Did a relationship ever sour so quickly as the Common Core and public opinion? Back in 2010 when the college- and career-ready standards were shiny and new, leaders from business and higher education as well as a certain U.S. Secretary of Education praised their rigor, coherence and attention to critical thinking. Within a year, 45 governors and D.C. had rushed to adopt them as their own - a move a majority of teachers and parents viewed favorably.
Then, implementation happened. Many teachers felt rushed to produce results. Parents couldn't understand their child's homework. Their anxiety fed chatter on talk radio and social media that did the incredible. It united anti-corporate progressives and anti-government tea partiers in opposition to the new standards and the assessments that go with them. States once on board with the program began to bail in face of angry constituents.
Recently, though, the mood appears to be shifting back into neutral. Presidential candidates deliver variations of the "repeal Common Core" line to applause, but the issue doesn't seem to be gaining much traction in the race. The newly reauthorized ESEA deflates anti-Common Core messaging by explicitly forbidding the federal government from compelling or encouraging state adoption of any set of standards, including the Common Core. After a flurry of state legislative proposals were introduced to undo the standards, only a handful were ever signed into law, and in some of those states, the replacements aren't substantively different from the ones they tossed.
New studies related to the Common Core could prompt a wary public to give the standards a second look. In the first, a Harvard research team led by Thomas Kane surveyed a representative sample of teachers and principals in five Common Core states about implementation strategies. They were then able to match responses to student performance on the Core-aligned assessments, PARCC and Smarter Balanced.
According to their report, Teaching Higher: Educators' perspective on Common Core implementation, three out of four teachers have "embraced the new standards" either "quite a bit" or "fully." When asked how much of their classroom instruction changed, a similar proportion said it had by one half or more. Four in five math teachers say they have increased "emphasis on conceptual understanding" and "application of skills," while an even higher proportion of English teachers reported assigning more writing "with use of evidence." All are attributes emphasized in the standards.
The research team then related the survey results to students' scores on the new assessments after controlling for demographics and prior achievement. While they did not find strategies of particular impact on English language arts, they did identify math practices that were associated with higher student scores: more professional development days; more classroom observations "with explicit feedback tied to the Common Core"; and the "inclusion of Common Core-aligned student outcomes in teacher evaluations."
Casting light on such strategies is only worthwhile, however, if there is also evidence that the Common Core are good standards. Enter the Fordham Institute. The education think tank assembled a team of 40 experts in assessment and teaching to evaluate the quality of PARCC and Smarter Balanced. For comparison, they examined the college-ready aligned ACT Aspire and MCAS, the highly regarded Massachusetts state assessment. The grades 5 and 8 test forms were analyzed against criteria developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers for evaluating "high-quality assessments" that aim to assess college- and career-readiness.
The short version. All four tests scored highly for "depth," that is, items that are "cognitively demanding." PARCC and Smarter Balanced, however, edged out both ACT Aspire and MCAS in "content." The researchers conducted an additional analysis against other assessments and found the Common Core-aligned tests also "call for greater emphasis on higher-order thinking skills than either NAEP or [the international] PISA, both of which are considered to be high-quality challenging assessments."
Whether or not participating in national standards is a good idea is a decision that should rightfully be made by individual states. There are many legitimate political arguments for going either way, and each state will likely view it differently. But whether the Common Core standards - in full or in part - represent the expectations a state should have for all its students is an educational question that is worth considering on its own merits.
These early reports suggest that the new standards are higher and deeper than what states had before. Most teachers, although not all, have "embraced" them and are changing their instruction accordingly. We are learning anecdotally, too, that as parents see evidence of their child's growth, they come around as supporters (see here and here). What this means for the future is anyone's guess. But for now it looks like the Common Core or something very much like them may be seeing happier days ahead.