When California agreed to replace its own rigorous state student-learning standards with the comparatively less difficult national standards supported by the Obama administration, questions immediately arose about the impact of this monumental shift on education practices in the state. Will courses and curriculum change? How will testing of students be affected? Will the effort to reform teacher evaluation be derailed? So far, the answers to these questions are not promising.

The Obama administration required states to adopt the national “Common Core” standards as a condition for competing for federal “Race to the Top” grants and for receiving waivers from penalties for failing to comply with the student-achievement requirements of the No Child Left Behind law. California joined the rush for federal dollars and is now saddled with national standards that a University of Pennsylvania study says are mediocre at best. The fallout from California’s Faustian bargain is now becoming clear.

First, traditional courses will be eliminated. The California Teachers Association (CTA) is telling its union members that new courses with vague labels like Integrated Math I, II and III will replace algebra and geometry. Further, as Washington Post education writer Jay Matthews has noted, “There will be many changes in other subjects that schools will have to adjust to.”

The national standards will need new curricula aligned with those standards. Although the Obama administration argues that it is not pushing a national curriculum, a report authored by former top lawyers at the U.S. Department of Education points out the logical absurdity of the administration’s claim.

“Standards drive curriculum, programs of instruction, and the selection of instructional materials,” observes the report, published by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute and the Pacific Research Institute. Thus, a “change to common [national] K-12 standards will inevitably result in changes in curriculum, programs of instruction, and instructional materials to align with the standards.” In fact, two federally funded groups of experts are now creating national curriculum materials for use by the states, and the CTA is informing teachers that new textbooks and instructional materials aligned with the national standards and of undetermined quality will be coming down the pike.

The federally funded groups of experts are also creating national tests aligned with the national standards. The new tests will differ from California’s existing state tests in fundamental ways. Instead of the current paper-and-pencil state exam, it is envisioned that students will take the national tests online using computers. Further, instead of multiple-choice questions, the national tests will consist largely of open-response questions, such as short answers and essays.

No state online testing system has tried grading open-response questions using non-human artificial intelligence on a large scale. Also, no state has conducted a rigorous feasibility study on implementing this type of testing. Finally, a recent study estimates that California would have to spend $418 million in one-time expenditures on computers and other technological infrastructure to administer the online tests. Over seven years, these costs would total $1 billion.

Not only are the new national assessments untested and expensive, switching to these new exams will, according to Jay Matthews, delay, if not stop altogether, reform moves across the country toward rating teachers by student score improvements. The reason, he says, is because, “School districts can’t do that when the tests change so radically. They might have to wait years to work out the kinks in the tests before using them to assess teachers.” The result is that bad teachers who are an impediment to improving student performance will remain in their classrooms.

Worst, nationalizing standards, testing and curriculum will disempower parents, teachers and local communities. One California teacher cited by Matthews wondered why he hadn’t heard about all these changes before now. Well, that’s what happens when decisions are made far away in Washington by federal officials and their special-interest allies. Welcome to the Obama education future.

Source: http://www.flashreport.org/featured-columns-library0b.php?faID=2012051110062114