Melrose Officials React to National Academic Standards Adoption

Two Melrose Public School officials reacted positively to the state education board voting on Wednesday to adopt national academic standards, in lieu of the state's own standards, while noting that changes won't take place right away.

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 8-0 on Wednesday, making Massachusetts the 26th state to adopt the "Common Core" national standards. The Obama administration has been urging states to adopt those national guidelines, which delineate what students are taught in English and math at each grade level, using financial incentives to push for their adoption, such as qualifying states for Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion competitive federal education grant initiative funded through the stimulus package.

The change in standards could mean significant changes to the MCAS exams, which are based on Massachusetts' own standards, or possibly the elimination of the MCAS altogether and the introduction of a new test.

Superintendent Joe Casey said the day after the vote he asked School Committee member J.D. LaRock, who works as policy director for the state Executive Office of Education, to "put together a snapshot" for the committee's next meeting on Tuesday, July 27. Casey said that state education commissioner Mitchell Chester spoke to the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS) at the group's summer institute last week to espouse the benefits of adopting the Common Core.

"It doesn't mean that we're going to be dumbing down what we do," Casey said. "It'll move everybody up a little bit and, at the same time, continue our upward trajectory. Some federal dollars may be able to come back into Massachusetts to help us continue our growth in terms of how to close the achievement gap."

At the School Committee meeting on June 8, LaRock said that Massachusetts lost points on its first Race to the Top application for not adopting what were still undeveloped national standards, which the state opted against because "Massachusetts is acknowledged as having the highest standards in the nation."

The fear of "dumbing down" the standards, as Casey put it, comes from critics such as the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based conservative-leaning think tank, that have argued the national standards are weaker than Massachusetts' already acknowledged high standards.

Over the past year and a half, state officials have read through various drafts of the national standards and had the standards writing team visit the writers' of Massachusetts' standards, LaRock said on Thursday this week.

"One thing that's important here is that this has been a very long process that Massachusetts has been involved in from the start," he said. "Because of that, we were able to build confidence over the time that these core standards would be beneficial to us."

LaRock added that independent analyses comparing the national standards to Massachusetts standards showed "substantial overlap" between the two, and that endorsement of the national standards by local business organizations, such as the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, were a "powerful" message.

"It was a clear signal from our business leaders that they have studied these common core standards and saw something in them that they thought would promote the ability of our students to master the necessary skills," he said. "

Critics of adopting the national standards also raised concerns that by adopting the Common Core, Massachusetts would sacrifice autonomy and the ability to adjust and improve academic standards in the future.

LaRock countered that each state that adopts the national standards will play "an influential role" in the futher evolution of those standards. He also noted that, under the federal rules, each state can customize up to 15 percent of the standards to meet the specific needs of its students.

"When you combine the fact that independent analyses found there was a lot of overlap between the Common Core and our standards, and the 15 percent 'wiggle room' essentially, I think that provides an opportunity for Massachusetts to fill in whatever gaps our state officials may find in the Common Core," he said.