Common Core Education System: An Overview

The Common Core State Standards Initiative, often called Common Core, emerged in 2010 as a multi-state effort in the United States. Its primary goal was to establish consistent educational standards across states, specifying what students from kindergarten through 12th grade should know in English language arts and mathematics at the end of each grade.

Genesis and Development

The Common Core State Standards were drafted by work groups comprising representatives from higher education, K-12 education, teachers, and researchers. The copyright for these standards is held by the NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the CCSSO, which also manages the use and licensing of the standards. These organizations offer a public license that State Departments of Education use. This license mandates that the standards be used "in support" of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Initially, there was no plan to create a common set of standards for English language proficiency development (ELPD). However, WIDA, a consortium that develops standardized tests for English Language Learners (ELLs), also known as English as an Additional Language (EAL) students, is used in many states.

The standards for mathematics and English language arts were released on June 2, 2010, and most states adopted them in the following months.

Incentives for Adoption

States were incentivized to adopt the Common Core Standards through the possibility of competitive federal Race to the Top grants. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced these grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform. To be eligible, states had to adopt "internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace." While states could adopt other college- and career-ready standards, they were awarded extra points in their Race to the Top applications if they adopted the Common Core standards by August 2, 2010. Forty-one states pledged to do so in their applications. However, states like Virginia and Texas chose to develop their own college and career-ready standards and were still eligible for Race to the Top.

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Evolution and Legislation

The Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in December 2015, replaced the No Child Left Behind Act and prohibited the Department of Education from attempting to "influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of the Common Core State Standards." Other content areas adopted a national approach to learning standards, such as the Next Generation Science Standards, released in April 2012, which were subsequently adopted by many states.

English Language Arts Standards

The stated goal of the English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects standards is to ensure that students are college and career-ready in literacy by the end of high school. While teachers, school districts, and states are expected to decide on the appropriate curriculum, sample texts are included. An appendix lists "exemplar texts" from noted authors such as Ovid, Voltaire, William Shakespeare, Ivan Turgenev, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, and W. B. Yeats.

Standards for Reading Foundational Skills are described for kindergarten to grade five. The driving force of the writing standards is logical arguments based on claims, solid reasoning, and relevant evidence. Short, focused research projects, similar to those students will face in their careers, as well as long-term, in-depth research, are also emphasized.

Mathematics Standards

The mathematics standards are based on the National Research Council's Adding It Up report. These practices are to be taught in every grade from kindergarten to twelfth grade. The standards lay out the mathematics content that should be learned at each grade level from kindergarten to Grade 8 (age 13-14), as well as the mathematics to be learned in high school. The standards do not dictate any particular pedagogy or what order topics should be taught within a particular grade level.

Mathematical content is organized into domains. Some topics in each category are indicated only for students intending to take more advanced, optional courses such as calculus, advanced statistics, or discrete mathematics. Even if the traditional sequence is adopted, functions and modeling are to be integrated across the curriculum, not taught as separate courses. Mathematical Modeling is a Standard for Mathematical Practice and is meant to be integrated across the entire curriculum beginning in kindergarten.

Each of the six high school categories includes a number of domains. For example, the "number and quantity" category contains four domains: the real number system; quantities; the complex number system; and vector and matrix quantities. In high school (Grades 9 to 12), the standards do not specify which content is to be taught at each grade level, nor does the Common Core prescribe how a particular standard should be taught. Up to Grade 8, the curriculum is integrated; students study four or five different mathematical domains every year.

Key Shifts in Mathematics Education

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics shifted the way the United States teaches math in three core ways, including a greater focus on fewer topics. Rather than covering many topics superficially, the standards ask math teachers to narrow and deepen the way time and energy are spent in the classroom.

Assessment

The impetus for assessment was not a function of the Common Core project but to ensure states' continued compliance with the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind, which required standards-aligned assessments in math and ELA in grades 3-8 and once again in high school. Two consortiums formed to create multi-state assessments, taking two different approaches. The final decision of which assessment to use was determined by individual state education agencies.

The PARCC RttT Assessment Consortium comprises the 19 jurisdictions of Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. Their approach focuses on computer-based "through-course assessments" in each grade together with streamlined end-of-year tests.

The second consortium, called the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, comprised 31 states and territories (as of January 2014) focusing on creating "adaptive online exams".

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Support and Criticism

The Common Core State Standards have drawn both support and criticism from politicians, analysts, and commentators. Teams of academics and educators from around the United States led the development of the standards, and additional validation teams approved the final standards. The teams drew on public feedback that was solicited throughout the process and that feedback was incorporated into the standards.

The Common Core initiative only specifies what students should know at each grade level and describes the skills that they must acquire in order to achieve college or career readiness. Individual school districts are responsible for choosing curricula based on the standards. Textbooks bearing a Common Core label are not verified by any agency and may or may not represent the intent of the Common Core Standards.

Perspectives on Mathematics Education

The mathematicians Edward Frenkel and Hung-Hsi Wu wrote in 2013 that mathematical education in the United States was in "deep crisis", caused by the way math was being taught in schools. Both agreed that math textbooks, which were widely adopted across the states, already create "mediocre de facto national standards". The texts, they said, were "often incomprehensible and irrelevant". The Common Core State Standards address these issues and "level the playing field" for students. Educational analysts from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute determined that the Common Core standards "are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. schools teach mathematics. Rather than a fragmented system in which content is "a mile wide and an inch deep," the new common standards offer the kind of mathematics instruction we see in the top-achieving nations, where students learn to master a few topics each year before moving on to more advanced mathematics.

Concerns and Controversies

Advancing one Catholic perspective, over one hundred college-level scholars signed a public letter criticizing the Common Core for diminishing the humanities in the educational curriculum: The "Common Core adopts a bottom-line, pragmatic approach to education and the heart of its philosophy is, as far as we can see, that it is a waste of resources to 'over-educate' people," though the Common Core set only minimum-not maximum-standards. As Common Core is implemented in New York, the new tests have been criticized.

The financial cost of implementing Common Core has barely been mentioned in the national debates. All Common Core testing will be done online. This is a bonanza for the tech industry and other vendors. Every school district must buy new computers, new teaching materials, and new bandwidth for the testing. At a time when school budgets have been cut in most states and many thousands of teachers have been laid off, school districts across the nation will spend billions to pay for Common Core testing. Los Angeles alone committed to spend $1 billion on iPads for the tests; the money is being taken from a bond issue approved by voters for construction and repair of school facilities. Meanwhile, the district has cut teachers of the arts, class size has increased, and necessary repairs are deferred because the money will be spent on iPads.

Implementation Challenges

Kentucky was the first to implement the Common Core State Standards, and local school districts began offering new math and English curricula based on the standard in August 2010. Kentucky's experience over the past three school years suggests it will be a slow and potentially frustrating road ahead for the other states that are using the Common Core. Test scores are still dismal, and state officials have expressed concern that the pace of improvement is not fast enough. The Common Core State Standards are considered to be more rigorous than the standards they replaced in Kentucky. Kentucky's old standards received a "D" in an analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Implementation may be one of the major reasons why early results have been uneven.

State-Level Rejection and Alternatives

The Arizona State Board of Education voted to reject Common Core on October 26, 2015, in favor of "Florida State Standards", which are based on Common Core standards. On February 12, 2020, the Florida State Board of Education voted to rescind the Common Core standards and replace them with the Florida B.E.S.T. Governor signed executive order to withdraw state from PARCC assessment program. Withdrew in 2014 after legislative pressure from state lawmakers.

Key Components of Common Core

The Common Core is a set of high-quality standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy for grades K-12. They outline what a student should know at the end of each grade level. The purpose of these academic standards is to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the necessary knowledge to succeed, whether that is in college, a career or throughout life.

The Washington Post reported, “The federal government had no official role in developing the standards. The standards were created with the intent to be able to compare what students across the country are learning. In order to do so, they must be assessed in the same manner. It acts as a form of checks and balances, providing teachers with goals to ensure students are continuing on a path for a successful future in college, career and life. The standards establish what students need to learn but do not tell teachers how they should teach. Since its implementation, the Department of Public Instruction has spent $66 million from a Federal Race to the Top grant to fund professional development for the 100,000 teachers responsible for getting students to meet the standards. This does not include local school district expenditures. In the 2014 short session, the NC General Assembly passed Session Law 2014-78.

Review and Implementation

The Review Commission will report its findings and recommendations to the “State Board of Education, the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee, and the 2016 Session of the 2015 General Assembly. With the development of new standards, teachers need to find new instructional materials. This has created a financial burden on some school districts. The implementation of the standards is costly. The politics surrounding the implementation of the standards has been cause for concern. Supporters of the Common Core say the standards are superior to North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study. Retired N.C. Those who support the Common Core say NC has not allowed sufficient time for the large-scale changes that accompany the standards.

Common Core: A Closer Look

Common Core refers to a set of academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA). The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers developed it to ensure that all students, regardless of where they live, receive a consistent, high-quality education. Although the federal government wasn’t involved in its creation, it has encouraged states to adopt the project.

A majority of states, including California, Ohio, and the District of Columbia, have adopted these standards. Critics claim Common Core amounts to a national curriculum for schools and leads to teachers being told how to teach. These standards lay out what a student should know and be able to do at each grade level. For example, by a specific school year, there are clear expectations for what students should achieve in math or ELA. Tools like the Smarter Balanced Assessment measure these skills. This test is a product of the Assessment Consortium.

The standards describe the skills students should have at each grade level. For example, a first-grade reader should be able to use a story’s pictures and details to describe its characters. In second grade, the student should be able to compare and contrast two versions of a story. A first-grade math student should be able to add and subtract.

Before Common Core, every state had its own education standards. This meant that students in Texas might be learning different material than students in Minnesota. Common Core aims to standardize these standards. They help to ensure that no matter where a student is in the United States, they’re achieving the same or similar academic standards. However, some states have made alterations or rejected the standards altogether. The Common Core standards are viewed as more rigorous because they need students to think and reason to a greater degree. The English standards rely on a more even mixture of literary and informational texts. The math standards also focus on the why and the how of problem-solving. Common Core standardized tests are different than typical fill-in-the-bubble tests.

In creating the Common Core, various stakeholders got involved. This includes business leaders, professional development experts, and educators. Teachers, parents, and school administrators also contributed to creating the Common Core. State leaders provided input on the development of the standards.

Consistency Across States: With Common Core, a student moving to another state in the middle of the school year would have a smoother transition. The first year of implementation showed mixed results in high schools across America. Some school districts, especially in states like California, saw improvements in student learning. Yet, challenges persisted. These included teacher training and aligning professional development to new standards. States have implemented the Common Core Standards at different rates. As a result, this made assessment of the results challenging.

Critics argue that the Common Core strips away state control. Others believe it brings much-needed uniformity. It’s also worth noting that states like Texas and Alaska have not adopted these standards. The majority of states first adopted the Common Core, but some, like Indiana and Oklahoma, repealed it later. Common Core continues to be controversial, and part of the difficulty in implementation has been political. States may choose to suspend, delay, or abandon the Common Core State Standards.

Common Core sets the academic standard for what students should know. But it’s not a curriculum. This means the schools choose the resources and lessons to meet those standards. In many states, there is not a direct opt-out option for the standards themselves. However, parents do have certain rights when it comes to Common Core. For example, in some states, parents can opt their children out of the tests linked to these standards.

Core Principles and Design

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent a coherent progression of learning expectations in English language arts and mathematics designed to prepare K-12 students for college and career success. The CCSS effort was launched in June 2009 through a partnership of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). State leaders in the two organizations developed the CCSS, together with parents, teachers, school administrators, and experts from across the country. Both national and international research and evidence informed development of the standards.

While most states already have English language arts and mathematics standards in place, they vary widely in their coverage and level of rigor. The CCSS clearly communicate what is expected of students at each grade level, with students, parents, and teachers, and school administrators all on the same page and collectively working toward shared goals. Because the CCSS will be consistent from school to school among states choosing to adopt the standards, if teachers transfer to different states, districts, or schools, they will have some assurance that learning expectations will be the same. Common goals will also enable teachers who are moving between schools to more easily understand learning benchmarks for their students.

In English language arts (ELA), required content includes classic myths and stories, America’s founding documents, foundational American literature, and Shakespeare. Additional subject matter remains in the purview of states and local education agencies. Each strand is headed by a strand-specific set of College and Career Readiness (CCR) anchor standards that is identical across all grades and content areas. Individual grade-level standards are defined in K-8; the standards use two-year bands in grades 9-12 to provide flexibility for local educators in high school course design. The CCR and grade-specific standards are necessary complements-the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity.

In grades K-5, the standards provide a solid foundation in whole numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals. In grades 6-8, a major emphasis is placed on the study of ratios, proportions, and algebra. In grades 9-12, the standards require students to apply mathematical thinking to real-world problems.

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics begin with eight Standards for Mathematical Practice. These standards describe ways in which students should engage with the content, processes, and proficiencies of longstanding importance in mathematics. They apply across all of the grades, K-12. The standards for mathematical content are designed as learning progressions through the grades and define what students should understand and be able to do in mathematics. For kindergarten through grade 8, there are grade-specific standards.

Two consortia of states-the Washington-based SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium and Achieve’s Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers-have received Race to the Top funding to begin designing both summative and formative assessments that can be used by states adopting the CCSS.

The CCSS are not national standards but rather a voluntary, coordinated effort among states to set common expectations for all students.

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