Welcome the Common Core State Standards

In the United States today, some people seem to think our public education system is broken. We're told what is happening in the classrooms of the 21^st century is a shadow of the educational approaches of the mid-20^th century. An impression exists that the techniques of educators today are failing to prepare students for the challenges of adult life. But this is untrue. Many trends and practices in public schools today are proving successful at preparing students for college, the workforce, and civic life in the future.

One of the hottest educational topics of concern gracing the editorial pages and education sections of newspapers lately is the Common Core State Standards [CCSS]. Many people have misgivings about the impact on students and the public of implementing a set of standards throughout the country. While the CCSS and their execution aren't perfect, people should be ready to embrace them because the CCSS are a positive development in public education today. 

Some have suggested the CCSS are a national curriculum. This is incorrect. A curriculum is a set of courses offered by a particular institution or that comprise a particular field of study. Calling the CCSS a national curriculum conjures images of students across the country only taking Civics, Economics, U.S. History, and World History for high school Social Studies classes or only taking Language Arts, math, science, and Social Studies in middle school because these are the subjects with which the CCSS are specifically oriented. But the CCSS doesn't require, or even suggest, study of only particular subjects. Rather, the CCSS outlines sets of skills students should learn in preparation for college, careers, and civic life. 

For example, one standard is students should be able to read an informational text and make logical inferences based on details from the text. The CCSS then outlines a progression of benchmarks, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, which will enable students to achieve this standard at a degree of depth necessary for college, careers, or civic life. Thus, a third grade student will be expected to determine the main idea of a grade-level text and identify details which support that main idea. An eighth grade student must also identify the main idea of an informational text, but he or she must be able to analyze the development of the idea over the course of the text. And a twelfth grade student must be able to identify two central ideas in an informational text and analyze how they interact and build on one another as they develop through the course of the text. 

National standards in education are not a new development. The National Council of Teachers of English adopted standards for English/Language Arts in 1996. The National Council for the Social Studies developed standards in 1994. In 1989, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. And the National Science Education Standards were established in 1996. Also, because of the No Child Left Behind Act, individual states, or small groups of states, such as Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, developed sets of standards for public school students to achieve. The CCSS are an outgrowth of such standards. 

Neither are national standards unique to the realm of education. They may not be called standards, but in many aspects of our everyday lives, we reap the benefits of national standards. Take a man traveling by car from New Hampshire to Missouri. He can, thankfully, be assured that the bridge he drives across in New York is subject to the same standards of design as a bridge he drives across every day on the way to work from Newport to Claremont. And if he stops to eat at a restaurant in Indiana, he can be confident the grilled chicken on the menu has been processed according to the same good manufacturing practices of food as the chicken he likes to have as a topping on a pizza from Out of the Ordinary. Finally, when our intrepid traveler reaches his destination, he trips while stepping out of the car and breaks his arm. But he can be happy to know that the doctor setting the bone is expected to adhere to the same performance measures as the doctor at Valley Regional Hospital who successfully set the traveler’s leg, broken while skiing on Mount Sunapee, the previous winter. It’s important to establish national standards to help ensure the public’s well being, including the future success of public school students across the country.

The establishment of the CCSS should hearten a variety of stakeholders, as well. Right now, 40% of freshmen in colleges must take one or more remedial courses before entering into the typical curricula of the colleges. There has been a disconnect between the rigor of preparation in K-12 schools and the expectations of colleges. In the future, college admissions counselors may feel confident the B a student from Florida receives in English during eleventh grade means she can perform as well in English 101 in college as a student who receives a B in eleventh grade English at a high school in Massachusetts. Also, the CCSS should, ultimately, save students, parents, and businesses money because the students are prepared for either college or careers after high school and do not need to pay for remedial courses or require costly extra training by businesses. As well, a math teacher in a public school in Montana should feel confident that a student who has transferred there from Arizona can slide easily into the math class. And parents should not have to be concerned that if they move from a school district in Maryland with their fourth grade student, their child will be behind in reading in the school district in Alabama.

 That last point addresses a primary reason why the CCSS are positive to the progress of public education in the United States. From Brown vs. Board of Education to Lau vs. Nichols to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to No Child Left Behind, efforts have been made to provide each student in public schools with the equal opportunity to receive a good-quality education. By adopting national sets of standards for knowledge and skills acquisition, the state and federal governments are further trying to assure that students, no matter what school district in what state of the country they are learning in, are all having the opportunity to learn to the same standards of achievement. 

Without question, the CCSS are tough. They ask students to learn complex concepts and skills throughout their public education. Upon comparison to the standards states already had in place, researchers found only two states with standards as challenging as the CCSS. But public educators and the parents of the students passing through the public schools should be confident in students’ abilities to learn at high levels. College, business, and civic leaders are—they know what it takes to succeed in those arenas as adults, and the CCSS have their support. The adults tasked with preparing children in public schools to pass onto college, business, and civic positions should adopt the CCSS as a guide to students’ future success and incorporate the standards into their curriculum at all levels of public education.