Understanding Common Core State Standards

John Kendall, Kathleen M. Budge

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781416613312
• eBook ISBN: 9781416613954
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In June 2010, the Common Core State Standards Initiative released Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects and Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The goal of these shared national standards? To identify for all stakeholders the knowledge and skills that students must acquire to succeed in college, careers, and the global economy.

Now that the Common Core standards are coming to 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, it is essential to understand their content and implications. Understanding Common Core State Standards tells you everything you need to know about the standards, including

* The goals and criteria of the standards and why they are a promising alternative to the old standards-based education model;
* The organization and key aspects of the two overarching sets of standards;
* The benefits of implementing the standards, including intentional instruction, a greater pool of resources, increased collegiality and professionalism, customized learning and multiple pathways, and a more consistent, equitable learning experience;
* What schools can do to transition to the new standards; and
* How the common state assessment systems are being developed to provide interactive, enhanced test items; produce specific, timely test results; and provide an indication of students' readiness for college or career.

This book is an invitation to think about the possibilities that the Common Core standards offer for strengthening teaching and learning across the United States--and what you can do to make the most of this opportunity for change.

Chapter 1
The Common Core Standards in Context

In the spring of 2009, in an effort unprecedented in the history of U.S. education, governors and state commissioners of education from across the United States formed the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). The goal of this initiative? To develop a set of shared national standards ensuring that students in every state are held to the same level of expectations that students in the world's highest-performing countries are, and that they gain the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for success in postsecondary education and in the global arena.

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association committed to this work with representatives from 48 states, 2 territories, and the District of Columbia. The task engaged the talents and expertise of educators, content specialists, researchers, community groups, and national organizations, including an advisory group of experts from Achieve, ACT, the College Board, the National Association of State Boards of Education, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers. The subject-area organizations, including the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), were not asked to help draft or provide feedback to early drafts of the standards but were invited to critique drafts of the Common Core standards prior to their release for public comment. In addition, the draft standards were informed by feedback from teachers, parents, business leaders, and the general public.

June 2010 saw the publication of Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSSE/L) and Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). Efforts are also under way to develop state-shared standards in science and social studies. A committee selected by the National Research Council is currently crafting a conceptual framework to guide the development of standards in science, an effort funded by the Carnegie Corporation. The National Council for the Social Studies is part of a coalition of 18 states and 15 professional organizations that have started work on a conceptual framework and criteria for a set of interdisciplinary standards.

In some respects, this effort came as a surprise. Education curricula in the United States have long been controlled at the state and local levels. Yet the Common Core can also be seen as a natural product of the standards-based education movement of the last 20 years. Without having experienced the standards movement, it is improbable that so many states—as of now, 43, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico—would sign on to such a great enterprise. The fact that the voices arguing against adoption of the Common Core standards do not reject the idea of common standards but, rather, argue that their own standards are better, stands as a testament to the significant inroads the standards movement has made in public schooling. It appears that the debate over the merits of establishing common standards is over. It is no longer considered acceptable that students in different states are learning at different levels.

Where It All Began: Standards-Based Education in the United States

Before we move on to discuss the details of the Common Core standards, we would be wise to place them in context by examining the history of the standards-based education movement—and why it has experienced only limited success. Figure 1.1 outlines some noteworthy differences among the Common Core approach, standards-based education, and the general character of education prior to the standards-based education movement.

---

Figure 1.1. A Comparison of Education Before Standards-Based Education, During the Standards Movement, and Under the Common Core

Appropriateness of expectations to instructional time available

Before Standards-Based Education: Time available = time needed.

During the Standards Movement: Varies by state; no explicit design criteria. Often, not enough instructional time available to address all standards.

Under the Common Core: Standards are designed to require 85 percent of instructional time available.

Curriculum support

Before Standards-Based Education: Curriculum is defined by the textbook.

During the Standards Movement: Standards drive the curriculum, but curriculum development lags behind standards development.

Under the Common Core: Standards publication is followed quickly by curriculum development.

Methods of describing student outcomes

Before Standards-Based Education: Seat time; Carnegie units (emphasis on inputs over outcomes).

During the Standards Movement: State standards; criterion-based.

Under the Common Core: Cross-state standards; consortia of states.

Source of expectations for students

Before Standards-Based Education: The expectations in textbooks or those described in Carnegie units; historical, traditional influences.

During the Standards Movement: Varies by state; over time, moved from traditional course descriptions to college- and career-ready criteria.

Under the Common Core: The knowledge and skills required to be college- and career-ready; international benchmarks; state standards.

Primary assessment purposes

Before Standards-Based Education: Infrequent comparison of students against a national sample; minimum competency tests in the 1970s.

During the Standards Movement: Accountability; to clarify student performance by subgroup (NCLB).

Under the Common Core: Accountability; to inform and improve teaching and learning.

Systemic nature of reform

Before Standards-Based Education: Not systemic; reform is enacted through programs at the school or district level.

During the Standards Movement: Reform varies by state and within states. Some are tightly aligned; "local control" states are much less systemic.

Under the Common Core: Standards, curriculum, and assessment are shared among participating states and territories.

---

To fully understand the Common Core, it is necessary to understand how standards-based education transformed K–12 education in the United States. In the early 1990s, working with researcher Robert Marzano as a consultant, I observed teachers from a local school district discuss the new idea of establishing districtwide standards. Back then, as now, it was typical for districts to be ahead of the curve; they could move with greater alacrity than the states and were eager to understand how standards might affect curriculum and instruction. The leaders in this district had created an atmosphere that encouraged thoughtful, open discussion. A few wise old owls in the room, ready to educate the younger set, enlightened us to the fact that we were looking at just another fad in education—one that would have its day and be gone. For these veterans, the key question was how to conserve their energy and tack into the storm in a way that would not leave them exhausted and waterlogged when it was all over. Other teachers, who viewed their work in the classroom as an eclectic mix of the best ideas that zipped through these workshops, pushed the discussion forward to glean from it whatever nuggets they might carry away. For them, too, the reform effort was simply a local, temporary phenomenon.

But some teachers were quick to see why this idea should not be another three-year buzz and fizzle. First, the effectiveness of standards-based education depended heavily on the school as a system of learning with students as its focus. It couldn't survive if teachers remained autocratic, using what they liked in the textbook and ignoring what they didn't. This systemic approach appealed to teachers who believed that their jobs were made more difficult by colleagues who taught only what they liked to teach rather than what students really needed. Second, the national subject-area organizations, bent on ensuring that the essential concepts and skills of their disciplines were a part of every curriculum, emphasized the importance of agreeing on what all students should learn. Educators continued to generate greater potency for the standards movement as they asked themselves, "How much more effective could we be if we deliberately identified exactly what students need to learn during each step of their schooling?" Finally, state departments of education began to turn the system, however ponderously, taking standards as true north and aligning policy and reform efforts to help schools and districts reach shared goals for students.

It was easy to see the advantage afforded by standards: if we could agree on a set of standards for each grade level, then students would start each school year better prepared to learn. As some teachers saw it, standards formed the basis of a social contract with their colleagues. If everyone could see what the expectations were, the responsibilities of each teacher would be clear. Some feared their loss of control over the curriculum, characterizing their resistance to standards as concern for losing the freedom required for the art of teaching. Certainly lost was a level of autonomy—the freedom for each teacher to do whatever he or she deemed best without knowing whether or not it clearly served students' futures.

The Drawbacks of State Standards

The Common Core standards are indebted to the standards-based movement and its accomplishments. But just as important, the Common Core also reflects lessons learned. In the next few sections, I discuss the flaws of standards-based education and the challenges it presents to date.

Too Many Standards

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics effectively initiated the standards-based movement with the publication of its mathematics standards in 1989, a work that implicitly argued that it was educators, not textbook or assessment publishers, who were best equipped to identify what students should know and be able to do. Other subject-area groups with a predominant teacher membership quickly endorsed this view and began to publish their own drafts. Funds for these efforts became available not long after an Education Summit was held that same year, during which President George H. W. Bush and the nation's governors set forth ambitious education goals, including student competency across the subject areas.

The definition of a standard, including its scope and specificity, varied from one group to the next. But the groups had at least one thing in common: the amount of content they identified as important for student mastery staked significant claims on the school day. Over time, the publication of standards in each subject area effectively delegitimized textbooks as the basis for curriculum in the United States. This result had a further consequence, likely unintended, of weakening local school boards, whose authority over the curriculum had been exercised largely through textbook selection. Departments of education, often directed by state legislation, began the process of developing state standards in mathematics, language arts, and science. Eventually, most states established standards for every subject area. Relying in large part on the foundational work of the national subject-area groups and having little research to counterbalance the groups' claims, the states tended to accept too many standards from each discipline—often, more than could be realistically addressed in the instructional time available. Ironically, this situation meant that teachers were once again the final arbiters of what students would learn: they had to either select what to teach and what to ignore or race through all the standards ineffectively.

Too Little Curriculum

Prior to the standards movement, the textbook ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Common Core Standards in Context
• Chapter 2. What the Standards Look Like
• Chapter 3. Benefits and Concerns
• Chapter 4. Preparing for the Common Core
• Conclusion: Looking Ahead
• References
• About the Author and McREL
• Copyright