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player ready...The value and implementation of the Common Core curriculum and accompanying tests were debated recently at the Women’s Republican Club of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff.
Jessica Handy, a Springfield-based government affairs director with the education advocacy group Stand For Children, said Common Core is creating a level playing field for U.S. students, but admits the controversial PARCC assessments are a work in progress.
“I do want to acknowledge that there are some bumps in the road, because change is always tough, but it’s a change that is well worth making in moving ourselves into the 21st century in terms of the way we assess our kids” she said.
On the other side was Bruno Behrend, senior fellow for education policy at The Heartland Institute, who said Common Core “is the wrong approach that will not and cannot solve the problem with American education.”
“If Common Core is a good idea, what we’ve done here in America is chosen the worst way to implement,” Behrend said. “If it isn’t a good idea, what is the alternative? And I would say the alternative is not more centralization of education, but decentralizing education.”
Common Core supporters say the new standards are designed to ensure all students are prepared for a future in the modern job market, while opponents say the standards give the federal government too much control over curriculum choices and force teachers to follow lesson plans that focus on standardized tests rather than the needs of the individual student.
A frequent criticism of PARCC testing is the time they take, sometimes twice as long as the old ISAT tests. Several parents in the audience said it was just too long for their children to be sitting.
Handy said the PARCC assessments are designed to require more critical thinking and to provide schools and parents personalized information to improve instruction. She said PARCC is much better than the old ISAT assessments and urged everyone to be patient while the kinks are worked out.
“PARCC doesn’t have any stakes attached to it this year,” she said. “This is a year where people are able to move toward this better assessment – I think most people will agree it’s a better assessment. It won’t be on any teacher evaluation, it won’t be used on determining who needs interventions.”