A Day Late & A Dollar Short: Thoughts on CCSS

apple-139437_1280I realize that it’s late to put anything up about the Common Core Standards, but I have to say that I don’t “get” the continuing misunderstandings about them.  Standards are simply  a list of what students should learn.

 

Here is an example from 3rd Grade:Screen Shot 2016-06-15 at 1.14.08 PM

  • The lists are general and are skills oriented.
  • The content is not mandated except in a few cases as above where certain genres are mentioned as above.  The Common Core does NOT say what stories or books to read.
  • You could teach the Common Core ELA standards using any book list appropriate to student age.

What the Common Core is Not:

  • Common Core is not the assessments used to measure whether the standards have been learn.
  • Common Core is not the many, many textbooks and programs which have the name Common Core slapped on them.  Some are a good representative of the standards and some are not.
  • Common Core is not the data mining that is supposedly happening.
  • Common Core is not what you see on social media.

Is the Common Core Perfect?

  • The short answer is no.  I wish reading strategies were written specifically in the standards instead of being implied in Standard 1 and Standard 10.
  • I worry about forcing all students to read grade level texts, if their reading is not at grade level.  Students can become frustrated and learn to hate reading because of that.  (At my school, we encourage a balance of reading at grade level and reading at the student’s level–whatever that might be.)
  • It is a general list that encourages higher-level thinking and does not get bogged down in minutiae.

Why Now?

I think the social media finally got to me.  A lovely family member of mine posted a rant about the Common Core.  It included something like this:  “The Common Core (and I’ve read them) are forcing our children to learn __________.”  Fill in the blank with something you disagree with. Untrue.  Unless he’s against reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, there’s no problem with the CCSS.

 

 

 

 

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