Rockwood Administrator Addresses Common Core Confusion

As the Rockwood School District moves ahead with implementing the national set of educational standards known as “Common Core,” administrators are asserting that they still retain local control of the district’s curriculum.

The district’s Executive Director of Learning and Support Services Karen Kieffer recently told the Rockwood School Board that much of the growing backlash against the standards is misinformed.

“It’s not talking about how teachers are going to teach,” she said. “That’s what we hire our teachers to do, they are the professionals.”

Public outcry over Common Core erupted in the St. Louis area during a recent series of town hall meetings held by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, as well as a forum hosted by an anti-Common Core group in Chesterfield.

While the issue is becoming divided along ideological lines, it started out as a bi-partisan push from the National Governors Association in 2009. The group wanted to see more rigorous, challenging standards for the nation’s schools.

According to the website for the Common Core Standards Initiative, they were developed through a collaboration across states that involved hundreds of teachers, researches and leading experts.

Opponents of the initiative have decried it as a federal takeover of the education system and have begun pushing to find ways to exempt or pull back Missouri from its implementation.

However, Kieffer and Director of Curriculum Matt Fredrickson framed the standards as only outlining, in general, the kinds of knowledge and skills students need to succeed at each grade level, specifically for math and English.

The state board of education adopted Common Core in June 2010. They are now known as the Missouri Learning Standards and must be in place in time for the 2014-15 school year.

“We can go beyond those Missouri Learning Standards,” she said. “You can think of them as the floor of our curriculum and we build from there.”

As an example, Frederickson said a “key measurable objective” for a sixth grade reading standard might include “contrasting what students see and hear when reading a text to what they perceive when they listen or watch.”

“It’s up to our teachers locally to unpack that standard,” he said. “What do we want kids to know, understand and be able to do for this course or that grade level? That is left up to interpretation for us.”

Kieffer added that some things parents may have heard, such as the idea that Common Core will dictate what resources the districts purchases, are simply not true.

Regardless of the strong feelings that are starting to emerge around Common Core, the district has little choice but to move forward with the Missouri Learning Standards. As a state entity, Keiffer said the district must align its curriculum, and importantly its assessments, to the standards.

Kieffer’s remarks were made during a May 16 Rockwood Board of Education meeting discussion about the district’s extensive, four-part curriculum management process. As part of that process, Kieffer said the district will continuously gather feedback from staff and parents through a curriculum advisory council and other measures.