Common Core standards help students
As a Tennessee teacher, it is disheartening for me to personally know valedictorians from our schools who must take remedial courses when they enter college. Why are even our top-performing students unprepared for the rigors of college? If these valedictorians are far behind academically, can you imagine how far behind the other students are?
I hear the concerns of those who oppose the Common Core curriculum standards that Tennessee and many other states have adopted. Yet I hope we take a moment to reflect on what the debate over those standards is about. It is about teaching our children, and we must keep what is best for children at the center of the debate. Common Corealigned teaching comes to life; it is the hard and beautiful work that really matters in the hearts and minds of our students.
As a Memphis educator, I am well aware that many of our students deal with poverty, crime and many other struggles. It is true that these are real challenges, but low expectations are a much greater threat. The Common Core, with its high expectations, will be a great equalizer to prepare our children for college and careers. Our students, our city and our state deserve this.
Many of my fourthgrade reading students begin the year reading far below grade level. When I implemented the Common Core standards in my classroom for the 2012- 2013 school year, many of my students gained at least one year’s growth in their reading levels, putting them well on their paths to achieving gradelevel proficiency or better. Can you imagine what would happen to our schools and our city if all teachers did this?
Having recently celebrated Independence Day, we should reflect on those ideals upon which our nation was created — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Do we truly have access to these things when even our brightest learners, our valedictorians, struggle to compete with other students across the country and the world?
There is little doubt that our nation would be economically, socially and culturally stronger if the vast majority of our students graduate with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in higher education and today’s job market, making the pursuit of these ideals easier.
Now is definitely not the time to lose ground or momentum, especially in the areas of reading and math, with Tennessee ranking 41st in reading and 46th in math in the nation. Even the ACT and SAT college entrance exams are being redesigned to align with Common Core state standards and now focus more on the set of skills and knowledge needed to succeed in college. The ACT and SAT are both working to include more opportunities for evidence-based written arguments by students, which is a particular area of focus in the Common Core standards.
We hold a promissory note which acknowledges our indebtedness to every child in our nation to provide them a world-class education. We continue to watch a dream deferred if we stand on the status quo, blaming the challenges of poverty instead of working toward equity in our schools. The time for change is definitely now.
Parents and policy makers should support Tennessee’s transition to Common Core by exploring opportunities to become actively involved in the transition, learning how these standards differ from previous standards, and learning about your school district’s transition plan. This is a great change for our schools, and teachers want you on board. This will be hard work, but we owe this to our children, our schools and our city.
Remember, Common Core is not a federal initiative, but a national movement to raise the level of learning in our classrooms through a different take on what matters; we are finally focusing on depth of understanding and mastery of concepts. This is what teaching should do.
Leaders actually came together to support something that was not a leftor right-wing agenda, but an agenda intent on improving the outcomes for all our nation’s children. Nearly every state of the union has chosen to participate. Now, that is American.
Tennessee has made some impressive strides. Let’s keep going.