Common Core State Standards for ELA Instruction

First of all, let me just say how happy I am that we finally have a nationwide standard for what we teach in schools and what students need to know by the time they graduate. I think it is a huge step forward for us as a nation and will really be beneficial to students who move to other places for schooling, whether it be elementary, secondary, or post secondary education. The fact that we used to have only state requirements is completely absurd to me. How can we be strong as a country if we have 50 states each deciding what they want their students to know. That makes it so that we cannot be flexible or adaptive. Having a standard that reaches throughout the country is huge to me. Everyone is equally prepared to enter college and the working field, and we have a pretty good idea as to how prepared we are in relation to other nations. We can finally be competitive in the world market. Now the only thing is, how do we get there? This idea that the passing rate for the Common Core test is projected to be at less than 40% is really nuts. We all know that when it comes down to it, school administrators aren’t actually going to hold back 60% of their seniors from graduation. No, the standards will then be lowered or not count for graduation until we can catch up and we can get our students actually prepared for the test. This is not going to be an easy process, but the same thing happened with the WASL and the HSPE, we can and will get through it and move on. 

The CCSS, having looked at them a few times, seem very complex and require a lot of depth and intellectual work. But isn’t that what we need our students to be prepared for? College is not high school, you can’t just float on through until graduation time. You actually have to out in the time, thought, and effort and get the work done. You have to think for yourself and struggle a bit. The CCSS will hopefully prepare students to do those necessary things on their own. Sure we won’t get it right the first time around, or the second or third, but eventually we will be teaching to higher standards that are actually being met, and our students will be brighter than ever before.