Commissioner Forms Group to Examine Common Core's Impact on Carroll County

The Board of Education has met in open session with the Board of Commissioners to detail exactly what Common Core is and is not, read more here. 

Commissioner Howard said in a statement, “It appears that there is a disconnect on this topic because we keep discussing Common Core as if it were one thing, but it is not. It is many different things at many different levels that require different strategies to discuss and debate effectively."

Guthrie said in a meeting earlier this year that the Common Core establishes the skill set students need to learn for assessments but that Carroll County educators create the curriculum that dictates how the skills are taught and what resources are used.

The Common Core Analysis Group will be a small, diverse group of seven to nine people with differing perspective that will create a framework, identify concerns and develop recommendations, according to the news release. Bruce Holstein, a member of the Solid Waste Workgroup, will be participating in this endeavor along with "many others," according to the release.

The group will be tasked with the following:

• Separate and identify each piece of what is generally referred to as Common Core
• Analyze each piece individually 
• Determine its applicability to Federal, State or local programs and educational efforts
• Fact check with Carroll County Public Schools to determine its applicability to our children’s education
• Draft recommendations to address concerns

“We need to consider a wide range of perspectives. We need to put issues into the category where they belong," Howard said in a statement. "We need recommendations at each level of government. And, we need to have all of this developed without any more public attacks on our local school system and our teachers.”

Guthrie said that the current statewide curriculum changes have undergone the same extensive process, both in the state and in Carroll County, that past curriculum changes have, including previous curriculum changes based on No Child Left Behind. 

Educational curriculum changes require expert recommendations, public input, pilot programs, board approvals, waiting periods and comment periods among other things as part of the process, Guthrie said.

Common Core implementation started two years ago, Guthrie said. "The process is done, it's fully implemented this year." 

Want to know more about Common Core? Carroll Values Education, a local citizen's group, is hosting a forum on Common Core Thursday at 7 p.m. at Winters Mill High School.