Hate Common Core? Be specific

Name one Common Core standard you disagree with.

That's the challenge Superintendent Heath Morrison says he puts to those who argue that North Carolina needs to scrap the reading and math guidelines that states have spent years hashing out. He said he never gets a specific answer, just comments about federal intrusion.

"We're having this conversation for all the wrong reasons,  and none of it is about education,"  Morrison told the Tuesday Breakfast Forum this week.

I'm scheduled to take a turn at the General Assembly next week.  Maybe I'll hear some intense debate over whether eighth-graders really need to be able to analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations,  or whether it's reasonable to expect first-graders to identify and use headers, tables of contents and glossaries to locate key facts in a text.

But I doubt it.  One reason I've written so little about these standards is that they're so wonky and dense.  You can read through them here  (block out some serious time),  but it won't make you the life of the next political debate.

I spent four hours at a recent Education Writers Association seminar listening to a wide range of experts talk about Common Core. The consensus:  The standards themselves are about specific academic goals that originated with governors, superintendents and school boards.  They've been hashed out over several years by experts,  educators and consultants.

And recently they've become entangled in partisan politics and testing controversy.

Cohen

Mike Cohen of the DC-based nonprofit group Achieve, who helped develop the standards with state leaders, said President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan inadvertently hurt the cause by "taking credit" for the Common Core push and using Race to the Top grants to prod states to embrace the standards.

Opposition now comes from Republicans who call it federal intrusion and liberals who oppose the testing associated with the standards. "You've got this left-right dynamic that makes it particularly hard to move forward," Cohen said.

Hess

Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute,  who blogs for Education Week,  laid out the federal intrusion case.  The national consistency state leaders say they're seeking isn't likely to happen without strong federal intervention,  he said.  For instance,  if states set their own cut scores and standards on testing,  we'll get the same wild variation we've seen with state exams.  If the federal government has to approve standards,  well,  they become federal standards.  And yes,  he cited the way the Obama administration has used Race to the Top grants to push many states  (including North Carolina)  toward adopting the standards and the common exams.

But Hess said  "repeal and replace"  advocates have generally failed to show they're serious about doing the hard work it will take to craft alternative standards,  design better tests and get schools to adopt them.

Is North Carolina ready to plunge in and show the country how to do it right? I suspect we'll soon find out.

Could new exams close N.C. charters?

North Carolina charter schools will get a one-year reprieve from academic standards that could lead the state to revoke charters. But the tougher new tests that debuted last year,  leading to a dramatic plunge in pass rates across the state,  could spell trouble for many schools moving forward.

Seventy-five of 108 charter schools that reported scores for 2013 fell below the 60 percent composite pass rate that can trigger a label of  "academically inadequate." That's not a surprise,  given that fewer than half of all public-school students (including traditional public schools and charters,  which are operated by independent boards) passed last year's math and reading exams.  And it's actually better than schools run by local districts:  By my tally, 86 percent of North Carolina's district schools and 69 percent of charters had pass rates below 60 percent.  (See results for Mecklenburg schools in the school data listing at right.)

Charlotte's Sugar Creek Charter had low proficiency but high growth

State law defines charter schools as academically inadequate if they have composite pass rates below 60 percent on state exams and  "no growth in student performance"  for two out of three consecutive years.  One charter has been closed since those standards were set in 2011 and several others have been  "put on notice"  that they're at risk,  Joel Medley,  director of the N.C. Office of Charter Schools,  said in a recent letter to charter operators.

But a 60 percent pass rate on the old tests isn't the same as 60 percent on the new exams,  which are designed to test the more complex skills demanded by national Common Core academic standards.  In fact,  I'm still puzzling over how anyone can accurately calculate year-to-year student growth,  given that the testing has changed so much. School growth ratings are now tallied by the Cary-based SAS, a private company that uses a secret formula to determine whether N.C. schools met, exceeded or fell short of acceptable progress.

The state Board of Education decided not to penalize anyone for 2012-13 scores,  Medley said,  but this year's results will count and could combine with earlier years to label a school inadequate.  By Dec. 19,  Medley said,  he'll notify operators if their school is at risk.

Eighteen of the charters that fell below 60 percent also failed to meet the state growth targets.  Those included four in the Charlotte area:  American Renaissance School in Statesville (38.7 percent overall proficiency),  Carolina International School in Harrisburg  (50.2 percent),  Community Charter in Charlotte  (17.8 percent)  and Crossroads Charter High in Charlotte (less than 5 percent).

Closing of  inadequate charters is not automatic. Update/correction: Medley called Monday and said under the current system, revocation is automatic for schools that fail to meet the standards for two of the most recent three years (which will not include 2012-13).

My guess is there's going to be a lot of discussion among charter advocates, state education officials and lawmakers about the definition of the label.   After all,  if falling below 60 percent proficiency and failing to make growth targets are indicators of academic failure ,  many traditional public schools also fell short last year,  including Charlotte-Mecklenburg's Hopewell  (33.7 percent),  Independence  (45.3 percent)  and Myers Park  (58.5 percent) high schools.

Can you pass the national exams?

Dang it, I still don't know if I'm as smart as a fifth-grader.

Practice versions of new English and math tests,  designed to provide a consistent measure of whether students are meeting national Common Core standards,  were recently posted by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  I tried my hand at the fifth-grade math exam -- partly to see how rusty my skills had gotten and partly to see what online testing is all about.

I found the online format a bit random:  Sometimes you typed in numbers,  sometimes you clicked and dragged them from columns.  It took a bit of figuring out,  but didn't seem terribly daunting.  But it was such a letdown when I finished,  clicked submit and didn't get a report on what was right and wrong.  A spokesman for the consortium said the scoring rubrics won't be finished until later this summer.

Of course,  the purpose of posting the tests is to let teachers,  parents and other concerned people get a feel for what's on the horizon.  Plans call for North Carolina students to start taking the national online tests in 2014.  A big part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools budget is geared toward building the capacity for all schools to do online exams.

But now there's a twist:  Even though North Carolina is among 26 states that make up the Smarter Balanced Consortium,  officials say it's unclear whether the state will spend the money to actually buy the exams. "NC has not made a decision about Smarter Balanced yet. We anticipate making a decision (really our state Board of Education will make a decision) in 2014,"  said Vanessa Jeter, spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

The Common Core movement has proven controversial in many states.  N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest recently added their voices to those raising questions,  saying they want to know more about the Common Core and the state's testing regimen.

Understanding Common Core

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has launched a web page to help parents understand the Common Core standards that are supposed to transform education across the country.

That's good, because I'm having trouble getting my head around it.

I know the standards are supposed to make sure students across the country get more rigorous lessons, with a testing system that allows for good comparisons from state to state and country to country. I know there are a whole lot of new tests coming to North Carolina,  starting this spring,  and that we're likely to see some pretty grim results the first time out.

But I haven't yet had that moment where the light bulb flashes over my head and I say, "OK, now I get it!"  I thought last week's school board report might flip the switch. Nope.

My confusion comes partly from the fact that curriculum is not the kind of thing that's easy to translate into newspaper writing.  Another big issue is that the answer to a whole lot of questions seems to be  "We don't know yet."

I know North Carolina is among 24 states working with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to create new online English and math tests based on Common Core standards, and that some CMS classrooms will pilot those exams this spring.  Other states are working with a group called PARCC to do the same.  Superintendent Heath Morrison said last week that there has been talk of 10-hour tests,  based on an estimate by PARCC,  but no one seems to know how solid that is or exactly what it will mean for local students, teachers and schools.

The good news is that CMS leaders seem to want to explain this as much as I want to understand it.  I'm meeting with them later this week.  Here's how you can help:  Readers with close ties to schools  often know the key questions and issues before I do.  So let me know what you're hearing, wondering and worrying about.

For instance,  a reader shared this example of what's supposed to be a state-issued bubble sheet for this year's exams,  illustrating the difficulty of bubbling in open-ended math answers  (the top row is correct,  the bottom row wrong). Board member Tom Tate asked last week about how CMS plans to deal with potential confusion on answer sheets.  That's exactly the kind of thing we all need to understand.