This year, teachers will have many new teaching materials available to them, due to the state’s transition to Common Core standards. Leon County teacher Brian Lassiter says he gets daily pitches from companies trying to peddle their wares:
“I’ve seen many things that have gone from my hand to the recycle bin," he said.
Florida is pushing ahead with implementing new learning standards for students -- ones that come with a hefty price tag. Meanwhile, tech companies, school suppliers and other businesses are trying to cash in on the Common Core changes. But some education watchers are warning buyers to beware of products touted as Common Core compliant.
Lassiter says he's gotten sample worksheets and booklets, even entire websites, branded as Common Core compatible, but really aren’t. The problem is there’s no single list of all the items that have already been vetted. TheCommon Core’s website has a list of sample items teachers can use, but those materials aren’t mandatory, and Lassiter questions how companies can use the Common Core label when the standards themselves are still being refined.
“One of the biggest things I’ve seen is the [issue of] text-complexity for what we have to do for teachers. So for fourth grade, we have to go 1-2 grade levels above for the text complexity. We see these pieces of material come out that don’t have the rigor for what we need to do in the classroom."
For some, Common Core is an opportunity. Michael O’Sullivan is the Chief Executive of Cambridge International Examinations, a non-profit arm of Cambridge University in England.
"It creates opportunity because if you have something that helps solve the problem, then people want to talk to you," O'Sullivan said.
O'Sullivan see Common Core as a way for Cambridge to break into the U.S. market, and that means supplying states and school districts with syllabi, teacher training textbooks and exams to help them meet the new standards.
O’Sullivan says the Miami-Dade school district has purchased Cambridge’s testing and instruction systems. But his isn’t the only company trying to get a foothold. There’s also big box store Office Depot, which has devoted an entire section of its website to Common Core. There are math books and reading books—even Common Core calendars with elephants and caterpillars for teachers to map their daily lesson plans on. In all, there are more than 1600 different products in Office Depot’s common core section.
“We thought that would be a great way to have teachers utilize office depot as a resource beyond the highlighters, and markers and posterboard...and really have something from an instructional point that they could utilize to advance themselves and the students in the class," says Office Depot's Public Sector Director Steve Purgutorio.
Office Depot has partnered with companies including Scholastic to market Common Core materials. But with all the Common Core-branded materials being pushed by different companies, quality control is an issue. But having a smorgasbord of products to choose from isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Let’s go back and look at what existed in our country prior to common core. You had 50 states with 50 different kind of academic standards," said Patricia Levesque, head of the school-choice group Foundation for Florida’s Future. "So guess who was able to sell their textbooks across 50 states. It was just the big publishers, because they were the only ones who could afford to do 30-40 different versions of their textbooks.”
Levesque admits in the short term, the market may be flooded by different materials, not all of which will be good. But she says as more teachers weigh in on the merits of each, economic forces will prevail.
“And the best ones will be the ones lower in cost, and where teachers have said, ‘this was really fantastic...’ You’re going to see lower cost, better quality materials over the long run.”
But until that happens, teachers and other education officials must still wade through a sea of Common Core clutter.
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