State officials discuss Common Core changes

EAST COUNTY — Kathy Kimes, a fifth-grade teacher at McNeal Elementary School, feels constrained by the Common Core State Standards.

Kimes rose from her seat at a Tea Party Manatee program on Common Core and complained that policy is invading her ability to teach.

“Beginning next year, I will not be able to give my students the formula for calculating the area of a square,” Kimes said to two state education officials and 100 other people attending the Jan. 14 program at Mixon Fruit Farms.

“My principal is telling us that Tallahassee is saying, ‘This is how you have to teach now,’” Kimes said. “They want me to give my students a real square and tell them to figure out for themselves how to calculate the area.”

“Who is they?” asked Jim Browder, a regional executive director for the Florida Department of Education.

“You is they,” Kimes replied.

This exchange was exemplary of the defiant — yet conciliatory — tone of the program, intended as a forum for Browder and John Colon, of the Florida State Board of Education, to explain the status of Florida’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

The meeting coincided with the state education commissioner’s proposal last week to tweak the standards to make the learning requirements unique to Florida.

Most individuals who attended the Common Core program said they doubted the 98 proposed changes State Education Commissioner Pam Stewart suggested would change anything.

“This is just Common Core in a new package,” said Brenda Pastorick.

Some individuals, such as Kimes, wondered if the standards, which are being transitioned into schools districtwide, are being implemented like they should.

“The standards are not curriculum,” Browder said. “They are the what (students should know), not the how. If you have a problem with curriculum, talk to your school board. States set the standards. Districts set the curriculum.”

By proposing changes to Florida’s version of Common Core, the state education commissioner was responding to public criticism about the standards — national benchmarks adopted in more than 45 states that outline what students should know at each grade level.

“These are the Florida Standards, not the Common Core Standards,” Colon said. “Nothing is written in stone. More changes are coming, and we’re willing to listen to your input.”

The state board of education will vote Feb. 18 on the changes, which include adding new calculus standards and requiring students to master cursive writing.

Opponents, including some in attendance at Mixon, remained unconvinced. They said the revised standards still constitute federal overreach, even though the federal government did not create Common Core standards.

To develop the Common Core program, the nation’s governors and education commissioners, with the backing of the College Board, ACT and the National Teacher Association, among other organizations, determined what students need to know to be successful in college and careers.

Teachers, parents and school administrators from across the country provided input on the standards.

Across Florida, kindergarten and first-grade students started their Common Core education last school year. The standards were implemented in second grade this year with phasing in for grades three through 12 to come.

The 2014-15 school year is supposed to bring full implementation of the standards, but that timeline is not firm because of the state’s potential changes.

In Manatee County, before new Superintendent Rick Mills took the position, a team of internal educators, dubbed the Common Core Design and Innovation Team, created curriculum road maps to guide how the standards are taught in district classrooms.

Diana Greene, Mills’ deputy superintendent of instruction, leads the implementation of the standards now.
This school year, the district reinstalled early-release Wednesdays to provide extra time for teachers to participate in Common Core workshops.

Steven Valley, director of communications for Manatee County Schools, said the district would wait until the state adopts changes to its policy to comment.

“We want to ensure Florida’s standards allow our kids to be world class,” Browder said.

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected].