Common core standards released . . .

The Common Core Standards were released today. This Education Week article captures some of the early review and as expected they are very mixed. The following excerpt from the article captures the difference of opinion on just one aspect of the standards that are of importance to us; the acquisition of key skills compared to content knowledge.

The completion of the public draft sparked a repeat of earlier criticism from some quarters that the common standards demand skills such as critical thinking without the underlying subject-matter knowledge required to learn those skills.

Jim Stergios, the executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based research and advocacy group, said the common standards are “skills-based standards without any real content to speak of.” He said he is worried that Massachusetts’ own standards will be “dumbed down” if the state adopts the common standards.

But Richard Long, the director of government relations for the International Reading Association, commended the draft for its potential to serve as a “cornerstone” of improvement in U.S. education. Too much focus on subject-matter knowledge in standards, he said, risks turning schooling into a mechanical use of facts, rather than a process of learning how to apply key skills to varying sets of facts.

The released standards can be found here with an opportunity for public comment here. According to the article, the organization wants to hear from teachers on if they think the standards are teachable, if the grade-by-grade progression of skills makes sense, and any ideas they may have on curriculum materials and assessments that could be developed that reflect the standards.

This Seattle Times article gives some examples of the standards at various grade levels and different opinions on their value.

Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents major urban systems, called the proposal crucial for improving public education. "It's very clear to us that when the standards are high, it elevates the performance of kids and schools," he said. "Where they are low, it appears to serve as a drag on your ability to get faster gains."
The problem with this statement is that representatives from some states see these standards, especially in math, as not being as strong as current state standards.

Karen Klinzing, who oversees standards development in Minnesota as the assistant education commissioner, said the common standards for English/language arts are at least as rigorous as Minnesota’s own highly regarded standards, but those for math “are not there yet.”

The controversy surrounding the standards resulted in the delayed release and will not go away. The pressure by the federal government to link revenue to adopting them will be difficult for states to ignore making it highly likely that for the first time we will have a set of standards developed at the national level by organizations not directly linked to a content area. It will be interesting to see how long it will take publishers and assessment developers to respond with curriculum materials and common core assessments will not be next on the horizon. We will now wait for our state to analyze and share with us the alignment of these standards with our essential learnings.