From the 4/26/2010 – NSTA Reports—Henry Kepner, Jr.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative adds a new twist in American education: the creation of common core state standards in mathematics and English/language arts, which each state may choose to adopt. The National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) launched the initiative in March 2009 after the nation’s governors agreed in concept to adopt a uniform set of standards. To date, 48 states have signed on to the effort. Subsequently, the Department of Education applied increased leverage for implementing these standards by linking some funding to the adoption of the standards. In contrast to previous federal attempts, state leaders are driving this movement toward “national standards” with accountability consequences.
Establishing common standards across the country is an important, but minor piece of the action for U.S. educators and students. Greater challenges lie ahead before the standards will have impact. Until accountability measures are completely revised, it is foolish to expect educational focus to change at the school or classroom level. Similarly, substantive reworking of curriculum materials and instructional practices—along with the placement of topics—is needed before implementation by teachers. Finally, comprehensive professional development will be necessary to support teachers in preparing their students.
In the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989), NCTM made a clear statement: This is the mathematics we value for all K–12 students. The NGA-CCSSO standards take on a heightened position: This is the basis for educational accountability through state and federal assessment initiatives. Initially, the NGA-CCSSO effort omitted connections with and input from the professional education organizations, as well as classroom teacher representation. The current mathematics document has core mathematics standards for understanding and skills at each grade, K–8, and standards for mathematical categories at the high school level (Algebra, Functions, Geometry, Statistics and Probability, and Modeling). The draft standards are consistent with NCTM’s recommendations over the decades. Many reviewing populations have expressed strong concerns about specific topics, uneven levels of detail, and the use of what is known about student learning progressions in making grade placements.
Standards for Mathematical Practice (pages 4–5), which I view as an extremely important and potentially powerful component, support much of the NCTM Process Standards history. These standards require students to
– make sense of problems and persevere in solving them;
– reason abstractly and quantitatively;
– construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others;
– model with mathematics;
– use appropriate tools strategically;
– attend to precision;
– look for and make use of structure; and
– look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
From the NCTM perspective, these Standards for Mathematical Practice form a basis of student learning and must be applied consistently to the implementation and classroom instruction of the remaining two sets of standards focused on what students should understand and be able to do. I see the greatest challenge and responsibility of NCTM and our sister professional organizations as providing guidance in professional development, materials creation, and assessment that support building these mathematical practices in our students.
For the mathematics-science connections, there is recognition of the importance of experiencing mathematical connections—both within mathematics, such as algebraic-geometric and numerical-algebraic-data representations, and beyond. The Mathematical Practice of modeling with mathematics recognizes an opportunity to build and use mathematical models that fit experimental data and provide ways to describe natural phenomena. Our collaborative role is to ensure curricular and instructional opportunities—along with assessments—are tied to specific understanding and skills standards.
Students’ strategic use of appropriate technology in solving problems is a standard for mathematical practice. This standard is not well connected to grade-level or content-area standards for understanding and skills in the remainder of the document. We are concerned this omission will limit use of technology in instruction and assessment. Collaboration with science teachers is necessary to ensure all students are prepared to use technology strategically in settings where real data, messy numbers, and complex relationships are involved. We seek your help in identifying assessments and instructional settings where students demonstrate competence in doing mathematics in real-world scenarios.
The Common State Standards Initiative builds on a current public acceptance of a lockstep standards/curriculum at each grade level. While compelling politically, the result will minimize curricular innovations and sequencing that have been a positive influence in building varied curricula in this country. If this set of standards is widely adopted, it is likely each grade, K–8, will have the same content focus and outcomes. This national approach does not address the responsibilities of dealing with student diversity.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative has generated provocative discussion within the mathematics education community and beyond. However, the development process for these standards unfortunately has produced something that falls short of the best this country could have produced for its students. There must be a well-developed process for rapid and repeated standards revision based on findings and critical review of professional development efforts and student assessments in each state.
The anticipated adoption process is yet to unfold in each state, and the subsequent consequences—especially the unanticipated ones—will provide us with many challenges!
Drafts of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies and Science are available online at www.corestandards.org/Standards/K12.