1. Common Core is not a testThe implementation of the Common Core has become synonymous with testing. Although tests are being utilized to assess these new standards, the standards and tests are not one in the same. When states signed up for the CCSS, they also agreed to implement a common assessment aligned to the CCSS (Stephens, 2014). The two tests you might hear about are PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), and Smarter Balanced. As you can see at right, there are several states using each. However, there are many states using some combination of the two, or only utilizing the tests for certain grade levels, and some states that are utilizing other tests altogether. What test is being used, and at what grade levels is NOT mandated, and clearly it is up for debate.
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2. Common Core is not a curriculumCommon Core State Standards do not give teachers a set method to teach. Teachers are not given the CCSS-M and told to teach it. The CCSS-M were designed on the principles of focus, coherence, and rigor. The CCSS-M ask teachers to: focus on the math in each standard, link previous learning and build on prior knowledge and standards through coherence, and give attention to conceptual understanding procedural fluency, and application (Gaddy et.al, 2015). The CCSS-M is not a textbook, or a unit of study, they are the guiding principles and objectives of those textbooks and units of study. The CCSS-M merely outlines what concepts should be covered at each grade level to allow for the concepts to build upon one another across grade levels. The CCSS-M does not say that a student needs to be able to do a math problem in a specific way, it merely says that by the end of each grade they should have covered specific concepts. It is up to the teacher to use the curriculum they are provided, or the curriculum that they create, to meet the needs of students and cover the required concepts.
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3. Common Core math is still the same mathThe only thing that is NEW are the practice standards of the Common Core State Standards. The math content included in the CCSS-M is not NEW! The CCSS-M are split up into two types of standards, content standards and practice standards as outlined below, available at http://www.corestandards.org/Math/.
The biggest difference is not the math that students are learning, but how they are being asked to interact with it. When you think back to your math classes throughout the years, you may recall the teacher standing at the front of the room, doing an example, and students repeatedly practicing by doing multiple examples. It is no longer about just getting the right answer, it is about perseverance, reasoning, understanding, and much more. No longer is the teacher the giver of knowledge, the students are expected to think and reason and figure out WHY and HOW math works with the support of the teacher. |
The content standards still include the same concepts including:
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The NEW mathematical practice standards include the following:
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4. States involved
As of April 2015, 39 states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), with 3 reviewing them, 2 developing new standards to replace the Common Core, and 4 states that never adopted them.
As the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) points out, "the adoption of the Common Core State Standards by more than 40 states might be the first step toward meaningful and comprehensive comparisons of student performance and achievement among states. Under these new standards, educators across the country will work under the same guidelines for what students need to know and are expected to do" (2015). Hopefully, this will eventually put all students in the United States on a level playing field No longer will some states' standards be more rigorous than others, no longer will a student in second grade in Illinois be learning something vastly different from a second grader in California. |