Testing brouhaha highlights Common Core rift

TALLAHASSEE - The controversy over Florida's role in a testing system tied to new, national education standards highlights a simmering feud on the right between grass-roots activists who want Florida to abandon the benchmarks and longtime education-reform advocates who are urging officials to push forward.

For months now, conservative activists fearful of federal overreach have mounted a campaign to get Florida to pull out of the "common core" initiatives, a set of standards for student achievement overseen by the nation's governors and school chiefs.

The campaign scored what some of its supporters consider a victory last week when House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, called for the state to break from a consortium of about 20 states crafting tests for students and create its own assessments for common core.

The resistance to common core has been known to state officials for some time, and some of those officials have called for a pushback against opponents' claims, which they characterize as misinformation.

"If you listen to talk radio and anything else that's out there, this wave is coming to kill common core," Kathleen Shanahan, a member of the State Board of Education, said in May.

A counterattack seems to be taking place now, with former Gov. Jeb Bush's twin education foundations and other conservative supporters of the law leading the charge. This week, five former chairs of the Republican Party of Florida sent out a joint letter backing the standards.

"Unfortunately, there has been a tremendous amount of misinformation about the movement to raise academic standards, especially among our fellow conservatives," they wrote. " ... We implore our fellow Republicans to judge the Common Core State Standards by what they are: academic standards, not curriculum and not a national mandate."

Those signing the letter were state Sen. John Thrasher, Carole Jean Jordan, Al Cardenas, Tom Slade and Van Poole. It also chided those who might attack the other side of the debate.

"Finally, there are good conservatives on both sides of this issue. Questioning the integrity of anyone involved on either side of this debate does not do our party or this issue any favors," they wrote.

The argument highlights a tension between two wings of Republican thought on education policy: those who want local residents to have as much control over education as possible, and those who push for reforming the system through rigorous standards. Some of the fights echo the clashes of recent years between tea-party activists and more traditional, establishment Republicans.

Opponents of the standards shrug off arguments that the standards are not from the federal government, but are created by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Those challenging the standards point out that some of the funding for the organizations come from federal sources.

And they raise other concerns about the standards, from the cost of implementing them to the lack of debate over the ideas by lawmakers.

"Common core has not been vetted in the Florida Legislature," said John Hallman, who lobbies for conservative groups like the Florida Campaign for Liberty and Liberty First Network.

Conservatives are also unconvinced by arguments that the state would be free to create its own curriculum as long as it follows common core, pointing out that the standards will drive state tests - which will, in turn, drive what students are taught.

"You cannot separate the standards from the curriculum," said Randy Osborne, who has lobbied against common core in the Legislature on behalf of the Florida Eagle Forum.

But Bush and other supporters have also been active in trying to rally the business community and others behind the initiative. Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education has worked with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute to set up a website for a group called "Conservatives for Higher Standards," though it has kept a low profile so far.

And Patricia Levesque, who heads the Foundation for Excellence in Education and the Florida-based Foundation for Florida's Future, has backed the standards. In an interview with News Service of Florida earlier this month, she said common core was "a great example of federalism at work" because of the governors' and school chiefs' involvement and that it dovetailed with conservative values.

"Actually, conservatives have always been champions of high standards and American exceptionalism," she said.

Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, said there are some concerns among lawmakers about common core, including the data that could be collected in connection with the test - a fear supporters dismiss - the testing system and some of the standards themselves.

"I think there's probably 80 percent agreement on the standards, and there's 20 percent where we need some additional flexibility," he said.

Brandes said he would file a bill in the coming legislative session that would allow parents to opt out of the state collection of data on students if the data isn't closely tied to educational achievement. Supporters of common core say the data will continue to be held by the state and that the federal government and other national groups would not have access to information on specific students.

He also pointed out that the current controversy is dealing with English and math standards, which are likely to be less controversial than any standards dealing with science and social studies.

"That discussion," he said, "will be so much more difficult."