Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The pros and cons of common core.


Some people might ask how do we sort through the good, the bad, and the ugly of common core.
The Common Core State Standards, a result of several years of development by content and education experts, began to be adopted by individual states in 2010. As of this writing, 45 states and three territories have adopted the Common Core English/Language Arts and Math standards.

Pros.

First, let's consider some of the pluses of the Common Core State Standards.
  1. If we look at the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) idealistically, we see a set of mutually agreed-upon standards based on valuable knowledge and skills that can lead to improved instruction and assessment.
  2. The development of reliable and valid national criterion-referenced assessments (which I believe will be a logical next step) may save many states money that they can then use to target specific instructional needs.
  3. Teachers across the nation could work together to develop creative and engaging integrated lessons and units to share using cutting edge technology and e-tools.
  4. This "common" core will be beneficial for students in our increasingly mobile society. A student who moves from seventh grade in Toledo, Ohio, to seventh grade in Omaha, Nebraska, or Syosset, New York, may not have to adjust to new learning expectations.
  5. Clear grade-level standards in each content area will make it easier to accelerate the few exceptionally gifted students and to compact curriculum for other advanced students. (For more information on how to use the Common Core with gifted students, check out www.nagc.org/index2.aspx?id=8980.)
  6. It also will be easier to target the skills that struggling learners are missing and help them progress toward mastery using Response to Intervention (RTI) or other supportive approaches.

Cons.

On the other hand, these aspects of the Common Core State Standards may not be so positive:
  1. The CCSS could be just another attempt to "teacher-proof" curriculum. Purchased materials, prescribed instructional approaches, test prep packets, and inflexible approaches to student learning may maximize corporate profits of the producers of educational materials and software.

    The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in their May 2012 report, Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core, estimates the national cost for compliance with Common Core will be between $1 billion and $8 billion, and the profits will go almost directly to publishers.
  2. High-priced consultants may recommend pre-packaged one-size-fits-all professional inservice programming that might be attractive to some schools and districts. This option could ignore the clear Standards for Professional Learning put forth by Learning Forward (formerly the National Staff Development Association,www.learningforward.org/standards/index.cfm), which emphasize job-embedded, site-specific, sustained, and supported professional development.
  3. We may find ourselves so standards- and test-driven that all the activities we use to develop healthy, balanced middle grades students are eliminated.
  4. We could end up being forced to focus on low-level learning (though the Math and Reading/Language Arts standards offer plenty of opportunities for critical and creative thinking at higher levels) because it's easier to assess. If this happens, we would be ignoring the entire 21st Century Skills perspective with its essential emphases on technology, innovation, life and career skills, critical thinking, and collaboration.
  5. These standards could be just another weapon with which to attack teachers of students from poor urban and rural communities who don't have the resources to help students reach these standards when they come to school already two or three years behind their middle and upper class peers.
6.  I'm leery of any movement that causes kids to flee the public schools, and the Common Core may contribute to      this if it is not used in ways that meet students' unique individual needs as well as the collective needs of the          society or the school district.

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