As districts and schools go about implementing the Common Core State Standards, we want to make sure you have the tools you need to understand what Common Core is, why it’s important, how it will impact the classroom, and how you can help your children succeed under these newer, higher standards. Click on the resources below to find out everything you need to know about the Common Core.
The Common Core might be more complex than you think. As we’ve discussed in a previous blog, the Common Core resulted from a well-documented awareness that America’s academic performance was lagging behind the performance of other countries. When we look at our students’ results on international assessments and at their struggle to succeed in the global economy, it’s apparent that we need to raise the bar in K-12 academics. The Common Core State Standards were developed to set rigorous, sequential academic goals that have coherence from grade-to-grade, comparability from state-to-state, and that outline what our students need to be learning in every grade so that they can expect to succeed in college and future careers.
You might have heard all of that before. But did you know that the Common Core is not just about setting academic milestones for each grade-level in math and English Language Arts (ELA)? There are also standards for literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. In addition, there are six instructional shifts (3 for ELA and 3 for Math) that tell teachers how to align classroom instruction with these more rigorous standards, and there are eight standards of mathematical practice that set expectations for the style and activities that K-12 math teachers should provide in every lesson of every grade.
To be clear, none of these features of the Common Core tell teachers how to teach or what materials to use. Instead, the standards simply set expectations for the types of academic goals and pedagogical styles that research has shown will help our students become critical and analytical consumers of information.
Click on these buttons to learn, in greater detail, about the complexities of Common Core:
CCER asked Connecticut districts and schools to showcase the creative and informative ways they have been communicating about Common Core with parents. We received many excellent submissions and are pleased to announce 3 winners: Branford Public Schools, Vernon Public Schools, and Hanover Elementary School in Meriden. Winners will be given a $1,000 grant to further innovation in their school or district.
Each of our winners used multiple avenues to educate parents. They held events at schools, sent newsletters home, involved the local media, and made information available at school offices.
One of the most hotly debated topics in the field of education over the past few years has been the Common Core State Standards. Every week there are numerous articles in newspapers, magazines, and other news media referencing the Common Core. Depending upon the source, the Common Core has been referred to as everything from the first step in a government takeover to the solution for all problems in public education. Neither assumption is the truth. What are the Common Core State Standards and why has a set of educational standards created such angst and drama in our nation? This blog will address those questions.
Simply put the Common Core outlines the essential skills that all children should be mastering at the end of each grade level (K-12) in the areas of English Language Arts and Math. The standards are sequenced to prepare students for college-level material and for future careers by the end of grade 12. They do not tell school districts how to teach these skills or what teaching materials or resources to use for that purpose. That is the responsibility of school districts as they develop curricula to help their students learn these standards.
In fact, the idea of having standards is not new to Connecticut (or America). Even before Common Core,
Dear Reader,
Connecticut adopted the Common Core State Standards in 2010, and is now embarking upon the long process of statewide implementation.
At the end of the 2014 legislative session-in response to reports from stakeholders that implementation efforts need to improve-Governor Malloy established the Educators’ Common Core Implementation Taskforce. This group of educators has studied the issue of implementation and come up with a list of recommendations, which they submitted in a final report to Malloy at the end of June.
Then, at the beginning of this month, the State Board of Education held a meeting, at which a handful of Common Core critics expressed opposition to the new standards.
In response, we published this opinion with the Connecticut Post. It addresses the reality that it’s time for things to change in our public schools, and that we need to work together to make that happen. For your convenience, I’ve pasted the contents of the piece below.
By Korey Wilson
HARTFORD — After several months of meetings, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s Common Core Implementation Taskforce has concluded.
On Thursday, Malloy announced the launch of the Connecticut Core initiative, which will provide additional resources for public schools based on the findings of the task force.
As a result of the task force’s report, Malloy announced that $5 million will be spent on training and materials. Another $10 million in the upcoming fiscal budget has been provisioned for technology upgrades to assist in the roll out.
“I’m proud of the path that we have taken in Connecticut,” said Malloy during his speech at Annie Fisher STEM Magnet School in Hartford on Thursday.
“The recommendations of this task force will allow us to take quick and deliberate action to improve support for teachers and ensure that Connecticut students succeed.”
Malloy announced the allocation of $2 million to fund at least 1,000 professional training days for teachers; $1 million in mini-grants for library resources; and $2 million to upgrade curriculum for students with special needs as well as additional training for ESL and special education teachers.
The governor’s capital budget for FY ’15 authorizes an additional $10 million to prioritize school technology upgrades to support transition to the new standards.
The task force also recommended teacher and parent involvement as well as jargon-free language in the Common Core state standards.
The Common Core Implementation Taskforce consisted of 25 school administrators, teachers and parents that met weekly from March to June to identify challenges of the implementation and translate the Common Core State Standards into viable curricula.
Kendall Elementary School Principal Tony Ditrio served on the taskforce.
“We support the implementation of the Common Core State Standards as an important first step toward ensuring the global competitiveness of Connecticut’s children. We’re very pleased to see resources being dedicated to helping districts with the difficult work of implementation,” said Jeffrey Villar, executive director of the Connecticut Council for Education Reform.
“The policies have been written. What matters now is making sure that districts are equipped to meet the new standards with success. Making substantial changes within school districts is hard work, so we’re glad to see the state providing districts with resources and support.”
In recent weeks, the governors of Oklahoma, South Carolina and Louisiana signed bills repealing Common Core implementation.
Read the original story here.
By Eileen FitzGerald
A group of six organizations representing superintendents, school board leaders, principals, and business and community leaders today launched a campaign in support of high academic standards in public education.
The campaign, hosted at http://facebook.com/ExpectMoreCT, is focused on ensuring that educators, parents, students, and community members have the tools to understand how high, clear, and consistent standards will affect public education in Connecticut.
The group is made up of: the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE), the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS), the Connecticut Association of Schools (CAS), the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), and the Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER).
“High standards are essential to ensuring Connecticut public school students have the bright future they deserve,” said Robert Rader, executive director of the Connecticut Association of School Boards of Education.
The group said that “If we are to ensure a bright future for our children and our state, we need to know that our kids are getting the best education possible. Connecticut’s students will need to be ready to compete in an increasingly complex and global society. That’s why Connecticut’s Big Six supports high academic standards in Connecticut’s public schools through the Common Core State Standards.”
Read the original story here.
You’ve heard from Catherine Freeman before—in her op-ed and in a previous blog-talking about why Common Core has made her classroom a place of deep learning for both her and her students. Today, Cay will tell you a little more about how Common Core specifically helps her students in math.
What exactly are the Common Core State Standards?
The Common Core Standards for Mathematics are an outline, a clear set of specific skills and mathematical concepts that students should know by the end of each grade level. The Common Core is NOT a curriculum. Although the standards do set rigorous end-of-year learning goals, districts have the freedom to determine how to help their students get there.
In fact, each state or district has the independent right and responsibility to take the Common Core Standards and develop or adopt a curriculum that outlines how much time to spend on each topic, and identifies age-appropriate materials and resources to be used. Curriculum specialists and teachers in each district decide how to lay out the sequence of big ideas and smaller learning tasks to reach the end goal of developing critical thinkers and problem solvers. They also develop regularly scheduled check-ups on students’ progress so that students who are behind can receive intervention and support as the year progresses. There should be an ongoing cycle of developing lessons to teach the standards, going back to revisit and revise them as we become experts on these new standards, and discussing how to best help our students reach deeper levels of understanding and lasting skills.
Common Core Creates Deeper Understanding of Content
The Common Core Standards are written to encourage students to solve real-world problems. As a math teacher, I see these standards built with greater focus-with fewer standards than before in each grade, but with the potential for a truer and more lasting understanding. Instead of giving students a cursory survey of many math concepts, we work on building lasting conceptual understanding of the really important concepts. This translates to higher-level learning with more opportunity to teach critical thinking skills.
Previously, students were taught the procedures to solve a math problem with an often tangential explanation of the conceptual understanding behind the process. I look at the work that I used to give my students, and I see how I used to teach skills in isolation, without context. I was teaching my students how to get the answer, instead of how to understand the math. I am throwing out my old worksheets, which listed 40 problems of a single type on each page. I’m not going to use these anymore because this isn’t how students will be presented with math in real life. Instead of teaching, “Here’s the process for finding the answer to a ratio problem. Now solve it 40 times,” teachers must now ask their students to demonstrate that they understand ratios and can use them to solve real life problems.
Connecticut’s 2014 legislative session was lively, with both defensive and offensive victories for those advocating to ensure that all kids in Connecticut receive a great education, regardless of their race or family’s income. When the legislative session began in January, CCER’s top two priorities were (1) to defend the education reforms that had been passed in previous years, and (2) to provide more children from low-income families with preschool opportunities.
As it turns out, these two issues dominated most of session. Both Common Core and the teacher evaluation and support system came under attack at the start of session, and Governor Malloy endorsed early childhood education as a top priority for the legislature in his State of the State address.
