Forty six states plus the District of Columbia have signed
on to participate in the Common Core State Standards program (CCSS) authorized
by the White House. This appears to be the successor program to No Child Left
Behind and Race to the Top. The essence of this new? initiative is to prepare school
students for a more rigorous academic program. The implementation deadline for
CCSS is to be the 2014-15 school year. Many of the classroom teachers around
the country have expressed legitimate concerns that that they have not been
adequately prepared to adept the new guidelines and integrate them into their curriculum.
One of the notable parts of the program is that the new programs do not
specifically lay out HOW teachers should teach. CCSS provides guidance but
leave the materials to select in the hands of the teachers.
According to the defined goals of the program “all students,
regardless of where they live, will graduate prepared for college, careers, and
citizenship.” That is an extremely tall order given the socio- economic
diversity in America’s public schools. This may yet be another “pie in the sky”
program that is not truly grounded in addressing the differences that leave
some children behind from the very first day they ever walk in to a school.
CCSS also purports to facilitate interdisciplinary learning with the
expectations teachers in the various academic disciplines will collaborate to
make the classroom a more productive place.
According to Common Core, parents will be key players in the
success of the program. That can also be said for every other program that has
come down the trail and failed. If parents don’t buy into the program and lend their
support to their children and the classroom teachers, then any program is doomed
to failure.
The National Education Association is lending its support to
this initiative and has developed a teacher toolkit to aid teachers. You can learn
more about Common Core and access the toolkit by visiting nea.org/commoncore.
c.2013 J. Margolis
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