12 MYTHS and FACTS about the Alabama College and Career-Ready Standards

Originally posted in:

Alabama Education News

February 2013 · Issue II · page 2

 

MYTH: Parents will lose control of their children’s K-12 education under the

Common Core State Standards Initiative.

FACT: There is no change in parental control from Alabama’s previous

standards to the College- and Career-Ready Standards based

on the Common Core. Input is encouraged by parents and

other stakeholders throughout the process of determining and

adopting standards.

 

MYTH: Most parents remain unaware of the specific details of the Common

Core State Standards.

FACT: All of Alabama’s standards, adopted two years ago, can be

accessed and read by anyone on the Alabama State

Department of Education Website:

www.alsde.edu/html/CoursesOfStudy.asp. Public hearings were

held throughout the state before adoption by the State Board of

Education.

 

MYTH: Education decisions in states with the Common Core will ultimately

be mandated by unaccountable bureaucrats and special interests in

Washington, D.C.

FACT: According to the Alabama State Board of Education’s

resolution adopting the standards on November 18, 2010, the

SBOE remains the “sole and exclusive entity vested with

authority" over Alabama’s public schools.

 

MYTH: The Common Core invades students’ privacy by requiring the

collection of personal information, which will be shared with the

federal government and private organizations without parents’

permission, and it requires that students be tracked from preschool

through their careers with data that will become part of a national

database.

FACT: The Alabama College- and Career-Ready Standards, as well as

the Common Core State Standards, are only academic

standards for each grade in math and English. Neither set of

standards mandates any type of data collection. The state of

Alabama has no reporting requirements associated with its

involvement with the Common Core State Standards Initiative

as it is not a Race to the Top state, not a participant in the Race

to the Top funded assessment consortia, nor a recipient of the

federally funded longitudinal data system grant.

 

MYTH: The U.S. Department of Education is funding the development of

national curriculum guidelines, modes, and materials, which creates

a national curriculum.

FACT: Many organizations are creating various instructional materials

for teachers to access, just like they always have. Local

systems retain control of their curricula.

 

MYTH: The U.S. Department of Education is funding the creation of national

assessments based on the Common Core standards, which creates

a national testing system.

FACT: States can voluntarily select their own assessments. Alabama

is not involved in the consortia helping to guide assessment

creation. Alabama has chosen to work with ACT, an existing

college- and career-readiness test provider.

 

MYTH: The U.S. Department of Education is violating federal laws that prohibit

any federal direction, control, or supervision of curricula, programs of

instruction, and instructional materials in the elementary and secondary

schools, and this is an invasion of states’ rights.

FACT: None of this is based in fact. Each school system in Alabama

retains complete authority to develop its own curriculum, without

fear of reprisal from the government. Lesson plans and daily

curriculum are created by local teachers and administrators.

 

MYTH: The Common Core de-emphasizes classical literature and American

history and will replace literary works about Western Civilization with

informational texts such as executive orders and work manuals, which

will further diminish students’ knowledge of the moral, historical, and

cultural foundations of our country.

FACT: Students will spend more time reading informational texts, but in

science and history classes. The new standards actually

encourage teachers to use historical documents like the

Constitution and Federalist Papers. The majority of texts students

will study in English class will still include novels, short stories,

poems, and plays.

 

MYTH: The Common Core violates the founding principle that parents and

states, not federal government, control local education.

FACT: According to the Alabama State Board of Education’s November 18,

2010, resolution adopting the standards, the SBOE remains the

“sole and exclusive entity vested with authority” regarding

Alabama’s public schools. Public hearings were held throughout

the state before adoption by the State Board of Education.

 

MYTH: Implementation of the Common Core will cost Alabama taxpayers

many millions of dollars to revamp state education systems.

FACT: Alabama adopts new standards every six years. Funding for the

adoption and selection of related materials is included in

Education Trust Fund budget.

 

 

MYTH: Alabama taxpayers had no voice or vote in adoption of the new state

standards. The Legislature needs to protect its citizens against an

overzealous federal government and keep education decisions local by

protecting state education sovereignty.

FACT: State Board of Education members are popularly elected

representatives of the citizens of Alabama. The SBOE held

public hearings regarding the standards’ adoption in 2010.

The resolution adopting the standards maintains the SBOE is

the “sole and exclusive entity vested with authority” regarding

Alabama’s public schools.

 

MYTH: The Alabama College- and Career-Ready Standards and the Common

Core violate the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

(FERPA) by requiring the collection and sharing of non-academic

information on students.

FACT: Alabama’s College- and Career-Ready Standards are academic

standards that say nothing about collection of student or teacher

data or information. Regardless, all student and teacher data is

already protected by FERPA.