*Taryn

Team Green Second Affirmative. My partner is Niki McAlpin Gov. Chris Christie's declaration that [|Common Core is "simply not working"] made national headlines on Thursday and realigned his stance with the Republican Party's conservative base. But despite Christie's rhetoric, it's possible that Common Core standards — called by that name or not — will remain in place, state education experts and leaders said. "You keep the car. You just change the color of the paint," said Christopher Tienken, an associate professor of education at Seton Hall University.


 * POLL:** [|Do you agree with Christie's call to end Common Core in N.J.?]

The theory is based on the details of what Christie announced Thursday, including his continued support on Thursday of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams, which are aligned to Common Core standards, educators said. One way that Common Core could stay is with minor tweaks and a new name, said Patricia Wright, executive director of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. The standards outline what skills students should master in each particular grade level, and Christie didn't specifically say that Common Core was deficient in that regard. He instead focused on the fact that it caused confusion and that parents and teachers wanted standards developed in New Jersey. To design the new standards, Christie called for creating a group of parents and educators to review prior state standards and a make a recommendation. Because the state associations representing teachers, principals and superintendents all endorse Common Core, it's likely they would arrive at similar standards again, Wright said.

Standardized tests are being used in high-stakes ways to evaluate and punish teachers. — The Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative coerces states to use student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers even though the exams were never intended for this purpose and the results are not reliable indicators a teacher’s effectiveness. This “test and punish” approach to teacher evaluation has caused some schools and districts to ignore other factors affecting student achievement such as poverty and socioeconomic status.