The Critical Importance of Standards

Monday, July 28, 2014Printer-friendly version

In the frenzied political debate surrounding the Common Core State Standards, it can be easy to lose sight of what the Standards are truly about: establishing clear academic benchmarks that all students should achieve at particular grade levels in English Language Arts and mathematics. These voices supporting higher standards urge us to stay above the politics and focus on the critical importance of the Standards for the future of our nation.

 

Don’t Waste Common Core Effort

Editorial Board, The Wisconsin State Journal

July 24, 2014

“Wisconsin and the vast majority of states agreed long ago to develop and link higher academic goals for American students, called the Common Core. It wasn’t President Barack Obama’s idea. The National Governor’s Association and Council of Chief State School Officers began the initiative, working with educators, nonprofits and industry.

“Learning to read well and do complicated math should be a shared expectation, not a dicey political dispute. The Common Core standards for what students should know at each grade level — not just the facts, but how to think critically — will help prepare our nation for fierce global competition.”

 

Let’s Set the Record Straight about Common Core

by Robin Newman, The Tennessean

July 24, 2014

“Not long ago, Tennessee ranked near the bottom in education compared with other states. But since the adoption and implementation of these standards three years ago, we’ve made the largest leap ever recorded in a national assessment, NAEP. Fourth-graders moved from 46th to 37th in math and from 41st to 31st in reading. Eighth-graders advanced as well. That is cause for celebration. Do we want to return to lower expectations? I think our children deserve better.

“Common Core state standards are a state-led initiative, not a forced federal program as many outside groups that swoop in to rail against public education would have Tennessee voters believe.”

 

The Many Faces Of The Common Core Debate

by Karen Hitchcock, WAMC: Northeast Public Radio

July 24, 2014

“With the introduction of the Common Core State Standards we have, I feel, the opportunity to improve in a major way the educational preparation of our young people. We cannot afford to lose this opportunity by conflating implementation challenges with the quality of the standards themselves. States need to acknowledge and then address the barriers to implementation of the standards across all their districts, including the commitment of resources which will be necessary. We cannot afford to remain a low performer in international surveys of educational achievement; we cannot afford the huge amount of college-level remediation which is proving necessary to address the inadequacies of K to 12 preparation in large percentages of our high school graduates; we cannot afford to drive our businesses to other countries to obtain the skills they need in their new employees. This is a critical time for our country, and the implementation and evaluation of the Common Core State Standards provide us with a real opportunity to address education policy issues of enormous importance to our nation’s future in new and different ways.”

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