Common Core Curriculum--about 44 states, mine included, voluntarily committed to the new common core curriculum. They will replace their state standards with national educational standards in math and English/language arts. Eventually, they will replace state benchmark tests with new assessments based on the new core standards. These assessments are being developed by a 24 state consortium, inluding my state, Arkansas. Kindergarten, first, and second grades are following the core curriculum this year in Arkansas, expanding to 8th grade next year and to high school by 2014-2015 (according to an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on 8/14).
Evidence that what has traditionally been taught in local districts statewide has not been uniform is found in the varied benchmark scores, ACT and SAT scores, and in the high rate of entering college students who require remedial math and/or literacy classes before taking the requisite freshman courses. Middle school teachers of my acquaintance have long complained that the district math and language arts curriculum maps, based on state standards, pressured teachers to "cover the curriculum." The maps did not allow for any depth in instruction, building background for less prepared students and discouraged exploration of topics that captured student interest. One hopes the new core curriculum will allow instruction to be more responsive to student needs and interests. In the best of all possible futures, by 2016-2017, students will arrive in middle school with more uniform background and more ready for the challenges of middle school. Conversely, middle school teachers, having become more grounded in the core standards, will be the most confident and effective instructors ever! Will school boards, parents, administrators, teachers be patient enough to wait for that? More importantly, will the Arkansas legislatu ...
