This is the first of my interviews on the Common Core. We begin with California. In California, it is the State Board of Education that is the policy-making body under the law. Mike Kirst is president of the Board and one of the country's leading education policy analysts. In 1975, during Governor Jerry Brown's first term, he appointed Kirst to the Board, and Kirst served as president from 1977 to 1981. In 2011, at the start of Governor Brown's second term, he again appointed Kirst to the Board.
Marc Tucker: Mike, how would you characterize the challenge in implementing the Common Core?
Mike Kirst: Over a long career as an education policy analyst, I've learned that the effectiveness of state education systems depends more than anything else on the coherence of the whole system, the way the parts and pieces fit together. When it became state policy to adopt the Common Core, I realized that we could not implement the Common Core—which calls for all students achieving at levels only a handful have achieved in the past—with a 20th century education system designed to reach a much more modest goal. I sat down and wrote a paper that included a graphic (see below) describing all the parts and pieces of the system that would have to be fundamentally changed to properly implement these standards, everything from the way we fund our schools to the way teachers are first educated and trained to the kinds of tests that the state would have to use and the fundamental changes that would be needed in our accountability system, and much, much more. Really implementing the Common Core would mean changing almost everything.
MT: What did you conclude about how well California teachers are prepared to implement the Common Core?
MK: The size of our system, with 6.2 million students, makes an implementation of this size and scope complex. We're making progress, districts are working hard, and we recognize it will take years to ensure all of our 280,000 teachers are well prepared. One of the most critical investments will continue to be providing support for teachers in classrooms. We couldn't succeed without changing pre-service teaching and professional development. We knew early on to involve higher education. That was very much front and center. I have a letter from all the higher education system heads committing their institutions to the fundamental changes that will be required to get there. We created a new group called the Instructional Quality Commission to develop new frameworks aligned to the Common Core. Bill Honig, California's former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, led the Commission at the start and he continues to be actively involved. We also have a separate board, The Commission on Teacher Credentialing, to regulate teacher standards and training. It is chaired by Linda Darling-Hammond.
MT: We find among the top performers that they view standards, curriculum, and assessments as one single system. The assessments in those countries test the degree to which the student has mastered the content in the syllabus. The United States is finally deciding that we need the kinds of standards these countries have, but where is California on curriculum and assessment?
MK: Getting the assessments right is crucial. California is a flagship member of Smarter Balanced. Smarter Balanced has a whole package that we regard as an instructional system. They have a digital library and short-cycle assessment and resources to reteach students material that they didn't get the first time around. We have brought Smarter Balanced into the University of California, Los Angeles so we have more staff dedicated to implementation and improving our instructional system now. We see Smarter Balanced as a new kind of hybrid, involving both instructional improvement and assessment, that we can use to drive instruction in California.
Read the full story in Education Week.
Michael Kirst is a professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the president of the California State Board of Education.
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