Michigan Education Digest

7/30/2019 Michigan Education Digest

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Rigorous Standards &High Expectations

Jim Barrett, GLEP Chairman

There is no question our public

education system is failing too manychildren, since less than 20 percent of

Michigans high school graduates are

considered college or career ready.

To help our students compete and

succeed in the 21st century global

economy, states and education reform

organizations joined together to

establish the Common Core State

Standards.

Far from the federal takeover of public

education described by critics, the

Common Core State Standards were

developed by state leaders and

educators. The National Governors

Association Center for Best Practices

and the Council of Chief State School

Officers have been working together

to create standards for math andlanguage arts that will help teachers

prepare our children for success in

college and work. Forty-five states

have adopted the standards for Math

Race to the Bottom

William C. Skill ing, Superintendent

Oxford Community Schools

Like many other states, Michigan has

let itself tumble into the pitfalls ofgiving up its constitutional right to

govern education. Falling victim to the

power of the purse strings in high

stakes testing, some Michigan officials

have come out in support of the

Common Core standards.

Frankly, I am tired of listening to

politicians trying to apply simple

solutions to complex problems so that

they can say they are champions of

education for re-election purposes.

Anyone can raise standards.

However, raising standards does not

lead to improved student performance

or improved education, nor does it

lead to innovation.

No one seems to be asking the rightquestions. Why is it that America is

still leading the world in innovation

exports, more than 70 percent per

year? Why is it that Americans receive

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and Reading.

The Common Core State Standards

are not a federally mandated

curriculum, but a rigorous, streamlined

and more relevant framework to

prepare students for real world

application beyond high school.

These internationally benchmarked

standards will challenge students to

read, write and solve math problems

at greater capacity, raising the bar for

all students and resulting in a more

valuable education.

Our students are competing with

others from around the world for the

high-wage jobs of the future, and

these jobs require a higher level of

knowledge especially in math,

science, engineering and technology.

It is imperative our education system

develop high, rigorous and consistent

academic standards for every grade,

every school and every state. The

Common Core State Standards draw

on the best state academic standards

in America and were drafted by

experts from across the country a

combination of experts a single state

would be unlikely to assemble.

While the Common Core State

Standards clearly definewhat

ourchildren need to know, they do not tell

our teachers how to teach. States,

communities and schools maintain

flexibility to determine how to help

more than 50 percent of the

international patents awarded each

year? It is because the United States

leads the world in creating and

inventing. Unfortunately, however,

with nationally standardized high

stakes tests, we will be moving in the

wrong direction and therefore dumbing

down our education system.

The Common Core narrowly defines

education while totally disregarding

the diversity of talents and interests of

our students. The Common Core will

stifle creativity, ingenuity and risktaking. It will lead to elimination of fine

arts and other programs that are

important to the holistic development

of students.

The window of opportunity to turn this

country around is closing fast, and the

last nail in the coffin is public

education. I believe we are not only

facing a financial cliff, but also an

educational cliff. No longer can we

operate as independent, locally-

controlled educational institutions. We

are now squarely under the control of

big government and its political whims.

Never in the history of the world has

any national government been able to

run a successful business oreducation system that compares to

the success of Americas ingenuity

and the American school system

under local control. We should not use




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students meet and exceed these

new expectations. In fact, the

Michigan Merit Curriculum exceeds

the high school requirements of the

common core and should be

maintained. The results in Michigan

since adopting the Michigan Merit

Curriculum have been increased

performance and a reduction in

dropouts.

Rigorous standards wont improve

education quality without careful

implementation which includes an

aligned curriculum, solid instruction,meaningful assessments and

excellent teachers and leaders. There

should be more widespread use of

technology for teaching and learning,

and the next generation of student

assessments, called computer

adaptive testing, is to be encouraged.

The right testing and assessment tools

will not only provide real-time

information that can inform classroom

instruction these tests measure

both proficiency and individual student

growth. This information not only

leads to better outcomes for students,

it is a much fairer method of

evaluating teachers.

At the same time, adopting theCommon Core State Standards and

implementing next-generation

assessment tools will help us move

toward a simpler, uniform system to

standardizedtest scores as a metric.

We should use results of what

students accomplish in the workforce

instead. The American people have

created more wealth, created more

individual freedoms, solved more age-

old problems, and created more

innovation than any other country in

the history of the world.

Under the current administration, there

appears to be a clear goal of

marginalizing American greatness. In

its destruction of free enterprise by a

takeover of American businessesthrough over-regulation, and in

increasing the power of federal

government, the current administration

has forsaken local control and

individual liberties. I believe adopting

the Common Core standards is yet

another way to ensure American

greatness is lost forever, and

individual liberties will no longer be

part of our education system, under

the premise of raising standards.

In an education system controlled by

our national government, students will

begin to believe they can only be

successful through government

control. For those of us who actually

grew up and lived under a free

society, where ingenuity was fosteredand encouraged, where people were

rewarded for risk-taking, and people

valued freedom, we understand that

more control concentrated in a bigger




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provide A-F grades for individual

schools based on student academic

performance. Such a letter grading

system will increase transparency and

accountability for all public schools,

further empowering parents to make

informed choices.

The Great Lakes Education Project

strongly supports efforts to improve

academic achievement, increase

accountability and empower parental

choice in our public schools.

Implementing the Common Core State

Standards is an important step in thisprocess, and we urge the Governor,

legislators and state policy makers to

stay the course.

Jim Barrett, GLEP Chairman, is the

former President of the Michigan

Chamber of Commerce and recipient

of the Mackinac Centers prestigious

Jefferson Award in 2008.

government is not the solution.

Our Founding Fathers adopted the Bill

of Rights to protect us from

government control and the

Constitution to ensure the separation

of powers. Where local school boards,

parents and community members

once had control of their schools, we

now find ourselves reminding our

children what it was once like in the

United States where men were free.

My recommendation to state leaders

is to stop acquiescing to the power ofthe purse strings and start taking a

stand for our constitutional rights to

govern education locally. Restore

authority to local school boards and

give them the right to innovative,

create, design, and implement

educational programs that will prepare

our students to compete globally.

If Common Core standards become

the norm, our students will become

functionally unable to compete. If we

continue to cede control of our

educational system to the federal

government, we will be in a Race to

the Bottom, instead of fostering

innovation, free enterprise and

creativity.

Dr. William Skilling is the

superintendent of Oxford Community

Schools. He can be reached at:

[email protected].




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