The increasingly less-common Core

One hope of the Common Core was that states would discard the national patchwork of 50 sets of standards measured by 50 different tests, writes Emma Brown in The Washington Post. For the first time, parents and policymakers would directly compare student performance in one state to the rest of the nation, making it harder for lagging states to hide weak performance. The goal seemed easily within reach in 2011, as 45 states and the District of Columbia adopted the standards. The Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help states develop two online tests, PARCC and Smarter Balanced, that would measure student progress on the Common Core; most states signed on to administer them. But as some states head into their first round of testing, the picture has fragmented. Indiana and Oklahoma have dropped the Common Core, and four other states are moving to review and potentially replace them. Even broader resistance has arisen to the common standardized tests, with many states backing out of testing consortia. Still, large swaths of the country will, for the first time, take the same test this year. Advocates also think the number of states administering consortia tests will grow when states see these are cheaper and of better quality than tests they develop independently. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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