What is the Common Core State Standards for Math?

It seems appropriate that for the first day of our 31 day series, we begin by first discussing what the Common Core State Standards for Math is.

First, let me explain what state standards are, because they're not new. An excerpt of wikipedia's definition:

Learning standards (also called academic standards, content standards and curricula) are elements of declarative, procedural, schematic, and strategic knowledge that, as a body, define the specific content of an educational program. Standards are usually composed of statements that express what a student knows, can do, or is capable of performing at a certain point in their learning progression (often designated by "grade" or its equivalent).

(Emphasis added by me.) I would add that these standards are adopted by state legislatures as a means of structure and accountability to ensure that all students in the state are learning the same content at the same grade level. You can think of standards as a list of goals for teachers and students.

As a list of goals for all teachers by grade level and subject, standards then serve as the backbone for other elements of education. How should textbook companies and other curriculum developers decide what to put in their materials? Well, if there's a set of goals for third grade social studies in New York, then the curriculum company can make sure that their materials are helping teachers and students in New York achieve those goals, and can then say that they are "aligned with the NY standards." (FYI, in education, being aligned with the standards is a BIG deal. If your program or book or whatever isn't state-standard aligned, it's a non-starter. Educators know that )

I personally, like to think of standards as the skeleton. Without them, education would be like an ameoba, taking on different shapes, being moldable and malleable. Instead, standards give a definite form to shape, size, definition of what education looks like at the K-12 level.

But the skeleton illustration doesn't end there, because just as a human is not solely their bones, education is not solely the standards. Consider the following graphic:

Standards are the base from which we develop and shape curriculum (text books, handouts,  discussion questions, etc). But you can develop many different curricula that all meet the same standards. All you have to do to understand this is to go to an education conference, where the exhibitor hall is guaranteed to be occupied by a number of textbook publishers, who each will assure you to be "Common Core Aligned," though they do not handle the topics the same way.

Standards also inform instruction. If a particular topic is in the standards, a teacher is held accountable for teaching that content to their students. However, the standards do not dictate how that content is learned. One teacher may opt to begin with an activity that explores related concepts and helps students understand the need for this new concept (for example, if the new concept is the notion of negative numbers, a teacher may have students explore monetary transactions, and think about what happens when you want to buy something from a friend, but don't have enough money--how do we understand the debt? How can we represent it on paper? etc.) Another teacher might introduce negative numbers by drawing a number line on the board and asking students if there's anything to the left of zero. A third teacher might draw on students' notions of negative temperatures, and ask them to explain what it means for it to be " - 4 outside."

And lastly, standards are the basis of assessment (tests). I'll talk a good deal more about assessment in other posts, but standards and assessment go hand-in-hand. Or at least they should. Standards stake out the goals, and assessments check whether those goals have been reached. Assessments, like standards, are determined at the state level.

Just as we all have the same skeletal structure, all classrooms at the same grade level in a single state have the same learning standards. However, local choices made at the district and school level determine what the curriculum looks like. Even more local choices made at the teacher level determine what specific lessons look like.

It is a common fallacy that common standards mean the same lock-step education for all kids.

The reality is that standards have been around for several generations now. The reason these standards are getting a great deal of attention is because it is unprecedented for different states to have a common set of standards. Because education is a state's right (not a federal one), each state has historically gone about determining what should be learned at each grade level on their own. But in this case, many states decided that it was time to begin working together, and thus to adopt a common set of standards, that translated across state lines, and allowed for an economy of scale. (More on how this sudden cooperation and collaboration came about in a later post!)

So to recap, the Common Core State Standards

• is a document that outlines learning standards in math and English language arts
• have been adopted by individual states via their usual adoption method (for many states, via the legislature)
• are not a curriculum
• do not dictate how topics should be taught
• do not dictate how an individual teacher teaches
• are ground-breaking because for the first time, states share common learning goals
• are ground-breaking because they allow for collaboration across state lines

This is a lot of information, (thanks for hanging with me today!) but I did want to lay a foundation for us, that cleared up a number of the common misconceptions or misinformation that keep floating around the internet :)

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the organizational structure of the Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSSM), so that you, as a parent, can dive into the document yourself, and take a look at the kind of stuff that it says about what your kid will be learning at their grade level.

PSST!! Have questions? Want to talk about this more? You're in luck! Tonight, on the facebook page, I'm hosting a Common Core Math for Parents math chat at 8p ET! Hop on over, like our page, and join the conversation! Bring a question, or even a picture of a homework problem that's got you stumped--we're here to chat!