COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS (CCSS) An Overview

1. COMMON CORESTATE STANDARDS(CCSS) An Overview

2. Purpose • To provide a common base of information about CCSS for every CSSU faculty. • To provide a place from which to launch in depth work during work days this coming school year.

3. Who developed Common Core State Standards? • Why were they developed? • What are the Common Core State Standards and what is different? • Assessment of CCSS-Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) • Implications for CSSU

4. Who developed the Common Core Standards for Proficiency?

5. Why were they developed? • Equity - Standards across the states are widely dissimilar. Common and consistently rigorous standards are needed for all students across the United States. • Standards did not align with college and workplace expectations. • All students must be prepared to compete in a global workplace, today’s jobs require different skills • ‘Impoverished Curriculum’ - Struggling learners are given watered-down lessons. Struggling students are often pulled out of ‘first wave instruction’ and miss out on rigor and a complete literacy or math lesson. (Torf 2008)

6. Common Core: Literacy & Math Standards have been adopted by 46 States.

7. Why in Vermont? In Vermont: • Over 1,300 students did not graduate from high school in 2010. • For every 100 9th graders , 85 will graduate high school, and • 44 of them will enroll in college when they graduate. • Of those 44 students, 33 will return for sophomore year at college and, • 26 will receive a college degree. At CVU: Of 337 seniors at CVU in 2010, • 30% did not go on to higher education.

8. Why in Vermont?Vermont Poverty Statistics Poverty has a profound influence on academic outcomes. • 37% of all students in Vermont live in poverty • 14% of CSSU’s 4,164 students are living in poverty. • This is a 3% increase over 2010-2011. • We need to provide all students with a rigorous and well rounded education in order to prepare them for success and confidence in college and or work.

9. What are the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)? • CCSS are uniform, national, evidence-based K-12 standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts. • CCSS define the knowledge and skills students should know and be able to do within their K-12 educational experience. • They include rigorous content K-12 benchmarks as well as habits of learning and application standards.

10. They build upon strengths and lessons from current state and world wide standards. • They are about teaching. “A teacher’s effect on student achievement is measurable years after students have left that teacher.” The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel • They are not just pieces of content distributed over grade levels, they are also about powerful teaching and research based practices.

11. What is different about CCSS? “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.” Stephen Covey - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

12. Broad Differences • Aligned with college and workforce expectations • Increased rigor • They go deeper, not wider - fewer and more specific standards that stress application • They are about the ‘how’ not just the ‘what.’

13. What is Different? continued • Informed by standards in high performing countries (Finland, South Korea, Singapore, Shanghai-China) • Re-alignment of content standards to match grade appropriateness based on brain and developmental research • Monitoring progress and using data will be ‘built-in’ to the assessment system; SBAC is developing interim, formative benchmarking to support progress monitoring.

14. Math Standards: What is different? • Math Practice (Standards of Practice) - set of 8 standards that describe the way content should be taught. • Math Content –Standards that define what students should understand and be able to do in mathematics at certain grade levels. • Math standards emphasize: numeracy, arithmetic and fact facility, including fractions, in early grades.

15. Standards for Mathematical Practice: K-High School • Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. • Reason abstractly and quantitatively. • Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. • Model with mathematics. • Use appropriate tools strategically. • Attend to precision. • Look for and make use of structure. • Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

16. CVEDC Dine & Discuss

17. Shifts: Mathematics Grades K-5 Introduction at earlier grade • Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers and other rational numbers Introduction at later grade • Statistics and Probability is introduced as a domain in Grade 6 • Expressions and Equations is introduced as a domain in Grade 6 More specificity • Focus on operations with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals as the foundation for more demanding math concepts and procedures

18. 4 – A Change in Content Structure Current Structure of K-12 Mathematics CVEDC Dine & Discuss

19. Distribution of the Domains (K-8)

20. Standards for High School Mathematical Content High School Conceptual Categories: • Number and Quantity • Algebra • Functions • Modeling • Geometry • Statistics and Probability

22. CVEDC Dine & Discuss

23. ELA Standards: What is different ?There are three kinds: • Ten anchor standards, grade-specific standards organized in four strands, and Interdisciplinary Standards. • ELA Anchor Standards are college and career readiness standards. These ‘anchor’ the ELA standards by defining general expectations consistent across all grade levels and in all content areas. • Four ELA Content Strands include: Reading, Writing, Listening/Speaking, and Language • Interdisciplinary Standards: Deeper literacy skill development in content areas. Literacy standards are embedded in History/Social Studies, Science and Technology at grades 6-12.

24. ELA Standards: What is different? • Emphasize comprehension- Through rigorous written and oral demonstration of what has been learned, by extracting from text in order to justify a claim • Research shows that the ability to read and comprehend complex text is the best predictor of college success. • “Students must read like detectives” David Coleman (CC writer) • Emphasize use of more complex text in reading, writing and discussion. • Research shows that high school books became simpler after 1962, college texts did not. • Volume of reading in college is about 5-8 times what it is in high school and is largely non-fiction.

25. What is different? continued • Emphasize rigorous informational content reading and writing starting in early grades and continuing.

26. Emphasize application - use of short, challenging texts for explicit instruction in critical thinking, vocabulary and comprehension • Emphasize rich, intentional student discourse - launched by deep questioning and analysis of thinking Bohm, ‘Use dialogue as a “true negotiation of meaning”…ideas are bigger than any individual might have conceived on his own. • Emphasize research starting in early grades • Emphasize use of multiple texts for comparison, analysis, and developing evidence. • Emphasize “Gradual release of responsibility” and assessment of independence. • High school reading is highly scaffolded, college reading is not

27. Instruction Shifts for CCSS Writing • Focus on informational writing (arguments as well as information/explanatory texts) in all disciplines especially social studies and science • Ability to conduct research in short and longer projects

28. Tremendous value is placed on growing analytical thinkers and critical consumers and providing tools and structures for students to express their voice orally and in writing.

29. Common Core and Assessment • Vermont has joined 33 states to form the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). • SBAC summative testing will be a computer-delivered assessment system implemented Spring 2014-15. • SBAC draws upon the work of Professor and researcher Linda Darling-Hammond from Stanford University. • SBAC is comprised of performance, formative interim, and summative assessments. • Exemplars and released items will be available. • Grades 3-8 and 11 will be tested in the spring.

30. Common Core and Assessment continued • SBAC summative testing will include performance tasks as well as multiple choice questions at each grade level. • SBAC will employ a growth model for score analysis (‘gain scores’ for individual students over successive years of assessment).

31. Common Core and Assessment continued • Each student’s testing level will be determined and a unique assessment will be provided based on the pre-test. • Students do not need to take the SBAC test simultaneously since each test is uniquely designed (CAT technology). • There will be a three month testing window. • Interim assessments will be available in 2013-14.

32. Implications for CSSU Common Core CSSU Implementation Goal To implement the Common Core State Standards in a way that strengthens instruction and thereby prepares students for a rapidly changing world.

33. Implications for CSSU Assessment • NECAP - 2011-12 , 2012-13 no changes • 2013-2014 NECAP may include sample SBAC questions and interims will be available. • Final Math and Literacy NECAP – Fall 2013 • First SBAC assessment – Spring 2014-2015 • Science NECAP will not be impacted by Common Core in the near future.

34. Assessment Implications

35. Professional Learning Implementation Timeline Professional Learning on significant shifts in instruction SY2010-2011 SY 2011-2012 SY 2012-2013 SY2013-2014 SY2014-2015 and Common Core Assessment We are here! Beginning Implementation 2012-2-13

36. CCSS Implications for CSSU We have three years to learn, train, and implement CCSS CSSU Implementation Plan: • 2011-12 Leadership capacity building and study • Summer 2012-Members of study groups shape professional development for 2012-13. • August 23-24th CSSU In service-”Digging in to Common Core” • November 19 & 20th- Regional Common Core • Optional professional workshops 12-13 school year • Summer Common Core work teams developing units

37. Regional and Local Common Core Professional Development • Ongoing Best Practices and Studio in Math with Teacher Development Group • Regional middle level course - CMP2, August 6-10 • Regional grades 3-5 course - June 25-29 • Regional high school workshop – June 21-22 extension in October • Literacy Institute on CC – August 13-15

38. In Conclusion, implementing Common Core is more than… • A chart • A textbook correlation • A scope and sequence or • An alignment These are just the material artifacts that may or may not imply good teaching.

39. Implementation will require a strong focus throughout CSSU and at each local school by all stakeholders for the next 3-5 years in order to implement the new standards with meaning and depth.

40. Common Core Standards are different, it is a transformative document. • It’s a messy process. • CSSU teachers are well positioned to implement CCSS. • We will work on this incrementally. • Time will be given to work and learn together. • Each year we will choose several areas in which to focus across CSSU.

41. If you are interested… Read part of the Core this summer • The Introduction • The Appendices • Look up resources- get a jump start

42. Resources • http://www.corestandards.org/ • http://www.commoncore.org The VT Department of Education has assembled multiple resources at: • https://sites.google.com/site/commoncoreinvermont/

43. “The most important reforms that a school system can make will be those that involve creating systems that support continuous improvement of instruction and increased personal and shared accountability for raising levels of student achievement.” Lucy Calkins