Earlier this month, Mississippi’s Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves spoke out for the first time against the Common Core state standards, which Mississippi adopted in 2010 along with 44 other states and Washington, D.C. Reeves said that the state should create its own “task force” to create new, better standards. Gov. Phil Bryant responded with a statement in agreement with Reeves, once again voicing his disapproval with the standards and calling them “one-size-fits-all bureaucratic standards controlled by Washington.”
Their comments sparked a flurry of reactions from the business community, politicians, and educators, including state superintendent of education Carey Wright, who published a joint statement with state board of education chairman John Kelly. Both said they have “grave reservations” about adopting new standards mid-year and that doing so would be neither cost-effective nor beneficial for the students and teachers in the state.
The Hechinger Report recently spoke with Shannon Eubanks, principal of Enterprise Attendance Center in Brookhaven, a k-12 school, to find out how teachers and schools may be affected by a sudden retreat from the standards.
Q: As an educator, do you think Mississippi needs to drop Common Core ?
A: In Mississippi, we keep jumping from one hoop to the next. I have no problem with Common Core per se, it’s just standards. I’ve always been of the approach that anytime there are new standards for the state you have to make them fit for your classroom, that’s what I’ve always encouraged my teachers to do.
Q: Have there been any problems with Common Core in your school?
A: We didn’t gradually implement them over the course of several years. What we did was use a blunt approach where one year it’s elementary, the next year it’s everybody. So we’ve got kids that are in say, seventh or eighth grade that have never seen this material before and they’re lost. And it’s not because of the standards, it’s because we as a state, federal government, whoever, we forced it to start at one time instead of a gradual process of implementation. Most of the educators in Mississippi and most of the teachers I’ve talked to (say) it’s not the standards that are the problem, it’s that it’s being pushed so fast on them that they can’t catch their breath.
Related: Huge confusion in Mississippi over Common Core
Q: After the lieutenant governor and governor both spoke out against the standards last week, some say their comments were purely political. What do you think?
“I’m not a big proponent of changing horses in the middle of the stream, and that’s what we’re doing.” Shannon Eubanks, principal of Enterprise Attendance Center.
A: Four years ago the governor, the lieutenant governor and all the legislature were all for it. What happened is because we have an election year next year, there is a concern that there is going to be a push from the right that is going to cause them to lose office … Nothing in Common Core has changed over the last six months when the governor and lieutenant governor supported it. The only thing that changed was our U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran almost got beat by a Tea Party challenger and that has scared them. They are terrified and they’re running hard right on education.
Q: If the state does abandon the standards to create their own, how will this affect schools directly?
A: I’m not a big proponent of changing horses in the middle of the stream, and that’s what we’re doing. We’ve been under Common Core for basically two years…This is the first year that it’s fully Common Core because the tests are supposed to align to the standards. If we were to change, it’s (going to be) chaos. What are the teachers supposed to teach? The old Mississippi curriculum standards, or are they supposed to stick with the Common Core standards until they get something else?
Related: Cramming for Common Core: one Mississippi school district has to make big changes in limited time
Q: What do you think your school district will do if that happens?
A: If [the Legislature] pass[es] a bill in January that says we are no longer going to teach the Common Core, well okay, fine. But what are we going to teach the rest of the year? Are you going to give us two, three months to develop a standard and curriculum? Most districts cannot form their own. That’s why it’s done at the state level. We don’t have the time or resources on the fly to develop a new curriculum and new standards. I feel they are creating havoc for the purpose of political expediency. Our district is going to be sticking with Common Core until the state gives us something to replace it, if they go that route.
Q: How would this affect your students?
A: You’re going to have kids that are left behind. There are already kids that have gaps because they are going from one set of standards to the other. The best way to implement it is over time. What’s going to happen is with all the changes, you’re going to leave some students lost and confused and frustrated.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about Mississippi.
To learn why Common Core is not good for our students or our country from a pedagogical view watch this one hour teacher created video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4xD7nzLD8&feature=youtu.be
This is probably the best and most thoroughly researched anti-Common Core presentation to date.
“Common Core is destroying the quality of education in MA.”
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/common-core-done-massachusetts/
Statement of support of Common Core by the presidents of 15 organizations that make up the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. These organizations represent thousands of teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics education programs across the country.
http://www.mathedleadership.org/docs/ccss/Support_Statement_for_CCSSMath_CBMS_7-2013.pdf
How Kentucky became a rare Common Core success story:
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/28/7082599/kentucky-common-core-college-career-ready-act
Parents should withdraw their children from the state schools and enrol them in private schools, if they can at all possibly afford to do so, until the National Governors Association withdraws them in order to revise them, which, in mathematics, will mean almost starting all over again (the English standards are more satisfactory). The state schools, however, should continue to use the current, internationally inferior Common Core standards until they have something new (not old) and better to work with — even if that means losing many students during the transitional mean time.
You call it confusion, I call it academic freedom. To influence educators with academic freedom you actually have to lead and conduct yourself as a leader of leaders. Being a leader of leaders is harder than issuing bureaucratic edicts from the top.
So let me get this straight, this man believes that cutting off the school work that is making children uneducated and feeling low self esteem because they can’t do it is what he considers “lowering our standards”. Well then ask him to walk up to one of his 1st grades and ask them what a square decompresses into.
Mr. Eubanks has made such strong name for himself that no one knows who he is when he speaks this baloney. And WHO has ever heard about how well his school is doing of ANY note before this announcement?
It CAN’T be a very successful school by way of his leadership, because no one knows anything about the school’s reputation or Eubanks. Running around declaring chaos is coming, (think Chicken Little running around like a hen with her head cut off screaming the sky is falling) you should have some real recognition as a successful leader in education. By repeating a F AILED No Child Left Behind meme, doesn’t make for a convincing argument. And where is your renoun, Mr. Eubanks?