By Steve Mayer
For many schools in New Jersey, the emphasis on aligning curriculum with the Common Core State Standards appears to be linked with the state’s focus on high stakes testing and the politics of accountability.
This is unfortunate, not because testing is inappropriate, but because too often the politics of accountability do harm to the advancement of high standards for academic achievement. When high stakes testing and standard expectations for students are mentioned in the same sentence, we risk losing something important.
Forty-six states have adopted the Common Core State Standards as guiding principles for curriculum development yet they do not represent a national curriculum. Two testing consortia are working to help states assess progress against the standards (PARCC and SBAC), yet the tests are not synonymous with the standards, and preparing students for the tests is not synonymous with “teaching to a test.”
The standards provide us with a road map toward critical thinking and analysis that should result in more students being truly college ready when they graduate. This objective—ensuring that all students have strong college and/or career options—has always been central to our work in Robbinsville, and will remain so as we seek to meet the demands of rigorous standards.
The Common Core State Standards set expectations for students in Kindergarten through high school graduation. In reading for example, the standards expect third graders to “ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for answers.” The 12th grade parallel to this standard is the expectation that students be able to “cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.” The centerpiece of this one standard (of more than 40 tied directly to language arts) is to hold students accountable for anchoring opinions and ideas within the context of reliable texts and to help them develop critical analysis skills throughout their academic careers.
Similarly in mathematics, our youngest students are expected to become fluent with basic facts, number sense and operations so that our oldest students become proficient in algebra, geometry and calculus. The early math standards set explicit expectations for how students manipulate numbers and how skilled they become with basic computation and operational thinking. This, in effect, prepares them as math concepts become increasingly complex in the years to come.
In both language arts and mathematics, the Common Core standards set a high bar for academic achievement and critical thinking. This is important as we develop learners who must navigate an increasingly complex world. With an abundance of electronic information available, students must constantly evaluate validity and reliability, critically analyzing opinions and information to ensure they are rooted in reliable text. These skills are essential for college and career readiness, and for an engaged and informed citizenry. In Robbinsville, we are pleased that our curriculum is reflective of the standards set by the Common Core and that our students are well served as we strive to help them reach these goals.
As we engage all of our students in PARCC testing this spring, we do so with the hope that the data it provides will give us a window into how well our programs are preparing kids to meet the demands of rigorous standards. As a district we do not wish to become embroiled in the politics of education, but rather wish to stay focused on our primary mission which is preparing students for a successful and productive future. The PARCC tests may or may not provide good data, but we enter the first administration with the expectation that we will learn important things about our district through the process.
Steve Mayer is superintendent of Robbinsville Schools.
