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State BOE Changes To Common Core, Standards Ready By Spring
November 20, 2013
The State Board of Education could consider changes to the state’s standards for student learning as soon as February, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said Tuesday.
The changes could also result in a re-branding of sorts for what have until now been known as the “Common Core State Standards” — part of a nationwide movement to set common education benchmarks that have angered conservative activists.
Stewart told the board at its meeting in Gainesville that nearly 19,000 comments had been received since Gov. Rick Scott ordered a fresh review of the standards in September. As part of that effort, three public hearings were held across Florida, and the state accepted comments online.
The Department of Education is working to reach an agreement with a Florida-based researcher to analyze the results of that outreach, with a report on the comments being released in January.
“I think that as we consider moving forward in rule development … this will provide us the opportunity [so] that we can be moving along that direction with the public having the information available to them from those 19,000 comments,” she said.
Common Core has become a political flashpoint in recent months, with tea party activists and others arguing that the standards amount to a federal intrusion in education, despite the fact that the development of the standards was spearheaded by governors and education officials.
The standards have been adopted in some form by almost four dozen states.
Stewart said a final draft of the benchmarks should be in front of the board by the spring, in February or March.
The new standards might also have a new name, said Joe Follick, a spokesman for the department. Given the input that the state has taken and the changes that are likely to be made, “it would be disingenuous to call them common core standards,” he said.
Some supporters of the emerging benchmarks have begun referring to them as the “Florida standards.”
But there is still resistance to the idea of any major overhaul of the guidelines, a pet project of former Gov. Jeb Bush. Kathleen Shanahan, a board member with close ties to Bush, pushed the board to consider teacher comments more heavily as it continues its review of Common Core.
Teachers at the public hearings were generally more support of the standards.
“Parents will be subjective, because they should be,” said Shanahan, who is leaving the board at the end of the year. “Teachers will be objective because that’s their role.”
Former Gov. Charlie Crist, a onetime Republican running for his old job as a Democrat, told reporters Tuesday that he stands behind Common Core, which supporters say will allow greater comparison among states.
“I think in order to be able to have an opportunity on behalf of our children to see how we’re doing, I think that those standards are appropriate,” Crist said. ” … And I think this is a real opportunity where we can start moving together as a country and as a state.”
Meanwhile, the Florida Association of District School Superintendents is pushing the state to delay the full implementation of the standards by up to three years. Currently, Common Core is only fully implemented in kindergarten, first and second grade, but is expected to be taught to all students next year after having been phased in.
Volusia County Superintendent Margaret Smith told the board going forward with a new test based on the standards, and then grading schools based on that test, was unfair — particularly given the uncertainty currently surrounding them.
“It is not realistic to expect that we can fully have a full and quality implementation in all K-12 grade levels by next year,” she said.
by The News Service of Florida
Comments
8 Responses to “State BOE Changes To Common Core, Standards Ready By Spring”
I’ve read the Standards. I think they’re awesome. I’m convinced that most of the people commenting have never actually read the standards. But I’m sure that there are at least a few people who have legitimate arguments opposing Common Core. I just haven’t read a coherent and well-defended position or argument against such standards.
Where may we read up on these ” core values” ? I’d like to know exactly what their plan is. I’ve had 5 children in escambia county public schools for 30 years. What is needed in our schools is making sure that the children are LEARNING : Reading, Writing and Arithmatic. Not just teachers going through the motions, but children really learning the basics.They are not ready to learn anything else until they can write, read and add. Trying to cram more into their brains is not going to bring their scores up. Over the years, I have seen a gradual shift away from the schools having a normal environment for children with a healthy balance between academics and play.Someone told me that this new curriculum was not going to teach writing. Our children are already cyber poisoned .
Common Core is not what we need . What we need are leaders who have common sense and guts. Two things I have found hard to find amoung those who tell are teachers what and how to teach.
To concerned,
You don’t understand it correctly. Have you looked at the common core standards or are you just going off of what someone else told you or what you saw on facebook, etc.?
There is nothing in Common Core that addresses sex ed at all, especially for age 7. Common Core standards only address math and literacy standards and how to incorporate them into other subjects. By the way, I’m pretty sure I’ve responded to you before about this same issue, which tells me you don’t care about the truth behind the issue, just about spreading damaging misinformation.
Which is why they don’t teach anything about Lincoln or the Berlin Wall–they’re not Social Studies standards!!! States should have their own social studies standards that include those things, and if they don’t, that is the state’s fault and not common core’s.
Common Core will make many great teachers leave the field. Decisions are being made by people who have either never been a teacher, or haven’t been in a classroom in several years. Public Education is in a fragile state right now, and we need to figure this out. I can tell you this the Positive Behavior system and Common Core is not preparing kids for the real world after they finish high school.
On the surface Common Core would have been a good thing. But once you start looking at the actual lessons you find that history is being re-written, and not just US history. I believe thoise changes are politically motivated and politics has no place in teaching our children the truth of history.
I know how much it upset me when I got to be an adult and learned that there were topics not taught in my education, usually because someone decided this or that subject was too racially charged.
How about we teach the truth – good, bad and ugly? Our kids are much like computers’ garbage in, garbage out. Teachers should be held to higher standards and not teaching their political leanings nor religious preferences.
We’ve seen over the last 6 decades how taking prayer and the 10 commandments out of schools have damaged our children and society in general. We don’t have to put vocal prayer back, but we should encourage our children to be caring, responsible, honest human beings. No one can point to the youth of the last 6 decades and say that things like behavior and respect have gotten better (unless the students attended private school, which has been no guarantee).
Common Core distorts the truth with a word use here or a deletion there. Do you know which President was instrumental in getting the Berlin Wall removed? Do you know the political affiliation of Abraham Lincoln? Common Core doesn’t teach it. The writers/publishers of text books have been re-writing history for decades, as well; Common Core is a continuation.
If you want your children to have a great education you must be involved enough to know what they are being taught.
Everyone needs to look into what is going to be taught with new “common core” stuff. I for one do not want my grandkids to be taught this ” common core” stuff. If I understand it correctly our elementary kids will be taught sex education. Do we really want our babies to be taught what STDs are? Do we want our 7 year olds to be able to be about to tell you how babies are conceived? I for one believe that sex education should be do by parents..Let our children be children. They grow up so fast as it is. What ever happen to teaching our kids reading, history, science, math, spelling. What ever happen to our kids going out and having a break, and P.E. every day.
Ask any teacher what they think about core standards. Then youtube the hs student from TN that speaks out what he thinks of the common core. This is a black eye to education/educators. It has been shoved down our throats while our attention has been kept on obamacare. They say this movement was spearheaded by “education officials?” Wow! Might as well be slapping our real education officials (teachers) in the face. I challenge Escambia county to stand up against the state on this one.
Fed up!