group of our state's most thoughtful education professionals, with years of experience, who will work together towards creating standards that will keep Missouri students competitive and among the best and brightest in the nation."

Emery's bill proposes a slightly different study group and requires it to hold "a couple of public hearings."

Both senators said they're working on a substitute that combines their ideas.

Anne Gassel of the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core told lawmakers the state board's process for adopting the standards didn't follow the existing state law requiring a discussion of proposed changes with people affected by them.

Gretchen Logue, another Missouri Coalition Against Common Core representative, noted a commission of testing experts "concluded the tests" used with the standards "are currently far from what is, ultimately, needed for either accountability or classroom instructional purposes."

Several witnesses complained that adopting the Common Core requires giving up local control over what is taught in classrooms.

Caroline Perigo, a 27-year veteran teacher now in her third year as a member of the Neosho School Board, told the committee: "We need the Missouri Legislature to step in and support public education by confirming that local school districts still have control - and that they are still the ones who decide on the curriculum and the standards that are best for their districts."

But Jason Dale, associate director of the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, said his group supports the Common Core.

"All my members' companies in Kansas City - and companies all around the state - must have a highly skilled, 21st century workforce to be competitive," he told the committee. "These standards have been internationally bench-marked, so they will make us competitive with areas around the world and not just around the country."

The Common Core standards "establish consistent learning goals for all students (and) provide a clear road map of academic expectations," he added. "They're relevant to the real world."