A new law repealing Common Core standards has led to a tangle of legal challenges, regulation changes and financial costs that has injected uncertainty among Oklahoma school districts about the coming school year.
On June 5, Gov. Mary Fallin signed HB 3393 requiring Oklahoma to toss the Common Core math and English standards that were to be implemented by the 2014-15 school year.
The law directs the state Board of Education to revert to Oklahoma’s Priority Academic Student Skills, or PASS, standards for two years until new ones can be developed.
But at the June 26 meeting, the state board tabled votes on everything related to adopting PASS and removing Common Core from rules language and tests in light of a legal challenge to the law’s constitutionality filed the previous day.
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State Board of Education members Lee Baxter, Bill Shdeed, Amy Anne Ford and Daniel Keating joined five school teachers and three parents in the lawsuit filed in Oklahoma Supreme Court.
“We are, therefore … in a state of limbo,” said department spokeswoman Tricia Pemberton.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit requested “expedited treatment” to allow school districts, administrators, teachers, parents and students enough time to prepare for the start of school in August.
The Oklahoma State Supreme Court has set oral arguments in the case for 10 a.m. July 15.
State Superintendent Janet Barresi said the law itself has caused serious concern among school district officials, who have contacted the department since its enactment asking what teachers are supposed to teach next year.
But just because the board postponed votes on rule changes and interim standards doesn’t mean there isn’t clarity, she said.
“That law is in place right now. That law is very specific and speaks directly to school districts.
And that is that the standards that were in place prior to 2010 are to be taught in our schools this year,” Barresi said.
“So until there is action by our state Supreme Court or further, it’s very simple. Districts now have their direction.
“We will simply wait on the will of the court and how this lawsuit proceeds forward. But we will continue to faithfully follow the law,” she said.
Pemberton said financial costs of reversing course on Common Core are unclear.
As of early May, the state reported it had spent around $2.6 million to implement all Oklahoma Academic Standards, including state-devised standards in social studies and science and Common Core standards in English language arts and math.
On Monday, Louisiana’s state superintendent announced it would cost that state an estimated $25.2 million over five years to drop Common Core. He primarily cited the cost of developing new assessment tests. That state hasn’t yet repealed Common Core.
Another unknown in Oklahoma is what tests public school children will take next year. The board last week also voted to terminate its $16 million annual contract with testing vendor CTB/McGraw-Hill due to widespread testing disruptions during both years of its contract.
The board also postponed a vote on whether to keep testing vendor Measured Progress.
The vendor was awarded a $34.5 million contract last year to provide Common Core-aligned tests in English and math for third through eighth grades starting this coming school year.
Overshadowing it all is the fear that Oklahoma will lose its flexibility waiver under the No Child Left Behind Act — now called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The waiver allows Oklahoma more control of how it spends federal funds.
Assistant State Superintendent Kerri White said that when HB 3399 passed last month, the U.S. Department of Education asked for more information regarding the extension request Oklahoma submitted April 4. The information must be received by Aug. 12, she said.
“If the state loses flexibility, it does not take away the Title 1 funding, it just restricts how it can be used,” White said.
The federal agency is analyzing whether the state’s PASS standards that will be used in the interim are rigorous enough to meet ESEA waiver requirements.
In an open letter to the public regarding its support of HB 3393, Professional Oklahoma Educators’ Executive Director Ginger Tinney and Associate General Counsel Michael Furlong wrote: “Oklahoma’s federally-approved waiver states that the PASS standards demonstrated Oklahoma’s ‘commitment of setting college-, career-, and citizen-ready standards for our students 20 years prior to the adoption of the CCSS (Common Core State Standards).’ Thus we believe that the PASS standards should pass muster with the federal Department of Education.”
Pemberton said that if Oklahoma loses its waiver, it will need to spend $3.8 million for more employees to ensure those more restrictive regulations are followed, she said.
Said Barresi: “Now we’re back to more government regulation if we lose the (ESEA) waiver.”
