Funding for the Common Core

Funding for the Common Core refers to the financial resources allocated to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) across various educational systems in the United States. The initiative aims to establish a consistent framework for education that enhances student learning and prepares them for college and career readiness. Funding mechanisms may include federal, state, and local government investments, as well as private-sector partnerships.

The financial support is essential for training educators, developing aligned curricula, and providing necessary resources and materials in classrooms. However, the distribution of funding has sparked discussions about equity and access, particularly in under-resourced schools and districts. Stakeholders have raised concerns about the adequacy and sustainability of funding, emphasizing the need for ongoing financial commitment. Additionally, debates continue around the effectiveness of the standards themselves and their impact on educational outcomes. Understanding the complexities of funding for the Common Core is crucial for comprehending its role in shaping modern education in a diverse society.

Published in: 2021

By: Zimmer, Scott

Subject Terms

Funding for the Common Core

Abstract

The Common Core, which was organized starting in 2009 by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), to provide a set of standards for schools to follow so that students would meet a basic set of performance requirements. The hope was that levels of achievement across the United States would become more consistent and at a higher level of quality than the previous “patchwork quilt” of standards that varied from region to region in terms of quality and enforcement. The sources and manner of funding used to develop the Common Core State Standards Initiative raised concerns for critics and was praised as a model by others.

Overview

The Common Core, which was organized starting in 2009 by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), to provide a set of standards for schools to follow so that students would meet a basic set of performance requirements. The hope was that levels of achievement across the United States would become more consistent and at a higher level of quality than the previous "patchwork quilt" of standards that varied from region to region in terms of quality and enforcement. The sources and manner of funding used to develop the Common Core State Standards Initiative raised concerns for critics and was praised as a model by others.

Numerous attempts at large scale reform of education have been made over the years, usually in the aftermath of the release of research showing the poor performance of the U.S. educational system in comparison with the systems of other developed nations. Reforms were attempted following the release of the scathing report A Nation At Risk in 1983, and again during the presidency of George W. Bush with his program, No Child Left Behind. Most of these reform efforts have been characterized by strong opposition and prolonged implementation periods, mostly due to the fact that there is rarely consensus about what direction the U.S. educational system should take or about how to get it there.

The history of Common Core is much different from this historical paradigm. The development of Common Core began in 2009, and by 2015, the standards been fully developed and adopted by forty-four states for use as state educational standards. The reason for this rapid adoption and the relatively low levels of resistance to the Common Core can be traced back to the manner in which its development was financed. The majority of the support that made the Common Core possible came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

In a marked departure from past practices, the Gates Foundation was responsible for financially supporting not only the research and development of the Common Core standards, but also the vast lobbying and public relations campaign that preceded the launch of Common Core. This was, in the view of a number of policy makers, an attempt to neutralize opposition to it by distributing research funding to potential critics of its reform strategies. The unconventional funding role taken on by the Gates Foundation caused several observers to question the Gates' motivation for being involved with education reform in the first place, suggesting that the benefits that might accrue to Microsoft from an educational system molded to be more data driven and technology dependent might be an ulterior motive.

Further Insights

The Common Core standards were developed by a body formed from the partnership between the NGA and the CCSSO. Once the standards had been outlined, representatives from these groups knew that they would need a significant amount of money and influence in order to develop them fully and to persuade the education establishment to consider them, much less embrace them. NGA and CCSSO emissaries approached Bill Gates and his foundation, based on the foundation's extensive previous work supporting educational innovation. Though skeptical at first, Gates eventually was persuaded that the Common Core program was worth a shot, even though its success was far from certain.

The Gates Foundation's Role. The Gates Foundation is estimated to have spent more than $200 million in support of Common Core by 2014. Some of this funding was devoted to supporting the states in collaboratively developing common standards based on the framework first discussed with the Gateses by the NGA and CCSSO officials. This was an advantage over past efforts at educational reform, which often ran into conflicts between the interests of individual states and the objectives of education policy makers at the federal levels Typically, the states sought to retain local control over how education funds would be used, but federal agencies, which held out educational funding dollars, had their own intentions for how that funding should be used. These conflicting agendas tended to result in either a complete breakdown of discussions or a watered-down compromise that satisfied both state and federal officials but accomplished very little in a practical sense.

The Gates Foundation changed this dynamic by introducing funding for standards development from a private source that was willing to work with officials in different states and find ways to encourage them to cooperate. This availability of nongovernmental financing, coupled with a lack of authority for regulatory oversight on the part of the Gates Foundation, made it possible for a diverse group of stakeholders to work together in the development of Common Core. However, even with all these advantages the effort would likely still have failed to reach its objective, if not for another type of funding provided by the foundation.

Building Support. The Gates Foundation spent huge amounts of money in an effort to build broad-based support for Common Core, making donations to almost every major institution, both liberal and conservative, that has input into the formation of education-related policies and legislation. Recipients of these funds included the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Center for American Progress, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, several teachers unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Other donations were made to support research into effective methods of instruction and standards development. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute received a research grant, as did the Foundation for Excellence in Education.

The overall effect of these donations was to assuage fears of what Common Core might mean, and to build support for the initiative among both the business community and the major lobbying organizations for teachers. This broad base of support appears to have made it possible for Common Core to be adopted by a large number of state education agencies with little resistance from those informed about the contents of the standards. A significant effort to educate the public about Common Core was neglected, however, possibly because the nature of many state governments meant that the standards could be adopted without public input, or with a minimal amount of such input.

Conflict of Interest Charges. Once Common Core was widely adopted and its implementation began, public attitudes began to transition from indifference to occasional hostility. One particularly contentious issue concerns who is to be responsible for the costs of implementing Common Core. While the standards are to some degree curriculum independent—teachers and districts may use whatever materials to choose in order to help their students meet the standards defined by Common Core—they do require the purchase of some new materials, in addition to expenses related to teacher training, assessment, and related issues—including technology. Critics of Common Core frame the situation as state education systems, and thus taxpayers, being forced to foot the bill for converting their operations to Common Core after the Gates Foundation used its money and influence to push the standards into being approved in almost every state. This view often includes suspicions bordering on conspiracy theory, suggesting alliances or mutually beneficial investments between those who backed Common Core and business interests that stood to benefit from the implementation of a new set of (almost) nationwide standards. These theories have been lent some credence by developments such as Microsoft's agreement to partner with education publisher Pearson in order to put Pearson's Common Core software on computers produced by Microsoft, but both companies insist that the arrangement is merely one of convenience and was not orchestrated in advance.

Common Core, Inc. Various media outlets began to assert that, despite its developers' claims to the contrary, Common Core is more than just a set of standards and is actually meant to be a curriculum as well. What is more, some outlets reported that long before the Common Core standards were developed and began to be released to the public, a company named Common Core, Inc., was established in 2007. Common Core, Inc., reportedly received grant funding from the Gates Foundation in 2009, for the purpose of writing curriculum that would conform to the requirements of the Common Core standards under development at the time. Common Core, Inc., later received several lucrative contracts from the state of New York to provide Common Core curriculum to New York schools. This type of option has been attractive to many schools that have adopted Common Core, because even though Common Core bills itself as a set of standards that is curriculum independent, meaning that states are free to use any materials they like so long as the students meet the required levels of performance, the rapid adoption and implementation of Common Core did not allow time for states to marshal their own resources to develop compliant curriculum.

The New York situation was further complicated when it was revealed that the state used money it received from the federal government's Race to the Top initiative to purchase the Common Core curriculum developed by Common Core, Inc. For some, this creates the impression that taxpayer dollars in the form of federal education grants are being funneled to a private corporation so that it can develop and market curriculum materials to support a set of standards that were approved with the understanding that they could be implemented by schools in whatever manner best suited local conditions.

The Downside of a Market-Based Approach. The concerns most frequently expressed by those who question Common Core arise from its convoluted financial history, that is, an apparent lack of transparency, a lack of objectivity, and the hurried development of the standards and the curriculum that supports them. Critics point to the failure of Common Core's proponents to solicit adequate amounts of objective feedback from the public and from the academic world, as well as to the relative paucity of long-term research data supporting the curriculum materials that claim to be designed with the standards in mind. In other words, there is a feeling in many quarters that while the standards sound good in principle, some of the curriculum materials that have been created to achieve the standards are impractical or inappropriate for use in real world classrooms.

For example, some schools are geared toward a high level of independent work because they serve students with special needs, gifted students, and students whose personal situations do not lend themselves to traditional classroom experiences with thirty or forty other students. Common Core emphasizes group work and social interaction as an important learning modality, so many of the lessons call for activities and discussions that are ill-suited to students working individually. Nevertheless, these students are required to adapt to Common Core methods if their schools have signed on to participate. There is a feeling that if more time had been allowed for the Common Core standards and curriculum to be studied to determine its effectiveness, then such issues could have been identified and addressed long before Common Core ever reached the implementation stage.

The suggestion has also been made that a more thoughtful strategy, and one less driven by the demands of a market-based approach to standards and curriculum development, would have been to implement Common Core gradually, one grade level at a time. In other words, instead of a school abruptly adopting the standards and requiring all grade levels to convert to the new style of learning, Common Core might have been implemented at the kindergarten level. Grades one through twelve would continue to use their existing curriculum and standards, but kindergartners' first experience with school would be in the context of Common Core. Then, when the first class of Common Core kindergartners reached first grade, they would continue to use Common Core curriculum, as would the new batch of kindergartners a year behind them. In each successive year, Common Core would advance another grade level along with the first batch of kindergartners to use it. At the end of twelve years, Common Core would be implemented at all grade levels, and (the argument contends) a wealth of useful information about its effectiveness would have been gathered during that time. Certainly this type of criticism benefits from the fact that "hindsight is always 20/20," yet supporters of Common Core will need to address the concerns of skeptics if opposition is to subside or even transform into acceptance.

Terms & Concepts

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Founded in 2000 by Bill Gates, founder and former CEO of Microsoft, and Melinda Gates. The foundation has an endowment in excess of $40 billion, making it a major player in the world of philanthropy. Education is one of the foundation's areas of focus.

"A Nation at Risk": A report issued in 1983 by President Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education. The report presented statistical evidence that U.S. schools were failing to provide millions of children with adequate instruction in the skills they would need to succeed as working adults and inspired urgent calls for education reform.

No Child Left Behind: An education reform initiative supported by President George W. Bush and signed into law in 2002. No Child Left Behind was a standards-based program that tied federal funding for education to the use of standardized tests to measure students' progress, leading critics to charge that schools and teachers were being forced to "teach the test," that is, to focus instruction on preparing classes to do well on the exam, because of its connection to funding, to the detriment of other relevant material in the curriculum.

Race to the Top: A competition-based program supported by President Barack Obama and operated by the federal government in which states could apply for a chance of receiving grant money. States that adopted standards of high quality had a higher chance of being awarded grant money; this incentivized some states to adopt Common Core in order to receive funding.

Bibliography

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Funding for the Common Core

On this Page

Subject Terms

Funding for the Common Core

Abstract

Overview

Further Insights

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

Suggested Reading