Common Core Standards finally released for English Language Arts and Mathematics

The long awaited and much ballyhooed Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics have finally been released (about a half-year behind schedule) by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

I suspect these standards will be a considerable improvement over the standards that were created to support our defunct CATS assessment.

I am not sure the standards will be good enough to prepare our kids to meet international competition. They may not even be as good as top state standards in places like Massachusetts.

They certainly need more fleshing out to become a fully useful document for teachers and individuals who create assessments. However, I am going to wait for technical experts to weigh in on those and other concerns.

In any event, Kentucky has already voted to adopt these standards as our own. How much additional material we will need to add to the core standards and whether they ultimately will lead to improvement for our students remains to be seen.

You can find links to both of the new standards in the Common Core State Standards Initiative web site.

If you read them, ask yourself if you can tell from the standards exactly what is needed to prepare your child for adult life and if everything needed is covered.