What are the Common Core State Standards?

The Common Core State Standards is a set of “national” standards adopted that replaced our previous state standards. In the spring of 2015, a new Common Core assessment was given to our students based on these challenging and robust set of standards that better prepare our students to be college and career ready. At the heart of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is the need to better prepare of students to be successful in college and the work place. Currently, research shows that United States students are significantly behind the College and Career Readiness benchmark standards. 

Implementation of these standards in the classroom ensures that all students, no matter where they live, are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the workforce. Common standards ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Common standards provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that which, ultimately, improves our ability to best serve the needs of our students. 

These standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have so that teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms. Standards also help students and parents by setting clear and realistic goals for success. Standards are a first step in providing our young people with a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in college and work.  Consult Common Core Standards links below to learn more about these standards and the assessment that will measure student mastery. 

District 105 and the Common Core State Standards

Similar to districts around the state and country, District 105 is committed to full CCSS implementation in the classroom.   The CCSS is not simply a set of standards that teachers will teach, but a set of standards that has changed how we deliver content and how children express what they know. These standards increase the level of engagement through higher levels of cognitive demand (more than just “knowing” the information but also demonstrating understanding and synthesizing information to solve problems and reason). To support this dramatic shift, District 105 has teamed up with the Consortium for Educational Change (CEC) and has a detailed, ongoing plan to support CCSS implementation.   

• Continue to refine the alignment of district curricular materials to support instruction surrounding the Common Core English Language Arts standards (ELA) and Common Core Mathematics standards 
• Continue to refine the alignment of instructional unit assessments to the grade level Common Core standards' outcome expectations.
• Provide professional development on effective CCSS lesson plan development
• Continue professional development on effective CCSS assessment development aligned to the CCSS mastery levels
• Connect ELA and Math CCSS across content areas (i.e. science, social studies, PE, music, etc.)
• Provide ongoing professional development for teachers to incorporate the ELA and Math instructional shifts into daily lesson plans. 
• Provide professional development specifically for math content knowledge and math and literacy instructional practices