Georgia Common Core Review Under Way

“The Common Core State Standards are written in such a way that they invite a higher level of teaching in the classroom, whereas under the previous Georgia Performance Standards, Language Arts teachers could get by with teaching bits and pieces of language skills in an isolated manner,” she said.

But some teachers who support the Common Core called for changes, like Alexander math teacher Tanya Haynes.

”I think that the issue out there right now for math teachers is the alignment of it,” Haynes said. “It’s not the rigor of the standard; it’s not the standards that we see. It’s the vagueness of the standard and the order in which we teach it.”

The Common Core includes English and math. It’s in place in 43 states and Washington, D.C. The idea is to give students a common knowledge base and compare achievement across state lines. But some, like parent Patricia Haigh, don’t like that.

“What’s good about common?’” she asked. “Tell me what’s good about common. We’re all individuals, are we not? It’s not good, people. Common Core is not what we need.”

Each board member will hold a similar meeting in his or her district. Mary Sue Murray, who hosted Tuesday’s, said the board will gather feedback and pass it along to the experts.

“All of this data is going to the University of Georgia and they’re going to analyze it for us because it’s going to be a tremendous amount of data,” she said.  

UGA will make recommendations, which Murray says the board will consider. State officials don’t yet have a completion date for the review.