| The Common Core standards, which have been adopted by all but a handful of states, are new goals for what children should learn from one grade to the next. They are intended to move schools away from passive learning and fill-in-the-bubble tests and toward a writing-intensive curriculum that cultivates reasoning skills earlier than is now common. In practice, this means teaching fifth graders to write essays in which they introduce, support and defend arguments, using specific facts and details.New York, which adopted the standards in 2010, is one of the first states to create extensive Common Core-based curriculum materials and training kits. The problem is that many teachers in New York have not been given the time or the help they need to develop an understanding of the Common Core idea or to master the skills needed to teach it...and that is not the only problem. |
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