Scribner Cautious About Implementing Common Core

• State Rep. Scribner On Common Core

• By Scott Benjamin

State Rep. David Scribner (R-107) of Brookfield said the state should consider “delaying” or repealing” the Common Core standards for its public schools.

He said over the recent months several teachers have expressed concerns about the “additional burden” that has been placed on them and question whether the new tests will be better than the ones that have been used for more than 20 years.

Mr. Scribner said the state House Republican leadership took the rare step of petitioning to hold a public hearing this last March on the standards.

“I think there was a clear unwillingness among the governor [Democrat  Dannel Malloy] and his supporters to have discussion on the Common Core,” he said in a July 11, 2014 phone interview.

“In the almost 16 years that I’ve been in the Legislature we have seldom needed to have a petition to hold a public hearing,” Mr. Scribner said. “What are the supporters of the Common Core afraid to hear?”

The Connecticut Education Association (CEA), the state’s largest bargaining unit for teachers, stated earlier this year that 97 percent of the 1,452 teachers surveyed in the state wanted a moratorium on the implementation of the Common Core standards, according to a report posted at CTMirror.org.

The Connecticut state Board of Education adopted the Common Core standards in 2010 and Mr. Malloy announced in June 2014 that the state would proceed with that program by providing $10 million in school technology upgrades, $2 million in professional development for teachers and another $2 million for training teachers.

CEA Executive Director Mark Waxenberg attended the June 2014 news conference and the organization called Mr. Malloy’s recommendations “a positive first step.”

Mr. Scribner, who represents all of Brookfield and parts of Bethel and Danbury, said teachers and parents have noted that the tests were not developed by teachers, but by the National Governors Association, the Council for Chief State School Officers and Achieve Inc.

CTMirror.org has reported that some parents spoke in opposition to the Common Core at a July 2014 state Board of Education meeting. They complained that the standards were not developed in Connecticut.

CTNewsJunkie.com has reported that the governors of Oklahoma and Indiana have taken repealed the Common Core standards.

Two third-party gubernatorial hopefuls - former West Hartford Town Council member Joe Visconti, a Republican, and former state Rep. Jonathan Pelto, a Democrat from Mansfield - want to abolish the Common Core standards.

Connecticut teachers developed the mandated tests that were implemented a generation ago as part of the landmark Education Enhancement Act that was signed in the mid-1980s by then-Gov. William O’Neill (D-East Hampton).

The Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) was initially administered to fourth, sixth and eighth grade students. The testing was upgraded under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of then-President George W. Bush to include testing in third through eighth grade.

In 1992, 10th graders began taking the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT). In recent years some high schools in the state would recognize the 10th grades that achieved the highest status on all four of the exams in the test by posting their names on a board in the foyer of the school or having them appear at a regular meeting of the local Board of Education.

Some educators have applauded the CMT and CAPT for promoting higher-order thinking skills that prompted schools to improve how their curriculums are taught.

Mr. Scribner - whose wife, Pamela, has been a special education teacher for 30 years - said it might be best to consider keeping the CMT and CAPT, which were considered to be models for other states when Mr. W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind in 2002.

“I think it would be more sensible to at least delay implementation and look at how the Common Core might cause disruption for teachers and how it would be better than the current system,” he said.

CTNewsJunkie.com reported that when given the choice during the 2013-2014 academic year, 70 percent of the schools in Connecticut chose the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) exam, which measures the Common Core standards, instead of the CMT or the CAPT. Eventually, the CMT and CAPT will be fully phased out.

Mr. Malloy has delayed having 45 percent of a teacher’s evaluation tied to their students’ performance on SBAC. A subcommittee will present a report on that proposal by January 1.