Today, the New York State Education Department released revisions to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics. I was part of the committee that met in Albany last summer to propose revisions to the standards. That week was an incredibly intense meeting of educators from to discuss what turned out to be relatively minor improvements to the standards. I’ve spoken and written earlier about my thoughts on the revisions, most extensively in an article that I wrote for Math for America last November called “Revising Common Core Math Should Be Just the Beginning.”
As I’ve said before, I support the changes to the standards as an important first step. I wish we could do more to look at the standards as part of an educational process that includes assessment, curriculum development, and teacher training. These changes do none of that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the changes. Many of the standards are too broad, too narrow, or misplaced. Since I teach high school math, I don’t have much experience with the K-8 math standards or the ELA standards, which are much more controversial.
Nevertheless, it’s good to see that the work that our committee did is finally seeing the light of day. The revised standards are scheduled to be put before the state Board of Regents in June.
An article (in which I was quoted) about the proposed changes appeared in the Wall Street Journal today at http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-proposes-changes-to-academic-standards-1493763298 .