Teaching Tuesday: Let's Talk About the Common Core

Let me preface this by saying that "Common Core" wasn't really a big deal the last time I was in the classroom. In fact, the obsession then was "state standards"  - teaching to them, testing to them, grading according to them. One other thing I remember from way back then - probably around 2002 or so - was that the standards between each state varied so greatly. I helped to write practice 4th grade math assessments for my district and we looked at lots of other state standards and tests for inspiration. Our Kansas 4th graders had to have the same math skills as Pennsylvania's 6th graders, for example.

The point of the Common Core is to eliminate that problem so that students at each grade level are expected to be able to do the same things, no matter what state they live in. The Common Core standards are based on the highest level state standards - they are guidelines like the state standards were, they do not tell teachers HOW to teach, just basically what to teach.

If you've ever heard about how our country ranks against other countries educationally, or spent much time reading the Facebook walls of teenagers, you'd probably conclude that we need to do something about our educational system, for the love of all that is holy. And if you've ever compared the list of graduation requirements for a high school in New Jersey versus a high school in Mississippi, you might realize that one reason our country tests so poorly is that some places have  really low expectations.

High nationalized standards sound like a great idea in light of all that. But. The Common Core is basically being used as an excuse to test our kids more, as if spending hours practicing test taking skills and then taking soul crushing tests will make them learn anything. The Common Core was developed without much input from experienced educators, without any pilot programs or experiments, without borrowing from more academically successful countries, without exemplars of student work for each standard, without anyone realizing that "data driven" teaching does not mean constant testing.

The Common Core does not involve anything like what Australia is doing:

What we now have to clarify is the achievement standards. For example, the curriculum states, that, in grade five, in mathematics, these are the things students should have an opportunity to learn. We see our curriculum as a kind of statement of student entitlement. What they should have an opportunity to learn is knowledge, understanding and skills, not just factual stuff.  Then we declare in the achievement standards, if a student has satisfactorily learned this, what will a student be able to do? Those statements can be difficult to interpret in any kind of precise way, so what we are doing now, is putting on the website actual samples of students' work, produced in response to real classroom tasks with annotations to say, this student work meets the standards and why. This year, while the curriculum is actually being implemented, we'll be obtaining a richer set of samples illustrating different levels of achievement at the A, B, C, D and E levels.  The samples of student work will be annotated, for the first time, by teachers across the country, so that we'll have nationally annotated samples of student work that can move in the direction of getting consistent use of formative assessments across the country.

I remember when it was a big deal that we used student work from the across the whole district to exemplify writing standards, I can't imagine national samples of annotated work - though I would have loved it. This is what the Common Core should be about, showing what students can do and analyzing how they got there.

The way the Common Core is being used, it is essentially a list of skills that students must be able to perform on a test, separated by subject arbitrarily. I mean, if the Common Core is about preparing students for careers and college, than why such a strict separation? Are there any jobs where you never have to use any kind of math? Really? Or any kind of language arts?

I feel like - as I've always felt with American education - that they've simply picked a newer, prettier, band-aid to put on the problem of educational achievement, without regard to whether the band-aid is the right size or strength for the wound.

Does your state use the Common Core? How do you feel about national standards?