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Common Core State Standards Initiative Poses Challenges for Charter Schools

Forty-four states and Washington, D.C., have adopted the Common Core State Standards, although actual implementation of the program remains a work in progress. The standards define knowledge and skills in English/language arts and mathematics that students should gain in elementary and secondary schools to be successful in college and work. The goal of the Common Core State Standards initiative, which is coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers, is to replace what have been diverse standards of varying quality among the individual states with common standards. This month's newsletter feature of the National Charter School Resource Center (Resource Center) provides background about the initiative, discusses the impact of the initiative on charter schools, and provides resources to further understand the issues. Charter schools are allowed by laws passed in D.C. and all but seven states that so far have adopted the new standards. Charter school states Texas, Alaska, and Virginia have not adopted the Common Core State Standards. Charter school state Minnesota has adopted the new standards for English language arts but not mathematics.

National Charter Schools Conference Panel Focused on Common Core State Standards

How the initiative will impact education programs, accountability, and the autonomy of charter schools was the focus of one of the final panel discussions at the 2011 National Charter Schools Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, in June.

"As a topic, it has received relatively little conversation, both nationally and, more surprisingly, within the charter community," panel moderator Frederick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said in opening the discussion.

Hess was joined by panelists Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education in Massachusetts; Tom Vander Ark, Chief Executive Officer of OpenEd Solutions, which helps schools switch to digital learning; Michael Cohen, President of Achieve Inc., which was started in 1996 by state governors and corporate leaders to help states raise academic standards; Peter Groff, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and Greg Richmond, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

Tests that are to be aligned to the Common Core State Standards are being developed by two consortia of states: The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The tests are to be ready to use by the 2014-15 school year.

Chester, who is also the chairperson of the PARCC governing board, said that although Massachusetts deserves its reputation as a top performing public education provider, an examination of test scores shows gaps. "It was very clear that what we were delivering to students was very uneven," he said. "It turns out that over a third of our high school graduates who do fine on our assessments and matriculate in public higher education end up being placed in non-credit-bearing courses." Chester said the challenge is to provide a world-class preparatory education for all students, and the Common Core initiative is a vehicle to help achieve that goal by providing clearer feedback about whether students are on track. He said that the core standards are identical for all states, but states can augment the core with their own additional standards.

The Common Core initiative will mean changes for states and charter schools. "The Common Core standards will, in some very important and constructive ways, be quite disruptive," Cohen said. For example, more emphasis will be placed on reading informational texts, in addition to literature. "The reading will be more complex, too," Cohen said, noting what he called a "big gap" between the content typically required in high school and what is expected in college. "These standards begin to close that gap." The writing will be more demanding, with students required to draw evidence from what they have read and write a logical, coherent argument based on the text. "It's not what we typically demand of students," Cohen said. In mathematics, the new standards are more highly focused and involve teaching fewer topics but in greater depth, according to Cohen. Being able to apply mathematics to real-world situations also gets more emphasis.

Vander Ark said he supports high common standards and frequent assessments of students' progress but wants flexibility to take advantage of customized learning available with new technologies. "We want to make sure that we don't lock in for another decade the old system of the age cohort model," he said.

Noting a University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education report, Hess said that there is little overlap now in the various curricula among the states, and teachers, even those in currently effective schools, are "going to have to spend a lot of time going back through their lesson planning and course units."

Richmond said help with curricula and assessments may be welcome. "Many charter schools are looking for a well-developed curriculum; they're looking for well-developed assessments," Richmond said. He raised the issue of how the initiative will impact how schools are evaluated. He said the adequate yearly progress standard of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act does not necessarily provide a true picture of the quality of a school. "Many authorizers are a long way from figuring out how to get accountability right," Richmond said, adding that addressing new standards is "going to be a significant undertaking."

Chester said the panel discussion reinforced that not all the answers are in place. "The more we talk about it, the better the chances of getting it right."

Groff voiced concern about the potential impact of the Common Core initiative on the autonomy of charter schools. "How much of a disruption is it going to be for the new delivery mechanisms that charter schools are offering in the marketplace?" Groff asked. "This is something we are trying to get our arms around."

Common Core State Standards: Implementation, Costs, and Concerns

Exactly how the Common Core State Standards will impact charter schools remains unclear. In Utah, for example, the state is well advanced in its preparations to implement the new standards. "Utah has moved down this path very quickly, and it really has come without any funding associated with it," Chris Bleak, President of the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools, said in an interview with the Resource Center. "There are requirements that are essentially going to be added because of Common Core that there is no money for. So schools are going to have to figure out how to pay for that without additional funding. So that is absolutely stress." It also remains unclear how the new standards will impact charter school innovation, according to Bleak. Although Bleak said there is the potential for improved accountability, "you have the chance to lose some of that innovation by streamlining."

Marlies Burns, Director of Charter Schools for the Utah State Office of Education, said in an interview with the Resource Center that for about the past 18 months the state has been gearing up to implement the new standards. As in other states, a Utah education department website section focuses on the implementation of the Common Core initiative, including an implementation schedule, documents that compare existing standards to new Common Core State Standards, and recommended instructional materials. Burns said that charter schoolteachers had the opportunity to join other public schoolteachers around the state for Common Core implementation training that was provided by the state education office. Training was tailored for individual grades and specific subjects. Principals received training, too. "They have received some really incredible support through all of this change and will continue to receive support from the state office of education," Burns said. Burns acknowledged concerns about the cost of implementing the standards. "For any school to implement an entirely new program, it's going to cause some concern with funding," Burns said. "There is no doubt about it. I'd wager that almost every state is going to have that concern." She also said that courses will need to be reorganized and renamed. "That is going to require that teachers and administrators or curriculum specialists double-check that the books that they have or online materials are going to meet the benchmark standards required for that course."

Implementing a curriculum that meets requirements can be a challenge. For example, Minnesota does not develop its standards tied to a specific curriculum, according to Rose Hermodson, an Assistant Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education. "We have a group of experts coming in, and they identify which pieces of learning kids need, and they develop benchmark standards around those particular expectations," Hermodson said in an interview with the Resource Center. Hermodson, whose areas of oversight include charter schools, said the state's curriculum standards must be met no matter whether the school is a charter school or a district school. "All public schools are expected to meet the standards," she said, adding that they are part of the graduation requirements. One charter school now faces possible closure because of the state's contention that a curriculum the school purchased does not incorporate all the state standards and has not been supplemented. "The state has adopted certain standards, and you're not always going to find them in a prepackaged curriculum," Hermodson said. "It's up to the school district or the charter school to make sure that the standards are somewhere embedded in the curriculum."

News

U.S. Department of Education Awards Group $10 Million for Charter School Credit Enhancement

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) $9,983,395 under the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program, which provides funding to make loans more accessible for charter schools.

LISC, a nonprofit community development organization with offices around the country, was awarded $10 million under the program in 2003-04, $8.2 million in 2006, and $8.3 million in 2009, according to the Education Department.

Since 2001, the Education Department has awarded 31 grants through the program, totaling more than $200 million. Nineteen organizations have received grants, which have ranged from $1.6 million to $15 million.

Events

October 24-27: The National Association of Charter School Authorizers will host its 2011 Leadership Conference on Amelia Island, near Jacksonville, Florida.

February 27-29, 2012: The Second Annual Green Schools National Conference will be in Denver, Colorado.

Resources

• Why We're Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don't. This 2009 report from Common Core, a nonprofit organization established in 2007 to promote "content-rich liberal arts" K-12 education, analyzes approaches to curriculum and testing in some high-performing countries, gives examples of the content of their instruction and assessments, and argues that the common ingredient of success is "dedication to educating their children deeply in a wide range of subjects."
• PTA: Common Core State Standards Initiative. This section of the National Parent Teacher Association's website focuses on the Common Core initiative. The organization has urged implementation of the Common Core State Standards by all states, announcing in 2009 a three-year effort to "mobilize parents to advance key education priorities, beginning with Common Core State Standards" with the support of a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The organization released an issue brief in 2010 and has developed guides showing what students should be learning when the standards are fully implemented.
• Fewer, Clearer, Higher: Moving Forward With Consistent, Rigorous Standards for All Students. This 2010 report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation outlines the organization's approach to common standards and its reasons for supporting the initiative.
• Will National Standards Improve Education? This "Room for Debate" feature of the New York Times provides a variety of views about the Common Core initiative, including the views of a charter school representative.
• States' Progress and Challenges in Implementing Common Core Standards. This 2011 report from the Center on Education Policy, which is available through the organization's website section focused on the Common Core initiative, was based on a survey of deputy education secretaries in 42 states and Washington, D.C., with most reporting that they do not plan to fully implement the Common Core requirements until 2013 or later.
• Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A Summary of the Work of Seven Districts. This June 2011 report from the American Institutes for Research gauges the extent of Common Core State Standards implementation work in seven school districts across the country, including a charter school group in Arizona. The categories of information include curriculum and instruction, instructional leadership, professional development, and assessments.
• Reaching the Goal: The Applicability and Importance of the Common Core State Standards to College and Career Readiness. This 2011 report from the Educational Policy Improvement Center covers how the knowledge and skills contained in the Common Core State Standards apply to postsecondary reaadiness. The study is based on a survey of college instructors and includes data from 1,815 instructors from 944 institutions.