Common Core

As we speak with teachers and education leaders working to implement our Common Core Curriculum Maps in their schools and districts, we’re struck by the magnitude of their task. But more-so by their good faith in the face of budget cuts, backlash, and every-day fear of the unknown.

Back in January, the Center on Education Policy published a report detailing States’ Progress and Challenges in Implementing Common Core State Standards. Interestingly, although most adopting states will require school districts to implement the CCSS, most states do not require districts to make complementary changes to their curricula. While this omission respects district autonomy, it leaves districts with a dilemma: Pay money for changes not required? Or wait out what could very well be the latest education fad?

Yet, we have spoken with districts that are courageously moving forward―of their own volition. As our good friend in Arkansas likes to say, “Change is coming.”

That’s why it’s so angering to see the latest education fads slip their way into standards adoption bills and school libraries. Every textbook series is now “aligned” with the CCSS. California, for one, has a standards-implementation bill on the docket – with language emphasizing the so-called “21^st century skills.”

Whatever your thoughts on the common curriculum debate (we don’t take a side), at least one of Fordham’s recommendations in their response to the Common Core “counter-manifesto” is a good one: “And big funders and nonprofits that care about this stuff: Devise a really powerful version of ‘Consumer Reports’ by which to vet curricular materials (commercial and ‘open-source’ alike) that purport to be ‘aligned’ with the Common Core so as to gauge their validity—and whether they’re quality materials worthy of the attention of practicing educators.”

Stephanie Porowski

As NBC’s Education Nation begins its march through the bevy of much-discussed (but little-proven) trends and ideas that comprise what is meant by “education reform” today, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. is right to bring attention back to curriculum in an op-ed for today’s New York Daily News.  Knowledge and vocabulary are what enables learning.  And the new Common Core State Standards, for all their promise, will not deliver in those key areas unless they are accompanied by excellent, content-driven curricula. Without such curricula the standards will most likely fail to improve learning, and could even drive achievement down in some states.  As Hirsch recommends, there is a real need for an independent board to validate the alignment of school materials the new standards.  As long as it embraces the kind of rigorous review criteria that is proven to show which curricula really works.  If not, it will become part of the problem.

Lynne Munson

Astonished at the slip in student performance in recent years, Japan is reconsidering its now ten-year-old experiment in “pressure-free” education. “There’s a sense of crisis,” said a professor of education in Tokyo, “there are serious concerns about whether our education system is working … .”

Yet, in contrast to the United States’ relatively abysmal performance on PISA (29^th in science and 35^th in math), Japan’s scores (6^th in science and 10^th in math) remain well above the OECD average, and its education system is consistently heralded (for good reason) as one worthy of emulation.

So why the “shock”? Japan’s drop (from first in math in 2000 to 10^th in 2006) has coincided with a dramatic move away from the so-called “cram education” to a more “student-centered” approach, as educators slashed content requirements and focused instead on supporting students in their application of knowledge to real-life situations. At the expense of fundamentals, Japan added electives and spent more time exploring students’ questions, like “Why doesn’t a sleeping bird fall from its perch on a branch?”

Japan’s current situation is especially interesting in light of the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math and English, which of course seek to raise US standards. But, with the CCSS, American students will learn how to determine the area of a trapezoid in sixth grade, a full year after Japanese students learn the same concept. So we’re still behind.

Japan’s bravely called its failed education experiment what it is ‒ a “huge failure.” Japan should be applauded for moving back to its roots in deep content. As US educators create curricula in response to the CCSS, we hope we will avoid Japan’s costly mistake.

Lynne Munson and Stephanie Porowski

The Common Core State Standards Initiative’s K-12 standards have far exceeded the expectations of those of us who want to return content to the center of our children’s education.  Remarkably they have done this while still being skill-based standards.  By which I mean they do not lay out what children need to know at each grade, but rather describe what they need to be able to do.  They describe skill development, not knowledge mastery.  That said, unlike most skill standards (and nearly all standards are skill standards these days), the CCSSI standards lay out skills in a manner that is not only friendly to content but actually requires the mastery of content.

Let me explain.  In the reading standards for literature for grades 3-5 students are required to “compare and contrast thematically similar tales, myths, and accounts of events from various cultures” and “compare the treatment of similar ideas and themes (e.g., opposition of good and evil) as well as character types and patterns of events in myths and other traditional literature from different cultures.”  This cannot be done without reading and deeply comprehending mythological stories.

In the same grade 3-5 reading standards there is this:

“Explain major differences between poems and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., stanza, verse, rhythm, meter) when writing or speaking about specific poems.”

And this:

“Explain major differences between drama and prose stories, and refer to the structural elements of drama (e.g. casts of characters, setting descriptions, dialogue, stage directions, acts, scenes) when writing or speaking about specific works of dramatic literature.”

Again, students must read texts closely in order to meet these standards.  The standards do an excellent job covering the list of textual features one should become knowledgeable of—(e.g., poetic and dramatic structure).  They are less effective at describing what students should do with these tools—use them to appreciate the beauty inherent in great works.  And that is in part because these are skill standards, not content standards, and hence they avoid absolutely requiring students to contend with great works.

Though they certainly push schools, teachers, and students hard in the direction of reading the best of the best.  And do actually require students to read some very important works in the “informational text” sections of the standards.  Again, let me explain.

The standards are accompanied by a lengthy appendix listing dozens upon dozens of specific works that the CCSSI is putting forward as exemplars of texts of appropriate rigor at each grade.  There are few selections here that cannot be described as excellent.  And we hope that teachers will use these.  But that will depend primarily on the quality of curricula schools adopt once these standards come in to use.

In the informational text section the standards-writers have all but removed any doubt that a few key works will be taught.  In grades 9-10 they require students to “analyze documents of historical and literary significance including foundational U.S. documents (e.g., the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights) for their premises, purposes, and structure.”  And in grades 11-12:  “Analyze how various authors express different points of view on similar events or issues, assessing the authors’ assumptions, use of evidence, and reasoning, including analyzing seminal U.S. documents (e.g., The Federalist, landmark U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents).”  In essence, these standards do provide a short required reading list of key American historical documents.

The CCSSI standards create a space for truly excellent curricula and teaching materials to be used, and for serious, content-rich teacher professional development to occur.  We hope that organizations with the expertise to create those materials will seize this rare opportunity and do so.

Lynne Munson