School Board Flunks Common Core Test

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Editor,

Congratulations to LBUSD teachers and students who on an overall district wide basis did marginally better on Common Core tests than most county schools.

However, unlike our own School Board’s unwarranted triumphalism, leaders in less advantaged districts that outperformed LBUSD in crucial testing categories did not issue self-serving press statements touting negative inter-district comparisons.

For example, 44% of LBHS students failed to meet Common Core math proficiency standards. Other schools with less resources did better, but didn’t boast.

Irvine spends half as much per student as LB schools annually, and came in best in county, including much higher math scores, but was not bragging at anyone else’s expense.

LBUSD suspended actual classroom education for weeks to drill students for these tests. Yet, historical testing trends showing LBUSD students who did well in lower grades don’t sustain performance into high school are confirmed by common core test results.

Now the controversial common core experimental testing data is in official school records.  Yet, the school board refused to inform parents of the right under state law to opt out of common core testing, which is for public school use.

The school board and school district staff should be calling all stakeholders in our public schools to make common cause together and manage the transition to new state standards far more collaboratively and cooperatively.

Rather than refusing to allow open dialogue on pros and cons of curriculum standards and testing practices, the school board should be enlisting a diverse cross section of the public to develop local community based strategies.

For example, parents – some in the math professions – who asked for appropriate differentiation in curriculum for students at all levels of achievement were stonewalled by the school board.  Instead, the board embraced staff recommendations for one size fits all statewide curriculum models.

Sacramento based consultants charging local property tax payers as much $3,000 per day naturally agreed with the school district staff who hired them.

Meanwhile, the former head of Stanford’s math department, appointed by President Obama to the Common Core advisory panel, was denied the right to come speak to parents at no cost to taxpayers about problems with Common Core math standards.

We get the government we deserve, but the kids deserve better.

 

Howard Hills, Laguna Beach

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1 COMMENT

  1. It appears American Exceptionalism doesn’t result in better educated children. It is also evident our current attempt to improve our approach to educating our kids to compete more favorably in the present and future job market, has been met with disdain by some. Some reasons are valid, some are political. This is no surprise. With the U.S. able to matriculate less than one third of the engineers and computer scientists our country requires, it’s fair to say there is a problem.

    I suggest reading Linda Darling-Hammond’s, “The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future”. It is well researched and may provide one with an increased perspective on our educational problems and potential solutions.

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