Dorn signals state's schools to join federal Race to the Top

It looks as if Washington will join the states that are swapping their academic standards in English and math for a newly minted national set.

Randy Dorn, head of Washington's education department, announced last week he was provisionally adopting the "common core" standards, although state legislators have reserved the final say.

It was another step in a strange dance around a big, national push that has led about two dozen states to sign up to date, with more expected to do so soon.

Washington — and nearly all states — announced in 2009 they would consider signing up for the voluntary standards, long before anyone knew what they might look like. Now Dorn has signaled Washington state will use them even before officials here have finished analyzing how they differ from what Washington has now.

The rush? An Aug. 2 deadline for the federal grant program known as Race to the Top. States that agree to use the national standards by that date will boost their chances at winning one of the lucrative grants. If Washington gets one, it could receive about $250 million.

"We had to go out on a limb and say, yes, this concept of common standards holds a lot of water ... and enough water to say, yes, we intend to adopt them," said Jessica Vavrus, assistant superintendent in Dorn's office.

If Washington legislators approve Dorn's decision, it would mean new learning goals in English and math for Washington students, probably starting in the 2012-13 school year, although it's not yet clear how much the national standards differ from what Washington has now. The state also likely would eventually replace its tests in reading, writing and math with new, national exams.

Washington is part of a consortium of states seeking federal funding to design such new tests. If the states win that grant, Washington would start using the national exams in the 2014-15 school year.

Public, private effort

The national standards were developed in an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The Obama administration favors the effort, as does the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has given a number of grants to support the campaign.

States such as Washington received another push Wednesday, when the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education-policy think tank that long has pushed states to raise academic expectations, released a 50-state analysis that said the voluntary national standards are clearly superior to what the vast majority of states now have.

The national standards, said Chester Finn, Fordham's president, "turned out to be pretty darn good."

Fordham said Washington state's standards were as good as the national ones in math, but not in English.

Critics question the speed at which the national standards were written — less than a year — and whether it's wise to have a single set of learning expectations for all states.

"Making education uniform at too high of a level ... ignores the diversity of the needs of our children as well as the diversity of opinion about how best to serve those needs," Jay Greene, an education professor at University of Arkansas, wrote in his blog.

And high standards don't guarantee high achievement.

Some states that received the highest grades from Fordham, for example, don't do as well as Washington on existing national reading and math exams, which are given to a sample of students every few years.

Supporters of the national standards argue that good standards are important because they make very clear what all students should learn.

Leveling the field

In his announcement last week, Dorn said national standards would level the field in a mobile society.

"Students moving to our state from another state can essentially pick up where they left off," he said in a news release.

Dorn also noted that over time, a single set of national standards could save states and districts a lot of money because they could pool efforts in curriculum, textbooks and testing.

State officials here are still analyzing just how much the standards differ from Washington's.

All Vavrus would say now is the state's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) "feels that these are strong documents that will serve our state well."

Adopting the standards is an all-or-nothing proposition: States can add to them but can't subtract.

State officials plan to spend the summer and fall looking over an analysis done by a national research firm they hired to compare Washington's standards with the national. They also plan to work with teachers and other educators to figure out how hard it would be to make the change, and how much it might cost — an important question in this economic climate.

OSPI is required to give state legislators a final report by Jan. 1.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com