The History of the Alaska Common Core Standards: Why AK DEED Should Be Defunded

There has been considerable discussion regarding the nature of a set of Standards being used by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (AK DEED) that have come to be known as “The Alaska State Standards” (ASS).  They are being popularized as uniquely Alaskan Standards written by Alaskans.

Yet nothing can be further from the truth, because there wasn’t a standards writing process. There were standards crosswalks, but no standards were actually written by Alaska’s teachers, parents, or business community, only meetings selling the common core to Alaska’s educators. A few standards were "clarified" and the measurements standards from the old GLEs were inserted.  Standards crosswalks are exactly what happened in Georgia, Alabama, other states when they adopted the Common Core according to the Pioneer Institute Study p. 10:





 Alaska was no exception.

Because the Alaska State Standards are the Common Core Standard, anything related to their implementation, particularly the literacy standards in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects should be defunded, pursuant to state finance laws prohibiting the use of state money for the common core initiative. Rather than accelerating the time line on testing and implementation, it should be further delayed in order to develop real Alaska standards. All testing state wide testing for the school year 2014-15 should be suspended until the standards are revised to something that will bring a true academic gain in student achievement as well as be consistent with the intent of the legislature.

In fact, it may be time for significant personnel changes in AK-DEED, particularly at the leadership level. They certainly don't respect the legislature, and they don't seem to care what Alaskans say on education matters. They certainly don't value parents, taxpayers, and voters. That reflects the leadership of AK DEED.

The timeline of the Alaska “standards writing” process discussed below shows that whatever it was that the Alaska State Board Adopted in June 2012 was still being revised by CCSSO and AK-DEED after it was adopted. They were still morphing the standards after the June 2012 adoption. What is also clear is that a vast portion of standards were added at the last minute that teachers, parents, voters, and tax payers in Alaska never wrote, reviewed or envisioned being implemented.  Large sections were added wholesale from the common core, word for word.

This blog entry details the timeline of the standards writing process based on several state documents. Through this timeline, it will become apparent that Alaska began with the Common Core Standards and ended with the Common Core Standards, and there was apparently substantial fiscal irresponsibility at AK DEED on this project.

It is important to note that there was a different legislature  in place during the standards writing process; it  was NOT anything like the legislature that sits today. At that time, the legislature was in the control of the bi-partisan majority, which was really Senate Democrats, and a few extremely liberal Republicans.  The current legislature was not in power during this process. However, they are in power now, and have the capability of through the power of the purse to defund DEED, and they have the ultimate constitutional authority to take control of educational matters from AK DEED. Unlike other states, the legislature, not the Department of Education, is the ultimate authority on Alaskan Education. 

At the outset, it important to address the use of state funds in writing the standards. The AK DEED spent over $300,000 to write standards that are essentially identical to the common core. What did it get for its money? A document that is practically verbatim the same as the Common Core.

What is the chance that a group of Alaskans across the state would sit down and replicate a document born in Washington, D.C. think tank? This could have been achieved for significantly less money. Control C comes to mind, and it doesn't cost $300,000, and in the end, that was what still happened anyway.  This dollar figure and delineation can be found in attachment C.15 of the nearly 1,000 page ESEA Flexibility document submitted by AK DEED to U.S. DOE in the ESEA Flexibility/No Child Left Behind exemption-waiver. The dollar figure is show  below:

It is unclear how DEED even spent $300,000 when examines the data, unless it was for AK-DEED staff to travel the state. For all its effort, it ended up with the Common Core. The "drafting" process was not that at all, but a series of standards cross-walks, which is a very different activity. Standards writing is more like the question, "What do you want to eat?" whereas cross-walks are more like, "Do you want a baloney sandwich or a ham sandwich, let's compare them and see which is best." They may seem the same, but they are not and the result of a cross-walk means other options are never explored. 

The Beginning of this Process

Alaska’s move to the common core began earlier than many people realize.  In a letter dated June 7, 2012, University President Patrick Gamble detailed the history of the Alaska Common Core Standards writing process. In that history, he cites 2010 as the point in time in which the Alaska Department of Education began to coordinate staff with Achieve, Inc.   No one event as cited as the event that precipitated the move. Gamble doesn’t give a precise date when the process began, but it is noteworthy that the process seemed to coincide with a gift by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to AK DEED of $1.6 Million dollars, and earlier contributions in excess of $4.9 million in 2009 to the Alaska Council of School Administrators for “College Ready” programs, and certain gifts to UA for the development of an education center. The role of Gates money cannot be understated and this was the subject of series of emails I wrote earlier in 2014.

The use of Achieve, Inc. in the process is critical. It is how the U.S. DOE gets around Title 20 § 1232a prohibitions on Federal Control of state and local education and gives the appearance of a “state led” reform.

Achieve, Inc.  sent their team with consultants from the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessments (NCIEA), which consisted of Brian Gong and Karen Hess, per Patrick Gamble.  For the record, the NCIEA is in New Hampshire, not Alaska.  The work groups were then assembled to "sell" the common core standards through crosswalks. This resulted in a series of workshops in which teachers were asked to compare the Alaska GLE and the Common Core. The tightly run meetings by NCIEA using Achieve's format ensured that the process would be a cross-walk, not standards writing, and the adoption of the common core.

There was never any serious discussion of any other standards, such as the Massachusetts Standards that placed that state at the top world on virtually all measures of educational attainment. There was never an attempt to tie the standards to any manpower studies of vocational trades by AK DOL.   The only choice was the old Alaska GLEs or a new Alaska Common Core. The history of the web page shows this as well as a reading of the ESEA Flexibility waiver. There was never Alaska parent involvement on any level, or serious involvement by Alaska’s business community, a voter outside the education field, or a tax payer outside the education field.  Even in the ESEA Flexibility document in attachment C.17, AK DEED acknowledges that only one member of the business community was involved in this process, briefly, for one meeting.

The actual attendance at these meetings in 2012 is documented in the ESEA Flexibility document and copied below. What is unclear is how $300,000 was even spent.  The meetings were held by Webinar, on line. According to their own data, only 9 people were involved, and the last meetings involved no one. No one showed up. Yet AK-DEED claims to have spent this vast sum of money to come up with a document that was “uniquely Alaskan.” Where are these Alaskans? There are zero people listed as attending some of these meetings. 

Indeed, where did they spend $300,000? Most likely flying in consultants and in paying them.

Then there were the webinars. As the numbers show below, they were a not well attended.

 

ESEA Flexibility Document page 15

Note the less than enthusiastic attendance at the webinar meetings after February 9th.  Why was this? Only two outcomes were considered, and no other outcome was permitted in the process or entertained, the only choice was the old standards or the Common Core.

The results of these crosswalks were uploaded on to AK DEED’s website. While that particular website is no longer available, several screenshots were taken for the purposes of documenting the activities of AK DEED are archived in a document titled, “History of AK Deed Website.”  The new Alaska State Standards are called Alaska Common Core.  There is never even a pretense they are otherwise until StopAlaskaCommonCore.com was registered and started providing information to Alaskans. 

It should be noted that at the end of the standards “cross-walks” that the math teachers overwhelming rejected the Common Core relative to the GLE.  Again, the History of the AK DEED Website made that clear in the comments. Sadly, the pdf with those comments are no longer available to the average Alaskan.

The Roll Out

While it may not be obvious from AK DEED’s website, there was already a set of standards being used by AK-DOE in their discussions and publicity plan: The Common Core.

The minutes of the December 15, 2011 Alaska Department of Education are very illuminating on the intent of AK-DEED. Adoption of the Common Core was the end state goal, with minor improvements. States are allowed to add 15% to the Core.  In meeting minutes section 4.A1, Erik McCormick, Director of Assessment, Accountability & Information Management, is said to have given a brief presentation on the process and noted that the Common Core Standards were the foundation for the “new improved” standards and it would have been “irresponsible” not to do start there.  There was a discussion of the “roll-out” of the Alaska version of the Common Core standards that would be undertaken.    The meeting minutes state:

Commissioner Hanley said there will be a lot of PR work to come out of the department. Jim Merriner reminded everyone that the Common Core came out of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association and not U.S. DOE. … Teaching to the standards will be able to occur with next year’s freshman class.

It is clear that AK DEED intended to run publicity campaign that the new AK State Standards were not common core, when in fact that is exactly the what they were, and still are, with minor modifications.  How else in 2011 could they know what standards would be approved in June 2012?  There were still no standards published or available for comment. It is also clear that they intended to move forward with the Common Core standards anyway, irrespective of input from those outside the State School Board, unless that input came from CCSSO, Achieve, or the National Governor’s Association (NGA). 

Revising GLEs To Make Them Common Core ASS

In the early part of 2012, Alaska formulated a draft set of standards and attempted to join the Partnership for Assessing Readiness for College andCareer (PARCC).  The basis for rejection by PARCC officials has not been made known, but it seems likely that it had to do with the standards as they existed at that point in time.  Alaska had the Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) and Math in their new ASS, but did not have the literacy components in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technology. Further, the language of the 2011 group clearly was not sufficiently close to the Common Core.

At that time, AK-DEED submitted their “improvement” of the Common Core Standards to CCSSO for Review.  The result was a series of memos delineating specific changes that needed to be made so that the standards conformed to the Common Core.  However, a memo from Carrie Heath Phillips,CCSSO, and dated March 14, 2012 delineated several changes that had to be made. The reply offered content experts to “reach out” if necessary to get the ASS to the Common Core.

While the total volume of correspondences between the CCSSO and AK DEED have not been made available, Patrick Gamble makes it clear in his letter in his June 7, 2012 letter what large scale changes had been made, including the addition of standards that went way beyond ELA  in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. This was never even on the plate for the teachers to consider. The letter from Gamble states:

What? The literacy standards in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects were not even in the original standards that educators wrote?  Isn't this where we now have science, social studies, and technical teachers teaching literacy rather than the subject they were trained to teach? The Alaska State Board of Education just threw those in at the 11th hour to comply with CCSSO to get into SBAC? Or was it for the U.S. DOE ESEA extension?  Irrespective of the reason, it certainly makes it clear that these standards were not "Alaskans" in any sense of the matter. $300,000 later, this was still a last minute "cut and paste" job.

What is clear from Gamble's letter is that the literacy standards in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technology was NOT EVER on the plate in ANY of the standards writing sessions that the teachers can recall. I've asked, and even those who LOVE common core don't remember those sessions. They are no where on the history of the web page.

Clearly, these changes delineated by Gamble to Duncan on June 7th  were not enough, because there continued to be changes to the standards after this point in time. One document titled “CCSO 2nd Memo” dated August 3, 2010 makes it clear that it is a revision of an earlier memo from April 29, 2012.  In June, 2012, the Alaska State Board of Education adopts standards, but it is unclear what the state board adopted. The standards were still being changed after this, as memos between CCSSO and AKDEED demonstrate, there will still revisions going into January 2013.

AK DEED also received a one year waiver from US DOE on June 27, 2012. Part of that extension was based on proving Alaska had adopted the “college and career ready content standards,” or common core standards. In that waiver, Deborah S. Delisle, U.S. DOE Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary, stated that AK DEED had shown:

By September 2012, AK DEED’s most recent modifications were deemed identical to the Common Core Standards that are defined as "College and Career Ready" in the Race To The Top.   The CCSSO evaluation was used as the independent analysis for entry into Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC).  Jim Wilhoft, Executive Director of SBAC stated in an email to Catherine Gewertz of Ed Week in April 23, 2013 that:

"..an independent analysis was required to ensure that their standards were substantially the same" as the common standards adopted by the other states… "That analysis demonstrated that the Alaska standards are similar enough to the [Common Core State Standards] that ...  an assessment aligned to [the common core] could be used as a valid assessment in Alaska."

In January 2013, Scott Norton, Strategic Initiative Director of CCSSO wrote to Mike Hanley, Commissioner of AK DEED, his evaluation of the standards, stating they tracked “nearly identical” with the common core. He wrote:

In March 2013, AK DEED started began their roll out with a series of workshops aimed at preparing a core group of educators and administrators for implementing the Common Core standards. One screen shot shown below reveals that the intent was always the Common Core. The whole notion of an artificial “difference” between the Common Core and the ASS was contrived to deflect opposition.  The name of the workshop was changed only after an inquiry regarding the common core was made to the office of the Governor by this writer.

Note that the meetings are closed and by invitation only, casting a bit of a pall on the statement in the ESEA Flexibility document that these meetings were “Fair” and “Open.” 

Because “Coaching Projects” are not formal governmental meetings or hearings, there is no sunshine requirement or accountability on their proceedings, yet they wield significant influence on education matters. They operate outside the public purview of accountability. It is unclear what sort of activities were undertaken at these meetings, what is clear is that they were re-named after my call to the Office of the Governor.

On the April 19, 2013, after the legislature went out of session, AK DEED announced that it had joined the Smarter Balanced Testing Consortia. I contended at the time, and still do so, that this announcement was timed to limit the legislature’s authority in education matters.

Anonymous teacher blogs, such as Peak5390 began to question legality of AK DEED’s new ASS, and several other educators began blogging and reblogging the issue.  Numerous blogs show the similarity between the Alaska State Standards and the Common Core. One such comparison below is revealing. 

In responding to a request by Rep. Gattis, Chairman of the Education Committee, legislative analyst Susan Haymes details various places where the Alaska Standards departed from the CommonCore. Her conclusion at the end of the report, dated May 31, 2013 states the differences between ASS and Common Core is clarifying language and is really not substantive:

It is also interesting to note that Sandra Stotsky reviewed the Alaska Standards and noted that they were identical to the common core standards. Fordham's expert Ms. Porter McGee  agreed and testified to that effect in January 2014 before the Alaska State Senate.  The only difference is that the introductory material had been changed, but the standards were the same.  People who are both in favor of the common core and who oppose the common core agree on one thing: Alaska has adopted the Common Core Standards.  No where was this more apparent than in the Senate Hearings on Common Core in January 7-8, 2014 when a series of Alphabet soup Think Tanks testified on the Alaska Common Core Standards.  The only person who continues to argue otherwise is Commissioner Hanley and his immediate staff at AK DEED. 

Legislative Authority Ignored

According to the Alaska State Constitution, the legislature, not AK-DEED or local School Boards, have the final authority over education matters in the State of Alaska. While they have relegated that task to AK-DEED, the legislature has the authority to take that power away or to re-direct it and does so from time to time.  The Moore decision, before it was vacated by a settlement, upheld the Legislature's role in that regard.

Due to public outcry, testing costs, and other matters, the State of Alaska withdrew from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC) in 2013. AK DEED accepted a bid by Kansas State for testing services. The contract does feature Questar, a known Common Core vendor who works with both consortia. 

But the contract does not require any particular standards on the part of the State of  Alaska to my knowledge. 

However, Alaska still has the Common Core Standards, and is using a common core vendor, and thus the test will ultimately be a common core test.

Further, the legislature made it clear through their actions that no additional funds may be used to fund and promote the Common Core initiative. This is where matters become problematic.


AK DEED has had the summer to consider revising the standards, reverting to the original standards that emerged in from the teachers in January 2012, or even to adopt new ones that would be more effective.  For example, Sandra Stotsky, the architect of the Massachusetts standards that put their state at the top of the world in educational outcomes offered to work with the state for free to help the state toward that end. Similar offers have been made by James Milgram, who was the author of some of the top standards in math education in the world. Yet, AK-DEED rejected these offers and even scoffed and made some comments that were not regarded as professional by any stretch. Nevertheless, the offers still stand in the name of improving educational outcomes for Alaskans.

Furthermore, there is now no reason for the Alaska Standards to continue to have the literacy requirements in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Those standards were adopted by the State Board of Education to capitulate to the consortium to be common core aligned. They were not part of the original work group's analysis, and were not part of the information reviewed by educators.  They were added at the last minute. They should be completely defunded.

Yet AK DEED did nothing this summer in this regard and completely ignored the legislature. They are even moving up the time line on implementation.

It seems the Alaska State Board of Education has dug in their heels to defend a bad decision rather than to capitulate to the will of the legislature and the people of Alaska. The only way they will get the message is if they are defunded. Perhaps then, they will do what the legislature clearly intended for them to do and do what Alaskans through their representative government expressed: Stop Implementing the Common Core Standards.
If AK DEED won't respect the laws passed by the legislature, then what student will respect it? Will the state legislature continue to fund an entity that regards it with contempt?

Alaskan students, parents, and teachers deserve better.