Matt Renwick's List: Common Core

• So instead of bashing the CCSS/ACCRS, and fighting about standards that are “failing your child”, I encourage everyone to put his/her energy into supporting our state’s efforts to hire and retain the best and brightest professionals.

• Common Core is a step in that direction, and in many ways it is a necessary condition for any number of education reforms. Don't fall for cheap conspiracies. It's a major step forward.

• But the school district won’t completely discard Common Core. That’s due in part to mandatory standardized testing aligned to the national standards, and teacher effectiveness and school report cards tied to student scores on those tests.
• Instead, the school district will use Common Core as a “reference point,” something the district can build on in some respects and ignore in others.

• We met for 15 hours per grade level and used that time to sketch out the modules and agree to common assessments. I was a bit apprehensive to “lead” this charge, but I knew that if we were going to use the standards, which I think are actually quite good, then we’d need a starting place, and the released modules were definitely not a possibility.
• When my grade level team met, we were able to use their module as a starting point. The most incredible conversations occurred about the work we were doing with curriculum.
• Three shifts the Common Core ELA standards make require teachers to (1) use more complex texts with academic vocabulary; (2) teach students to use extensive evidence to persuade and inform, and (3) move to a greater emphasis on non-fiction.
• When we did an inventory of what we were using as texts, we found that we were extremely unbalanced. We, as it turned out, were definitely teachers of fiction and literature. Though I love teaching novels, can’t wait to discuss poetry with students, and enjoy their creative writing, the true answer is simple: in the “real world,” one does not write an analysis of Hamlet nearly as often as a document that needs to draw information from a variety of sources.

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• But rather than settling down now and working in a constructive, united fashion on improving outcomes for Wisconsin kids, we appear set to go through a period of unhelpful posturing, bickering and disruption.
• Statewide, educators have put tens of thousands of hours into getting ready for the coming school year, using the Common Core standards as their guideposts.
• Republican governors with presidential ambitions, such as Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and our own Walker, have reversed positions in favor of Common Core now that there's so much opposition among groups they count for core support.

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• What effect will the Common Core have on national achievement? The analysis presented here suggests very little impact. The quality of the Common Core standards is currently being hotly debated, but the quality of past curriculum standards has been unrelated to achievement.
• Standards in education are best understood as aspirational.
• Don’t let the ferocity of the oncoming debate fool you. The empirical evidence sug-gests that the Common Core will have little effect on American students’ achievement. The nation will have to look elsewhere for ways to improve its schools.

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