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This story is the first of a six-part series looking at how schools are preparing for the Common Core State Standards in Florida. It was produced in partnership with StateImpact Florida, a reporting project of NPR member stations.
Florida is one of the 45 states that’s adopted the education standards known as Common Core. The idea is that, for the first time, students will have the same rigorous, educational goals regardless of where in the country they attend school.
Governor Rick Scott has become increasingly vocal against the standards and accompanying tests which he says open the door for too much federal involvement in schools. Many rural Florida districts are forging ahead anyway. The Hechinger Report’s Jackie Mader visited one panhandle district where teachers are welcoming the transition. You can hear her report below.
In Defuniak Springs in Florida’s panhandle, the third graders at West Defuniak Elementary are learning division. Specifically, 72 divided by six. Their teacher, Casi Adkinson draws circles onto the board.
“I share my 72 into my six circles,”said Adkinson. ” Are we ready to do that together? Ready? 1,2,3,4,5…”
With the class counting along, Adkinson draws 72 marks, grouped into six separate circles.
“Ok, I shared my 72,” she said. “What do I do next? Alaya?”
“Oh! You count how many there are in the six circles,” the student responds.
By the time the lesson is over, the class finished only four problems.
“I know to some people, they might think ‘that’s not many problems, I’d want to cover 20.’ It doesn’t matter if you cover 20 problems if they don’t understand why they’re doing it,” Adkinson said.
The idea of ‘less is more’ has permeated West Defuniak Elementary since 2011. That’s when the school began to phase in the new Common Core standards with its youngest students. The standards lay out what students are expected to learn from kindergarten through twelfth grade. That’s led to big changes in this rural district. Students are reading more non-fiction, and must use evidence to back up written responses. In math, students have to learn more than one way to solve the same problem, and they must explain their methods.
“To solve it I drew one big circle and I put the number nine in it and I know we’re dividing by three so I put three groups and then I counted to nine and made them all equal and it equaled three,” says Ava, 8.
Ava’s attempt to divide 9 by 3 has taken over an entire sheet of paper. Ava’s ability to show her work also shows Adkinson that the new standards are helping students understand the material on a deeper level.
“Last year it would have been ‘Are you going to multiply or divide? ‘Multiply?’ Awesome, correct answer,” said Adkinson. “Now I want them to provide evidence. I want them to prove to me why they’re doing what they’re doing.”
Although many teachers are optimistic about the new standards, they are also cautious about rolling out too much too soon. This spring, kids in grades 3 through 12 will be tested on the old standards. That means teachers like Adkinson are teaching a hybrid. She says the district has been careful in planning when each concept will be taught.
“The FCAT is — it’s very important that they are prepared for it,” Adkinson said. “We don’t want to teach them something that’s going to either confuse them…But we also have to prepare for Common Core coming because next year, it’s full implementation. We have just made sure that what we’re teaching is what’s going to prepare them for that assessment.”
The community has mostly welcomed the new standards. But West Defuniak principal Darlene Paul says some parents are worried that test scores and grades will drop as harder standards are introduced.
“The concern is that students are making A’s and B’s in Kindergarten and first grade and somewhere where we hit second grade and the rigor makes a jump, and their children are not making those grades anymore, they might have a B or a C, then that becomes a big concern,” Paul said.
Paul has other worries too. The new Common Core tests will be on computers, which means students will need to be familiar with technology that many of them do not have. West Defuniak serves about 650 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. More than 70 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch.
“Everyone doesn’t have an iPad,” said Paul. “Everyone at home is not able to get on the Internet. Those are some of our barriers and challenges.”
Next year, there could be even more challenges for teachers who are just now becoming familiar with the standards. The state Board of Education recently approved nearly 100 changes for the Common Core.
As soon as individual states start approving changes to a common core, you no longer have a common core. States might make additions to standards, just as individual teachers have always had the practical ability to add to a state curriculum; but just as state standards determine the composition of the questions on external tests, the Common Core will determine the content of consortias’ tests. Perhaps Governor Scott wants Florida to go it alone with respect to its children’s education, and prove it by having separate, incomparable tests; but that’s not a new approach, and there is no evidence that a Florida-alone approach can provide its children with an education that renders its high school graduates able to compete, as a group and across a broad curriculum, with the best that the rest of the world has to offer.
Bruce — Given that five other states, including the second-largest, have also not adopted the standards, Florida would not be “going it alone.” What Florida would be doing is bringing some sanity into what has been a headlong rush into educational la-la land.
My concern is my child struggles already and has a learning disability and we struggle to keep his grades to a passing level as it is and the schools stay on their schedule and basically even if some of the kids dont have the concept down they “must move on” so with all these changes I fear my child will be further put off by school in general with an even harder curriculum and in the end wont graduate