What's Good About Common Core

Common Core.

It's the set of standards in tens of thousands of classrooms throughout the country.
However, it is also a hotly debated issue all over the place. Politicians can't agree. Parents can't agree.
Teachers can't agree. It's a series of standards that are not well understood and have people coming down hard on either side of its legitimacy.

Vocab lesson---a standard is an academic goal for a subject area. For example:

Here are 4 reasons why Common Core is a good idea:

1. They are national standards

In the past, each state set their own curriculum standards. What this did we create some states (like Massachusetts) to have very a rigorous set of goals for their students while other states had more flexible and less stringent benchmarks. Additionally, it meant that a student who moved from state to state would be learning different things at different grades because there was no national curriculum (for example, weather and geology may be taught in 2nd grade in MA and 3rd in CA and 4th in NH...there was standardization).
This also lets us compare states to one another now because all kids are learning the same things at the same time with the same standards set in place.

2. Cheaper for the states
Because the standards are national and not state-specific, schools can use tests/scoring already created by Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and PARCC instead of creating their own.

3. Increased rigor/higher-order thinking skills
The Common Core standards are more complex and require more skills of the student in order to have mastered that skills. For example, here is a comparison of a Common Core (top) to a similar California standard (bottom)

The Common Core requires the fifth grader to determine the theme by analyzing the characters' actions, specifically challenge, or by inferring what the narrator is implying. Then, using the theme as a guideline, they must summarize the text. That's 3 skills: summarizing, inferring and analyzing. In contrast, the California standard just has them understand what a theme and recognize it. This is less rigorous and requires less effort.

4. Allows for teacher collaboration
Because teachers across the country are using the same standards, they can work together more efficiently. Fifth-grade teachers from CA to NY to FL can all share their theme worksheets and lesson plans. It allows for conferences and workshops on a common theme and curriculum.

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