What Every Parent Needs to Know About Common Core Standards

For about a decade, the focus in American education has been on “No Child Left Behind (NCLB).” That 2001 congressional act started a movement towards setting universal standards for American public schools. States had to take a measurement of student progress through standardized testing administered by each state.

The punishment for states and school districts that weren’t performing (lots of students at a given school who couldn’t pass the test) was the threat that federal funding to schools would be reduced-or eliminated-if school districts and states didn’t take (sometimes drastic) measures to improve student learning.

In Maryland, one of the things that grew out of NCLB was the Maryland State Assessment, or MSA, a test given each spring to all Maryland students in grades 3 through 8. The feds did not come up with the materials to test. That was left to the states. The tests generally covered math and language arts. A separate science test was added in recent years in grades 5 and 8.

Common Core is coming to a classroom near you. Photo courtesy Thomas Favre-Bulle.

The standards were applied in the classroom through the state’s “Voluntary State Curriculum” or VSC. It wasn’t really voluntary. This was the stuff kids had to learn. In addition, the standards weren’t outlandish. They simply set out what students should know at the completion of each grade. The standards were age and grade appropriate.

The Maryland VSC as it is currently implemented has been in place for about 10 years. The VSC is being phased out for the new curriculum: Common Core State Standards (CCSC).

For parents particularly, MSA testing, while anxiety producing, has delivered a good data set about schools. There was a lot of talk initially about teachers “teaching to the test,” but the tests have turned out to be a great marker for how a given school is performing. All of the data is public, so parents can see comparisons of schools within a geographic area, within a single school district or even between school districts in the same state.

In Anne Arundel County, testing and the VSC is credited with moving the needle on the achievement gap (the difference in performance between low income and minority students and their wealthier counterparts). The tests gave administrators great information about teachers and curriculum successes-and failures, essentially providing a road-map for course correction.

But the problem with having each state set its own standards meant that students who transferred out of state might meet a different set of standards. Students who change schools frequently because their parents are military, for example, might come across three or four different standards throughout an academic career.

Here in the Old Line state, standards are high. A student transferring out of Maryland schools to another state might have met the new state’s standard and graduation requirement as early as 10th grade.

And we aren’t even talking about how colleges look at the data across state lines. College admissions offices know which states have a high bar and which don’t push academic rigor.

So in 2011, the timing of things was right to take a broader view of standards. Because the “No Child Left Behind” legislation was set for renewal, it was a great opportunity to see where educational goals could go next. What became clear was that a set of national standards could level out expectations across state lines, and state governors got together and formed a committee to see if this sort of thing could happen and be universally accepted.

That is where “Common Core” comes in. You will hear a lot about Common Core in the coming years. Common Core standards are the new VSC. They were developed through an independent initiative coordinated by the National Governor’s Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

Common Core has been developed with help from colleges, businesses, industry, civil rights groups, English language learners and students with disabilities. These folks are referred to as “Educational Stakeholders.”

Their interest in education is to prepare public school students for college and a 21st Century workforce.

The group building the standards pulled data and curriculum from the highest, most effective curriculum models from states—including Maryland—and around the world.

What Common Core should help to deliver are rigorous guidelines that can provide a challenging learning environment for students. Common Core are a little more broad and the concepts carry through for each grade. The standards are loose enough to challenge students (and teachers), but specific enough to provide structure.

Read the new standards for yourself:

• click here for Common Core standards in Mathematics.
• click here for Common Core standards in Language Arts.

Students can continue to learn out of current textbooks—teachers will simply tweak lesson plans to meet Common Core.

So when your child’s teacher suddenly assigns homework practicing cursive writing in fifth grade-and you know your older child never did any such thing-you know who is to blame: Common Core (and yes, cursive writing is a part of the fifth grade Common Core requirement).

Teachers will be receiving professional development and training to implement the changes. Common Core will be phased in by grade and subject area over the next few years.