re: #37 Eigth Immortal

There’s too hard, and then there’s unreasonable, which they charge Common Core with. At least, that’s the argument against it I keep hearing. But I am speaking completely second hand here, I’m neither a teacher nor a student.

Common Core was specifically designed to be in line with reasonable standards already being met by other first world nations.

How do these new standards compare to those in high-performing nations?

William Schmidt did a comparative analysis of the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice, finding that they resemble those of high-performing, or “A+ countries” (defined as those that had their 8th grade students placing at the top of NAEP), and have more rigor, focus, and coherence than the standards they replace. In fact, he found a 90% overlap between the CCSS and the standards of the A+ countries.

The CCSS emphasize the 21st Century skills of creative, problem-solving, and critical thinking, needed to succeed in today’s world, a focus shared by the world’s highest performing education systems. In Hong Kong, the strategy is called “Learning to Learn” and focuses on moving away from memorization toward liberal studies, problem solving, creativity, and critical thinking. In Finland, learning goals focus on “21st century citizen skills, including problem-solving, teamwork and entrepreneurship skills, participation and initiative.” And in the European Union, there is a focus on innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, self-direction, and motivation.

Let’s hope that the American revival of adapting best practices from other nations will restore our education system as the envy of the world.

The standards aren’t unreasonable at all. That is unless we as Americans choose to settle for mediocrity.