School Standards That Encourage Deeper Thought

“A Trial Run for School Standards That Encourage Deeper Thought” by Fernanda Santos
New York Times, April 24, 2011

Topic: Pilot schools in New York try out the new Common Core Standards

Summary: The "Common Core Standards" are slated to replace state guidelines/standards in 2014. The standards have been adopted by 42 states (including Oregon), the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands. With the new standards, "book reports will ask students to analyze, not summarize. Presentations will be graded partly on how persuasively students express their ideas. History papers will require reading from multiple sources; the goal is to get students to see how beliefs and biases can influence the way different people describe the same event."

Intended audience: Teachers, parents

Key Points:

· New standards challenge students to think analyze

· Replacement of standards that have been implemented as a result of NCLB

Relevance: These look like good standards. You can look over the website for Core Common Standards here: http://www.corestandards.org/ . I find it interesting that Oregon has adopted these standards. The English class they were describing in the article sounded a lot like my Lit classes in high school. There will definitely be challenges, but it looks like the standards put more emphasize on critical thinking, understanding, and analyzing and less on the right answers and standardized testing.