Past issues of the "From the Superintendent" newsletter
Superintendent's SPS Sharings, August 2010
While some were away this summer, or maybe just focusing on things other than school and education, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to adopt the K-12 Common Core (Curriculum) Standards (CCS) in math and English language arts (ELA). Starting this school year, school districts across Massachusetts will begin to review the changes and align their local curricula and learning expectations with the new state standards, provide training and professional development for staff, and prepare for the new MCAS tests that will be forthcoming. Massachusetts is the 27th state to adopt the CCS. All districts in the state will be expected to align their local curricula to the new standards by the start of the 2012-13 school year.
I have not reviewed each of the 870 ELA and 487 math standards, but have reviewed the analysis of the standards by educator panels in Massachusetts and comparisons of the CCS and the Massachusetts Working Draft Standards by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and other groups. I thought I might share my reflections on this issue particularly as it applies to SPS.
Adopting a national curriculum has long been a topic of discussion in U.S. educational and political settings. It seemed to gain traction about the time the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) results were released and the US trailed many other countries in math and science achievement. As we scrambled to explain why this happened, researchers noted that most of the highest achieving countries operated with a national curriculum that was more focused and coherent than the "mile wide and inch deep" individual curricula of each U.S. state.
There is wide variability across the states. For example, in some states, a high percentage of students score proficient or above on the state tests, but, in these same states, a much lower percentage of students score proficient or above on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. This is not the case in Massachusetts, where students score at the highest levels on the NAEP as well as the state tests.
"No Child Left Behind" of the Bush Administration required states to set and meet proscribed proficiency levels for all students or face sanctions on its schools and districts. "Race to the Top (RTTT)," the educational initiative of the Obama Administration, uses the funding carrot by requiring states who may wish to apply for the very significant RTTT funds to approve the Common Core Standards for math and ELA - in effect the national curriculum in these content areas.
There has been considerable press and attention given to Massachusetts' decision whether to adopt the national CCS or to retain Massachusetts standards. However, it is important to note that the decision was between the CCS (national core standards) and new, draft Massachusetts standards. Maintaining the state standards currently in place was not a consideration. For the past 3-4 years, Massachusetts has been working to completely upgrade our current ELA standards (last updated in 2001) and math standards (last updated in 2000). Regardless of the state board's choice, local districts like Sudbury will have to allocate resources to ensure our local standards are aligned with the new state standards, that instructional practices support the rigorous learning expectations, and that we are teaching the content and concepts contained in the new standards. It is not a surprise I'm sure that there is no funding to local districts for these efforts.
Current Massachusetts standards are generally perceived as very rigorous and, as such, have influenced the development of the CCS. We are hopeful that the amount of refinement and realignment necessary in SPS will be relatively modest and, in fact, that we will find that many of our current practices have been validated by being included in the national standards.
Typically when state standards change for any reason, student achievement results temporarily drop. This was the case back in 2001 when math standards were changed and also when the current science/technology standards came on line. I would expect the same to happen when the revised MCAS tests - aligned to the new CCS standards-are first administered.
Our teachers will begin to make adjustments in what and how they teach over the next year or so, but this is a learning and refinement process. It takes time to fully understand the curricular and learning expectation changes. Our work also needs to be informed by the assessment results along the way. This is what teachers do every day. We teach, then assess how well students learn, then re-teach to improve learning. Each year our teachers and administrators spend numerous hours analyzing the MCAS results of our students. We will begin this process with the 2010 MCAS results in early September. Using these analyses, we make modifications to what and how we teach. It is this iterative and continual improvement process that has resulted in our students' achievement results being some of the highest in the state.
Do we teach only for the MCAS test? No, but we do teach the learning standards that the tests measure. MCAS is clearly not, nor should it be, the only indicator of success of a school or school district and it's probably limited in some ways as an indicator of student learning. However, I always ask what skills or content is being assessed by MCAS that students should not be learning? Standardized tests provide accountability, they assess how well the students in this state are learning the current state standards, and they give local educators important information about areas for improvement. When I started teaching, (ugh) in pre-MCAS years, teachers were often given a textbook which was the de-facto curriculum and were left to their own devices to cover the material. The teacher in the next classroom, teaching the same subject, often covered different material, at different depths, at a different pace and ended up at a different place. State standards and standardized testing eliminate the "private practice" that was occurring in our classrooms and student learning rose to a higher level.
So what might we expect from the Common Core Standards? For more information on this, I have posted the panel reports and other information about the CCS and comparisons with the Massachusetts standards on our district web site. Here are a few salient points.
- One benefit of adopting the national CCS along with other states is the potential for greater opportunities for shared professional development and the economies of development costs for teaching materials and common assessments. There will potentially be a broader understanding of what students should know and be able to do in a given grade across the country, and greater ease for students relocating to another state;
- The ELA panel of educators found the CCS to be a better choice than the Massachusetts draft standards; the math panel found that both sets of standards were excellent choices; both panels found that the CCS could be strengthened by adding some standards from the Massachusetts Draft Standards;
- A state is allowed to augment the CCS with up to 15% of its own standards. In Massachusetts this is important because our standards include PreK, while the CCS do not;
- For many of the reviewers, the CCS were perceived to be more rigorous, coherent and focused than the Mass standards;
ELA Standards:
- The CCS for ELA specifically includes literacy expectations in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical subjects, whereas the Mass drafts were limited to ELA;
- The review panels found CCS ELA standards to be rigorous and contain very high expectations for all students; in fact, some reviewers thought they may be too high;
- Writing is emphasized more in the CCS. While the writing process (planning, revising, editing, rewriting) will continue to be emphasized, an important component, and one which will impact SPS classrooms, is a greater emphasis on expository writing and forms of argument. This continues to be an area of attention in SPS and clearer expectations from the standards will assist our work;
- There will be an increased emphasis on reading of informational texts, especially in grades 6 through 12;
- Speaking, listening and vocabulary standards will be added in the new standards;
- The CCS will include the required use of print and digital sources for research and argument writing;
- CCS Standards specifically call for early and frequent use of glossaries, dictionaries, thesauruses and digital reference material;
- Students will be expected to understand and apply a variety of grammatical rules at an earlier age;
Math Standards:
- The review panels found both sets of standards (CCS and Mass Draft Standards for Mathematics) to be excellent and rigorous in preparing students for college or a career.
- There were some differences between the CCS and Mass Draft Standards on the pacing (when concepts are taught) and the development of the progression of skills. For example, the Mass Draft Standards expect the mastery of arithmetic computations earlier than the CCS; while the CCS expect division of fractions earlier than the state standards;
- The CCS deemphasize data, probability and statistics in the early grades, beginning these in grade 6;
- However, CCS emphasizes number sense, place value and use and meaning of fractions at the early grades (grades 1-3) with the assumption that this foundation will allow quicker progress in middle and high school years, and a more gradual, deeper preparation for algebraic thinking;
- Both sets of standards will position elementary students well for middle school;
- The CCS is designed so that all students who reach mastery of the 7th grade standards will be prepared to take Algebra in 8th grade; The CCS also includes a significant amount of Algebra I content in the 8th grade, although full coverage of algebra is found in grade 9;
In summary, I do not think the fact that The Common Core State Standards will soon become the Massachusetts Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics is a reason for alarm. In the next several months, our curriculum leaders, specifically our Math Curriculum Specialist and our Science Curriculum Specialist, along with our Assistant Superintendent (who is also serving as ELA and Social Studies Specialist since those positions were cut as part of budget balancing plans) will begin to wade through the new standards documents and other guidance provided by the state. They, along with our principals and teacher leaders, will begin to chart a course of what changes need to be made. We have made significant progress in enhancing our early literacy program (grades k-2) and improving reading and math learning for all students. We know this is paying dividends. So the balancing act for us will be to align and incorporate the new standards while not derailing the successful initiatives that we already have in place.
I am confident that we'll continue to be successful. The reason is not because of the reading program or ELA standards, the math curriculum or the math learning expectations. The reason is because we have talented teachers and administrators who have high expectations for themselves and their students, and they know how kids learn and how to help them learn. That is what continues to make SPS a great place to grow and learn.
Thanks for staying awake to read this exciting report.
john