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Back to School: Some things are changing –
but the things that matter most remain the same.

As CEAI members across the nation return to classrooms, you may find in place some changes in academic expectations. As we discussed in previous columns, new Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) standards have been developed for all grades and over the summer months over two-thirds of the states have adopted the new standards. To find out if your state has adopted the common core you can visit the Common Core Standards website at http://www.corestandards.org/in-the-states.

  Washington Watch, August 2010

The Fordham Institute, a Washington, DC based education think tank, recently compared each state’s current standards against the common core standards.  Their analysis, which you can find at http://www.edexcellence.net/template/index.cfm , indicates that only 3 states, California, the District of Columbia and Indiana, have state standards that are clearly more rigorous than the common core – and that was only in English Language Arts.  Another eleven states have ELA standards that Fordham ranked as too close to call, meaning that they judged the current state standards as roughly equal in rigor to the existing state standards.  Fordham also found that in Mathematics eleven states had roughly comparable standards to the common core, but in Math, no state standards were judged by Fordham as clearly stronger than the common core standards. 

Surprisingly, all three of the states that Fordham judged as having higher ELA standards than the common core have decide to adopt the common core standards.   Why would a state with comparable or higher standards adopt the common core standards?  Many of these states with stronger or comparable standards were convinced to adopt the new standards because they will be able to access new assessments to measure the standards.  These new assessments, which would be very costly for states to develop on their own, are being developed with $350 million in federal funding.  Attention is also being drawn toward the opportunities the common standards present for text book publishers, professional developers and others to develop curricula and other marketable materials for students and teachers to use.   Unfortunately new curriculum, teaching materials and professional development aligned with the new standards have not been produced yet – so in many instances teachers in the public schools will be asked to teach to a new set of standards without the necessary training or materials.  The new assessments are not expected to be ready for five years so it is also possible that teachers will be teaching to one set of standards while students are being assessed against the old standards. 

Will  teachers who do not teach Mathematics or ELA be exempt from change?  This is not likely for two reasons.   First, as new standards and assessments are implemented in Mathematics and Language Arts, scarce resources – particularly time to teach – are likely to be allocated disproportionately to the two, “core,” subject areas.  So if you do not teach in one of these non-core areas you may be expected to maintain current teaching expectation with declining resources.  Second, recognizing that this is taking place, organizations representing the other content areas are busy advocating that their content area also be covered under new, common state standards and assessments.  With all of this standardization taking place it is likely that over the next decade our public school system will look more and more like a national education system. 
In a time of such change how should Christian teachers approach their work?   It is all too tempting to close the door of the classroom and withdraw from discussion and debate, or to react negatively and become a chronic complainer.   Most Christian teachers recognize that neither of these responses is appropriate or helpful for either our students or our non-Christian colleagues.  Instead we need to find ways to support and lift each other and our students up in prayer.  In terms of the policy issues behind these changes in the education landscape, Christian teachers may want to think through the following questions and formulate your own positions on the issues:
1. How much time in the teaching day should be devoted to common standards that are determined by states as opposed to time that is left up to the discretion of individual teachers to decide what exactly the students in your classroom need?

2. Is it appropriate for academic standards to be set at the multi-state, or national level as opposed to academic standards being set at the state or local level? 
3. Should standards for all subjects including science, social studies, history, art music, PE, etc.  be addressed though common core standards, or should some of these issues be left to the domain of state or local autonomy?

4. Would the questions that vex many Christian public school teachers around the teaching of evolution, appropriate ways to address sex education in the schools, and the promotion of secular social values in the schools be better addressed at the “common core” level or at the state, local or classroom level?

For most Christian teachers their calling to teach goes well beyond academic content into serving as a witness of Christ’s love.   Such witness is usually more effective in times of difficulty than when everything is going well, so stresses on your colleagues may serve as a real opportunity to reach out, support them and pray for them.  As always – what is most important is that our students and colleagues have an opportunity to accept the gospel.  Your relationships with students and other school staff are what matter most.  Standards, curriculum and testing are not likely to have much impact on this.  As you return, we will be praying for your opportunities to witness and for a productive and blessed school year.
If you have thoughts on these questions or questions or concerns about how federal education policy impacts your calling to teach we would like to hear about them.  Address your comments, questions and concerns to WashingtonWatch@ceai.org.

Federal Education Jobs Bill Set to Pass As we write this column, the United States Senate has passed a $10 billion jobs bill for public education and the Speaker of the House has called for House members to come back from their summer recess to vote on the bill.   It is very likely that the bill will pass and be signed into law by the President.  The additional one-time funding for public schools would push back the funding cliff that many districts were facing as the nearly $40 billion in federal stimulus funds distributed to schools over a year ago begins to dry up.  The funding would enable many school districts to withdraw layoff notices that they had distributed to school staff over the past few months and could also be used to bring on new school staff.  These unprecedented federal funding levels of basic school operations does raise the question, will this all lead to a more federalized system of public schools?