While the United States settles into refining their Common Core State Standards, let’s take a quick look at a few of the why’s that make it important.
* The benchmarks are international in nature and meant to reflect real world skills students need to complete in our global economy.
* The standards hold teachers and students to higher expectations, improved critical thinking through LESS is MORE. The focus learning means learning deeply about fewer topics and then applying that knowledge to real-world situations.
* The assessments measure students on a variety of tracks: college, career readiness, the trades. They also allow families to move about the country and not lose out on important subjects and skills since there is an underlying consistency coast-to-coast.
The process of implementing CCSS will take more years, especially when many strongly oppose it as government intervention. FYI: the federal government doesn’t have access to student-level date. In fact that access is forbidden. They do have access to aggregate data, which they currently have for other forms of assessment.)
What do you think?
Don’t be shy! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Common Core.