In his recent State of the Schools speech, Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) CEO Eric Gordon referred to a 2013 column in the Plain Dealer comparing him to the ancient Greek king Sisyphus. As every school kid used to know, Sisyphus rolled a boulder up a mountain each day, only to watch it roll back down. He was doomed to spend the rest of eternity repeating this pointless task as a punishment for his greed and deceit—a kind of Greek myth Groundhog Day.
The comparison of Gordon and Sisyphus is unfair. The punishment of Sisyphus, at its heart, is one constructed to impose hopelessness and despair. There is certainly much work to be done in Cleveland, but as we at Fordham have pointed out before (see here) there are also reasons to be hopeful about Cleveland’s progress. There is no room for Sisyphus in the fight to improve Ohio schools.
That being said, the English teacher in me appreciates the allusion. It even got me thinking about other ancient figures who might better symbolize the Buckeye state’s struggle to give its kids the best education—an education that all students deserve, but far too few receive. There’s the story of Orpheus, a legendary musician and the son of one of the infamous Muses, who stumbled upon his wife’s body soon after her death. Devastated, he played a song on his lyre that was so mournfully profound that Hades decided to allow Orpheus to take Eurydice from the underworld and back up to the land of the living. There was a catch, of course: Orpheus had to walk in front of Eurydice, and could not look back at her until they reached the human world. It was the ultimate test of patience and perseverance and Orpheus, the only man to ever successfully soften the heart of Hades, failed. Instead of waiting until Eurydice had reached the upper world with him, Orpheus turned to look at her once he had reached it—and subsequently lost his wife forever.
The story of Orpheus and its accompanying lesson of patience could apply to any number of education reforms happening in the Buckeye state. The Common Core parallel is clearest. We’ve all heard the facts: Ohio led the way in establishing the need for higher standards. Ohioans had opportunities to give feedback as the standards were developed. Educators have explained how Common Core is working in classrooms (also here , here, and here). Support for Common Core in Ohio is diverse and widespread. Many arguments against Common Core have proven to be misleading. Ohio newspapers have fact-checked these arguments and proven them false while showcasing other Ohioans who support Common Core. For four years, districts have made the arduous journey through change and implementation. Like Orpheus, Ohio committed to a second chance—an opportunity to hold all students to rigorous standards (and to end the reality of a 40 percent college remediation rate and the abysmal 32 percent of Ohio ACT takers who are college ready). House Bill 597 and the repeal hearings have been called a “circus,” but the push to repeal the standards also represents the temptation to stop too soon and negate all the hard work that’s been done thus far. Ohio faces the same metaphorical choice Orpheus did: Keep going and reap rewards, or turn back and lose what we’ve earned.
Other states have done what Orpheus did. They have second guessed their commitment at the last moment and turned around. To be clear, I’m not saying that the states that have backed out of the Common Core have lost their children forever. That’s hyperbolic and unfair. States do, by law, have the right to choose their academic standards. But these states have willingly plummeted themselves into chaos, and their students are paying the price. Take Missouri, for instance. A law signed by Governor Jay Nixon in July replaces the Common Core with “home-grown” expectations for students. The law establishes eight committees that are responsible for studying four subjects (English, math, science, history, and government), with one group focusing on lower grades and the other on higher grades. The committees were designed to create new standards. The problem is that committee meetings are so contentious that they’re not accomplishing anything. Instead of working together to establish high expectations for kids, adults are recording videos on their cell phones, taking calls in the middle of committee meetings to solidify talking points, storming out of meetings, and throwing around words like “hijack”, “bullied”, and “bloodbath.” To say the committees are hostile is an understatement. The new standards are supposed to be done in a year, but these committees have a long way to go if they’re actually going to meet that deadline.
In Ohio, Academic Content Standards Review Committees will soon meet to review our K–12 academic standards. This is necessary and important. If the committees decide that certain standards should be added or altered, then that’s what should happen. (Hopefully, Ohio will do a better job than Missouri of facilitating productive, respectful committees.) Improving on the standards that Ohio schools have worked with for four years is a step forward; it’s not the equivalent of Orpheus looking back. The Orpheus mistake would be a complete repeal, leading to chaos. For proof of that, all Ohio has to do is look at other repeal states. Indiana lawmakers repealed the Common Core, only to rush to replace it with standards that are entirely similar to the Common Core. South Carolina faced a similar problem when the executive director of the Education Oversight Committee flat-out admitted that they “don’t have time” to do a total rewrite. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's Common Core lawsuit—deemed by many as nothing more than a political stunt from a presidential hopeful—threw Bayou State classrooms into total chaos. Oklahoma reverted back to its old standards, only to find that its own universities couldn't validate them as college and career ready. Ohio repeal proponents have tried to sidestep these problems and failed—they’ve set their sights on Massachusetts standards (which Massachusetts ditched in favor of Common Core), followed by Ohio “home-grown” standards (which forces schools to adhere to three sets of standards in five years) and have already caused many to question the bias in their plans. (As a side note, while there may not be any role models for how to repeal Common Core, there are certainly those who are capable of showing us how to make the standards work.)
The disorder that teachers and students are dealing with in other states is troubling. The fact that Ohio lawmakers seem willing to thrust their own state into that mess is inexcusable. Ohio can do better. If lawmakers wish to avoid the descent into chaos, they would do well to learn a lesson from Orpheus: Keep moving forward, but don’t look back.
