THE
CORE
produced a paper with five education policy recommendations for
governors. One was to “upgrade
state standards by adopting a
common core of internationally
benchmarked standards.”
The task force considered that
single recommendation the key
to all the others, and members
formed an advisory board that
drew on expertise from organizations including the College Board
and the testing company ACT to
make it happen. That group became known as the Common
Core State Standards Initiative.
At meetings held throughout the
country between June and September 2009, Zimba and Coleman
joined teams of writers from various universities, public schools
and education departments to develop the standards. A “validation
committee” composed of experts
was assembled to audit the results.
But who would use them? And
would anyone pay attention?
BUY-IN FROM THE GOVS
As it turned out, most governors
were interested. At that pivotal
2009 Chicago meeting when the
Common Core was presented to
schools chiefs and governors, a
consensus easily emerged.
HUFFINGTON
02.02.14
“There was a lot of discussion
among the chiefs that it was the
right thing to do,” Holliday, the
Kentucky schools chief, said. No
one from the federal government
attended that meeting, he added,
emphasizing that the adoption of
the Core was, at least initially, a
state-led effort. “It was just a concern in the audience among chiefs
that if we didn’t do something to
If implemented effectively... the Core will
dramatically change what it means to be
a student in American public schools.
pull together and raise expectations, the economy would take a
big hit because we wouldn’t be
able to keep the well-paying jobs
here,” he said.
Sonny Perdue, then Georgia’s
Republican governor, was particularly vocal about the need for
common standards. His students
had posted some of the lowest
ACT scores that year. Perdue told
Dane Linn, who worked for the
National Governors Association,
that allowing states to set learning standards at different levels
was inherently unfair. Perdue was
convinced of the need for common
standards, and he wanted to get
other governors on board.