Understanding the Common Core

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Forty-six states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands have adopted the Common Core standards, and tests based on these standards are set to go into effect in 2015. That's not far away! Here are some resources to help you understand what to expect.

What's New

Common Core Backlash: Center for Public Education Director Patte Barth explores some criticisms of the Common Core in the April 2013 issue of American School Board Journal (pdf).

Governing to the Core: A series of three briefs by the California School Boards Association with practical guidance for school boards on implementing the Common Core state standards:

The Power of Math: Patte Barth highlights the differences between the Common Core math standards and current practice in the January 2013 issue of American School Board Journal (pdf).

PARCC sample items: The PARCC assessment consortium has released its first sample items for mathematics and English language arts. A good first peek at what to expect.
http://www.parcconline.org/samples/item-task-prototypes

Implementing Common Core State Standards and Assessments. A workbook for state and district leaders: Don’t be put off by the length of this workbook. Achieve, Inc. has put together useful tools and metrics for planning and implementing the CCSS as well as for monitoring your efforts.
http://achieve.org/ImplementingCommonCore

Presentations

More than 40 states have adopted the common core state standards (CCSS) and most of them will begin to assess students on CCSS mastery in 2014. How close are districts to being ready? What kind of supports are states providing? What remains to be put into place? Patte Barth provides the latest look at CCSS progress and its implications for districts at NSBA’s Annual Conference in San Diego in April 2013 .

CCSS 2013 Annual Conference from Center for Public Education

Click here to download the CCSS 2013 Annual Conference Presentation (PPTX with notes) directly from the Center for Public Education.

The Center for Public Education's director, Patte Barth, provided an overview and updates to progress on common core implementation and how states and districts are preparing at NSBA’s annual conference April 2012. The Center was joined by colleagues from Kentucky School Boards Association on March 6, 2012 to conduct a webinar on what you need to know about implementing the Common Core standards at the state and district levels.

The common core state standards: Focus for school board members, March 6, 2012. (Click to download the PPT)

Articles

CABE raises questions about costs of Common Core: article by the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education about potential costs of CCSS implementation.(Click to download the PDF)

Coming together to raise achievement: report by Education Testing Service’s Center for K-12 Assessment and Performance Management about what to look for in the new CCSS assessments. (Click to download the PDF)

Resources

Common Core State Standards:
the official website for the CCSS where you can download the standards and keep up with state CCSS adoption.

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC):
the main website for the 14-state PARCC assessment consortium under the project management of Achieve, Inc. Sign up to receive updates on progress.

SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium:
the main website for the 29-state SMARTER assessment consortium headquartered at the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Tools for the Common Core standards:
a blog by Bill McCallum, lead author of the CCSS mathematics standards. A good place to stay up to date on progress, download tools as they come available, and engage in conversations with other professionals.

The Illustrative Mathematics Project:
still under construction at this writing, this website will “illustrate the range and types of mathematical work that students will experience in a faithful implementation of the Common Core State Standards, and by publishing other tools that support implementation of the standards.”

Rubrics for aligning Open Educational Resources (OER) to CCSS.
Rubrics designed “to help states, districts, teachers, and other users determine the degree of alignment of OERs to the Common Core State Standards, and to determine aspects of quality of OERs.” The eight rubrics address such areas as content quality, usefulness of materials, assessments, practice exercise, and others. Achieve, Inc.

Next Generation Science Standards
Next Generation Science Standards: the official site for the state-led effort to draft new science standards.

Center for K-12 Assessment & Performance Management at ETS
Center for K-12 Assessment & Performance Management at ETS. The Education Testing Service maintains this website to monitor progress on the state assessment consortia and offers reports, power points and webinars.

Achievethecore.org
This website was created to “provide free, high-quality resources to educators now doing the hard work of implementing these higher standards.” If nothing else, check out their “steal these tools.” The site is maintained by the nonprofit Student Achievement Partners, which boasts some common core authors on its team.

Implementing Common Core State Standards and Assessments. A workbook for state and district leaders
Don’t be put off by the length of this workbook. Achieve, Inc. has put together useful tools and metrics for planning and implementing the CCSS as well as for monitoring your efforts.

Data First Training: College and Career Readiness
Common Core Standards place a big emphasis on getting students college and career ready. Here’s a video that the Center for Public Education produced, through its Data First initiative, on what exactly college and career readiness means.