State Chamber Passes Pro-Common Core Resolution

Arkansas schools should “fully and expeditiously implement” the Common Core State Standards, the Executive Committee of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce/Associated Industries of Arkansas said in a resolution adopted unanimously Wednesday.

Initiated by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Common Core is a set of educational benchmarks that describe the skills students should have in English language arts and math. They have been adopted in 45 states and the District of Columbia. The State Board of Education adopted them in Arkansas in July 2010. The Arkansas Legislature voted to implement and assess the standards in 2011.

Over the past two years, the standards have been implemented in grades K-8 in Arkansas schools and are being adopted in grades 9-12 this year. Arkansas is part of a consortium of states known as PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, that will pilot-test student assessments this year, with full implementation of the tests beginning next school year.

In July, members of the House and Senate Education Committees heard testimony from Arkansas Against Common Core, a citizen-led group, as well as from academic critics. Among their criticisms was that the Common Core will lead to increased federal involvement in education and that the standards weren’t tested before being adopted.

Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Randy Zook testified in favor of the standards at the end of those two days of hearings.

The resolution states that an educated workforce is necessary for Arkansas to remain globally competitive and that the Common Core does not dictate curriculum or instruction. It adds, “Common Core Standards are designed to promote a deep understanding of rigorous material, instead of focusing on rote memorization and test-taking skills.”

Zook, who is in Orlando at the U.S. Manufacturing Summit sponsored by Walmart, said today that the resolution was passed in response to the opposition that is surfacing in Arkansas and elsewhere. Some states are rethinking their participation in Common Core, including Georgia and Indiana, which have both dropped out of PARCC.

“There’s been some discussion recently, and we just felt like we needed to make sure there was a very clear and unequivocal signal from the business community in support of these new, more rigorous standards. … We’ve made about a three-foot jump on a four-foot ditch so far, so we need to keep going,” Zook said.