Bill introduced to eliminate the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards in Kentucky

House Bill 215, which would eliminate the use of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in Kentucky, was introduced last week in the Kentucky legislature.

The bill description in the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission’s web site says:

“Create a new section to KRS Chapter 158 to prohibit the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Education from implementing the English language arts and mathematics academic content standards developed by the Common Core Standards Initiative and the science academic content standards developed by the Next Generation Science Standards Initiative; require the state board to recommend new content standards to school districts and schools after consultation with the Council on Postsecondary Education; require public involvement in standards development; clarify the authority of the local board of education to adopt standards which differ from or exceed the standards approved by the state board; clarify that the school-based decision making councils shall develop policies based upon the standards adopted by the local boards of education; prohibit state officials from ceding control of education content standards and assessments; prohibit withholding of state funds from school districts for adopting different academic content standards; amend KRS 156.070 to limit disclosure of personally identifiable information; direct the Kentucky Board of Education to require that the Department of Education and all school districts adhere to transparency and privacy standards when outsourcing data and Web-based tasks to vendors; clarify vendor contract requirements; amend KRS 158.6453 to permit a local board of education to supplement the state board-approved academic content standards with higher and more rigorous standards and require school councils to use them to fulfill curriculum policy requirements; amend KRS 160.345 to clarify school council curriculum policy authority.”

You can read one article about the bill here.

Kentucky was the first state to adopt the Common Core State Standards, doing so in February 2010, four months before the final standards were even published.

Over the past three years, as more educators have been required to work with the education programs the CCSS require, complaints have been surfacing from all sides of the issue. It isn’t just Republicans who are raising serious concerns.

For example, the very well-known education historian and former professor at Columbia Teachers College in New York, Diane Ravitch, has been forcefully speaking out about her disagreements with the CCSS. Her blog has many critical posts.

Her sharp critiques of CCSS have often been discussed in other places such as the Washington Post’s education blog as well, including this very recent Post blog entry from last week.

While I don’t think Ravitch knows everything about the problems with Common Core, a number of her comments are on target. And, this is coming from a person who currently is a teachers’ union darling. Ravitch is no conservative.

While there are a number of academic deficiencies in both the CCSS and the NGSS, perhaps the biggest problems I personally see with these new standards, especially with the CCSS, is the lack of ways for Kentuckians to improve those deficiencies. Both are copyrighted by private entities from Washington, DC. In the case of the CCSS, we are not allowed to alter them at all, although we can make limited ADDITIONS to them. Worse, after the CCSS were created, the Work Groups that actually put the words on paper for them were disbanded. There is no on-going system to make rational changes, at present. This inflexibility ties Kentucky educators’ hands, preventing progress as we learn more about how to really teach to the standards.

Thus, while there are many individual elements in the CCSS and the NGSS that are worthwhile, the isolation of Kentuckians from any way to make improvements to the standards is highly problematic and will undoubtedly be mentioned as HB-215 works its way through the legislative process.

To be clear, a high quality education system most definitely needs high quality education standards. However, those standards are only one part of a vibrant education system. To be highly effective, there must be regular feedback and collaboration between a living standards team and other teams including those that create the detailed curriculum, the classroom teachers who actually make the standards and curriculum come alive for children, and those individuals who create and manage the assessment program. If there isn’t full interchange of information between all of those elements, you wind up with an unresponsive and static education program that simply cannot grow. Such a complete feedback system seem unlikely to happen when the standards elements are located far from Kentucky in Washington and currently do not seem to have teams in place to deal with on-going issues.