commoncore

Ready or not, it IS coming! The "shift" towards cohesive national common core standards!
"To maintain America's competitive edge, we need all of our students to be prepared and ready to compete with students from around the world", said NGA Vice Chair Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas. "Common standards that allow us to internationally benchmark our students' performance with other top countries have the potential to bring about a real and meaningful transformation of our __#|education__ system to the benefit of all Americans."

Ensure that our students are:

 * Meeting college and work expectations.
 * Prepared to succeed in our global economy and society.
 * Provided with rigorous content and applications of higher knowledge through higher order thinking skills. (HOTS)

The Common Core Standards Will:

 * Include rigorous high-level cognitive demands by asking students to demonstrate deep conceptual understanding through the application of content knowledge and skills to new situations.
 * Provide sufficient guidance and clarity so that they are teachable, learnable, and measurable.
 * Provide sufficient __#|guidance__ for the design of curricula and instructional materials. The standards do not prescribe how they are taught and learned but will allow teachers flexibility to teach and students to learn in various instructionally relevant contexts.
 * Convey a unified vision of the big ideas and supporting concepts within a discipline and reflect a progression of learning that is meaningful and appropriate.
 * Have limited repetition across the grades or grade spans to help educators align instruction to the standards.
 * Be used to develop broader assessment frameworks. Attainment of the standards by students should be observable and verifiable.

Benefits of the Common Core State Standards

 * Internationally benchmarked.
 * Student expectations are clear to parents, teachers, and the general public.
 * Allows for __#|collaboration__ with other states on best practices, instructional materials, and professional development.
 * Reduces cost to the state by sharing collective learning / knowledge.

Characteristics of the Common Core State Standards

 * 1) Focus: deeper, rigorous and relevant content and __#|application__ of knowledge through high-order 21st century skills
 * 2) Rigor: complex and challenging and aligned with college and work expectations
 * 3) Coherence: orderly progression, clear, consistent and understandable
 * 4) Fluency: proficient and automatic
 * 5) Evidence-based
 * 6) Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards and informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society