Common Core – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Implementation of the Common Core State Standards was rolled out slowly, and not all educators believed in it. Therefore, change was slow. It took a lot of time, effort, professional development and tears to move forward with implementation. Since then some states have dropped the CCSS altogether, some still have the CCSS, but have opted out of the tests related to them. Some parents have opted their children out of these high-stakes tests. Some teachers are reporting the rigorous learning happening in their classrooms, while others are concerned about the appropriate level of the rigor. Finally, textbook companies have been called out due to lack of aligned materials, resulting in teachers having to create their own lessons and units to meet their students’ diverse needs.

The Good – There has been some good to come out of CCSS. Educators are very knowledgeable about what content is considered “grade-level” for the grades they teach, and they are prioritizing content that the standards designate as “critical areas.” Teachers are also spending more time collaborating, especially with their grade-level colleagues. Working together leads to better curriculum design, better instruction, and more consistency across teachers in the same school and/or district. Educators have had to focus extensively on strategies for teaching procedures.

The Bad – There has been consequences to Common Core implementation. Teachers are teaching more of the standards, but there’s more pressure to do so, with little guidance on which problem-solving strategies to prioritize. Parents are less able to help their children with homework, not because teachers want to exclude them, more likely they don’t know how to include them. It is a huge learning curve for teachers, so being inclusive of parents has taken a back seat in their program

The Ugly – The stress in our students is beginning to show. Many teachers see their students with high anxiety levels and think too many students will fall short of the standards’ high expectations. Finally, the production of Common Core-aligned curricular materials has lagged. Teachers are using a wide variety of different resources—and in many schools, different materials are being used in different grades. So while teachers are patching together items from various sources, this is creating materials that may not meet the standards’ intended rigor.

While we have areas to celebrate in Common Core, we also have areas of great concern. It will interesting to see how long Common Core is around and what will be done to help teachers with curriculum and instructional strategies.