Common Core Standards Up for Public Comment Now
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 11:54 am by Robert Lowry
The National Governors’ Association and Council of Chief State School Officers have posted the latest drafts of “Common Core” standards – quasi-national standards developed through collaboration among 48 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia.
There are two sets of standards — one for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies and science, the other for mathematics.
The drafts are available here.
The groups are seeking public comments through April 2nd.
The corestandards.org website includes an online survey.
The State Education Department is also conducting a survey — see here — and will provide the results to the NGA and CCSSO.
The Washington Post explains,
The blueprint aims to replace a hodgepodge of state benchmarks with common standards. The president has aggressively encouraged the states’ action as a key to improving troubled schools and keeping the nation competitive. Instituting new academic standards would reverberate in textbooks, curriculum, teacher training and student learning from coast to coast.
The New York Times reports
“I’d say this is one of the most important events of the last several years in American education,” said Chester Finn, Jr., a former assistant secretary of education who has been an advocate for national standards for nearly two decades. “Now we have the possibility that, for the first time, states could come together around new standards and high school graduation requirements that are ambitious and coherent. This is a big deal.”
Mr. Finn served in the U.S. Education Department under President Reagan.
The Times adds,
“Many states have too many expectations in their academic standards that force teachers to cover too much in a superficial way,” said Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. “We said, ‘Let’s keep these very understandable and at a number that is manageable. Let’s not put on teachers more requirements than they can deliver.’ “
Another improvement over current state benchmarks is that the proposed standards are what educators call vertically aligned, meaning that what students are expected to learn in early years builds a foundation for what they are to learn in the next grade.
We encourage readers to submit their comments.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 11:54 am and is filed under National Policy, Standards & Assessments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags:
April 8th, 2010 at 7:08 am
I have been teaching math for 30 years and I have been trying to get our district to explain to our district that less is more. They might listen to the “experts”. Thank the standard writers for understanding that we can still have high expectations without overwhelming our students with lots of “stuff”. These standards will allow our students to master the key concepts and skills that they can build on to truly understand the math concepts at appropriate developmental levels.
I am familiar with Singapore math and have used their philosophy in my arguments for many years.
I would be interested in any other documents that you may have availble with regard to the new standards.
Thank you
Carol Horine