n recent months, you may have heard some discussion about the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS). California adopted the new standards in March of 2012, which go into effect at the start of the 2014/15 school year. At Gateway Public Schools, we’ve been thinking about these new standards for a while, and we wanted to let you know our plan for responding to this shift in expectations for our schools and students. (This shift is happening across the country – that’s the “common” part of the term Common Core. The CCSS have been adopted by forty-five states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).)
First, a little background. California schools have been responsible for aligning their courses with state standards for some time now. The state (and the federal government, under “No Child Left Behind” laws) assesses schools in part on how well their students perform on standardized tests designed to measure the particular skills and knowledge outlined in the standards. These are the “fill-in-the-bubble” STAR tests your students have been taking every spring. The CCSS represent a shift in the content of those standards, as well as a pretty fundamental shift in the overall approach to the type of understanding students need to develop in order to be prepared for life after high school. At Gateway, we’re excited about this shift for lots of reasons, but mainly because much of the CCSS is in line with what Gateway believes about how students best learn and grow.
If you want to read the standards in their entirety, we encourage you to do so. The standards are divided into English Language Arts (ELA) & Literacy standards and Mathematics standards. The ELA/Literacy standards emphasize literacy across subject areas, as well as developing students’ abilities in reading complex texts (both literature and informational texts) and making valid arguments based on the evidence in those texts. The Math standards encourage students to develop mathematical practices such as perseverance in problem-solving and using appropriate tools strategically. They also aim to coordinate the topics in each course in order to support students in making meaning of the concepts central to mathematics.
Along with a change in the standards is going to be a change in the type of standardized testing that students will complete. No more bubbles to fill in – instead, the students will take their assessments on computers, and we’re hopeful that the new tests will be able to assess a deeper level of understanding than was possible with the multiple-choice STAR tests. Many students will get to try out the new exams this spring when Gateway will be part of a pilot run to see how the testing process works. (For this year, neither the students nor the schools will receive any results. Instead, it’s a chance for the developers of the tests to try out the test questions and the format, and a chance for our students to see what they can expect in the coming years.)
In the end, the new standards aren’t about any single assessment but a coming together of all subject areas to increase a depth of understanding in each subject. At Gateway, we’re excited about the Common Core because we recognize in the standards a reflection of values we hold dear: deep understanding of ideas, an appreciation for multiple perspectives and unique ways of approaching problem-solving, and collaboration among all teachers in all subject areas in order to develop our students’ abilities to think critically about the world around them.