The federal agency action ends a de facto stand-off with state education officials who, in effect, dared the federal agency to take away roughly $1.5 billion in federal funds that would otherwise go to schools with economically disadvantaged students if CA failed to grant a waiver approving Sacramento officials' plan to begin the new computer based tests this spring. In its action today (Mar 7), the federal Dept. of Education approved the state Department of Education's plan for an experimental run of the what proponents call "Smarter Balanced" math and language tests they say will more accurately align with what teachers have been teaching this year in preparation for "common core" tests.

That net effect is that parents and students won't receive Standardized Testing and Reporting Test results (STAR test results and API numbers, which since 1999 gave parents (and home buyers) a way to compare how well a neighborhood school and its students perform in math, reading and social science.

The new tests implement national standards (commonly dubbed "common core") which advocates say will better prepare students for college and careers. The new tests (which are still being developed) will be given on computer and may give student prompts if their answers aren't complete.

Today's federal agency action approves a plan by CA officials to give both math and language portions of the new tests to all students in grades 3-8 and 11, as well as some 9th and 10th grades, sometime between mid-March and early-June 2014.

U.S. Education Secretary (Obama appointee) Arne Duncan had threatened to withhold sizable amounts of federal funding for CA schools with large percentage of low income students if CA ended giving the previous STAR tests while the new tests were still being developed. Secretary Duncan noted months ago that because no individual or schoolwide scores will be generated or reported from this spring's testing, parents and their children (who are the consumers in the public education process) won't have results and accountability information on the performance of their students and teachers under the new tests this year.

The U.S. Dept. of Education website doesn't indicate why Secretary Duncan reversed his prior position. State education officials had been pressing the Obama administration to approve the plan in the nation's most populous state.

On February 24, LBUSD issued a release stating that former CA Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bill Honig, had praised LBUSD for its rollout of common core standards.

[LBUSD release text] ...In an article titled "Coherent and sequenced curriculum key to implementing Common Core standards," Honig notes that the Common Core State Standards tell what students should master, but they are not a curriculum. The article for EdSource warns that jumping from standards to creating lesson plans misses a crucial middle step of developing a coherent curriculum.

"The absence of this more complex work of creating a local curricular framework for the district, which informs the sequence and breadth of instruction (usually referred to as ‘scope and sequence') will result in weak implementation of Common Core," Honig states.

"Thus, many effective districts are developing their own curricular frameworks to support the more complex instruction envisioned by the standards. For example, Long Beach's scope and sequence documents provide a comprehensive blueprint for strategically sequencing and operationalizing the grade-level/course standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics," continued Honig, who is now chairman of the California Department of Education's Instructional Quality Commission.

Some of the critical attributes of Long Beach's scope and sequence document are units laid out in a sequence by theme/title; an indication of how much time to spend on each unit; a narrative description of each unit explaining its focus and purpose; a description of the standards to be assessed for each unit; and the reading level range of the texts used in each English unit.

To find these scope and sequence documents, click here for math and here for English...

Under the agency waiver, CA schools will continue to report results of the state's high school exit exam (given to 10th grade students, who then have multiple opportunities to pass the test through the 12th grade.)

State and local education officials argued that since students are no longer being taught material on the STAR tests, it would make no sense and waste classroom time to have students take both tests.

Since individual student test score and school performance results and statewide results won't be publicly released in this spring, Sacramento's Dept. of Education had to obtain a federal waiver of part of the Congressionally-enacted "No Child Left Behind Act" which requires school districts to increase the percentage of students proficient in language arts and math (if they are to retain federal funds for poor school children.)

On receiving the federal agency waiver, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and State Board of Education President Michael Kirst issued the following statement:

We appreciate the Obama Administration's approval of this important request, which will allow far more California students to get a hands-on experience with the new 21st century assessments that will help guide them as they gain the skills they need to succeed in the real world of careers and college.

Approval of this waiver could not have come at a better time. In little more than a week, some three million students will begin the largest field test of these new assessments of any state in the nation.

This is an important moment for California. Across the state, there's a new spirit of hope and optimism in our schools as they take on this challenging transformation. There are concerns as well, and there are sure to be challenges as we move ahead. But California has always led the way, and our teachers, administrators, and school employees have always been willing to meet any challenge to help our students succeed.

Today's action by the Obama Administration represents a welcome vote of confidence in the course we've set toward providing all students the world-class education they need and deserve.