Commentary: Keeping the Core

Region gives support for education standards

I find it intriguing that members of the Governor's Council on Common Core Review have found overwhelmingly positive feedback for the educational standards only here in Northwest Arkansas.

"This unanimity is not like this in other places," said Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, who Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed to lead the review.

Griffin and six of the council's 17 citizen members held a "listening session" Thursday evening at the Bentonville Public Library. They heard from plenty of educators with encouraging things to say about the local curricula they've developed in response to the Common Core standards.

Rogers High School math teacher Karen Hearth told the panel the standards promote a deeper understanding of school subjects than past standards and prepare students better than every for colleges and/or careers.

Other teachers told the task force students are performing better on tests even though the standards are more challenging than past ones, and students are more engaged in learning. The panel heard mostly praise for the standards from a crowd that was larger than at any of the other forums held so far in other areas of the state.

The most critical comments came from Randy Alexander, who voters booted from his seat in the state House of Representatives after a single two-year term. Let's just say his perspective on issues like this didn't match up with a majority of his constituents. Strangely, he said while campaigning last year, he never heard anything positive about Common Core from any teachers he talked to. My suspicion is he didn't seek out much feedback.

I've been a resident of Fayetteville for nearly 20 years now, but I've spent more of my life elsewhere in the state. My childhood was spent in southwest Little Rock. I went to college at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, and started my career in Hot Springs. And I spent my early years spending just about every other weekend in Warren and Cleveland County in south Arkansas where my parent were raised. Except for the deep Delta, I've spent time in virtually every region of the state.

I know and love this state, every nook and cranny of it. But Arkansans don't always get it right.

Northwest Arkansas is sometimes guilty of a superiority complex just as much as other parts of Arkansas are covered up in an inferiority complex. But in this instance, I think the lieutenant governor and the "listeners" on the review task force should give some added weight to the views they're hearing from our corner of the state.

Northwest Arkansas is one of the state's greatest success stories because its people have the good sense to keep what works and improve upon it while they're also willing to toss aside what doesn't work.

Just last week, U.S. News and World Report revealed its top public high schools in the nation. Within Arkansas, six of the top 10 spots, including the first three spots in the ranking list, were held by Northwest Arkansas schools.

Taken as a whole, Arkansas ranked 45 in the nation for its education system, receiving a grade of D-plus, from the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The top states in the ALEC rankings -- Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Colorado, Hawaii -- are all linked to the Common Core Standards. Indiana, No. 4, dropped Common Core amid political maneuvering and developed their own standards. It's probably no coincidence the state's new standards look so much like Common Core conservatives and Tea Party activists have blasted them as essentially a change in name only.

When Northwest Arkansas says the Common Core State Standards are working to bring students to a higher level of achievement and a deeper understanding of what they're learning, this review committee should pay attention.I'll say what no statewide politician can say: Is it better to emulate Northwest Arkansas or the Delta when it comes to education delivery?

Perhaps the reaction to Common Core in some school districts is a reflection not of problems with the standards, but with the school districts' ability to succeed in implementing them. If so, that's not a problem with the standards; that's an indication of a need for further education reform to give educators in all parts of the state the necessary leadership and resources to make Common Core work.

What will happen if Arkansas rejects Common Core? First, the state will be thrown back several years, an educational relapse that will do serious damage to the forward momentum Arkansas has going. Second, as in Indiana, whatever Arkansas adopts will by necessity need to look a lot like Common Core if the state is serious about taking public school education to a new level.

Arkansas can ill afford to go backward. Common Core is a strong foundation for educational achievement that pushes Arkansas educators and students to be on par with students in other states. Don't we want that? Are we willing to fight for that?

Rejecting Common Core is acquiescing to the notion Arkansas will remain in the educational basement of the nation. Hopefully, Hutchinson and Griffin aren't eager to lead us there.

Commentary on 05/18/2015

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