To Common Core or Not To Common Core
November 15, 2013 — pwceducationreform
Several nights ago I participated in a panel hosted by the Prince William County Committee of 100 about the future of standards in Virginia’s public schools. Of interest to the Committee was whether the panelists believed Virginia should stick with the SOLs, adopt the Common Core State Standards, or do something else. I chose doing something different, specifically adopting a Common Core Plus strategy that could be followed either by the state or the county if the state chooses differently.
That may seem like a strange recommendation to followers of this blog as I haven’t hidden my displeasure with the Common Core, so I thought I’d explain.
What Are the Common Core?
The Common Core State Standards are content standards that describe what our children will learn and when they’ll learn it and assessments that evaluate how well they’ve learned what we think they need to learn. That’s all that they are.
The standards exist for K – 12 Math and English. History and Social Studies standards are reportedly under development. The Next Generation Science Standards were issued a while ago, but are not Common Core. Some reports indicate that they are in the process of coming under the Common Core umbrella.
The Common Core Assessments are being developed by two different national consortia – Smarter Balanced andPARCC. Both of these tests are still being developed. They’ve been piloted in some states and will be field tested in