The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has led to a “historic” drop in student achievement scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” a new study reports. The poor performance results have been particularly stark in Illinois.

In the decade before the adoption of CCSS throughout most of the United States in 2013, mathematics and reading NAEP scores for both fourth and eighth grade were gradually increasing at a fairly steady rate, states The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources, published by the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. This rate of growth had been occurring at roughly the same pace as it had been since before states began launching their own individual curriculum standards in the 1990s, writes author Theodor Rebarber, CEO of the nonprofit education organization Accountability Works.

Many involved in the education industry said they were dissatisfied with this pace of improvement, and they sought to remedy it by pushing states to drop their curriculum standards and adopt a single, national standard, which became Common Core. Promoted heavily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, CCSS was touted as being necessary to improve U.S. academic competitiveness with other nations on international testing, raise NAEP scores, lower the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers, and reduce the same gap among children from low- and high-income families.

Now, a decade after their adoption by most states and six years after their implementation, the Pioneer Institute report makes clear Common Core has had the opposite effect from what was promised. NAEP scores from 2013 to 2019, after the implementation of CCSS, have decreased by a “statistically significant” amount, the study found. Scores for both fourth and eighth grade in reading and math are down, with eighth grade scores decreasing at a rate nearly equal to their rate of growth before the implementation of Common Core.

More frighteningly, the study observes, scores are falling sharpest for low-income black and Hispanic students.

“U.S. students at the top, the 90th percentile, have continued to make gradual improvements that generally maintain the pre-Common Core trend line, ultimately neither helped nor harmed,” Rebarber writes. “But the farther behind students were before Common Core, especially those at the 25th and 10th percentiles, the more significant the achievement decreases have been. These declines appear to have wiped out the gains that lower-performing students made in the decade prior to Common Core.”

Illinois adopted Common Core in 2010 and began implementing them in the fall of 2013. The negative effects were felt almost immediately. In the decade preceding Common Core, when Illinois was utilizing its own standards, fourth grade achievement gain in mathematics on NAEP averaged roughly .6 points annually. Eighth grade scores grew by over .75 points annually over the same period. Post-Common Core, however, scores for fourth graders have declined by .25 points annually and eighth grade scores have declined by roughly .4 points annually.

The same effect occurred in reading scores. Illinois’ fourth grade reading scores grew by .25 points annually pre-Common Core, but declined by a tenth of a point annually post-Common Core. For eighth graders, reading scores were relatively stagnant in the last pre-Common Core decade, but post-Common Core implementation they have been declining by roughly .3 points.

Rebarber recommends states fully repeal Common Core, but says he realizes this will be a tall order, no matter how far scores decline. As Rebarber succinctly stated, the standards embody the “common curricular assumptions and conventional wisdom of the educational establishment.”

“It is human nature for those who supported a failed strategy to find it difficult to admit a monumental error,” Rebarber writes. “But our most vulnerable students are paying the steepest price for this particular error. After six years of digging this hole, the most fervent Common Core advocates seem to believe that we should continue to dig deeper. Instead, we must ensure that reason prevails and a different approach is considered.”

Illinois legislators should dispel Rebarber’s pessimism by admitting their mistake and repealing CCSS at the first opportunity, and should develop new state benchmarks modeled on Massachusetts’ highly-respected pre-Common Core standards.

The following documents provide more information about Common Core.

The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources
https://pioneerinstitute.org/academic-standards/study-finds-historic-drop-in-national-reading-and-math-scores-since-adoption-of-common-core-curriculum-standards/
This report from the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research finds U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago. The declines are most acute for the lowest-achieving students, increasing inequality.

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