Tentative agreement reached on SC Common Core

COLUMBIA (AP) — Common Core standards will be considered by teachers crafting new reading and math benchmarks for South Carolina students, state Education Department officials said Thursday.

The six-month, stepped-up process could take teachers selected by the department out of the classroom for up to a month's worth of meetings.

The stance marks a change from what Republican Superintendent Mick Zais told the media earlier this month. Agency spokesman Dino Teppara said Zais spoke "in-artfully" when he said he would direct the panels to ignore Common Core entirely and not even provide them a copy. Zais wanted to stress that the standards implemented in August 2015 won't be a simple rebranding of Common Core, Teppara said.

Common Core will be on the table for consideration, as well as standards adopted in other states, but they will start writing from a blank slate, he said.

The agency continues to say an overhaul can be accomplished in six months, though other education leaders say that's impossible.

Zais' earlier comments prompted senators to call Thursday's meeting between the agency and leaders of the two state education boards who actually have the power to approve changes. The leaders said Zais was breaking the law.

That law, signed May 30, calls for new math and reading standards next school year following a review of current standards, which are Common Core.

Common Core outlines what skills students in kindergarten through 12th grade should learn to be ready for college and careers, replacing standards that varied state-to-state.

Any changes must be approved by both the state Board of Education and the independent Education Oversight Committee. Zais has no vote on either. But he has influence over the process.

The agency-appointed writing teams — composed of teachers, district administrators and college professors — began meeting last week. The agency's timeline calls for each team to meet up to 25 days before mid-December, when recommendations would be presented to the state board, for full approval in March.

Board of Education Chairman Barry Bolen contends the deciding boards had no input in the agency's teams or timeline.

Officials feared the agency would present recommendations in December that the boards would reject, exacerbating the law's time crunch.

"I would like to encourage everyone to work together," said Senate Education Chairman John Courson, R-Columbia. "We do want to see a collaborative effort."

Representatives of the three groups eventually hashed out a tentative agreement Thursday on the process. But Bolen warned it depends on Zais backing up what his deputies said. The board is expected to discuss it next month. Zais, who leaves office in January after a single term, did not attend Thursday's meeting.

Bolen also still insists six months is not enough time to write standards from scratch.

"There's no way — not good standards," he said.

The process normally takes years, and this is the first time South Carolina educators are tasked with writing standards that, like Common Core, are certified as getting students "college and career ready."

A June 5 letter to district superintendents laid out a nine-day meeting schedule for the panels, with work wrapping up by the end of August. The agency asked for superintendents' help in encouraging teachers to apply to math and reading teams that would "review the current standards and recommend revisions."

Deputy Superintendent Cindy Van Buren said she wrote the letter before the agency looked closer at a paragraph in the law referring to new standards for 2014-15.

Hundreds of teachers applied to be on the panels. Teachers weren't told until they were selected that they were actually required to attend up to 25 meeting days in Columbia. The extra time caused several people selected for the reading team to back out, because they didn't want to be away from their classroom that many days, Van Buren said.

The agency will pay for substitute teachers in the classroom, she said.

Many people oppose Common Core as a nationalization of public education, though it's not federal. The initiative was led by governors and superintendents, through the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. However, the Obama administration encouraged states to sign on through incentives.

The Education Oversight Committee is seeking input on the standards through an online survey.