Superintendent Dr. Kelly Pew Responds to Common Core Standards Concerns

Dear Editor, 

Recently, a letter from Johnelle Raines was published in several papers, which touched on an email I sent to Mrs. Raines in response to a request for district staff to distribute her information about the Common Core State Standards at PTA meetings.

In her letter, she misrepresented the following words as a quote from my email:

“We will share the information that is given to us by the SC Dept of Ed, The Education Oversight Committee and our Instructional Dept. The SDPC cannot endorse information from others who are inconsistent with our state adopted goals and standards.”

Here is the entire content of the email sent to Mrs. Raines:

Johnnelle,

Thank you for your willingness to share information with the SDPC. We do not have workshops or meetings specifically scheduled to discuss the Common Core with our parents. We do, however, have a link to the SDE on our district web site. We are moving forward with the state adopted standards according to the state’s implementation which includes full implementation in 2013-2014. Information related to our instructional initiatives and to our standards have been available to our parents yearly on our instructional services web site. We have been sharing information with our teachers and our parents since the standards were adopted. We would not schedule the delivery of information with our parents that is not consistent with our state department’s guidelines and standards. We have asked our principals to send any inquires of this nature to Mrs. Huff [Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services] or to me.

I appreciate discussion in our community about how to make our schools better. The Common Core State Standards were adopted by the state after a 41-member group of SC educators convened by the SC Education Oversight Committee reviewed them, and found them to be more rigorous than the standards already in place in our schools. Our district receives no private funding tied to the implementation of CCSS. None of our district's federal funding, such as the Title 1 funding for schools in low-income areas, is tied to CCSS.  The fact that other states have also adopted the standards does not change the reality that adopting CCSS was South Carolina's decision to make.

I am confident that our students will be better prepared for college, career and citizenship under the new standards. Educational standards have always changed over time, and they will continue to change as we constantly reflect on the best ways to help our children learn. These changes will result in discussion, and sometimes spirited debate. It is my hope that we can always have these discussions with respect for each other and for the facts.

Below are several links to useful information about the standards, which should be helpful both for our parents and community members.

1.            SC Department of Education Comparison of CCSS and SC Standards http://www.eoc.sc.gov/Reports%20%20Publications/2008-2012/Standards/CCSSReportFINAL0604.pdf

2.            SC Department of Education CCSS Support http://ed.sc.gov/agency/programs-services/190/

3.            SC EOC Survey of School District CCSS Implementation http://www.eoc.sc.gov/Documents/Survey%20of%20School%20Districts%20on%20Implementation%20of%20CCSS.p...

4.            Common Core State Standards website - http://www.corestandards.org/