The Movement Toward COMMON STANDARDS
What are Common Standards?
They are the unification of educational curriculum content standards nationwide. There’s a movement afoot to create Common Standards to ensure that students across the United States are learning the same basic information. The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association are leading the fight in this movement.
In an article by Education Week, the goal of Common Standards are explained: “…to create a set of common standards in English language arts and math, with grade-by-grade progression standards, by year’s end—an incredibly ambitious undertaking. Their aim is to fashion sets of clearer and more-rigorous standards aligned with college- and workplace-readiness expectations. Given the crowd that attended the meeting to launch the effort, representing 40 or so states, it’s safe to say that interest in common standards runs high. For good reason. More than seven years into the No Child Left Behind era, it’s become painfully evident that there are numerous interpretations of “accountability” across just as many states…”
The ultimate goal is to create “deeper content knowledge. Without it, “skills” tend to become a moot point.” It will be a challenge for national educators and leaders to come to consensus on just what the Common Standards should be.
For more on the topic of Common Standards, read this article: The Death of Quality by Consensus
