The 2015 legislative session is gearing up, and Common Core will again feature prominently in the education agenda. Longtime Core opponent Representative Andy Thompson told the Plain Dealer to "count on" another repeal attempt, and new House education committee chair Bill Hayes has said that he expects Common Core to continue to be a source of debate. Hayes has acknowledged the importance of high standards and local control and has pledged to “have an open ear and give everyone a fair hearing.” While the prospect of even more testimony may leave many wary of another months-long circus, continued civil discourse—from both sides of an issue—is what makes our democracy work. (It’s also a Common Core standard, for the record.)
So before the debate begins anew, let’s revisit what we learned from the many hours of testimony, media coverage, and debate that occurred in 2014.
Lesson One: There is widespread support for Common Core
It’s no secret that Common Core support in Ohio has been diverse and widespread from the start. Various newspapers have spotlighted Ohioans who support Common Core. The business community has been a staunch supporter. The governor has voiced his support. Educators have discussed how they are successfully implementing Common Core in their classrooms over and over and over and over and over again. The lesson from hours of testimony at repeal hearings was clear: Plenty of Ohioans support the Common Core.
Lesson Two: Opponents’ arguments are often misleading
Unfortunately, despite this resounding support, Common Core opponents continued to make the same misleading arguments. Last year, Ohio newspapers fact-checked arguments against Common Core and pointed out the flaws in previous repeal attempts. Others called out misinformation on math and English language arts concerns.
The most stubborn arguments challenged the process by which Common Core arrived in Ohio. Common Core opponents claimed that too little was done to research Common Core before its adoption in Ohio in 2010. Fordham has addressed this before, but it’s worth pointing out again that Ohioans played a significant role in crafting and revising the Common Core. In 2008, Ohio conducted an international benchmarking study that was used as a basis for the eventual adoption of the Common Core. Ohioans had opportunities to give feedback as the standards were developed. Two meetings were held in June 2009 to examine the Common Core and to solicit feedback; these meetings included fifty-five educational stakeholder groups and two hundred teachers from four content areas. Other stakeholders also had the chance to provide feedback, and over seven hundred responses were received. The Ohio Department of Education presented Common Core—at a public meeting—to the House and the Senate Education Committees before the Board of Education adopted the standards. Given all this evidence, it’s difficult to see how opponents can argue that Ohio blindly accepted Common Core.
Lesson Three: Legislators must acknowledge the current situation
Even if the argument that the standards did not get a proper vetting when Ohio adopted them were true (it’s not), legislators wisely added another level of scrutiny with the passage of HB 487. The bill creates committees to regularly review the standards. The review committees have already started meeting—and they definitely have members from both sides of the debate.
The push to repeal Common Core also fails to acknowledge how difficult another standards transition would be for schools. Districts have been implementing Common Core for five years. Teachers say it’s working. Yet opponents continue to advocate not just for a repeal, but for “temporary standards” (read: Massachusetts’s pre-Common Core standards) and an entirely new set of standards. The assumption that teachers and students can suddenly shift to different sets of standards without chaos and negative consequences is out of touch—it ignores what's happening in classrooms.
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The debate over Common Core in 2014 was long and heated, but in 2015, it doesn’t need to be—if we take into account the lessons we’ve already learned. Even if legislators choose to ignore every previous piece of testimony, media coverage, and debate in exchange for a whole new round of hearings, there is one thing they must eventually face: the stagnating achievement of Buckeye students. Ohio may earn relatively high rankings on some reports, but these rankings hide low proficiency rates. Upon arriving on a college campus, 40 percent of Ohio graduates take remediation courses. A whopping 68 percent of Ohio ACT takers didn't meet the mark last year to be considered college-ready. Although high standards alone won’t solve all these problems, Ohio students need and deserve high expectations to excel in school and in life. No student should spend thirteen years of his or her life passing courses and state tests only to wind up in college remediation or a dead-end job. That’s the problem Common Core seeks to address, and that’s why state policymakers should fight for its full implementation even as the political debate rages on.
