Fog of Common Core (Lessons from Arizona's Adoption)

Today marks one year since Arizona adopted the common core state standards, but you wouldn't know it based on any information provided by public officials or the press in Arizona. Indeed, you would have an impossible time finding any details about the Arizona State Board's official action to adopt the standards.

Last year, I wrote about the bizarre situation where states that were completely overhauling their K-12 reading and math standards in favor of the more advanced, 21st century common core state standards were not only downplaying this standards transformation, but in some instances, also appeared to be proactively burying the information.

Arizona fell into this last group as I mentioned last July:

"And then there are Arizona, Nevada, and Wyoming—three states that an Ed Week blog reports adopted the standards but whose respective state departments of education make no reference to adopting the standards (Wyoming and Nevada don't even reference the common core) and for which a Google search of newspapers in each state turns up not a single hit of a news story about adoption."

As these questions were raised last year, state supporters of the standards suggested that common core adoption wasn't a big enough deal to warrant the Department of Education to issue press releases. They also pointed out that the minutes of state board meetings are eventually posted to their websites and available to the public (though, it should be noted, after a lag of two to three months).

Which brings me back to Arizona. As you can see by this schedule (PDF) of the Arizona State Board of Education's meeting dates, they were supposed to meet on June 28, 2010. This is the meeting at which it is generally concluded that the Arizona State Board of Education did in fact adopt the common core. But curiously, the June 28 meeting is the only one in 2010 for which the meeting minutes are not posted on the state board's meeting minutes website. To thicken the plot even more, the state board's August 23, 2010 minutes (PDF) report that the state board members approved the June 28 meeting minutes and there is a reference to an executive session on that date. Did the state board adopt the standards while in executive session? Why would they? But who knows? All we do know is that a meeting on that date occurred. What transpired is known only to the board members and the public in attendance.

All of this is surely a simple oversight, but it is an interesting coincidence. It's also a reminder to state officials that not only should the adoption of standards be as transparent as their development, but that implementation activities should also be equally visible.