Common Core State Standards for ELA and Literacy (14:13)
Rafael Pi Roman: Welcome to education update. I’m Rafael Pi Roman. It’s become an accepted part of the American education system: what our children learn depends on which state they live in. In 2010 a coalition of states and education experts set out to change this with a new common core state standards for English and math which more than forty states have now adopted. In this episode we’ll look at the common core state standards for English Language Arts and literacy and what they’ll mean for our nation’s schools.
For decades it was up to local school districts to come up with standards: the set of expectations of what kids need to know and be able to do. This meant thousands of different sets of standards that varied widely and experts say led to disparities and achievement. In the late 1980’s a movement kicked off to improve the nation’s learning standards and states took on the task.
Michael Petrilli: States generally got teachers together and came up with a set of ideas about what kids should know and do in these core subjects. Not surprisingly those standards were literally all over the map.
Gene Wilhoit: And so what we found in too many states was a plethora of expectations: almost an un-teachable curriculum that expectations were too broad.
Rafael Pi Roman: Not only were many state standards too broad to teach, a problem experts called, “a mile wide and an inch deep,” they also varied considerably.
Michael Wotorson: Because standards vary so much from state to state, a young person might leave Memphis and move to Boston and suddenly realize upon arriving in Boston that he/she is in fact not ready for college.
Michael Cohen: So it began to become apparent that we had very different expectations from students from state to state for no particularly good reason.
Rafael Pi Roman: These different expectations in each state presented a problem when the “no child left behind” law began holding states accountable with tests based on the different standards. Experts say instead of improving student performance it created an incentive to make tests easier and expectations lower.
Michael Petrilli: What became clear is that we had a charade. In most states we were telling parents that their children were doing just fine. They were passing the tests. They were proficient according to the state in English and math. But then those same kids would go on to college and have to take remedial courses because they weren’t prepared at all.
David Coleman: Far too many students who are in remediation never get out. For those students the possibility of a good paying job that can support a family or full-fledged citizenry in which they participate as a full member of our democracy is scarce and limited.
Rafael Pi Roman: In 2009 the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers launched an effort to come up with one set of standards for all states. The common core state standards were released in June 2010. More than forty states have now agreed to replace their English and math standards with the common core by 2014 when new state assessments are expected to be introduced.
Susan Pimentel, a consultant and standards expert, and David Coleman who founded the “Education Think Tank Student Achievement Partners,” led a team of about seventy teachers and experts who spent a year writing the new standards for English Language Arts and literacy. They are broken into four main content categories: reading, writing, speaking and listening and language. Each section begins with something called the “College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards”: broad standards defining what kids should know and be able to do to be successful in college and on the job. These standards correspond one to one with a specific content standards that follow.
Susan Pimentel: We have heard from teachers around the country that have been looking at the standards and said, “In case the focus is for what it is they’re preparing students for, so even if I’m a 3rd grade teacher: wow. I have a role to play for students here in preparing for college and readiness.” So there’s a place that will really keep the focus on where it is I’m heading and what it is I’m preparing my students for.
Rafael Pi Roman: The content standards begin with the most fundamental of skills: reading. The anchor standards here emphasize reading closely, making logical inferences, citing specific textural evidence and reading complex texts: a key concept experts say we have not been getting right in the classroom.
Susan Pimentel: What’s been happening is that the reading that we have been asking students to do all the way along and in high school has begun to go down. But the reading that we ask for students to do in college, and then if they get into their careers, has actually stayed steady or gone up and the difference is wide.
Rafael Pi Roman: Another big shift in the reading standards: more non-fiction. Experts say that while literature, like fiction and poetry, is important, kids must also be reading informational texts.
Susan Pimentel: When you look at what students actually read and what we read as adults and when we graduate in our own careers and jobs and just in life, 80% of what we read is informational text.
David Coleman: Students seem to be able to read tactical writing as well as historical and scientific writing as well as literature and literary writing.
Rafael Pi Roman: It is for this reason that there are two sets of reading standards across all grades: reading literature and reading informational text: things like essays, news articles and historical documents. By 4th grade at least half of students reading should be informational and by high school at least 70%. The responsibility for teaching all of this doesn’t just fall on English teachers. The standards call for literacy in writing to be taught across all disciplines: history, social studies, science and technical subjects.
David Coleman: There is no way we will break the barrier of 8th grade reading scores in this country being flat for decades unless science and history teachers are full partners in demanding that students read and write to gain knowledge in their discipline.
Rafael Pi Roman: David Reisenfeld is a social studies and history teacher at Robert Wagner High School in Queens, New York. He started working with the common core standards for literacy as part of a citywide pilot.
David Reisenfeld: We’re looking at how to work specifically on kids reading more complex text, so we started by looking at the concept of finding textual evidence in primary and secondary sources.
Rafael Pi Roman: To prepare for today’s history class, a debate on European imperialism in Africa, his 10th graders studied photos and illustrations from an eye witness book on Africa, read an essay by 16th century social reformer Bartolomé de las Casas and read excerpts from the novel, “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe: a complex text recommended in the standards appendix. Reisenfeld now assesses all his class readings with a text complexity rubric developed through the pilot.
David Reisenfeld: There’s a heavy component in these standards that try to address the things that kids are going to need to know as they walk into any aspect of life. Anywhere from the auto mechanic to the university professor we’re going to have to look at how kids can take information that they are presented with, whether it’s a manual or an academic text, and understand what to do with it.
Rafael Pi Roman: The ability to read well connects directly with the ability to write well which is the next section of the common core standards. Here again experts say the type of writing kids have traditionally done is not preparing them for life after high school.
David Coleman: Today in the American high school the most popular forms of writing are likely a narrative of your own experience and a narrative of your own opinion.
Susan Pimentel: When’s the last time an employer asked one of us to write a story about ourselves? No, they ask us to read something and then write about it.
David Coleman: What you have to be able to do is show that you can argue based on evidence and show that you can convey complex information clearly.
Rafael Pi Roman: The anchor standards for writing emphasize writing arguments, writing informative and explanatory texts, drawing evidence from text to support analysis and assessing the credibility and accurately of sources, something Jill Lee, an English teacher at Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, is working on today.
Lee’s students are preparing to write an argumentative essay by reading informational texts including a New York Times column about the role of social media in the Middle East uprisings and a report on media use among kids and teens.
Jill Lee: One of the things that we noticed about our high school kids is that we’re not preparing them for college. They need to know how to read sources. They need to know how to independently research papers and they need to know how to write a proper paper. It is really important for them to know number one: that there are various sources. Some are reliable and some are not and they need to independently be able to determine that.
David Coleman: If you look at the standards throughout the core of them as evidence, the core is of them having mastering the evidence when you are reading, writing and as well as when you’re speaking and listening.
Rafael Pi Roman: Speaking and listening is the next section of the common core of state standards. The anchor standards here emphasize participating in a range of conversations and collaborations, expressing ideas clearly and persuasively and adapting speech to a variety of contexts.
David Coleman: The strands of speaking and listening require a student to build the ability to share evidence not only in formal ways, like a formal presentation, but in everyday conversation.
Rafael Pi Roman: At Fillmore Academy in Brooklyn, New York, also a common core pilot school, 7th grade students are conducting a conversation based on an article they read about child marriage in Afghanistan.
Students: The most recent UNICEF study found that 43% of Afghan women were married before age eighteen.
Once they were sold the girls were considered as “property”.
Child brides are also at greater risk for domestic violence.
Rafael Pi Roman: Rosemarie Cantelmo thinks this type of work will go a long way towards preparing her kids for the real world.
Rosemarie Cantelmo: They’ll be in a situation where they have to interact with people. It’s not only going to be them and a book. You go into business and you need to sit at a meeting. You need to know how to cite your information and not just talk randomly. This is a life experience: to be socially adapt in conversation.
Rafael Pi Roman: The final section is language. The anchor standards here emphasize a command of the conventions of standard English, knowledge of language and vocabulary acquisition in use especially academic vocabulary. Susan Pimentel said there was some disagreement about whether to include a separate section just for language.
Susan Pimentel: We took some heat on that but we thought it was important enough because we hear from the business community who said grammar and conventions are important. I am not going to hire somebody if a letter is filled with mistakes. They meant that both in terms of writing and also in terms of speaking and listening.
Rafael Pi Roman: Pimentel co-teaches with Bridget Cronin, a special education teacher. The standards don’t contain sections specifically for special populations like children with special needs or English language learners but Cronin says she’s found them accessible to all learners.
Bridget Cronin: Using the common core standards definitely does bring tasks to another level. All students whether they are struggling or at the top of the class are able to accomplish these standards: it’s just the means of getting there that may be different.
Susan Pimentel: What we’ve lost I think in this country is the fact that there is no shame for any one of us to pick up a piece of reading and not get it the first time around. Sometimes I have to read it and sometimes I have to read it again and again: perhaps with some scaffolding, someone giving me some good questions about it or someone helping me through it. I happen to believe there is genius in every child and it’s our job as educators to find that and nurture that.
Rafael Pi Roman: States are allowed to add 15% more content to the standards. For example New York added a section for pre Kindergartners and standards to reflect the cultural diversity of the state. John King is a New York State Education Commissioner.
Rafael Pi Roman: Now why is it important to allow states to add some of their own content to the standards? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
John King: The standard’s effort I think wanted to be respectful of state differences and state autonomy, make sure that the standards ultimately reflect what local leadership in each state feels is best for students. Over time if states arrive at additional standards that make a real difference for students, other states will learn from that example.
Rafael Pi Roman: In many ways the hard work is just now getting under way as states, districts and schools restructure their curricula and instruction before 2014 when new exams aligned with the common core are expected to go into effect. Two groups of states are now designing these new assessments which will likely look a lot different.
John King: We expect them to be more performance based, so a lot more writing. A lot more opportunity for students to apply their knowledge. Our other hope is that we’re able to have the assessments not just happen one time at the end of the year, but that we’re able to embed the assessments in the instruction over the course of the year.