The Educational Core and Standards
As we were headed into the new school year last fall, an ASCD poll on the "Most Attention Getting Topics for the Year in K-12 Education" had caught my attention. Included were some hot and buzz-worthy topics like:
STEM/STEAM with a rating of 7.40%
Data analysis and decision-making 5.67%
The changing role of educators 3.31%
Personalized learning/adaptive learning 2.99%
Early-childhood education 1.57%
Online and blended instruction/MOOCs 1.42%
But for the K-12 world of education, the topic of the Common Core Standards and their orientation, implementation and assessment got the overwhelming vote at a whopping 77.64%.
Unfortunately, in higher education there is very little recognition or interest in these Common Core State Standards. That's unfortunate because they will have a real impact on the kind of students we see in the years to come.
The Common Core Standards are an effort to provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.
The standards were designed to be robust and relevant to the real world and hopefully reflect the knowledge and skills that young people need for success in college and careers. Since this is a national effort, there is much talk about American students being prepared for the future and being able to "compete successfully in the global economy."
It's hard to not to agree with those intentions. But the Standards were met with lots of resistance from teachers, schools and even from states. I think that is to be expected with any big program that tries to set English and math standards and is pushed by Washington, D.C. education trade organizations and the current administration.
Some states have put on hold or even de-funded implementation of the standards. Some have pulled out of the consortia developing tests tied to them.
Federal programs like Race to the Top grants and No Child Left Behind waivers are often tied to the adoption of Common Core standards and assessments. But the Race to the Top money is spent and so states are taking a different view at Common Core.
It is an over-simplification to explain the standards in just a few sentences, but what got a lot of press was that Common Core reduces the amount of classic literature, poetry and drama taught in English classes by 60 percent in favor of reading non-fiction - the prose of work.
In the math area, it delays the progression to Algebra I (seen as the gateway course to all higher math) by two years.
Media coverage, like this NPR report, like to point out the extremes and inconsistencies. The public can easily see that if a fourth-grader in Arkansas gets a “proficient” on his state test but would have been given a "failing" score on it he lived in Massachusetts, something is wrong.
That is why many supporters of having clear and high standards for every child in the United States by grade level see it as a practical and effective solution for the idea that now some students learn less than peers in other states.
I am not enough of an expert to praise or condemn the Standards, but I do think that ALL educators, especially those who are post-secondary, need to become better informed.
That is why many supporters of having clear and high standards for every child in the United States by grade level see it as a practical and effective solution for the idea that now some students learn less than peers in other states.
I am not enough of an expert to praise or condemn the Standards, but I do think that ALL educators, especially those who are post-secondary, need to become better informed.
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