Standards will lead to poor performance

How ironic the Bee headline “Local schools honored for excellence” (Nov. 14, 2013) when the Lake Pend Oreille School District has embraced Common Core State Standards for 2014-2015 year, now called Idaho State Standards. The district’s success story leaves us wondering why it would move headlong into a set of standards which weren’t even written when Idaho signed on to them.

As we read in the Bee, some of our schools are performing well enough to be honored for excellence. Our community of course expects all of them to achieve that level. We know if can be done because we have a model that has worked in these high achieving schools. Why would we abandon it for one untried and unproven while spending millions in taxpayer dollars to implement?

That record has its roots in a concept of standards which subordinate grade level achievement to student behavior, tenacity and ability to “test” to a “common core.”.

Teachers of course are required to teach to the new standards, spending many hours developing curriculum to match them, with little guidance. A computer test will ultimately measure the standards’ success but not the knowledge acquired for grade level work.

Parents and teachers should brace themselves for next year’s Bee headline to read, “Teachers faulted for poor student performance.” We are told by the state and LPOSD superintendents we should expect a drop of up to 30 percent in educational performance for several years to come.

CAROLYN K. MINNICK

Sandpoint