The Common Core State Standards: Mississippi’s Adoption and Implementation
Executive Summary
Introduction
On August 20, 2010, the Mississippi Board of Education adopted the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics to be taught in Mississippi’s public schools. The Common Core State Standards are a generally agreed-upon set of core competencies that reflect the needed preparation for entering two- and four-year colleges. The standards clearly specify what students should be able to understand and be able to do at a particular grade level, but not the means and materials with which the students will interact for the purpose of achieving that educational outcome.
Legislators and their constituents have questioned the board’s adoption of the standards and potential costs associated with their implementation. Legislators requested PEER to review the state’s adoption of the standards and their potential impact on Mississippi students, parents, teachers, and school districts.
Description and Development of the Common Core State Standards
The leaders behind the Common Core State Standards initiative were the National Governors Association (NGA), through its Center for Best Practices, and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), in partnership with Achieve, Inc.; ACT; and the College Board. The sponsoring organizations convened groups of experts to develop the standards for English language arts and mathematics. As with any process involving individuals with differing opinions and solutions for solving a problem, the end result was standards developed from the consensus of those involved.
The English language arts standards are divided into reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language strands for conceptual clarity. The English language arts standards also include a literacy component that is a shared responsibility within the school and include expectations for reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language applicable to history/social studies, science, and technical subjects.
The mathematics standards stress conceptual understanding of key ideas while continually returning to organizing principles to structure those ideas. Proponents believe that the result is a substantially focused and coherent approach to learning mathematics as a problem-solving process.
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were “internationally benchmarked” in the sense that through a process of consulting selected state and international models to find common elements that mark the educational standards of world leading systems, the development team arrived at a competitive definition of the competency base needed to become college- and career-ready on an international scale.
Mississippi’s Adoption of the Common Core State Standards
Members of the Mississippi Board of Education unanimously adopted the Common Core State Standards based on the recognition that Mississippi, in spite of reform efforts, has continued its history of poor performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the American College Test and still has unacceptably high levels of enrollment in remedial postsecondary courses. Common Core State Standards represent a bold step in remediating tolerated deficiency in preparing students for college- and career-readiness.
Although federal Race to the Top grant competition guidelines did not specifically require states to adopt the CCSS, evidence suggests that the Mississippi Department of Education believed that adoption of such standards would strengthen the state’s application for grant funds. While not a mandate, the Race to the Top guidelines contained a clear incentive for states to consider participating in the raising of K-12 standards in the nation as a whole. Although the department stated in its grant application submission its intent to adopt the CCSS, the U.S. Department of Education did not award Mississippi a Race to the Top grant.
Regarding public comment and input, the Board of Education met all requirements of the Mississippi Administrative Procedures Act (MISS. CODE ANN. Section 25-43-1.101 [1972]) for public comment prior to adoption of the CCSS. Also, the department’s staff conducted regional meetings in August 2013 to inform and seek comments from the general public regarding the standards.
Mississippi’s Implementation of the Common Core State Standards
Responsibilities for Implementation
Regarding state and local school district responsibilities for implementing the Common Core State Standards, the Board of Education is responsible for adopting standards based on recommendations of the Department of Education’s staff. The department is responsible for supporting local districts’ implementation efforts and local school district boards are responsible for adopting an instructional management system and selecting or developing curricula for classroom teachers.
State law and Board of Education policy require local school districts to implement an instructional management system that has been adopted by the school board and that includes, at a minimum, the competencies and objectives required in frameworks approved by the Board of Education. The frameworks guide school districts in developing curriculum locally, with districts determining curriculum resources to be used by classroom teachers.
Training and Professional Development for Teachers
To address the skills development needs of current and future classroom teachers for implementing CCSS, Mississippi received a $40,000 grant from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) to provide professional development to higher education faculty related to postsecondary courses and teacher preparation on the standards. Also, the Mississippi Legislature included $400,000 in the department’s FY 2013 appropriation for CCSS professional development.
Since adoption of the standards, the Department of Education has conducted 147 in-person training seminars for teachers and administrators. However, the department does not assess participants’ competencies following the completion of a webinar or in-person training seminar. Classroom teachers and administrators may not have a complete understanding of the standards or teaching strategies necessary to deliver classroom instruction necessary for students to succeed on the assessments.
Student Assessments and Related Costs
To assess students’ understanding of learning concepts required by the CCSS, local school districts will administer mid-year and end-of-year online assessments developed by PARCC. The cost for administering and grading the assessments in English language arts and mathematics is projected to be approximately $2.5 million more in 2015 than costs under the state’s current statewide assessment program. One factor affecting the increase in assessment costs is an increase in the number of assessments to be administered versus those presently used by the state and local school districts.
Districts’ Technological Readiness
The Department of Education collected information from the state’s school districts regarding the districts’ technological capabilities in comparison to what would be needed to administer the new online assessments. According to the department’s analysis of this information, Mississippi’s school districts will be more limited by the number of devices (e. g., computers) they have to administer assessments than by information technology infrastructure (e. g., WiFi capability). Also, according to the department’s staff, districts that do not have adequate technological capabilities can rely on paper tests for the assessments during the 2014-2015 school year.
Other States’ Adoption and Implementation of the Common Core State Standards
Only four states (Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia) have not officially adopted the Common Core State Standards. No state that has adopted the standards has reversed its adoption, although four states have enacted laws requiring formal reviews of the standards.