“Are you ready for the Common Core?”
“Survey says teachers aren’t ready for the Common Core.”
“Districts haven’t been ready for the Common Core.”
Most of the discussion that I’ve seen around the Common Core lately is whether our country has sufficiently prepared the nation’s teachers for the Common Core State Standards. Even in places that profess to have dropped the Common Core (and replaced them with Common Core-like standards), the idea of “readiness” seems to create an urgency in the face of pushback and doubling down on the reforms of the last decade. Yet, it also reminds me how cartoonish folks look talking about education as a whole, as if the preparation of teachers for the CCSS is akin to preparing for national disasters for beach-based cities or … opponents to Hulk Hogan in the mid-80s and 90s.
Akin to Hulkamania, I often look at the Common Core paraphernalia and fanfare as a well-funded, bipartisan effort, bringing together strange bedfellows in legion for a crusade that might win. Painful as it is to watch, the script drawn up in backrooms to move the action forward give everyone an accepted understanding of what they’re signing up to. If you think I’m dancing in my analogy, imagine the stretch journalists and bloggers have had to make to speak about Common Core readiness, a phrase turned frequently since the beginning of Common Core lore.
With two years of CCSS tests under New York’s belt, for example, we still have gaps in what so-called experts believe the CCSS should look like in classrooms and how actual practitioners see the Common Core working in their classrooms. As test scores go up and the current scale scores remain stringent for levels 3 and 4, it seems hard to tell whether the Common Core itself has transformed what’s happening in the classroom or if the teachers have kept doing as they do the last time test scores went up. Did everyone understand the new curriculum they were given last year or are the old textbooks now adaptive to what teachers believe the standards are saying? Can the same texts be used or just moved to different grades?
Or, do we let the Common Core run wild on us, with no discernible characteristics of preparedness available to us other than test items that may or may not look suspiciously like other tests we’ve seen?
Even as people attempt to write what they mean by “ready,” those of us in the classroom look at the Common Core like a wrestler does jumping from the top rope: a costly move that, if successful, works to great effect for both the wrestler and the onlookers, but if unsuccessful, could do lots more harm than good, especially since it took so long to get up top. The emphasis, again, ought to be pedagogy because it means we can sift through (if not develop) tasks that, regardless of whether we like the Common Core, will teach students the skills and concepts to get them through any material.
Despite the plethora of now-labeled curricular materials and videos out there showing “Common Core,” the idea of readiness will continue to run wild until teachers work together to develop themselves, each other, and the district to come up with a realistic plan.
What are YOU gonna do, brother?
Completely agree that the emphasis should be on pedagogy and partnerships with students.
The Common Core is here and the reasoning behind it isn’t inherently wrong or bad, but like any “reform” where the push for implementation and assessment has overshadowed educators’ felt needs (pedagogical skill improvement), the cards are stacked toward “running wild”. This will happen every time a reform is done on or to people, not with them.
My organization – the National Equity Project (www.nationalequityproject.org) is piloting a seminar for teachers (and others responsible for implementing Common Core) on a specific pedagogical strategy, Learning Partnerships for Equity. We are trying to support teachers to see the opportunity the Common Core could provide to actually create paths to college readiness for all students – especially those furthest from success. We believe a learning partnership approach can support teachers to get to the “core” of the Common Core: motivating all students to be independent learners who can understand and act on what they need to become college and career-ready. We’re offering it in the Bay Area twice this year and are exploring ways to bring it to a wider audience. Learn more at http://nationalequityproject.org/events/common-core-learning-partnerships.
Thank you for your ongoing work as an equity leader and your amazing ability to change and challenge the discourse on race and education!
Well, I am going to continue with my series of comments on the Common Core and its mathematical lapses, to a hopefully increasing audience. (I am retired, and in Puerto Rico now).
in passing, you think the elementary math teachers are worried? Look at this :
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This brings us to NGSS for kindergarten, where we will begin and end our brief foray.
NGSS is “Next Generation Science Standards”.
Three kindergarten standards delve into the area of what might be termed the life sciences. We reprint them here:
K-LS1-1. Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.
K-ESS2-2. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.
K-ESS3-1. Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live.
——endquote———-
ps my son, now 31, was a Hulk Hogan and WWF addict
“With two years of CCSS tests under New York’s belt, for example, we still have gaps in what so-called experts believe the CCSS should look like in classrooms and how actual practitioners see the Common Core working in their classrooms”
I think this is true across the board – I teach third grade in North Carolina and we struggle to make sense of what Common Core *should* look like and what it *does* look like. One of the biggest struggles that I have encountered is people using social media to spout off how ‘unreliable’ and ‘ridiculous’ Common Core is. The comments are often paired with videos of ‘Common Core Math Practices,’ showing absurd and mathematically incorrect ways to solve problems. While we may not be teaching the way we always have, it is frustrating as a teacher to watch people rant about things they know little about.
Overall, I support Common Core, and believe good things take time. Is it perfect? Certainly not, but I believe that we have not given it enough time to truly take root as it should.