There is a lot of discussion about the new Common Core standards right now.
States are cross-walking their current standards to the Common Core and adding their 15%. Districts are frantically trying to figure out how they’ll implement the new standards. Pundits are either hailing the new standards or criticizing them.
I’m not entirely convinced that these new standards are better than many states’ standards, but I think there potentially are benefits to be gained from having a more nationally consistent approach to standards and assessment. More importantly, I think the intent behind the Common Core — namely to reflect deeper learning and more emphasis on real-world skills (and presumably less emphasis on teaching to ridiculous bubble tests) — is good.
Of course, the real test (no pun intended) will come when the new assessments come out in a couple years. If these assessments meet their goal of assessing deeper, more meaningful, real-world skills, then they, along with the Common Core, will be a strong impetus toward meaningful change in education. Students will simply have to learn in different ways to meet the challenge.
In the meantime, most groups are addressing the Common Core, not by looking at their intent and implementing meaningful reform, but by cross-walking their standards and moving existing instruction units from grade x to grade y to fill the holes.
Surely, this is not what the advocates of the Common Core had in mind. Equally certainly, it is not what our students (or teachers) deserve.
The Common Core was not a plan to do the same thing in a different sequence. It is a call to look at learning in a different ways. It demands new methods, new materials, new ways of thinking about learning.
And if the new assessments shape up as planned, and we haven’t taken the opportunity to embrace some new approaches, we’ll be in for even more vitriolic accountability discussions.