News Brief
Moving Ahead With Common Core
The New York Times (04/21/13) P. SR12According to a recent New York Times editorial, parents of New York students should not be nervous or angry about the assessments being used to assess Common Core achievement among students because they are meant to improve student reasoning skills. The editorial applauds New York's advance steps to adopt and implement Common Core, though it does say the outreach program could have been more aggressive in educating parents and students about Common Core. These standards "do not call for a specific curriculum, reading list or anything like that. Rather, they lay out an ambitious set of goals for the math, reading, and writing skills that children should acquire as they move through school. The goals are internationally benchmarked, meaning they emulate the expectations found in high-performing systems abroad. The intention is to help students develop strong reasoning skills earlier than is now common." Moreover, the specific skills students must demonstrate build in complexity from grade to grade, and to achieve these goals, schools will need to "provide stronger teaching and course materials that are aligned with Common Core," the editorial says. The standards also are flexible so that states and local districts can implement them in a variety of ways, but "if the country retreats from the Common Core reforms, it will be surrendering the field to competitors that have already left it behind in math and science education, which are essential to participation in the 21st-century work force."
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