The Common Core Standards and USD 417
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It has come to my attention that parents are seeing a different kind of homework coming home with their children and different classroom work as well. The comments I have heard express surprise at the content of the work (what used to be taught at a higher grade level has been moved down) and the nature of the work (asking higher order thinking questions) that students are now being asked to do. In fact, if you have more than one child in school, the work being asked of your younger child is vastly different from the work your older child experienced at that respective grade level.
First, let me apologize for not having written to you about this specific change before now. This should have been explained to you earlier in the school year. This year our Language Arts and Math teachers (partial implementation) are implementing what is referred to as the Common Core standards. Common Core is a national standards movement adopted by the Kansas Department of Education last school year. Forty-six of the fifty states have adopted these new standards. The full implementation of math will begin with the 2013-14 school year.
As a response to the on-going concerns regarding student academic preparation, the creation of The Common Core standards was initiated by state governors and commissioners of education through their membership in the National Governors Association Center for best practices and the Council of Chief State school Officers. Nationally, there are actually two standards that have been developed. The College and Career Readiness standards focus on expectations for students as they prepare for post-secondary education/work along with expectations for their post-secondary experience. The second set of standards, Common Core, focuses specifically on K-12 education. Kansas has taken these two standards and made the Common Core standards a component of the College and Career Readiness initiative.
The K-12 standards are focused, at this time, on English Language Arts, which include reading, and Math. Content area experts, teachers, researchers and others involved with preparing students for post-secondary work, wrote the standards. The content of the standards is pulled from the best of our nation’s state standards, the experience of teachers who served on the development teams, and feedback from the general public. An advisory team that provided advice and guidance was comprised of experts from Achieve Inc., ACT, the College Board, the national Association of State Boards of Education, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers.
Over the coming years you will continue to see significant changes in the learning expectations for students. Currently USD 417 is supporting our teaching through a series of initiatives. Teachers spend time on professional development deconstructing the standards so they fully understand the changes to standards as well as needed changes in instruction. Teachers have attended summer institutes, been provided with different standards materials, and been provided with supplemental materials to help them with lesson development. In the future we plan to add to this support by providing for lesson study and development teams, expert coaching and modeling sessions, and opportunities to attend advanced training sessions for implementing the Common Core.
Which brings me back to where I started, all of this is to help your child be successful with the change in work being asked of them. We want USD 417 students to excel with the expectations of the Common Core, which means we have to also help our teachers to be ready to meet these challenges. In the future we hope to develop a College and Career Readiness pathway for our students that will help them (and you) to establish post-secondary and career goals. To achieve these goals, we must first successfully implement the Common Core standards.
For more information regarding the Common Core go to http://www.corestandards.org/
(This is the first in a series of articles regarding the Common Core standards, the changing nature of student work, and USD 417 programming)
By: Doug Conwell - Superintendent