Final Version of Common Standards Unveiled

By Catherine Gewertz, Education Week
June 2, 2010

The final set of common academic standards was released today, capping months of closed-door work to write them and months more to revise them with feedback from state education officials, teachers’ unions, and other education interest groups.

The project is an attempt to address the uneven patchwork of standards that results in differing expectations among schools, districts, and states and leaves many students unprepared for work or college.

Organizers of the Common Core State Standards Initiative scheduled a press event at a Georgia high school for this morning and invited a high-profile list of guests, including governors and education commissioners, to speak in support of the standards.

The final document outlines what experts decided are the knowledge and skills students should have in mathematics and English/language arts. Convened last year by the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Achieve, which have worked in various ways to help states raise academic expectations, the writing and feedback panels included university scholars, state curriculum specialists, and teachers; testing organizations such as the College Board and ACT Inc.; and curriculum-design companies such as America’s Choice.

Drafts evolved as they were circulated among state departments of education, teachers’ unions, and groups focused on curriculum content, and then revised. The panels’ work still was criticized in some quarters, however, for affording too little chance for general public input, or for producing expectations that were too rigorous or not rigorous enough.

The first official public draft, released in March, drew more than 10,000 comments on a website set up by the NGA and the CCSSO. The final document incorporates that feedback, officials said, as well as final rounds of input from states and specialized groups. Away From Washington

The press event for the release of the final standards was to take place at a high school outside Atlanta. The choice of location and the list of expected attendees carry political messages that the organizers of the common-standards initiative hope to send as states decide whether to adopt them.

Peachtree High School in Suwanee, Ga., is 600 miles from Washington, a fact aimed at critics who see the common-standards movement as a federal intrusion into state education decisions. That perception was fueled by rhetorical and monetary support from the federal government. President Barack Obama backs the idea, and the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top grant competition, financed with economic-stimulus money, favors states that adopt the standards.

Additionally, the three groups that spearheaded the initiative all are based in Washington. Those groups have repeatedly pointed out, though, that the common-standards work is “state-led.” They note that it began after numerous state requests for such a project, and that the document has been shaped by the states’ review and feedback.

The list of attendees at Wednesday’s release event—with its inclusion of state schools chiefs, governors of both major parties, leaders of parent and civil rights groups, a corporate executive, an urban superintendent, and top officials of the two national teachers’ unions—conveyed a message of widespread buy-in, from the grassroots to the upper echelons, even as many questions still circulated in the states about whether to adopt the standards.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia signed pledges of support to help develop the common-core initiative, but that did not bind them to embrace the resulting document. Kentucky, Hawaii, Maryland, and West Virginia have adopted the standards tentatively, based on earlier drafts. But now that the document is final—and with the Race to the Top requiring state action by Aug. 2—dozens of states will face adoption decisions in the next couple of months.