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EducationWEEkA Secia Reort on te Common Core State Standards>www.edweek.org/go/standardsreport
>Mapping out the landscapeo academic content and instructionin the common-core era
COmmOnStandardS
&
A Supplement to the April 25, 2012, Issue
Vo. 31 No. 29
mh, Liecy,
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By CAthErinE
GEwErtz
Success o Standards DependsOn Translation or Classroom
In less than three years, the CommonCore State Standards have vaulted overthree key hurdles, surprising more thana ew naysayers. In June 2009, governorsand education chies in 46 states pledgedtheir support or the idea. A year later,panels o experts unveiled the completedstandards. By last November, all but ourstates had ormally adopted them.
Now, the standards ace what expertssay is their biggest challenge yet: aithul transla-tion rom expectations on paper to instruction inclassrooms.
The implementation stage brims with possibili-ties both promising and threatening, depending
on ones perspective.To some critics, the standards carry the spec-ter o lock-step curriculum imposed by outsiders.To others, they represent a step down rom somestates top-notch standards, or an overemphasison skills at the expense o content. The standardsmost ardent backers see them as a brilliant distil-lation o what students urgently need to master tothrive in college and work, and as a door-openerto better teaching.
Whether opponents nightmares come true,or advocates hopes are borne out, will dependlargely on how the standards are put into prac-tice.
The biggest potential pothole, by ar, is ailedimplementation, said Chester E. Finn Jr., the
president o the Thomas B. Fordham Institute,a Washington think tank that has been trackingthe standards and counts itsel as an advocate.Its a huge, heavy lit i we are serious aboutteachers teaching it, kids learning it, curriculareecting it, tests aligned with it, and kids pass-ing those tests.
The common standards in math and English/language arts took shape in only a ew years, butthe sentiments that prompted them have longerroots.
Since 1983, when the reportA Nation at Riskwarned o U.S. educations growing mediocrity,attempts to create a shared set o academic ex-pectations have suraced and disintegrated. An
advisory panel under President George H.W.Bush recommended national standards andtests, but the idea collapsed in the atermatho controversy over history content. PresidentBill Clinton proposed national tests in 4th gradereading and 8th grade mathematics, but Con-gress demurred.
States crated their own standardsotenincorporating pieces o the voluntary nationalstandardsbut the results o the National As-sessment o Educational Progress and state testsadministered or the No Child Let Behind Actcalled the quality o many states standards intoquestion. Momentum built or better-quality ex-pectations applied to all children.
Its historic that in this country, with our better-than-two-century-old tradition o local control,state leaders would agree on common standards
like this, said Jack Jennings, the ounder o
the Center on Education Policy, a Wash-ington-based policy and research orga-
nization that has tracked common-
Overview
Avcae f ecmm ce yeak mpemeac ea vee
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$360 onin federa grants as
gone to grous of
states deveoingcommon assessments.
standards implementation. Its a departure, butits not abrupt. Its a departure that builds on thelast 20 years o debate and experience.
That agreement hinged on a concept that waspivotal and deliberate, given previous politicalcontroversies: that the initiative was to be led bythe states. Panels o experts wrote the standardswith input rom states education departments,subject-matter organizations, teacher groups, andothers.
FEdErAl intrusion?
But critics contend that states didnt drive thecommon-standards eort as vigorously as did
oundations and Washington-based organizationsthat embraced the idea. The state-led descrip-tor came in or additional skepticism when theederal government began oering incentives toadopt the standards.
States, fscally battered by the recession, stooda better chance o winning a share o the Race tothe Top competitions $4 billion i they adopted thestandards by Aug. 2, 2010. As that date drew near,adoptions picked up speed. Thirty-our had adoptedby that day, including two on deadline day itsel.
Other moves by the ederal government in sup-port o the standards ueled the perception thatthey were an extension o the Democratic admin-istrations policy agenda. The U.S. Department oEducation awarded $360 million in grants to twogroups o states to develop tests or the new stan-dards. To participate in those consortia, states hadto have adopted the standards by the end o 2011.
Additionally, the governments oer this year towaive key requirements o the No Child Let Be-hind Act is easier to obtain or states that have
embraced the standards.Those moves sparked questions in some quar-
ters about whether the ederal government hadoverstepped legal restrictions on the role it canplay in local education decisions.
The message here seems to be that the ed-eral government has the money and can makeit available according to the conditions they set,said Kent Talbert, a Washington education law-yer who co-wrote a recent white paper concludingthat the ederal government has overstepped itsauthority in pressing or common standards andassessments. Once you agree to that, down theroad everyone will have to do the same thing, withonly a ew dierences here and there, because o
the way standards interact with curriculum andassessment.Common-core advocates argue that one shared
set o standards doesnt dictate content or peda-gogy, because content is not prescribed, and thereare many ways to teach the specifed skills. O-fcials who avor them, including U.S. Secretaryo Education Arne Duncan, have repeatedly saidthat states are ree to choose whether to embraceor reject common standards and tests.
But echoes o the questions about the ederalgovernments role have rippled through a ewstate legislatures, where lawmakers are just be-ginning to examine the ramifcations o adoptiondecisions made by their state boards o education.Such bills have called or repeal o the standardsadoptions, or or keeping a close watch on theirimplementation.
Few progressed very ar, but they sent up ares
or common-core advocates. Mr. Duncan himselresponded to South Carolinas attempt to roll backthe standards by accusing the state o lowering its
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academic expectations. In Utah,where lawmakers had raisedquestions about ederal intrusioninto local education decisions,Mr. Duncan responded to a letterrom state schools Superinten-dent Larry Shumway by sayingthat nothing in ederal law or
in current or proposed policies othe U.S. Department o Educa-tion in any way contradicts Mr.Shumways insistence that Utahretains complete control o itsstandards and curriculum.A per sis tent perception that
the common core is ederallydriven, however, poses a poten-tial threat to its widespreadimplementation, its advocatessay. Mr. Finn, or instance, saidthat Mr. Duncan risks loving itto death by taking a high-profle
public stance on the commoncores behal.
Misgivings about the ederalgovernments role in the stan-dards is but one potential dangerzone lurking in their implemen-tation. Grappling with teachingthe skills demanded by the new
standards is no small challenge.
nEw VistAs
Math teachers ace having toteach skills to which theyre un-accustomed, since some conceptshave been moved to lower gradesin the new standards. Theyrealso being asked to ocus longerand more deeply on ewer con-cepts and to emphasize concep-tual understanding and practicalapplications o math. In manyplaces, such as Howard County,Md., that has resulted in a urryo activity as teachers brainstormabout how to design curriculum
and pedagogy that embody thestandards.The English/language arts stan-
dards present challenges o theirown. More than most states ownstandards, they insist on studentsbuilding content knowledge andreading skill rom independentlytackling inormational texts. Theydemand better analysis and ar-gumentation skills, and they in-volve teachers rom all subjectsin teaching the literacy skills otheir disciplines. Teachers in Ken-tucky, among other places, are ex-perimenting with new templatesthat attempt to capture these keyshits.
Without good instructional ma-
terials, the common standardscould be hamstrung, experts say.And the quality o the materialsproduced or the common core re-mains to be seen. Publishers largeand small have jumped into theray, oering an array o programsthey say are aligned to the com-mon core. States and districts areworking individually and togetherto drat their own. Those who ledthe writing o the standards arecrating explanatory documentsto guide teachers and publishers.Subject-matter groups are oer-ing resources, and the two groupso states working on tests arecreating, or planning, an array o
supports including online banks oteaching tools.Proessional development re-
mains a central area o concern asthe standards are implemented,
and many in the feld say the suc-cess o the initiative rests on it.
Teachers are not accustomedto teaching the way the standardsenvision, said Barbara A. Kapi-nus, who helped shape the stan-
dards as a senior policy analyst atthe National Education Associa-tion beore retiring this month.
We have a whole group o teach-ers out there who have come in inthe last 10 years, under No ChildLet Behind, who have been givenscripts to ollow and have marchedkids through those scripts andthrough sequences o little, teensyskills. What were talking aboutwith the [common] standards is acompletely dierent kind o teach-ing.
PrEPArinG tEAChErs
Reaching the nations more than
3 million teachers with good-qual-ity proessional development is nosmall task, especially or statesand districts whose coers are de-pleted ater several years o reces-
sion. And there is little sign thatteacher-preparation programs arerevamping their work to preparenewly minted educators or thenew standards.
Most current teachers haveread the standards or their gradelevel, think highly o them, and
are willing to teach them, but ewunderstand the proound changesin teaching that they will require,according to William H. Schmidt,a Michigan State University pro-essor widely known or his stud-ies o mathematics curricula. Heis currently conducting research,through the universitys Centeror the Study o Curriculum, ondistricts preparedness or the com-mon standards.
A majority o the teachers in-dicate that they think the newcommon-core standards are prettymuch the same as what they havebeen doing, Mr. Schmidt said inan email. The difculty I oresee
is that, in spite o this opennesstoward their implementation, thedata suggests that most teachersdo not recognize how difcult thatprocess will be.
Particular challenges lie aheador teachers o special educationstudents and those still learningEnglish as they try to build bridgesthat allow their students to re-spond to the new expectations.
The emphasis on mastery ocomplex texts and academicvocabulary, or instance, in ad-dition to the typical grammarand vocabulary, is uniquely chal-lenging or English-learners,advocates say. And experts saystudents with cognitive disabili-
ties, in particular, could strugglewith the standards. But the newguidelines also seem to be spread-ing techniques typically used orspecial education students, suchas Response to Intervention andUniversal Design or Learning, toa broader population.
Educators in big-city districtsare grappling with how best toteach the common standards,since many urban students comerom poverty and are academi-cally underprepared. Theyre try-ing to fgure out whether they canadapt the materials they have tothe new expectations or whetherthey must buy or produce new
materials, said Michael D. Cas-serly, the executive director o theCouncil o the Great City Schools,which represents the nations 67largest districts. At the same time,
SpeedyprOCeSS
Once te federa
government danged
benets for signing on
to te common core,
states quicky adoted
te standards in Engis/
anguage arts and
mathemacs. Its historic thatin this country,with our better-than-two-century-oldtradition of localcontrol, state
leaders could
agree oncommon
standards.
JACK JENNINGS
FounderCenter on Education Policy
FEbRUARY JUNE
171TOTAlSTATES
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STANDARDSADOpTERSIN ThE YEAR
2010
State adoted standardsState as not adoted standards
State adoted standardsin ony one suject
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heyre attending to other pieces oheir cities or states reorm agen-
das, such as teacher quality andchool turnaround work, all with
deep cutbacks in their budgets, heaid.Nonetheless, the stakes are high
o get the common standards right
n urban districts. Its importanthat we get implementation right
where there arent as many kidsn need, but its vital that we get itight in communities where lots otudents need extra help, Mr. Cas-erly said.
wAitinG For tEsts
One o the biggest questionshanging over common-standardsmplementation is what will be onhe tests designed or them. Someducators have reported reluctanceo move ahead with curriculum be-ause they dont yet know what the
assessments, scheduled to be ully
perational in 2014-15, will lookike. Others eel confdent enougho move ahead based on whathey can glean rom the standardshemselves.Educators judgments about
whether the tests truly relecthe standards will be crucial toustaining the standards over theong term, said Mr. Jennings o the
Center on Education Policy.The biggest potential obstacle
s the tests, he said. Because oheir experience with nclb, teach-rs want to know, what are theests going to require? Will theests back up what they are sup-
posed to do with the new stan-dards? I they dont, then the en-
ire eort is lost.The depth and breadth o the
ommon standards reach remainso be seen. Given the size o the im-
plementation challenge, even some the cores advocates anticipate
a bit o unraveling. Fordhams Mr.Finn gives the possibility o strongmplementation in all 46 common-tandards states a one in 100hance.Maybe two dozen [states], i
were lucky, will take it seriously,he said. That will be a dramatic,positive good or the country. Butnly hal the country.Mr. Jennings takes a more opti-
mistic view.
Nobody gets all the pieces right,ver, on anything, he said. Itswhether we get most o the piecesight or most kids and most teach-rs that will matter.n
JUlY/AUGUST
2011TOday
46pluS The diSTriCTOf COlumbia
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6/7
6eNGliSh/laNGuaGe arTS/liTeraCy
KeyShifTS iNCOmmON
STaNdardS
1. Informaona TextBiding knowedge throgh
content-rich noncon and
informaona texts.
At te eementary eve, te standards ca
for a 50-50 balance between informaonal
texts and literature. They shi the
emphasis to 55 percent informaonal
y midde scoo, and 70 ercent y ig
scoo. Suc reading incudes content-ric
noncon in history/social studies, science,
and the arts. Informaonal text is seen
as a way for students to uid coerent
genera knowedge, as we as readingand wring skills.
2. Cing EvidenceReading and wring gronded
in evidence from text.
Te standards ace a remium on students
use of evidence from texts to resent
carefu anayses and we-defended caims.
Rather than asking students quesons
tey can answer soey from teir rior
knowedge or exerience, te standards
envision students answering quesons
tat deend on reading te text or texts
wit care. Te standards aso require te
culvaon of narrave wring throughout
te grades. Te reading standards focus onstudents aiity to read carefuy and gras
informaon, arguments, ideas, and details
ased on text evidence.
3. Compex TextRegar pracce with compex text
and its academic vocabar.
Te standards uid a staircase of
increasing text comexity to reare
students for te tyes of texts tey must
read to e ready for te demands of
coege and careers. Cosey reated to text
comexityand inextricay connected
to reading comreensionis a focus on
academic vocauary: words tat aear in
a variety of content areas (suc as ignite
and commit).
mileSTONeS iN The mOve TOward COmmON STaNdardS
1983A Naon at
Riskwarns of
U.S. educaons
mediocrity,
sarking a focuson academic
standards.
1989president George
h.W. bus and
the naons
governors agree
to set naonaleducaon goals.
1991president bus
unveis te
America 2000
Act, wic
roosesvountary
naonal
standards
and tests. It
fais to win
congressiona
suort, ut is
administraon
funds
deveoment
of vountary
naonal
standards.
1994president bi
Cinton signs
te Goas 2000:
Educate America
Act, wicrovides grants
to e states
deveo content
standards
and sets u
a standards-
cercaon
ane. Te
vountary
naonal
standards in
arts, civics,
geogray, socia
studies, Engis/
anguage arts,
istory, science,
and foreign
anguages are
reeased.
1994lynne V. Ceney,
te former ead
of the Naonal
Endowment for
the Humanies,
wic ad
susidized
te istory
standards,
aacks a dra,
arguing tat
it resents an
overly negave
icture of te
United States
and Western
civilizaon. The
U.S. Deartment
of Educaon
witdraws
funding for
te Engisstandards.
1995Te Senate
asses a
noninding
resoluon
denouncingte istory
standards.
1996Te Reuican-
ed Congress
eiminates te
standards-
cercaonane.
2002president George
W. bus signs
te No Cid
Le Behind Act,
wic requiresannua state
tesng in math
and reading in
grades 3-8 and
once during
ig scoo,
and mandates
states aign
teir tests wit
teir academic
standards.
2008The Naonal
Governors
Associaon,
te Counci
of Cief StateSchool Ocers,
and Acieve, in
consultaon with
state eaders,
reease a reort
advocang U.S.
standards e
equivaent to
the expectaons
of academicay
successfu
countries.
april2009Te CCSSO and
NGA aunc te
Common Core
State StandardsIniave. Two
monts ater, a
ut four states
ave edged
teir suort.
of K-12 public schoolstudents in the U.S.now live in states thathave adopted thecommon standards.
S10 | EDUCATION WEEK: COmmON STANDArDS>www.edweek.org/go/standardsreport AprIl 25, 2012
http://e-news.edweek.org/ct/15721679:18657937470:m:1:219370056:CE769A761B4E30EF31C924AF22DB97D1:rhttp://e-news.edweek.org/ct/15721679:18657937470:m:1:219370056:CE769A761B4E30EF31C924AF22DB97D1:r8/2/2019 Common Core 1
7/7
Smarter Baanced Assessment Consorm (26)
Partnership for Assessment of Readinessfor Coege and Careers (24 ps D.C.)
Both (5)
None (5)
maThemaTiCS
4. FocsFocs strong where the
standards focs.
Rater tan racing to cover toics in a mie-
wide, inch-deep curriculum, signicantly
narrow and deepen the way me and
energy are sent in te mat cassroom. Te
standards focus deey on te major work of
eac grade so tat students can gain strong
foundaons: solid conceptual understanding,
a high degree of procedural skill and uency,
and te aiity to ay te mat tey know
to sove roems inside and outside te mat
cassroom.
5. CoherenceThink across grades, and ink to
maor topics within grades.
Te standards are designed around coerent
rogressions from grade to grade. Carefuy
connect te earning across grades so tat
students can uid new understanding onto
foundaons built in previous years. Each
standard is not a new event, ut an extension
of revious earning. Instead of aowing
addional or supporng topics to detract
from te focus of te grade, tese toics can
serve te grade-eve focus.
Emasize concetua understanding of key
concepts, such as place value and raos.
Teacers suort students aiity to access
concepts from a number of perspecves so
tat students are ae to see mat as
more tan a set of mnemonics or discrete
rocedures.
he students uid seed and accuracy in
calculaon. Teachers structure class me
and/or homework me for students to
pracce core funcons, such as single-digit
mulplicaon, so that they have access to
more comex concets and rocedures.
Use math exibly for applicaons. Teachers
provide opportunies for students to apply
mat in context. Teacers in content areas
outside of math, parcularly science, ensure
tat students are using mat to make
meaning of and access content.
SOURCE:Adapted From Student Achievement Partners
July 2009Deveoment and
feedack grous
for career and
coege readiness
standardsteskis students
soud ave uon
graduaonare
announced.
SepT. 2009The dra
coege- and
career-readiness
standards are
made avaiae for
uic comment.
NOv. 2009Te deveoment
and feedack
grous for te
grade-y-grade
K-12 standardsare announced.
Unveied Race
to te To rues
say states can get
oints on teir
applicaons for
adopng the
standards y
Aug. 2, 2010.
FEB. 2,2010Kentucky
becomes the rst
state to adot
te standards,condionally, in
dra form.
marCh2010Dra K-12
grade-y-grade
standards are
made avaiae for
uic comment.
juNE 2,2010Fina common
standards are
issued.
july 14,2010haf te states
ave adoted te
standards.
april2010Te Deartment
of Educaon
invites
applicaons from
grous of states
to design tests
for te standards.
To eong to te
consora, states
ave to adot te
standards y te
end of 2011.
SepT. 2010The Educaon
Deartment
awards $330
miion to two
consora todeveo tests
for te common
standards. Four
monts ater,
te deartment
awards $30
miion more to
the two consora
to deveo
suementa
resources for te
standards.
SepT. 2011Te deartment
announces
guideines for
states wising
to ay forwaivers of key
requirements
of te No Cid
Le Behind Act.
To quaify, states
must adot
coege- and
career-ready
standards.
NOv. 2011A ut four states
ave adoted
te standards.
All but ve are
parcipangin one or ot
assessment
consora.
SOURCES: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium;
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College
and Careers
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6. rgoIn maor topics, prse concepta nderstanding, procedra ski
and enc, and appicaon with eqa intensit.
aSSeSSmeNTCONSOrTiamemberShip
EDUCATION WEEK: COmmON STANDArDS >www.edweek.org/go/standardsreport AprIl 25, 2012 | S11
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