Questions concerning Common Core

Today I want to clear the air on some misconceptions that I have been confronted with concerning the Penn Trafford School District and the Common Core.  Before I begin, I want to state that one can have an opinion on the Common Core based on facts.  I have blogged twice about the Common Core.  The first time I discussed some of the problems surrounding the Common Core; the second time I discussed the impact of the Common Core on our school district.  My purpose in this blog is to dispel some blatant falsehoods concerning the Common Core and our school district.

1. People have approached me and said that the Common Core requires Penn Trafford to teach sex education in kindergarten.  For those of us with kids in school we know that is false.  Penn Trafford has aligned our curriculum to the Common Core and I can assure you that there is no sex education in kindergarten.  As a matter of fact, the earliest that our curriculum really addresses those issues is in eighth grade when the curriculum approaches the subject of Aids.  But even at that juncture, a parent can have their student opt out of the discussion of Aids even though the discussion revolves around the spread and aftermath of the Aids virus.  It is simply malignant lies to lead anyone to believe that our school district will be teaching sex education in Kindergarten.

2. There is a misconception that the Common Core will require the school district to replace the teaching of classic literature with "presidential orders".  I am not sure exactly what this means, but I can tell you the facts about what happens in the school.  The school district approves the  novels that are  taught in the school district.  These novels have not changed much over the past 40 years.  The teachers determine what novels to teach that will best teach our curriculum.  The classics are still a large part of that.  I am not aware of any presidential orders being substituted for classic literature.  The books the students read are still very much a local, school board decision.

3. I have been approached and told that because funding to the schools is tied to the Common Core that the administrators will not speak against the Common Core.  First, there is no funding at Penn Trafford that is tied in to the Common Core.  I have never been told by anyone that I must agree to the Common Core to continue State funding.  To think otherwise is ludicrous.  I am offended that someone would think that I would jeopardize my integrity by choosing money from the State over kids.

There are many legitimate complaints one can have against the Common Core.  I have my opinions as well.  However, all of us must be educated on the facts and what is actually happening in the school district and the State.  Check out PDE and actually read the Common Core standards, that is a good place to start. Until then, I encourage everyone not to resort to lies and fearmongering.  The Common Core can either be stricken down or stand on their own without exaggeration, lies and misinformation.

Preliminary Budget Passes

On Monday, the Board passed a preliminary budget for the 2013-2014 school year.  Pennsylvania requires that school districts vote on the budget twice and that there be at least a 30 day time period between votes.  This is the reason that the first vote is considered a preliminary vote. 

The budget for the 2013-2014 totals $49,305,888.00.  This is an increase of $632,572 (1.3%) over the current budget.  The district saved over $800,000.00 by not replacing 7 retiring teachers and one central office administrator.  Since the 2007-2008 school year, the school district has trimmed teaching staff by 33 positions.  The loss of teaching staff parallels the school district's declining enrollment.  I know there is a lot of discussion in the media concerning the teacher pension issue.  Fortunately for the school district, the Board started planning for this event years ago by putting money aside for the sharp increases in contributions that the district will realize in the upcoming years.  There is now more than $2,000,000.00 in the pension fund.  With that being said, the school district has not started to use the fund yet.   As a matter of fact, our budget projections indicate that with retirement projections and the natural increase in State funding the district will be able to withstand the pension increases (hopefully) without ever using the pension fund; kudos to the Board and Administration when they started to plan for this eventuality a few years ago.  The budget that was passed on Monday does not include a property tax increase.  The Board will discuss whether they feel it is beneficial to start adding millage to the renovation project.  Currently, the Board has 10 mils available for building renovation and they will discuss the merits (or demerits) of slowly adding millage to that figure over the next few years starting at the meeting on Monday, May 13^th.  

The budget can be viewed from our web site or people can come to the administrative offices and view a hard copy.  In addition, the budget presentation that was presented to the Board can be found here.

The Common Core and Penn-Trafford

I have been asked by a few people to explain what the Common Core standards are and what impact they have on Penn-Trafford.  The answer will fall under the title “a long answer to a short question”.  I will not offer my opinion about the Common Core or the standards system in general, but will only provide the facts.  It is important to realize that academic standards have been around for a while and that they are embedded into the structure of Pennsylvania schools.

The Standards and the PSSA Exam

The first thing to remember is that Pennsylvania has had official academic standards for more than 15 years.  These standards serve as the foundation for the PSSA Exams.  In other words, our students are tested on how well they have been taught the Pennsylvania Academic Standards. The link to the PA standards is: http://www.pdesas.org/Standard/VerticalStandard, and http://www.pdesas.org/Standard/Views.   Even more importantly, the rankings for school districts across the State are based on how well students perform on the PSSA tests.  Since the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2002 (known by its moniker “No Child Left Behind” or NCLB) schools and school districts are categorized and punished (some would say shamed) according to how well (or poorly) their students perform on the PSSA Exams (students in grades 3-8 and grade 11 are tested).  NCLB created 4 categories that students (and schools and school districts) would be categorized based on the results of the PSSA Exam.  These categories are “advanced”, “proficient”, “basic” and “below basic”.  NCLB set a goal that 100% of students in America would be considered either “advanced” or “proficient” in Reading and Math by 2014.  To encourage schools to meet that goal, targets for performance were created that increased every year; if a school met these targets then you realized something  called “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) (http://paayp.emetric.net/Home/About). For example, in 2013 the target that schools must meet to reach AYP is 89% advanced or proficient in Math and 91% advanced or proficient in Reading.  NCLB also required that different “subgroups” of students meet the same targets of proficiency; so different minorities, the lower economic status students and special needs student’s scores aggregated together must also meet these requirements.  If a subgroup does not meet the requirements then the school (or district) is labeled as not meeting AYP.  There are 40 different subgroups.  To have a subgroup a school must have at least 40 students categorized into the subgroup.  I have veered off into “PSSA land” because it is important to note that Pennsylvania has had academic standards for a long time and that those standards are the basis for the PSSA Exams.

The Origins of The Common Core

As the 2000’s unfolded politicians and some education policy makers became frustrated that different States had different levels of rigor in their standards.  Thus, it was difficult to compare children across different States as they took their State’s exams.  Pennsylvania has one of the more rigorous standard systems as compared to other States in the Union.  Therefore, a Pennsylvania student may be classified as “proficient” but know more than a student classified as “advanced” in another State.  The solution that was developed for this problem (for good or ill) is something called “The Common Core”.  The Common Core standards are standards developed nationally (not by the Federal Government, by the way) and States are encouraged to adopt them as their own.  This would (theoretically) “even out” the different levels of rigor between States. Currently only 5 States in the Union have not adopted the Common Core Standards.  Pennsylvania adopted the standards in July of 2010 and schools have been forced to realign their curriculum to meet the slightly different requirements of The Common Core versus the old Pennsylvania Standards. Information about the Common Core can be found at: http://www.corestandards.org/. Information about the Pennsylvania Common Core can be found at:  http://www.pdesas.org/Standard/CommonCore. The Common Core currently has standards for Math and English/Language Arts. 

The Keystone Exams

Pennsylvania has also started to replace the 11^th grade PSSA test with something called “end of course” exams.  These exams are called “Keystone Exams”.  Currently, the class of 2017 must pass a Keystone Exam in Algebra I, Literature, and Biology.  Eventually, English Composition and Civics and Government will be added to the list of mandatory tests. The Keystone Exams are based on the Pennsylvania Common Core Standards.  Schools, school districts and students are categorized (for AYP purposes) based on student results on the Keystone Exam.  To graduate from high school a student must pass these Keystone Exams or an alternate project approved by the school district and the State.  Penn-Trafford gave the Math and Literature Keystone Exams as required by school code this winter.

Penn-Trafford and The Common Core

In the past, Penn-Trafford aligned our curriculum to the State Standards.  This was done so our children would do well on the PSSA Exams which are based on the State Standards.  By aligning we mean that we make sure the curriculum at minimum covers what will be on the test. When our staff compared The Common Core with what we have currently in our curriculum (which is based on the PA Academic Standards) there were no significant changes or additions.  It is the school district’s responsibility (and obligation) to our students to help make them successful by passing the Keystone Exams to graduate from high school.  Imagine if our school system did not prepare students to meet the requirements of graduation set forth by the State; we would be negligent in our duties. 

I have been asked what the financial impact of The Common Core has been on the school district; the answer is that it has been negligible.  Teachers have been given time to make sure the standards students will be tested on are in our curriculum and some staff have attended conferences to try to keep up to date about graduation requirements put forth by the State regarding Keystone Exams. The district will have two trainings for teachers on May 3rd that are tangentially related to The Common Core.  The titles of the first workshop is "Reading and writing informational texts"which will define what informational texts are and give them ideas for including informational texts in their classroom.  The second workshop is entitled "Lessons in Logic: Constructing strong arguments" which will give teachers ideas to help move students from persuasive writing to constructing more logical arguments in their writing.

I have also been asked about our textbooks and how they are influenced by The Common Core.  First, it is important to note that Penn-Trafford was very smart a few years ago to develop a cycle where money was budgeted every year to purchase textbooks.  Every year different subject areas at different levels (high school, middle school and elementary) sit down and determine what textbook (or other resources) they need to create engaging lessons for our students.  As I will discuss later, our teachers are moving away from a teaching model based on the textbook as the center of instruction and moving to an instructional model of creativity, collaboration and engagement.   With that being said, textbook companies are making sure that their books are aligned with The Common Core.  This means the textbooks “cover” The Common Core Standards.  Here at Penn-Trafford, our teachers have been moving away from the use of textbooks and are using them as only one resource.  As a matter of fact, in the last two textbook purchasing cycles for Middle level English, Social Studies, and Math, teachers have chosen not to purchase textbooks and instead have used the budgeted money to purchase instructional technology that allows students to collaborate and be creative in the classroom.

I hope this long answer can answer some questions that are arising in the community.  The Common Core is just the latest iteration of academic standards that the State has had in place for a while.  No matter how one may feel about the legitimacy of The Common Core Standards, our schools are required by law to follow the guidelines put forth by the State and make sure our students can meet those guidelines and graduate with a diploma.