Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

Common Core education plan sends conflicting messages

By Matthew Stone mstone@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA — Adopting a new set of academic standards that more than 40 states already have would make instruction in Maine schools more rigorous.

But the state’s schools would start basing their instruction on an unproven set of academic guidelines if Maine adopts those standards, known as the Common Core.

Those were the conflicting messages delivered Monday to lawmakers on the Legislature’s Education Committee, as an initiative to fully adopt a set of national academic standards returned for another round of legislative approval.

“This topic, we can’t just brush it aside lightly,” said Rep. Peter Edgecomb, R-Caribou. “A big decision has to be made.”

The Common Core standards outline the skills students should master in English and math from kindergarten through grade 12.

In Maine, that document — developed by experts and educators organized by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, with financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — would replace the Maine Learning Results, the state academic standards that have been in place since 1997 and have been through two revisions in recent years.

“The (Common Core) standards are far more similar than different than what we have in place right now,” said Dan Hupp, the Maine Department of Education’s state assessment director. “The level of specificity and guidance to teachers is far more superior than what we could put together on our own.”

By signing onto the national initiative, Maine schools could use all the educational resources — from textbooks to online lessons — corresponding to Common Core standards, said Hupp and Linda Laughlin, assistant superintendent of Oakland-based Regional School Unit 18.

“All of our educational vendors will be focused on the Common Core standards,” Laughlin said. “The educational materials inside and outside the classroom will greatly expand.”

The standards might appear more rigorous, but those who developed them haven’t tried them out in a single classroom, said Patrick Murray, a Bradford parent and co-founder of the Maine Coalition for World Class Math.

“They are not research-based because they have never been piloted anywhere,” he said. “We would be implementing something that is totally unproven.”

Woolwich parent Beth Schultz urged lawmakers to demand a full analysis of the cost of implementing the new standards, which will include training for teachers and a new system of standardized tests to replace the New England Common Assessment Program.

A coalition of states led by former Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron is at work developing those tests with the help of a federal grant.

Sharon Dohner, another Woolwich parent, urged lawmakers to take a look at state standards in Massachusetts, Indiana and California, which are commonly regarded as rigorous. Those three states, however, dropped their standards in favor of Common Core last year in response to the lure of money in the federal Race to the Top education reform competition.

Maine doesn’t need to look to a national initiative to fix its standards, said Audrey Buffington, a retired Maryland state math supervisor who lives in South Thomaston. That would save the state from spending money on new training and new tests, she said.

“Do you know how many times our teachers have looked at new standards?” she said. “We have spent more money on testing in the state of Maine and we have no baseline data on this.”

Maine lawmakers are taking up the Common Core for the second time, after tentatively adopting the standards last year to allow Maine to enter Race to the Top.

While he expressed suspicion of an expanded federal role in education during the campaign, Gov. Paul LePage supports adopting the Common Core standards, said Stephen Bowen, LePage’s education policy adviser and likely nominee for education commissioner.

“He wants it so that when you get a high school diploma from any high school in this state, it means something,” Bowen said.