It is time for back to school posts. Time for optimism and enthusiasm. Time for the new trends and the new ideas. Time for a post about standards.
The new thing in standards is the Common Core.
The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.
Perhaps “new thing” is the wrong descriptor. The Common Core standards have been around long enough to be both lauded and criticized.
I cannot decide if I am for or against the standards. I am not against preparing students for success. As I understand the focus is on math and reading, I am concerned that many important skills are not recognized and may receive less attention until a more well-rounded set of expectations are developed. Perhaps we need better agreement on what skills are at the educational core.
Secondly, I think we have had perfectly acceptable standards previously and the concern that these standards ignored “21st century skills” (substitute your own favorite phrase here if you are not a fan of 21st century skills) were often inaccurate. When I began looking more carefully at various discipline specific standards about 10 years ago, I found many skills one advocacy group or another claimed was not being developed was actually included in the standards. Hence, it seemed and it still seems to me that focusing on goals (broad or specific) is not the actual problem. Somehow, the process of getting from the goals to the achievement of the goals breaks down.
When I was reviewing the topic, I learned a new word – alignment. The idea when applied to standards argues that various stake holders might adapt to the standards. Teachers must implement classroom activities consistent with the standards. Resource developers (e.g., textbook companies) must offer resources consistent with the standards. Those selling evaluating instruments must offer tests consistent with the standards. Perhaps most important learners must meet the goals established by the standards in the time allowed.
Simply put, alignment is usually not perfect and when reality sets in things begin to fall apart. If only certain skills and content areas are emphasized on high stakes tests, the activities required by teachers and the subset of the resources provided by developers actually used shifts. I would also argue that the emphasis being placed on specific students, but this is a subtopic and would take too long to develop here. If only the M of STEM is evaluated, you may find no science lessons in the Spring of the year.
