I started my career before there was Common Core, before there was internet, and when many families stayed in one city or state for the whole of their child's K-12 experience. It was common, in the 1980's, for students to stay instate for their college experience, we didn't talk about China, America had not been attacked on her own ground, and, I could shut my classroom door and teach what I wanted to teach. After eight years of teaching, I went back to university to get a master's degree in school administration. I was fortunate enough to spend my first year of graduate work supervising student teachers which required that I spend my day visiting schools and classrooms. This opportunity was the first of many where my perspectives opened beyond the walls of my own classroom. I went back to the classroom in later years, but was forever changed by the larger perspective I gained when I stepped out and looked around- I found a wide disparity of opportunity for students.
I have no vested interest in defending or supporting the Common Core Standards. I am often appalled at media and talk radio representation of the standards and find it a curious undertaking. I am not picketing to remove the Common Core Standards nor blocking any doorways to make sure they stay intact. I think they are a good idea, I prefer them, in most cases, to what they replaced, and, I applaud the effort to provide a guide to consistency for the states. At this point in my career, I have now visited more than 4,000 classrooms across several states and a few countries. I have seen a lot of great teaching, and I have seen some significant gaps across access to curriculum and quality instruction. Common standards have become a moral imperative to me. It is very common to visit a school, whether significantly rural, high socio-economic status, inner-city, suburban, and find disparity of instruction and opportunity within the school. I have been in kindergarten classrooms where the teacher believes that it is too early, developmentally, to start teaching reading and the classroom next to that teacher where all of the students are reading short books by the end of kindergarten. I have been in a 10th-grade math class where students were highly engaged and able to talk about the math they were learning and ask good questions and 10th-grade math class in the same school (with students at roughly the same level of capability) with disengaged students and studying two full chapters behind their peers. The disparity within a school can be significant; this disparity can be even more significant across cities and states. I visited a rural high school where not one single student passed the state math assessment. The math curriculum being taught was not rigorous enough for the grade level the students were in. This kind of disparity might not matter if we still lived in a disconnected world where China's economy stayed in China, where an eighth or twelfth-grade education could assure employability, where families didn't move between neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries; but at this point in our history, all of those factors are significant. Students in Oregon can't be prepared differently than students in Kansas. It is a disservice to children that will need to compete for a job, a place at a university, to offer such variance of preparation.
When the Common Core was initially published, in 2010, the intent was to insure that each child would have access to a standard of learning that would prepare them to compete in a global economy. Subject area experts were gathered from 48 states to prepare standards that aligned to exit criteria for a twelfth-grade student, prepared for opportunities beyond high-school. By creating these standards, schools, districts, states could be confident that they were preparing students for a future where they may share a cubicle with a person from India, England, Kentucky, Germany, or Africa. A future where these students would be able to compete for a job with someone else, whether they were educated in Oregon, Montana, or Virginia. The Common Core is color-blind, void of socio-economic or genealogical status, and carefully crafted to identify a trajectory of learning with backward planning from twelfth grade to kindergarten.
A fourth grade teacher, following the Common Core, can confidently craft a circuitry lesson in science with the assurance that she is providing the background learning necessary that can be built on in a 7th grade lesson on circuitry. A 5th-grade social studies lesson on American History will provide the background necessary for the 8th-grade lesson on American History. The Common Core, unlike a common curriculum of most countries, does not identify the book to be read in 10th grade English or the exact math book to purchase for 3rd-grade math. The Common Core is a set of internationally benchmarked learning standards. The Common Core is extensive and, is easily accessible for all to review and study. It is a guide that states have used. Many states have reviewed the Common Core and have adapted it to fit the needs of their state. Parents, community groups, educators, legislatures have the opportunity to review the Common Core. There are no penalties to those that have not adopted the Common Core and there are an abundance of benefits to those that have. The Common Core is a well-researched set of standards that have as their focus student preparation for their future. By adopting Common Core standards, states and districts have more textbook options available for purchase. Previous to the Common Core, publishers would cater to the standards of large states like California and Texas and small states had a difficult time finding textbooks and curriculum that fit their state standards. There are several other reasons that it makes sense to utilize the Common Core Standards as a guide, the most significant being equity of opportunity. For instance, a fifth-grade math Common Core Standard for teaching fractions provides guidance to the teacher for the level of learning the student will need in order to build on this concept in subsequent grades. There are several standards for 5th-grade fractions, I have provided one below, and have provided a link to other standards. An interesting study of student math achievement (Seigler et al 2012) indicates that how well a child understands and can utilize fractions and division in 5th grade is a primary indicator for how well the same child will do in 9th-10th grade math. It becomes imperative that 5th-grade teachers get fractions taught at high enough levels. I chose fractions as my example to illustrate the point that the Common Core builds upon itself.:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NF.A.1 Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators (including mixed numbers) by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions in such a way as to produce an equivalent sum or difference of fractions with like denominators. For example, 2/3 + 5/4 = 8/12 + 15/12 = 23/12. (In general, a/b + c/d = (ad + bc)/bd.)
Turning to literacy, we can see the trajectory of early literacy learning by recognizing the trajectory outlined in the Common Core from 1st-3rd grade. While there are several standards within each grade, the initial standard for each grade illustrates a trajectory:
First: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.A
Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
Second: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.2.3.A
Distinguish long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words.
Third:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.3.3.C Decode multisyllable words.
In the high school, literacy is much more focused on deriving meaning and makingIntegration of Knowledge and Ideas:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.7 Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.9 Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.
The Common Core is not prescriptive. It does not line out practice problems, lesson plans, homework assignments. The Common Core is a roadmap of overarching objectives that build upon each other across grade levels. Another conception of the utility of the Common Core Standards has been illustrated through my interactions across years. I have friends from a variety of countries that had experiences unlike any I knew of in my rural American upbringing. I had a friend that always wanted to go to university, had done well in school, but lived in a country where, if you hadn't gone to a college preparatory school (there wasn't one in her village), you couldn't get into university. A friend from Ireland was sent to boarding school at age six, another, from Guana at age 14. I know families that downsized and moved into the boundaries of a preparatory school so they could afford expensive tuition to give their children a chance at high school. In America, a parent can send their child to school without tuition expenses and expect a high school education that will prepare children for options beyond high school. American children will continue to stand side-by-side children from other cities, states, and countries. The Common Core is built upon the idea that each child is entitled to opportunities and options after high school. In fact, our very democracy relies on an educated populace.
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