Thursday, November 10, 2011

Common Core

Common Core:

Making Common Core Standards Mean Something

by RICHARD LEE COLVIN on NOVEMBER 10, 2011

in ACCOUNTABILITY, UNCATEGORIZED

This week the Montana Board of Education voted to become the 45th state to adopt the national Common Core standards. Standards, of course, don’t matter at all if they just sit on shelves. If they’re serious about ensuring that more students graduate from high school ready to succeed in college or postsecondary training programs, states and school districts have to see them, and the curriculum associated with them, as the organizing principle of public education. Decisions about accountability, teacher preparation, professional development, instructional materials, technology, teacher evaluations, class size, how to use time and even how money is spent have to be made with the standards in mind. They aren’t a program. They are the program.

Except, apparently, in California. There the standards, which the state board of