Four Questions About Common Core Implementation
by Frederick M. Hess • Sep 4, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Cross-posted from Education Week
Cross-posted from Education Week
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With the Common Core push in full swing, a bunch of intriguing issues are about to start cropping up. While much popular press coverage has justifiably focused on the political debates, and the trade press (especiallyEd Week's invaluable Catherine Gewertz) has considered what this all means for instructional practice in schools, some crucial but less visible rubber-meets-road questions have pretty much gotten lost. Here are four big implementation questions that haven't yet gotten much attention in state and local papers, and that would benefit from a serious look:
One, this year a slew of states will be telling teachers to focus on teaching the Common Core reading and math standards but evaluating schools and teachers based on assessments geared to their old standards. Is this a problem? How much does it matter? If the Common Core standards really are substantially different from the old standards (and tests), then it ought to matter a lot. Will some educators who do as they've been asked wind up getting slammed for it?
Two, even in some of the states with the most built-out tech infrastructure, fewer than half the schools are ready to administer the Common Core assessments. What's the likelihood that states are going to make the requisite strides between now and spring 2015? If they're not ready, will states have some students take the assessments on paper and some on devices (and on multiple kinds of devices, at that)? If so, how severe will the concerns be about reliability and validity when it comes to comparing outcomes? What can researchers tell us about the impact of assessing students on a hodge-podge of platforms?
Three, my AEI colleague Mike McShane has noted that an Amazon search yields more than 30,000 results, many of those claiming to be Common Core-aligned. How schools or systems are supposed to make sense of that is far from clear. Currently, no one can really tell which texts or resources are actually aligned to the Common Core, much less which ones are high-quality. I hosted a small gathering that included several
