AdminiScope Summer 2014

The Common Core: Where We’ve Been – and Where We are

By the BASA Staff

While House Bill 597 (which would abolish the Common Core in Ohio) is headed for a favorable report from the House Rules Committee during Labor Day week, this legislation will not receive a vote from the full House until after the General Election on November 4. (There are no voting sessions scheduled before then.) In 1996, the nation’s governors and business leaders founded Achieve, Inc. as a bipartisan organization with the goals of raising academic standards and graduation requirements, improving assessments, and strengthening accountability. Within two years, Achieve initiated an Academic Standards and Assessments Benchmarking Pilot Project, and this led to the launch of the American Diploma Project in 2001. The project’s goal was to identify the essential knowledge and skills most demanded by higher education and employers. After two years of research, a landmark report, “Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts,” was issued. In 2005, Achieve joined with the National Governors Association to launch the American Diploma Project Network in 13 inaugural states, including Ohio. Those states joining committed to raise the rigor of their high school standards, assessments, and curricula. Ohio’s entry into this effort probably reflected the fact that then Ohio Governor Bob Taft was the co-chair of Achieve at that time. Work then began on the development of the Common Core State Standards with Achieve in partnership with the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. A first public draft of the standards was then released in March 2010. Ohio was the first state in the nation to hold regional public awareness and input meetings across the state with more than 500 people in attendance. Work on the Common Core standards had accelerated following the passage of House Bill 1 by the 128 th General Assembly. The legislation, which was contained within the budget bill, required the State Board of Education to adopt revised academic content standards in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies by no later than June 30, 2010. The same legislation required State Superintendent of Public Instruction Deborah Delisle to present the revised standards before the Education Committees of both the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate prior to their adoption by the State Board of Education. The report identified a “common core” of English and mathematics academic knowledge and skills (then called “benchmarks”) for success in college and the workplace.

The State Superintendent introduced the standards to the two committees in May 2010, and the State Board formally adopted them at its June 2010 meeting.

Last fall, House Bill 237 was introduced to abolish the Common Core standards and the related assessments. The legislation received two hearings before the House Education Committee but was not scheduled for any subsequent hearings. Among the criticisms of the bill were that it would lead to reduced rigor and that there was no alternative set of standards offered. With no hearings scheduled, it has been reported that over twenty members of the Ohio House have signed a discharge petition, a not often used legislative tool to move a bill out of committee directly onto the House floor for a vote.

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