McCrory ed speech largely disappointing for conservatives

Editorial in Civitas Review, August 1, 2013.

This morning Gov. McCrory gave a speech at the North Carolina Conference on Education. For conservatives and opponents of Common Core standards, the speech was a disappointment.

We've spent the last several months spelling out the philosophical and operational problems with Common Core Standards (see: StopCommonCoreNC web site, so the Governor's embrace of  Common Core math and reading standards is troubling. I 'm heartened the Governor acknowledged the implementation problems associated with Common Core. However, I would love for him to start a dialogue on the problems. In order to do that we have to know what he thinks the problems are.

I'm all for the need to reduce the number of tests our schools administer. However, the Governor's desire to implement Common Core is only going to make that problem worse. The fact is Common Core Standards will only increase testing. There is simply no way around it. .

Governor McCrory also proposes using $30 million of  North Carolina's Federal Race to the Top grant to spend  train 1,000 "master teachers"  to implement North Carolina's Career and College Ready Standards.  North Carolina's Career and College Ready Standards are another name for Common Core Standards. Because we oppose the standards, we will oppose any plan to implement them.

We agree with the Governor that North Carolina's teacher salary schedule is "archaic" and needs to be replaced. We've been saying the same for a number of years. In all honesty, the current salary schedule is the source of many of our current problems.  We need a proposal that links teacher pay to performance, not years of service and provides local LEAs the resources and flexibility to attract and retain teachers.

We will continue to oppose the implementation of Common Core standards. We've laid out our objections to Common Core standards in a variety of documents.We'd welcome a discussion with the Governor's office on how those concerns are being addressed.