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Common Core issues bubble up in state
By Michael Chamness
IASA Director of Communications
With everything else that is swirling about public
education, some school leaders in the state are being
asked to explain the Common Core State Standards
Illinois and 44 other states have adopted.
Dr. Lindsey Hall, Superintendent of Morton
Community
Unit
District
709,
Assistant
Superintendent Craig Smock, and Troy Teater,
director of curriculum and technology, recently spoke
at a meeting of the Morton-Tazewell 9.12 Tea Party.
They presented factual information about Common
Core and then answered questions from the more
than 40 attendees.
“We just shared the facts about Common Core,
the sources of our information, and our experiences
as school administrators,” Hall said. “One of the main
points we tried to make is that curriculum and
instruction is still under the control of the local school
board. No one is telling us what books to read in
English class.”
Hall’s experience in Morton is hardly unique.
There is a website called “Stop Common Core
Illinois”
),
and
questions about Common Core persist not just in
conservative political groups, but also in Parent
Teacher Organizations (PTOs) and in the general
public. Issues raised by the group in Morton were
pretty much in line with opinions expressed on the
website referenced above, including concerns about
standards being too low and too much government
intervention, ranging from a perceived federal control
of curriculum to the gathering of personal information
about students.
themselves, and pointed them to websites that
contain pros and cons about Common Core. She
also shared some of her concerns about Common
Core with the group.
“One of my big concerns is that Common Core is
another unfunded mandate, but in the world of public
schools that is not unique. Mandates get passed all
the time with no money to fund them,” said Hall,
noting that her district is fortunate to have the
hardware, software and bandwidth capacity needed
to conduct the Common Core assessments, but that
many other school districts might need to upgrade or
add those capabilities.
Other Common Core issues Hall cited included
the time spent conducting the assessments and the
resulting loss of instruction time as well as questions
about the assessments themselves. But she has no
objection to the standards themselves.
“We didn’t go to the meeting to make a sales
pitch for it,” Hall said. “But we made the point that
having learning standards is not a new thing for us.
Illinois enacted state learning standards back in
1997, and those were preceded in 1985 by the Illinois
State Goals. We can’t blame everything on Common
Core.
“Collecting data about students is also not a new
activity for public school districts, but ‘data mining’ is
definitely a concern of groups like the Tea Party. The
people we talked with, I believe, were receptive to our
message because we did balance the positives with
our concerns, and openly answered questions.”
Hall said she was glad to have been able to meet
with three of the Morton group’s leaders prior to the
public meeting. She said setting parameters for the
public discussion and requesting submission of
questions in advance paved the way for the public
discussion about Common Core to be efficient,
respectful and productive.
She also said she emphasized that standards are
not the determining factor in a child’s education.
“The single most important factor remains the
teacher in the classroom. It doesn’t matter what
standards we adopt if we don’t have great teachers.”
“
One of the main
points we tried to make is
that
curriculum
and
instruction is still under the
control of the local school
board. No one is telling us
what books to read in English class….
The single most important factor
remains the teacher in the classroom. It
doesn’t matter what standards we adopt
if we don’t have great teachers
.”
—Dr. Lindsey Hall
Morton Community Unit 709
Dispelling myths with facts, and sharing concerns is approach that resonates
