Common Core Standards Are Not Liked By All But They Are Better Than Nothing!
By Bob Jennings
In 2010 several states independently adopted the Common Core, a set of math and English Language Arts standards for K-12 students to reach by the end of each grade level. School districts design the curricula and teachers create their own methods for instruction, selecting the resources best tailored to their lessons.
All of last week I was at the high school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District where I have been assigned. I really like the school and especially the co-principals that I will be training under. I am certain I will learn a lot from both of them, though they keep telling people how much they are going to learn from me. It is obvious that they are both fully committed to the children in their care. One of the principals has been at the school for more than 15 years and the other one has been there four years. I can tell that they work extremely well together.
One of the things that we have been doing this past week was to get ready for a two-day retreat for the staff on August 7-8 at a hotel in Beachwood, Ohio. Much of what will be discussed during the retreat is how to bring the scores up from last year. This is certainly a school in crisis when looking at the scores over a two-year period. I understand such because more than 90 percent of the children are on free and reduced lunch. In addition to the co-principals, the retreat planning team includes several teachers and subject-area coaches. The coaches are from area colleges and will be working with teachers throughout the year to help them understand and unpack the standards in a way that they correlate to state standards. There is also the newly hired Curriculum Instructional Specialist who seems to be as excited as I am to get the year going.
What has come out in almost every discussion is that many of the teachers do not know how to unpack the standards. As the A Net Achievement Network points out, "To improve student learning, educators need to know what students have and haven't learned--and why." Amy Golod, staff writer for Education News, explained in her March 2014 article that "Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have already adopted the Common Core State Standards, which were released in 2010 by the bipartisan National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But as the K-12 educational standards are rolled out across the country, misconceptions abound."
"The Common Core State Standards began with the idea that math in Massachusetts is not any different from math in Maryland, and now politics are involved," says Chris Minnich, Executive Director of the CCSSO.
Supporters of the new standards tout the fact that teachers from any part of the country can share ideas, and hope that if students move across state lines, they will have a smooth academic transition. Despite the potential for greater national unity among public school districts and bipartisan support at the outset, since the Federal government has voiced support for the standards, there is opposition, Minnich points out. Many people just don't like the feds telling them what to do.
As one teacher put it, "The district's focus this year is creating Common Formative Assessments and unpacking the standards to help create Priority Standards and Target Standards. We have been unpacking the standards and enjoyed the way they were explained using the verbs and nouns in the prompts but there is still more work to be done. Without any background, a lot of this working is over the heads of teachers and by using language they have not been exposed to will require more work." I am prepared to assist in this process because the standards are better than nothing at all.
By Bob Jennings
In 2010 several states independently adopted the Common Core, a set of math and English Language Arts standards for K-12 students to reach by the end of each grade level. School districts design the curricula and teachers create their own methods for instruction, selecting the resources best tailored to their lessons.
All of last week I was at the high school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District where I have been assigned. I really like the school and especially the co-principals that I will be training under. I am certain I will learn a lot from both of them, though they keep telling people how much they are going to learn from me. It is obvious that they are both fully committed to the children in their care. One of the principals has been at the school for more than 15 years and the other one has been there four years. I can tell that they work extremely well together.
One of the things that we have been doing this past week was to get ready for a two-day retreat for the staff on August 7-8 at a hotel in Beachwood, Ohio. Much of what will be discussed during the retreat is how to bring the scores up from last year. This is certainly a school in crisis when looking at the scores over a two-year period. I understand such because more than 90 percent of the children are on free and reduced lunch. In addition to the co-principals, the retreat planning team includes several teachers and subject-area coaches. The coaches are from area colleges and will be working with teachers throughout the year to help them understand and unpack the standards in a way that they correlate to state standards. There is also the newly hired Curriculum Instructional Specialist who seems to be as excited as I am to get the year going.
What has come out in almost every discussion is that many of the teachers do not know how to unpack the standards. As the A Net Achievement Network points out, "To improve student learning, educators need to know what students have and haven't learned--and why." Amy Golod, staff writer for Education News, explained in her March 2014 article that "Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have already adopted the Common Core State Standards, which were released in 2010 by the bipartisan National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But as the K-12 educational standards are rolled out across the country, misconceptions abound."
"The Common Core State Standards began with the idea that math in Massachusetts is not any different from math in Maryland, and now politics are involved," says Chris Minnich, Executive Director of the CCSSO.
Supporters of the new standards tout the fact that teachers from any part of the country can share ideas, and hope that if students move across state lines, they will have a smooth academic transition. Despite the potential for greater national unity among public school districts and bipartisan support at the outset, since the Federal government has voiced support for the standards, there is opposition, Minnich points out. Many people just don't like the feds telling them what to do.
As one teacher put it, "The district's focus this year is creating Common Formative Assessments and unpacking the standards to help create Priority Standards and Target Standards. We have been unpacking the standards and enjoyed the way they were explained using the verbs and nouns in the prompts but there is still more work to be done. Without any background, a lot of this working is over the heads of teachers and by using language they have not been exposed to will require more work." I am prepared to assist in this process because the standards are better than nothing at all.
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