When conservatives and liberals fight about school curriculum, the disagreements aren’t just about science and history. Even math has been a battleground in the culture wars.
On this week’s episode of the “Us & Them” podcast: how America approaches the teaching of mathematics. From the New Math and No Child Left Behind to Common Core, how we teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can literally cause division.
From West Virginia Public Broadcasting and PRX, this is “Us & Them,” the podcast where we tell the stories about America’s cultural divides.
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Update Friday, March 24, 2017: Senators have approved Senate Bill 18, 18-16, with four Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues to vote against it.
Senators will vote on a bill Friday that will give lawmakers the authority to approve all change to education standards and aligned standardized testing to be required in West Virginia schools after an amendment to a bill on the chamber floor Thursday.
Senate Bill 18 as introduced would have required West Virginia students take the ACT and ACT Aspire standardized tests rather than the Smarter Balanced Assessment that’s aligned with Common Core standards, but Republican Sen. Patricia Rucker amended the bill to require legislative oversight.
“The point of the amendment was to clarify what the intent of the legislation was, which was that we would have assessments in West Virginia not tied to Common Core standards,” Rucker said during debate on the floor.
Her amendment sparked pushback from Democratic members of the chamber who pointed to a variety of reasons not to include the language.
“As 34 members of the senate, we’re going to assess standards now, we’re going to bring those standards back here to a legislative body,” Sen. Bob Plymale said. Plymale said lawmakers should trust the state’s education experts to make those kinds of determinations.
Credit Will Price / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Sen. Kenny Mann, the Senate Education Committee chair, speaks against the amendment on the floor during questions from Sen. John Unger.
Senate Minority Leader Roman Prezioso said in meetings with representatives of the state Department of Education, he was told even though the West Virginia Board of Education had already voted to stop using Smarter Balanced after this school year, the amendment would require the state to write a test of its own, costing $10-12 million.
“We want to allow our local boards of education to control this curriculum, that’s what you stand for, that’s what I stand for and that’s what this amendment tries to defeat,” Sen. Mike Romano said after questioning Rucker about the amount of local control county boards could have if her amendment was adopted.
The Senate’s Education Committee Chair, Sen. Kenny Mann, was questioned about the bill and admitted he would not vote for the legislation if the amendment was accepted by the body.
“I’ve beat this dead horse,” Mann said.
Republican Sen, Robert Karnes argued the amendment was not taking power away from the state or local county boards of education, but was inserting the Legislature into a process which they have a Constitutional right to oversee.
“Common Core was a major issue [in the last election]. The people of the state West Virginia wanted their elected officials to be involved in that particular issue and the way it was adopted. This amendment says that not only are we going to do what our constitution wants us to do, but what the people of West Virginia clearly want us to do and that is to be an active participant in how the children in the state of West Virginia are going to be educated. This is a good amendment it makes it clear that never again will such a standard be adopted without the review of the elected bodies of the state of West Virginia.” -Sen. Robert Karnes
Rucker’s amendment was accepted by the body on a 21-13. Mann was the only Republican to vote against it.
The bill will be put to a final vote in the Senate Friday.
Both the House and Senate are considering bills this year to change the state’s education standards once again. It’s a reoccurring theme at the statehouse since Republican lawmakers took control of the chamber in 2015.
In the Senate, lawmakers have approved a bill that does not replace the current college and career ready standards taught in schools, but calls for a cyclical review of those standards with the input of West Virginia teachers.
In the House, however, the discussion over potential changes is just beginning.
The bill taken up by a House Education subcommittee Wednesday would replace the state’s current standards with Math standards first used in California in 1997 and English standards from Massachusetts in 2001. Members of the subcommittee didn’t make changes to those provisions, but are recommending lawmakers give counties the flexibility to adjust state standards as they see fit.
House Bill 2443 would repeal Common Core standards in West Virginia and replace them with standards from that are almost 20 years old. Common Core, however, was repealed by the West Virginia Board of Education in 2015 and replaced with a new set of standards that were the result of statewide public hearings on the issue.
The five delegates on the K-12 subcommittee had previously discussed allowing counties to take the state’s current standards and make changes to them — which could potentially result in 55 different sets of education standards in West Virginia. All five members voiced a need for counties to have flexibility in the classroom, but there was some question over how much.
Republican Delegate Steve Westfall of Jackson County questioned Sarah Stuart from the State Department of Education, about the impact of allowing counties to change just 5 or 10 percent of the state standards to address local education needs.
“I do have a little concern, and I’ll express why,” Stuart said, “We are required to adhere to ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, and under ESSA, it requires that all states to have challenging, academic standards…and they have to be the same for all public schools in the state. So while, I think we could add 10 percent to the barebones standards that we’ve established at the state level…I do have some concerns with changing the standards for different counties just based on the language of ESSA.”
“Okay, so you’re saying… [we] would have a set of standards for all 55 counties, but if Wayne County wants to add a program for whatever; miner training or something, or Jackson County wants to have something for the Toyota plant, something that fills a need, then you could add to it?” Westfall asked.
“Absolutely,” Stuart answered.
Later during discussion, Westfall encouraged his fellow members to recommend to the full committee the importance of having a statewide set of standards, but to allow counties the flexibility to add additional programs where there’s need.
Delegates recommended adding permissive language in the bill to reflect that.
While all five members of the subcommittee voted to move the bill forward to the full committee on Education, some Democrats still expressed concerns about the implementation of the older California and Massachusetts education standards included in the bill, including Delegate Stephen Baldwin of Greenbrier County.
“The standards that we have in place were developed with the input of our teachers and of education stakeholders here, and the real issue? For me is continuity,” Baldwin said, “High school seniors right now have been through four sets of standards. If we were to change again, that’s just gonna cause problems in the classroom, and that discontinuity would really affect a student’s ability to learn, much less a teacher’s ability to teach.”
Baldwin, who is a former member of the Greenbrier County School Board, also says he feels the fight over standards is more about curriculum.
“Curriculum is where counties and teachers have the flexibility to make decisions about how they teach what they teach, and standards just set a standard for what students ought to learn,” Baldwin noted, “So I think those standards for what students ought to learn should be statewide standards, and then teachers and counties should have flexibility through their curriculum to figure out what’s best for them about how to learn that.”
Delegate Upson, who’s a sponsor of House Bill 2443, says teachers in her county want more flexibility when it comes to standards.
“Anytime that you give the state more control and you push that down to the local level, and you give counties the option to kind of decide what standards and assessments best meet the students that they serve,” Upson explained, “Now, I know that because of the Every Student Succeeds Act, we have to have a uniform assessment, but I have gotten feedback from teachers in the Eastern Panhandle that we just mandate too much from in Charleston, and so they would like to see a lot more flexibility and control at the local level.”
House Bill 2443 has also been second referenced to House Finance, and Delegate Upson says the House will likely consider the Senate’s version of the bill which has already been approved by the chamber.
Senators have approved a bill that “puts the final nail in the coffin” on Common Core in West Virginia, according to Senate Education Chair Kenny Mann.
The chamber voted 23-8 Saturday in favor of Senate Bill 524.
The bill, which originally repealed Common Core and replaced the state’s current education standards with those from Massachusetts and California from 20 years ago, now only ensures West Virginia is no longer a part of the memorandum of understanding between states in the Common Core consortium.
It no longer requires the replacement of standards, but a “cyclical review” which must include West Virginia educators.
The West Virginia Board of Education repealed Common Core in 2015 and conducted a nearly yearlong review process, creating the new West Virginia College and Career Ready standards that are being taught in schools today.
Over the past several sessions, though, members of the Legislature have continued to argue that Common Core standards are still being taught in schools because the new set, they say, is too similar to the previous.
West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Martirano, as well as many other state education leaders, have argued that all standards, no matter what state they come from, are largely the same.
Senate Bill 524 will now go to the House of Delegates for further consideration.
Members of the Senate were supposed to take up a bill Thursday to repeal the Common Core education standards and replace them with Math and English standards written some 20 years ago by California and Massachusetts.
The bill, however, was pushed back for the second day in a row, Thursday after the chamber’s Education chair spoke against it.
Senate Bill 524 would repeal Common Core education standards and replace them with Massachusetts English standards from 2001 and California math standards from 1997.
Common Core, however, was repealed by the West Virginia Board of Education in 2015. The board then took on a comprehensive review process, creating the West Virginia College and Career Ready standards that are being taught in West Virginia classrooms today.
“We’ve got to have a standard,” Senate Education Chiar Kenny Mann said Thursday, “and all standards basically are pretty much the same.”
Kenny Mann is a sponsor of the repeal bill that was passed out of his committee Saturday without any real debate, but since, Mann said he’s studied the state’s current standards, the standards the bill would require, and the standards currently in place in other states and what he’s found is…
“There’s really not a difference in the math and the English in the standards out there now than what [West Virginia is] using currently,” he said.
During a floor speech in the chamber Thursday, Mann declared Common Core dead in West Virginia.
A funeral director outside of the statehouse, he presented the Senate President with a death certificate for Common Core, as a symbol, he said, that the standards the state currently has in place are not Common Core and do not need to be changed through legislation.
“I agree Common Core is dead and it should have been dead,” Democratic Sen. Bob Plymale said on the floor Thursday. “I did not agree with it at the time, I do not agree with it now.
“I do agree that education lives by standards, they’ve had academic standards all the time that I can remember. Those standards are made by state people and that’s the way it should be,” Plymale added.
The argument over repealing Common Core has persisted at the statehouse despite actions taken by the West Virginia Board of Education. Senate Bill 524 would supersede the board’s decisions, though, and require the 20-year-old standards from two other states be implemented by the start of the 2017-2018 school year.
“If [this bill] would go into play, our teachers would have a month or less to develop these standards and start teaching them by August. There is no way. There’s no way that could happen,” Mann said.
Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns moved to lay the bill over until Friday, the second time the motion was made in two days.
Mann said that’s because the bill needs more consideration and discussion before it’s put to a final vote, but realized members of his party are in favor of the changes contained within the legislation.
“There will be some people that may not be happy with what I said today, but you know, at the end of the day, I’m going to stand by what I said and for our public educators in West Virginia.”
Senate Bill 524 is scheduled to be on second reading in the chamber Friday — the amendment phase.
Mann said, however, it’s possible the bill will be sent to another committee, potentially Finance or Rules, which is chaired by Senate President Mitch Carmichael.
A bill to prohibit any Common Core-based education standards from being taught in West Virginia classrooms was taken up in the Senate’s Education committee Saturday. The standards have been debated for years at the statehouse and now lawmakers are looking at legislation that specifies what can be taught.
Common Core education standards have been a central point of debate in the West Virginia Legislature for years now.
In December 2015, the West Virginia Board of Education responded to concerns raised by both lawmakers and members of the public over the standards and voted to repeal them. They were replaced with the current education standards taught in West Virginia schools – the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards.
These new standards were the result of an 8-month study led by state Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano who consulted with West Virginia teachers, higher education officials, as well as members of the public.
But during the 2016 state Legislative session, lawmakers were still concerned – saying the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards were too similar to Common Core.
This year, lawmakers are attempting again to get rid of any remnants of Common Core with Senate Bill 524.
The bill prohibits Common Core based standards in West Virginia schools, and requires teachers to use two specific sets of standards in their place: math standards from California adopted in 1997 and English-Language Arts standards from Massachusetts adopted in 2001.
Republican Senator Patricia Rucker from Jefferson County is the bill’s lead sponsor and a former educator. She says it’s important West Virginia get rid of Common Core and bring in something that’s been nationally recognized and proven to work.
“Massachusetts is nationally recognized as one of the best school systems; California, same thing,” Rucker said, “Both of these standards are before Common Core. No one can say that it has any relationship to Common Core, so we are making the constituents happy.”
Another requirement in the bill is that these new standards be implemented for at least five years, starting on July 1, 2017. Rucker says that’s so that both teachers and students have continuity.
“I know administrators; they have been told to do this, this year, something else the next year, something else the next year; they want stability, so that’s one of the reasons the bill says, we’re going to keep these standards for five years,” she noted.
However, if any changes are proposed to the standards within that timeframe, a 60-day written comment period would be required and at least four public hearings in various locations around the state.
Surprisingly, after the years of heated debates over anything related to Common Core, there were no questions or discussion in committee Saturday. However, a handful of senators did vote not to advance the bill.
Senate Bill 524 now goes to the full chamber for consideration.
