Last week, I took the Wisconsin state legislature to task for biasing its hearings on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to extreme right-wing CCSS opponents. As I said, I believe all voices should be heard. My beef with some CSSS opponents, however, is their injection of misinformation and fear tactics into what should be a factually-driven debate on what’s best for Wisconsin students.
This is not to say that all CCSS opponents, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, lack substantive arguments. Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not CCSS would improve the quality of education in our state. Even so, in my view the evidence in favor of Wisconsin adopting Common Core is overwhelming. It may be helpful to take a step back and consider why so many support the new standards.
Academic standards like the Common Core provide guidance to teachers on what to teach and to parents on what their students should be able to do by the end of the year. Under weak standards—like those that the Common Core would replace—teachers create easier class plans and parents assume that their students are doing better than they actually are.
These standards affect all students—but they’re particularly important for low-income and minority students. Disproportionately, students from these backgrounds attend classes with lax standards and low expectations, two forces that contribute to the achievement gaps that exist between minority and white students. How significant a problem is the achievement gap in Wisconsin?
Although there are many things that our state must do to lose this shameful distinction, embracing the Common Core State Standards is a critical first step. By fully implementing the Common Core, educators can teach classes that put more low-income and minority students on the track to college and will be held accountable for a higher level of performance. These are changes that our state—perhaps more than any other in the country—desperately needs.
However, not everyone in Wisconsin agrees that the Common Core is right for our state. Critics of the Common Core often, especially those on the political left, argue that higher standards will hurt low-income and minority kids by discouraging them while in school. Higher standards and more challenging classes will cause already struggling students to struggle even more, the argument goes, and so the Common Core will actually force them out of class. As any teacher instinctively knows, the opposite is the case: insisting on weak standards means classes are easy and uninteresting. Higher standards can boost engagement by giving kids something to work towards. Moreover, weak standards leave these students unprepared for highly-skilled careers or college success.
An Education Sector analysis of the relationship between state standards and struggling students confirms that higher standards are right for underserved kids. It found that states with rigorous standards saw greater improvements among low-performing students than states with weak standards, like Wisconsin. “High standards help, not hurt, struggling students,” the authors concluded, for just the reasons described above.
Some critics concede that the Common Core will likely boost student acheivement. However, they worry about the cost of the Common Core: couldn’t the money that will be spent on implementation be better spent directly on these low-income and minority students? Unlike worries about academic achievement, which are simply untrue, these concerns have some basis. Switching to the Common Core certainly won’t be free.
Adopting the Common Core State Standards requires the state to train teachers on what is expected from the new standards, purchase new instructional materials and assessments aligned to the standards and expand professional development to ensure that all teachers can teach at the level demanded by the Common Core. All of these changes cost money. However, the cost of switching is less than critics suggest and, more importantly, well worth the added expense.
In May 2012, the Fordham Institute, a leading think tank, analyzed the implementation costs associated with the Common Core and found that for every Wisconsin student, implementation costs could range from $29 to $200 per student, or about $100 to $250 million in total costs. These are not small sums, but to place them within context, Wisconsin spent in excess of $11 billion on school costs in FY11. For around one to three percent of the annual education budget, school leaders could bring Wisconsin’s standards into the twenty-first century.
Furthermore, this small investment is well worth the cost. Unlike tutoring or technology, costs that end with a one-off purchase, investing in higher standards earns the state a dividend for decades to come. An investment in implementation means that, after the money is spent and the system transitioned to the Common Core, schools will offer a more rigorous set of classes than under the year before and students will likely achieve at higher rates. Just as the cost of widening the banks of a river results in a permanently stronger flow, the cost of increasing standards results in long-term higher rates of achievement.
A black student entering school in Wisconsin today has the unfortunate confidence of knowing that there is no state in which he or she would be limited by a more severe achievement gap than in Wisconsin. This must change. While it won’t fix all educational inequity in the state, the Common Core is a much-needed first step in making our school system a more equitable one: it represents a wise investment that will boost student achievement, particularly for the kids who need it the most.
Jarett Fields is an education specialist with a passion for community engagement. For the past ten years, Jarett has worked to increase the number of college graduates by building sustainable programs at the higher education level. Professionally, he has worked to build pathways of success for students at UCLA, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.