Repealing & Replacing Common Core: West Virginia Strives for Best-Practice Education Standards

By Jessica Wintz-Adams

West Virginia’s public education system has had its share of state and national headlines in recent years. When the Mountain State’s ranking in national reports is splashed across newspapers and scrolled across the bottom of screens calling it one of the country’s worst in educating public school students, fingers point in various directions as to where our education system has gone wrong. The West Virginia Department of Education has been trying to pinpoint exactly which paths to take to ensure all students across the state receive the best education.

Evolving Education

Some believe the answer lies in state standards. The state’s education standards have been under fire since the implementation of the Next Generation Standards in 2011. A change from the 21st Century Content Standards and Objectives that had been used since 2008, the Next Generation Standards developed by West Virginia were aligned with a national set of education standards known as Common Core. West Virginia was one of 45 states and the District of Columbia that voluntarily adopted Common Core in 2010.

The adoption of these standards came at time when the state’s education statistics did not paint a pretty picture. Education officials began to examine how to better prepare West Virginia high school students for college and careers and thought Common Core may be the answer.

According to its website, Common Core is “a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy. These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade.” Common Core is also touted as research and evidence-based standards that are “clear, understandable and consistent,” aligned with college and career expectations and based on “rigorous content and application knowledge through higher-order thinking skills.”

The Common Core standards could also be built on a current state’s standards for easy implementation. When the West Virginia Board of Education (WVBOE) voted in May 2010 to adopt Common Core standards for English and math, they directed the West Virginia Department of Education to spend the next year aligning the Common Core with the 21st Century Content Standards and Objectives to eventually develop the Next Generation Standards. From 2011-2014, more than 600 teachers and administrators in West Virginia worked to develop, review and roll out West Virginia’s English language arts and mathematics standards.

To ensure all teachers were prepared, education leaders at the state, regional and local levels began working in 2011 on training efforts. The new criteria became fully effective in the 2014-15 school year.

Assessing the Situation

On the surface, it looks like Common Core education standards are a no-brainier when it comes to delivering high-quality education for all students.

Then something changed.

When videos of frustrated parents and students unable to complete Common Core homework assignments and photos of worksheets showing complicated instructions on how to solve Common Core math problems began to circulate online, so did the questions about whether West Virginia had made a mistake in its adoption and implementation of Common Core education standards. Basic principles in mathematics, such as multiplication, haven’t changed, but Common Core math as it was called asked students to show their work so they could reveal their understanding of using multiplication or other basic mathematic principles in solving problems. Sometimes the methods for showing work appeared to be confusing, and opposition groups, such as WV Against Common Core, began to take their concerns to schools and legislators and call for the complete repeal of the state’s education standards based on Common Core.

The West Virginia Department of Education soon discovered in state board meetings and legislative committee rooms that concerns from parents and lawmakers went deeper than explaining education standards. It was also explaining how standards are delivered in a classroom setting.

“Our biggest challenge has been educating the public on the difference between content standards and curriculum,” says Clayton Burch, associate superintendent of schools. “Standards are what we want students to know, understand and be able to do. Curriculum is an intentional learning plan to ensure students achieve the goals of the standards. Curriculum is determined at the local level.”

The West Virginia Next Generation standards did not dictate the ways students were supposed to learn how to solve mathematics problems. The materials, such as worksheets and exams, used to teach these lessons were left up to individual school systems and teachers themselves. These materials—the curriculum—could be confusing to students and parents. The blame was overall placed on the education standards themselves.

Demanding Change

Opponents of Common Core would find legislative advocates in Senator Donna Boley (R-Pleasants) and Delegate Jim Butler (R-Mason), who would both introduce legislation calling for the repeal of the education standards. While efforts to repeal Common Core never made it out of committee during the regular legislative session in 2014, bills during the regular legislative session in 2015 gained more traction.

A day after the state board of education announced its unanimous opposition to repealing the state’s Common Core-based education standards, the West Virginia House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to repeal those standards. The bill, HB 2934, passed 75-19 and would repeal those standards and direct the board of education to establish two new committees to develop new standards for math and English. Opponents of Common Core had a short-lived victory as HB 2934 was eventually gutted in the Senate’s education committee when it was turned into a study resolution and died on the last night of the regular session without further action.

Taking Action

The actions of the West Virginia Legislature and outcry from critics prompted the WVBOE to take action. The West Virginia Academic Spotlight review took place in summer 2015. The purpose of this review was to increase awareness and understanding of the standards and solicit actionable feedback on specific standards in English language arts and mathematics. The assessment reviewed nearly 900 English and math benchmarks that outline what knowledge students possess at different milestones of their educational progression.

The West Virginia Department of Education, WVBOE and West Virginia University partnered together in this initiative and developed a website that served as the platform for feedback collection. More than 250,000 comments from more than 4,000 West Virginia K-12 teachers, administrators, faculty members and parents about the Next Generation teaching standards were received.

In December 2015, the WVBOE voted unanimously to repeal the state’s Common Core-based education standards for English and math and replace them with a newly developed set called the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards based on the comments received. These standards were enacted in July 2016.

With Common Core education standards repealed and replaced and a new set of standards in place, one may think opposition groups could claim victory. However, the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards remain under the microscope. Legislative efforts to repeal the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards have continued, and education officials, including state superintendent Dr. Steve Paine, have continued to denounce Common Core involvement in the state’s education standards.  Opposition groups believe the standards are still the same set of Common Core education standards, just with a new title.

Legislation passed during the 2017 regular legislative session prohibits the use of Common Core education standards. The current West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards remain in place with the hope that there won’t need to be any further changes.

“Teachers and school officials have been concerned with the number of times the standards have been revised in the past several years,” says Burch. “Their hope is that the current standards will stay in place for several years so they’re able to assess how well their students are performing.”

As the state begins to move forward, all eyes will now be on the assessment test scores students take at the end of each school year to see how well they are performing. If the standards represent the final destination and the curriculum represents the different paths that can be taken to get there, then summative assessment testing results can show just far the state’s public school students are going on the path to being college and career ready.

About the Author

Jessica Wintz-Adams is a junior account executive for Orion Strategies. A 2010 graduate of Marshall University, Wintz-Adams holds bachelor’s degrees in public relations and political science. Originally from Southern West Virginia, she currently resides in Charleston where she is an active volunteer with Charleston Main Street (CMS) East. Wintz-Adams was named a CMS East End Volunteer of the Year by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin in 2016. She is also a proud alumna of the Leadership West Virginia Class of 2015.