Michigan Education Digest
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Transcript of Michigan Education Digest
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7/30/2019 Michigan Education Digest
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Rigorous Standards &High Expectations
Jim Barrett, GLEP Chairman
There is no question our public
education system is failing too manychildren, since less than 20 percent of
Michigans high school graduates are
considered college or career ready.
To help our students compete and
succeed in the 21st century global
economy, states and education reform
organizations joined together to
establish the Common Core State
Standards.
Far from the federal takeover of public
education described by critics, the
Common Core State Standards were
developed by state leaders and
educators. The National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices
and the Council of Chief State School
Officers have been working together
to create standards for math andlanguage arts that will help teachers
prepare our children for success in
college and work. Forty-five states
have adopted the standards for Math
Race to the Bottom
William C. Skill ing, Superintendent
Oxford Community Schools
Like many other states, Michigan has
let itself tumble into the pitfalls ofgiving up its constitutional right to
govern education. Falling victim to the
power of the purse strings in high
stakes testing, some Michigan officials
have come out in support of the
Common Core standards.
Frankly, I am tired of listening to
politicians trying to apply simple
solutions to complex problems so that
they can say they are champions of
education for re-election purposes.
Anyone can raise standards.
However, raising standards does not
lead to improved student performance
or improved education, nor does it
lead to innovation.
No one seems to be asking the rightquestions. Why is it that America is
still leading the world in innovation
exports, more than 70 percent per
year? Why is it that Americans receive
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and Reading.
The Common Core State Standards
are not a federally mandated
curriculum, but a rigorous, streamlined
and more relevant framework to
prepare students for real world
application beyond high school.
These internationally benchmarked
standards will challenge students to
read, write and solve math problems
at greater capacity, raising the bar for
all students and resulting in a more
valuable education.
Our students are competing with
others from around the world for the
high-wage jobs of the future, and
these jobs require a higher level of
knowledge especially in math,
science, engineering and technology.
It is imperative our education system
develop high, rigorous and consistent
academic standards for every grade,
every school and every state. The
Common Core State Standards draw
on the best state academic standards
in America and were drafted by
experts from across the country a
combination of experts a single state
would be unlikely to assemble.
While the Common Core State
Standards clearly definewhat
ourchildren need to know, they do not tell
our teachers how to teach. States,
communities and schools maintain
flexibility to determine how to help
more than 50 percent of the
international patents awarded each
year? It is because the United States
leads the world in creating and
inventing. Unfortunately, however,
with nationally standardized high
stakes tests, we will be moving in the
wrong direction and therefore dumbing
down our education system.
The Common Core narrowly defines
education while totally disregarding
the diversity of talents and interests of
our students. The Common Core will
stifle creativity, ingenuity and risktaking. It will lead to elimination of fine
arts and other programs that are
important to the holistic development
of students.
The window of opportunity to turn this
country around is closing fast, and the
last nail in the coffin is public
education. I believe we are not only
facing a financial cliff, but also an
educational cliff. No longer can we
operate as independent, locally-
controlled educational institutions. We
are now squarely under the control of
big government and its political whims.
Never in the history of the world has
any national government been able to
run a successful business oreducation system that compares to
the success of Americas ingenuity
and the American school system
under local control. We should not use
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students meet and exceed these
new expectations. In fact, the
Michigan Merit Curriculum exceeds
the high school requirements of the
common core and should be
maintained. The results in Michigan
since adopting the Michigan Merit
Curriculum have been increased
performance and a reduction in
dropouts.
Rigorous standards wont improve
education quality without careful
implementation which includes an
aligned curriculum, solid instruction,meaningful assessments and
excellent teachers and leaders. There
should be more widespread use of
technology for teaching and learning,
and the next generation of student
assessments, called computer
adaptive testing, is to be encouraged.
The right testing and assessment tools
will not only provide real-time
information that can inform classroom
instruction these tests measure
both proficiency and individual student
growth. This information not only
leads to better outcomes for students,
it is a much fairer method of
evaluating teachers.
At the same time, adopting theCommon Core State Standards and
implementing next-generation
assessment tools will help us move
toward a simpler, uniform system to
standardizedtest scores as a metric.
We should use results of what
students accomplish in the workforce
instead. The American people have
created more wealth, created more
individual freedoms, solved more age-
old problems, and created more
innovation than any other country in
the history of the world.
Under the current administration, there
appears to be a clear goal of
marginalizing American greatness. In
its destruction of free enterprise by a
takeover of American businessesthrough over-regulation, and in
increasing the power of federal
government, the current administration
has forsaken local control and
individual liberties. I believe adopting
the Common Core standards is yet
another way to ensure American
greatness is lost forever, and
individual liberties will no longer be
part of our education system, under
the premise of raising standards.
In an education system controlled by
our national government, students will
begin to believe they can only be
successful through government
control. For those of us who actually
grew up and lived under a free
society, where ingenuity was fosteredand encouraged, where people were
rewarded for risk-taking, and people
valued freedom, we understand that
more control concentrated in a bigger
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provide A-F grades for individual
schools based on student academic
performance. Such a letter grading
system will increase transparency and
accountability for all public schools,
further empowering parents to make
informed choices.
The Great Lakes Education Project
strongly supports efforts to improve
academic achievement, increase
accountability and empower parental
choice in our public schools.
Implementing the Common Core State
Standards is an important step in thisprocess, and we urge the Governor,
legislators and state policy makers to
stay the course.
Jim Barrett, GLEP Chairman, is the
former President of the Michigan
Chamber of Commerce and recipient
of the Mackinac Centers prestigious
Jefferson Award in 2008.
government is not the solution.
Our Founding Fathers adopted the Bill
of Rights to protect us from
government control and the
Constitution to ensure the separation
of powers. Where local school boards,
parents and community members
once had control of their schools, we
now find ourselves reminding our
children what it was once like in the
United States where men were free.
My recommendation to state leaders
is to stop acquiescing to the power ofthe purse strings and start taking a
stand for our constitutional rights to
govern education locally. Restore
authority to local school boards and
give them the right to innovative,
create, design, and implement
educational programs that will prepare
our students to compete globally.
If Common Core standards become
the norm, our students will become
functionally unable to compete. If we
continue to cede control of our
educational system to the federal
government, we will be in a Race to
the Bottom, instead of fostering
innovation, free enterprise and
creativity.
Dr. William Skilling is the
superintendent of Oxford Community
Schools. He can be reached at:
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the draft to Audrey Spalding, at mailto:[email protected]?
subject=MED%20Column, with the subject line titled MED
Column.
MED in the Classroom is a publication of the Mackinac Center.
Copyright 2013 Mackinac Center, All rights reserved.
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