The Purpose And Potential Impact Of The Common Core
I think it makes sense to have clear, high standards for what students should know and be able to do, and so I am generally a supporter of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). That said, I’m not comfortable with the way CCSS is being advertised as a means for boosting student achievement (i.e., test scores), nor the frequency with which I have heard speculation about whether and when the CCSS will generate a “bump” in NAEP scores.
To be clear, I think it is plausible to argue that, to the degree that the new standards can help improve the coherence and breadth/depth of the content students must learn, they may lead to some improvement over the long term – for example, by minimizing the degree to which student mobility disrupts learning or by enabling the adoption of coherent learning progressions across grade levels. It remains to be seen whether the standards, as implemented, can be helpful in attaining these goals.
The standards themselves, after all, only discuss the level and kind of learning that students should be pursuing at a given point in their education. They do not say what particular content should be taught when (curricular frameworks), how it should be taught (instructional materials), who will be doing the teaching and with what professional development, or what resources will be made available to teachers and students. And these are the primary drivers of productivity improvements. Saying how high the bar should be raised (or what it should consist of) are important, but outcomes are determined by whether or not the tools are not available with which to accomplish that raising. The purpose of having better or higher standards is just that - better or higher standards. If you're relying on immediate test-based gratification due solely to CCSS, you're confusing a road map with how to get to your destination.
Accordingly, the evidence on the relationship between standards and achievement is far from conclusive (see the CCSS chapter in this Brookings report by Tom Loveless). One big problem is that standards in the U.S. are normally set at the state level, which limits the power of analyses designed to isolate the impact of changing standards, particularly given that so many important policies, including curricula and curricular materials, vary widely between districts within the same state, and even between schools in the same district.
Moreover, since many states have still taken a pass on providing useful CCSS-aligned curriculum frameworks – and most of the new “CCSS-aligned” tests have been developed without regard to (or prior too) the curricular documents that do exist – any observed relationship between changing standards and student achievement may be due to alignment (or misalignment) between the standards, the curriculum, and the tests.
Still, sadly, anyone familiar with contemporary education policy debates can predict the coming debate. Over the next 5-10 years, there will be endless attempts to attribute observed achievement increases (unfortunately, usually cross-sectional, and usually measured by proficiency rates), or lack thereof, to whether or not states adopted the Common Core. In fact, this has already started among early adopter states, such as Kentucky.
Much of this discussion, like most attempts to use NAEP for policy arguments, will be little more than careless speculation, motivated largely by pre-existing opinions about the CCSS. Over the coming The Purpose And Potential Impact Of The Common Core | Shanker Institute:
