Common Core Standards

The common core standards were created in order to prepare students up to grade 12 for life after school, particularly in proficiency in math and English. These standards were created by experts to ensure students will develop all necessary skills for all leaning styles in order for every student to find success.

## History

In the 1990s, a movement for establishing national standards started as states began writing standards outlining what students were expected to know and to be able to do at each grade level, and implementing tests and other forms of assessments to see who was meeting the standards. The actual Common Core State Standards were created in 2009 by state leaders from 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia, including David Coleman, William McCallum of the University of Arizona, Phil Daro, and Student Achievement Partners founders Jason Zimba and Susan Pimentel to write standards in the areas of English and language arts.

## The standards

1. Research and evidence based
2. Clear, understandable, and consistent
3. Aligned with college and career expectations
4. Based on rigorous content and the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills
5. Built upon the strengths and lessons of current state standards
6. Informed by other top-performing countries to prepare all students for success in our global economy and society

## Math Standards

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

## English Language Standards

In contrast to math, there are five key components to the standards for English and Language Arts: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Media and Technology.

## Effectiveness

In the 2014 analysis, Loveless examined the NAEP gains for states with standards most and least similar to the Common Core Standards between 2009 and 2013, finding no significant increase. Conversely, there was an argument put forth by Schmidt and Houang in 2012 that the states with standards that were more “Common Core–like” saw greater NAEP gains prior to the adoption of the standards. However, when Loveless analyzed the NAEP gains for states based on an index of state implementation of the the standards, he found a slightly larger and more significant gain in higher implementation states. In this second experiment, he was testing the idea that states that were implementing the standards more fully might see greater gains. In the 2016 analysis, he updated the work using 2015 NAEP results. Focusing on the implementation index, he again found no evidence that high implementers were seeing greater achievement gains post Common Core, so the effectiveness is skeptical.  Furthermore, it has been found that in some cases, the common core's over all goal to prepare students for college is not even reached, as some students feel as though the Common Core does not prepare students for high achieving colleges.

## Controversy

A popular debate regarding the standards recently occurred in Michigan regarding the adoption of the standards and if it was overall worth it to stress out students while implementing these standards. Similarly in Georgia, a similar debate out broke as education officials learned they could lose over $10 million in federal education funding if they did not to implement certain aspects of Common Core, including the “teacher assessment system” which determines what a teacher earns to how well students perform on Common Core standardized testing.  Overall, the arguments in favor of the Common Core usually explain that the common core prepares students for college and life better than any other system, as well as creating order. On the negative side, there is problems with the fact that it focuses heavily on Math and English, and not at all on History, Science, or other important subjects. Some people even feel as though the Common Core is just part of a political agenda in order to convince students at a young age to swing toward a certain political side.

## Common Core by State

Rhode Island

1. ↑ http://www.corestandards.org
2. ↑ https://www.educationcorner.com/common-core-controversy.html
3. ↑ https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2017/03/common-core-damages-students-college-readiness/
4. ↑ https://www.educationcorner.com/common-core-controversy.html
5. ↑ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-debate-over-common-core/