In California, some districts face minimal opposition to Common Core

Students build a mechanical windmill at Carr Intermediate School in Santa Ana

In contrast to other parts of the country where the Common Core standards have run into fierce opposition, several big California school districts and communities served by a leading lease-schoolhouse organization have experienced considerable support and picayune overt opposition to the new standards in math and English language arts.

That's according to interviews conducted by EdSource Today equally function of its coverage of the Common Cadre standards in six school districts – Santa Ana and Garden Grove in Orange Canton, Fresno and Visalia in the Primal Valley, and San Jose and Elk Grove in Northern California – and the Aspire Public Schools charter direction organization.

The superintendents of the half dozen districts uniformly reported that opposition has been relatively minor. "We've had somebody speak at our board meeting (against the Common Core) maybe in one case, maybe twice," said Michael Hanson, superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District.

Gabriela Mafi, superintendent of the Garden Grove Unified Schoolhouse District in Orangish County, described organized protesters in her surface area equally "a few individuals – peradventure a core of 2 or 3 people." The district's elected school board is fully supportive, as are most parents, many of whom are immigrants, Mafi said. "They work very collaboratively with us, and are very trusting of what we do, and very proud of the work we do."

"Everyone'south bought in," said Elise Darwish, the primary bookish officer for the Aspire network, which runs 35 charter schools in 11 California cities. Aspire's teachers seemed particularly supportive, Darwish said."I'chiliad not hearing opposition to the standards," she said. "If anything, I'm hearing, 'I want to go better at them.' 'Assist me get better at them.'"

The superintendents offered varying explanations for the contrast with the stronger resistance to the Common Cadre in some other states. Such pressure has already led three states – Indiana, S Carolina and Oklahoma – to back out of the national coalition supporting the standards.

Some credited the back up in part to their own districts' efforts to brainwash their communities and caput off potential controversy before it had the chance to abound. Christopher Hoffman, superintendent for the Elk Grove Unified School Commune near Sacramento, said his district'south success in building support for the new standards among teachers, who have then been able to spread the word to parents, has made a difference.

"In the end parents trust the teachers who are responsible for their child," he said. "The communication we've provided to our teachers and their buy-in of the quality of the work that nosotros're going to be doing has really alleviated much of the concern."

Fresno'due south Hanson said another reason for the lack of opposition is thatthe transition hasn't been equally dramatic as it may have been elsewhere. California already had rigorous content standards, which the Common Core augmented, he said."It is dramatic in the instructional shifts that are called for, just it is not nearly the jump (for California) that it is for other states," he said.

Public opinion polls show that the standards are relatively popular in California, where both the state Legislature and teachers unions have been largely supportive. A survey published in April 2022  by the Public Policy Establish of California plant that 72 percent of public-school parents said they favored the new standards. The poll, however, also found  large racial and ethnic differences amongst parents in their levels of support. L-vii pct of whites were in favor of the standards, compared to 71 percent of blacks, 77 percent of Latinos and 88 percent of Asians.

Other factors have helped California brim much of the national controversy over the Common Core, as described in an earlier EdSource analysis. These include strong support from Gov. Jerry Dark-brown and the Legislature, which has resulted in the state allocating pregnant resources to support Mutual Core implementation. In 2013, the Legislature approved $1.25 billion specifically for districts to implement the standards. A proposal in the governor'south budget for 2015-16 would add most an equal amount next year.

In Santa Ana, Norma Ortiz, executive managing director of the Santa Ana Educators' Association, the local teachers union, said that what she characterized equally her district's thoughtful implementation of the new standards has helped win its employees' broad support. Starting time more than three years agone, the district invested heavily in instructor grooming and in-classroom coaches, providing what Ortiz chosen a "head start to make things easier on educators who already have much on their plates" in advance of this twelvemonth's total battery of Common Cadre-aligned tests.

David B. Cohen, a Palo Alto English teacher and educational activity blogger who has been traveling throughout the land interviewing teachers for a book most instruction, said "there'due south less outright defiance and protest" in California than elsewhere.

That'due south not to say that in that location is no opposition to the Common Core in California. Over the past several weeks, signs of dissent throughout the state have included scattered and by and large pocket-size protests at school lath meetings, a few critical Facebook pages and websites, and efforts to organize parents to "opt out," on their children'southward behalf, of this spring's standardized tests.

Last year, running on a strong anti-Mutual Core platform, onetime schoolteacher Lydia Gutiérrez came in third in the race for state superintendent of public pedagogy. Gutiérrez, a Republican who had nigh no proper name recognition and most no campaign funds, afterward ran for a seat on the Los Angeles Unified Board of Teaching, forcing lath president Richard Vladovic into a runoff election on May xix.

Besides last twelvemonth, Central Valley Tea Party coordinator Connie Brooks, another vocal Common Core critic, won a seat on the board of the Kings Canyon Unified School Commune.

On the bourgeois side of California'south Common Core opponents are organizations such as the state'due south chapter of the Eagle Forum, a "pro-family" grouping founded past Phyllis Schlafly, and Californians United Confronting the Common Core, which includes Tea Party and Eagle Forum chapters throughout the state.

California critics also include some parents and teachers on both ends of the political spectrum. A Facebook page called "Stop Common Core in California" had 6,561 "likes" this month, with the majority of the comments voicing opposition to the Common Core-aligned Smarter Counterbalanced tests, rather than to the standards themselves.

Kristin Phatak, a Chula Vista registered Democrat and mother of three children in elementary and middle school, said she transferred her previously high-achieving 8th-grader to individual school subsequently he began to neglect at math, which she ascribed to the new standards. She has organized two "opt-out" parties at her home to encourage other parents to cold-shoulder the standardized tests. Fifty parents and teachers attended a political party in February at which Phatak handed out sample waiver letters parents could requite to their schools to request that their children be spared the assessments. California police says schools must honor such written requests.

None of the superintendents in the vi districts interviewed by EdSource Today said they had witnessed similar levels of opposition in their communities.

Visalia Unified School District Superintendent Chris Wheaton described one school board coming together, where "an organized group tried to almost disrupt the advisory coming together by making speeches nearly Obama and the United nations and Bill Gates and all kinds of conspiracy theory statements." But he said that was an isolated incident and that Visalia's critics "haven't gained enough traction to actually interfere" with the commune's implementation of the Mutual Core.

When students start taking the new Smarter Balanced assessments in large numbers betwixt at present and June, and their scores are published, information technology is possible that parents and teachers will have more than concerns about the Common Cadre, potentially generating more opposition to the standards in communities around the state.

Disharmonize may also arise – as it has in several other states – if a district tries to link teacher evaluations to student test scores. Both Fresno and Santa Ana – 2 of the districts being followed by EdSource Today – take received waivers from the Obama administration from some of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Law in render for their agreement, amongst other conditions, to evaluate teachers by this measure.

Ortiz, the Santa Ana labor leader, said her commune hadn't yet moved to link teacher evaluations to student scores, just under the terms of the union's contract such a change would have to be negotiated. Should the district take such activity unilaterally, she said, "it could take a chance labor unrest."

Every bit the districts begin to administer the Smarter Balanced assessments, some are ramping up their communication efforts with their staffs and communities to alleviate concerns. Jason Willis, a San Jose Unified assistant superintendent, said San Jose has issued information about the new standards for schools to use on their websites and in newsletters to parents.  The district likewise recently held a public coming together to field parents' questions, with another scheduled for April.

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Source: https://edsource.org/2015/in-california-opposition-to-common-core-relatively-minimal/77180