What I'd Like to See

. . . is some kind of real discussion of the Common Core Standards, instead of something like this:

"One thing that the Common Core addresses is quality versus quantity," said Dr. Nicholas Jankoviak, coordinator of federal programs for Paragould School District. "With Arkansas Frameworks we're talking about student learning expectations, with Common Core, we're talking about standards." Jankoviak said Common Core would also better prepare students for college and career readiness and would provide a national standard for students who may move from one state to another. "So what you have is a child from Michigan coming to Arkansas and in Michigan they have a set of standards they're working with," Jankoviak said. "Then when they move to Arkansas, they find that it is much more rigorous here. So that child in Michigan was not adequately prepared for what takes place in Arkansas."

Or this:

". . . the program will be tougher and more comprehensive, and is expected to better prepare students for life beyond the district. “It’s a more rigorous program, and the standards are designed so all students, when they graduate from high school, will be college and career ready,” Smith said. “People around the state are very excited about this because it is a strategic commitment to raising the standards and bringing consistency to the educational program."

(Both mentioned by Catherine Gewertz in Curriculum Matters at EdWeek.)

Rarely do I see anyone write about or hear anyone talk about the Common Core Standards who has read through not just the standards themselves, but all the ancillary materials.

Do the Common Core Standards actually address quality over quantity? No, not really. Does alignment with the Common Core Standards guarantee a more rigorous or even just a more consistent educational program? No, not at all. That would be impossible.

It's all in the implementation. Even the best, most comprehensive standards are meaningless unless sound instruction lays a solid foundation and sound assessments are used to evaluate progress. A thoughtful approach to curriculum and assessment design could address quality over quantity. A haphazard, just-get-it-done approach will not. 

As far as rigor goes, I'm thinking that one can't transform oneself from TV-watching, chip-eating, pajama-wearing couch sloth into superfit triathlete overnight. It's a mistake to demand rigor simply so we can say that our programs for students are rigorous. It's a mistake with serious consequences for the students most at risk. We need to keep our intention in front of us at all times. In this case, our intention may be to make sure that students "will be college and career ready."

To make that happen, we have to determine where students are in their learning and identify where we think they should be. Then we figure out which are the gaps that prevent them from attaining that destination and think about strategies--as many and as varied as possible-- to bring students from where they are to where they should be.

Every teacher, school administrator, district superintendent, and school board member should read the Common Core Standards just to be informed, just to know what the conversation should be about, just to be able to review curriculum and assessment materials. Parents should, too.

Ringside

This debate about the Common Core Standards is one in which I have a deep and abiding interest. In the last year, much of my content development work has been to write (or edit or review) materials addressing these standards.

As standards go, what I can say is that they're fine. Nothing unusual. Nothing at all outside of the realm of what is commonly assessed (here I speak only of ELA as I'm not qualified to evaluate the soundness of the math standards from the perspective of a content area expert, but my math colleagues have told me their opinion of the math standards is similar). We all agree that the standards do bear the smudges from many sets of fingerprints--and that this is to be expected from anything produced by a committee, our experience being that members of committees often come to the table wheeling bearing their own baggage agendas, and much compromise is needed in order to reach the Promised Land consensus. 

However, we none of us think that there is a monster hiding under the bed anything to suggest a federal brainwashing campaign conspiracy hijacking of state and local authority in the schools.

To bring you up to speed, Catherine Gewertz at Curriculum Matters reported Thursday that  "a senate subcommittee in South Carolina voted against a bill that would have barred implementation of the common standards. But it will proceed to a hearing before the full senate education committee."

Arne Duncan employed a Jab, Right Hand, Left Hook in his response (which I paraphrase below): 

1. What's South Carolina's problem? Everyone else digs the Common Core standards. There is widespread bipartisan support for the standards.

2. States have been slacking off lying down on the job lowering their expectations for students and are a bunch of big fat liars.

3. And, by the way? According to NCES, South Carolina is an egregious offender.

Being just a lone voice crying out in the wilderness an independent consultant unaffiliated with any government office or department (or any publisher), of course I am not privacy to the politicking. There is probably more here than meets the eye.

On a completely separate note, in re high school exit exams and college readiness, I hear from the Center on Education Policy (CEP):

27 of the 31 states with high school exit exams reported participating with Partnership for for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and/or SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) to develop common assessments that are aligned to the CCSS [Common Core Standards] to measure college and career readiness. Of these 27, at least 16 states plan to replace their current exams with consortia assessments. . . .

More here.


UPDATE: I was just taking a look at the national drop-out rates: 

Roughly 1.2 million students did not graduate from high school in 2011; the lost lifetime earnings for that class of dropouts alone total $154 billion.

Stats by way of Alliance for Excellent Education.

[In the spirit of transparency rather than bragging, I tell you that an article I wrote for National Geographic Explorer, "Seeing Eye to Eye" was reprinted on page 74 of The Common Core Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks. The reprint permission request went through National Geographic, so this was a fait accompli long before I received the unexpected reprint check, and much (if not most) of the credit should go to my editor at NGE for reasons previously discussed.]