Common core standards.

              INTERIM STUDY REPORT
Common Education Committee
Rep. Ann Coody, Chairman
Oklahoma House of Representatives
Interim Study 11-048, Rep. Sally Kern
October 6, 2011
Common Core Standards
Jenni White, president
Restore Oklahoma Public Education
jlwplusdmw@gmail.com
• State law requires the State Board of Education to adopt the national Common Core State
Standards in their entirety. The law allows the state to include additional standards as
long as they do not exceed more than 15 percent of the Common Core State Standards.
Oklahoma passed this law before the standards had been made available for full review.
• Organizations urged national leaders to develop incentives to push states to adopt
common standards.
• Reviewed possible conflicts of interest for organizations and testing companies involved
in the Common Core State Standards process.
• Oklahoma can expect to pay a similar cost to California’s estimated $1.6 billion to
convert to the Common Core State Standards.
• Texas leaders will not sign the Common Core State Standards partly because costs to
implement are estimated at nearly $3 billion.
• Education leaders have said that the standards are not an improvement over existing state
standards and are instead in the middle of the pack of current curricula.
• The standards are not internationally benchmarked and students are required to read
considerably less fiction.
• Math standards are written to reflect low standards.
• Education experts have questioned the science standards as well and said that they teach
students science appreciation rather than science. Computer science is largely excluded.
• Assessments will need to be finished so quickly that they will not have time to be piloted.
Oklahoma has had considerable problems with testing and has had five testing companies
in the last decade.
• Five states are repealing their adoption of the standards.
See presentation a and b
Lindsey Burke, senior policy analyst
The Heritage Foundation
Lindsey.burke@heritage.org
• American education is in a state of crisis with scores down and graduation rates
unchanged since the 1970s. The United States’ achievement barely keeps up with that of
developing countries.
• States are being coerced into standardization of standards and nationalizing standards will
likely lead to the standardization of mediocrity.
• The Federal No Child Left Behind Act stared the requirement for state testing and
required that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.