Saturday, September 27, 2014
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Education Organizations and
Common Core State Standards at a Glance
By Fatima Lemus-Gupta
Since I have never been in charge of a classroom, I thought I
would focus this blog on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I have heard about the Common Core from
friends who have school aged children in the U.S. However, my children have been in
international schools throughout their schooling. I often wonder what they would be learning
back home.
I have tried to find as much information as I can about the
Common Core State Standards (CCSS). In
addition, many of the organizations described in this blog were new to me.
The history of the National
Education Association (NEA) goes back to 1857. Prior to that year there were different teaching
associations in different states.
However, they were not coordinated.
Several teachers answered the call made by Thomas Valentine to become
unified, and the National Teachers Association (NTA), which later became the
NEA, was formed [1]. The NEA has a long
history as a teachers’ union of advocating for education issues concerning minorities,
women’s rights, teachers’ salary, children’s rights, segregation issues and
education equality.
Despite the NEA’s long history of advocating for progress on
many social issues affecting education, the NEA has been widely criticized for
opposing what is seen by some as positive changes to education, accountability
of teachers with regards to misconduct, some curricular changes, gay issues at
school and political involvement [2].
The NEA states that the development of CCSS is a good
starting point. However, the
organization has been vocal about the need to develop appropriate resources and
teaching tools for teachers to implement the standards. In this effort, they created the document
‘Common Core State Standard Tool Kit’.
This is a comprehensive document that tries to bridge the gap between
the CCSS and the implementation at the classroom level. In addition, the NEA questions the assessment
tools to record results and improvement [3].
The American
Federation of Teachers (AFT) was ranked the second largest education
related union behind the NEA by July 2010 [4].
Even though the AFT initially supported teachers, they expanded in their
area of work. Currently, AFT represents
teachers, school support staff, higher education employees, public employees,
nurses and health professionals, and professionals working on early childhood
education [5].
AFT’s key issues are divided into different categories: economy,
Public Schools, Health and Safety, Elementary and Secondary Education Act and
Federal Policy, Health Care, Standards and Assessments, Higher Education,
Teaching Profession, Safe and Orderly Schools and Early Childhood related
issues. [6].
The AFT is a supporter of the CCSS. However, they also propose
several recommendations to improve the implementation of the CCSS. In these recommendations they include the
following categories: standards design, curriculum development, professional
development, shift in culture, and instructional tools and resources and
assessment [7].
The Council of Chief
State School Officers (CCSSO) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization
working throughout the United States.
Their mission states that “through leadership and collective state action,
they aim to create a public education system that prepares every child for
lifelong learning, career, and citizenship” [8]. One of the CCSSO’s main foci is the creation
of the Common Core State Standards, in partnership with the National Governors
Association.
Common Core State
Standards (CCSS) is an educational initiative within CCSSO created to
provide consistency across the states in what students should learn by the end
of each year in English language arts and with the ultimate goal of preparing
students to have the necessary skills and knowledge to enter college and
career, as well as to compete with international standards [9].
Two key organizations for the development and implementation
of CCSS are the CCSSO and the National Governors Association (NGA). The process of creating CCSS was initiated by
recognizing that each state had different standards and benchmarks. Setting readiness standards for college and
careers followed this process. By June of 2010 the final Common Core State Standards
were released [10].
National Governors
Association Center Education Division (NGA) is a bipartisan governors
organization that aims to share best practices to governors around the
nation. The Center Education Division
focuses on providing information, research, analysis and technical support to
governors and key policy makers to develop appropriate policies in the area of
education from pre-K to post secondary education. NGA in partnership with CCSS established the
Common Core State Standards in the United States [11].
Another relevant NGA area of work is the push for the
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education agenda to decrease
the lack of skills, knowledge and preparation in each of those areas prior to
post-secondary studies [12].
There are several organizations that aim to achieve better
parents’ understanding of the CCSS at the classroom level. The
Council of the Great City Schools is one of them. They have developed several informational
materials for parents to have a better understanding of CCSS for English and
Spanish native speakers [13].
Achieve is an
organization that partners with CCSSO and NGA and provides support to parents,
teachers and the community to bridge the gap for better implementation of CCSS
[14].
Their advocacy includes support for state leaders to promote
policy changes and reforms.
Other international education organizations play key roles
in the global educational system, but their work is not directly focused on
CCSS, as CCSS is a United States based initiative.
The Association for
the Advancement of International Education (AAIE) is based in Florida and
was founded in 1966. AAIE aims to
provide opportunities for professional development, networking and sharing of
ideas and skills in the area of international school leadership. Within this organization is the AAIE
Institute, which provides different mentoring opportunities, as well as a
master program in International School Leadership [15].
United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was formed in 1945
as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
The United States has been a UNESCO member since 2003. UNESCO’s mission is “to contribute to the
building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and
intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication
and information” [16].
Besides the work that UNESCO is doing in advocating and
working for gender issues, peace, culture, education and other global issues,
UNESCO has several ongoing projects on education, communication and information
utilizing non-conventional media tools. Some
examples of these new platforms include the Global and Open Access Portal, the
Open Training Platform, the Women in African History and the World Summit on
the Information Society community site [17]. It is hard to completely describe the
extensive work of UNESCO in this blog. I
would encourage you to go to their webpage and see for yourself all the amazing
work UNESCO is doing.
The Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with the motto of Better Policies
for Better Life, promotes policies and reforms that improve the economic and
social well being of citizens around the world. The United States was one of
the founding countries of OECD.
In the area of education OECD has done extensive research,
data analysis and publication. This is
with the objective of achieving a better understanding and dissemination of the
state of education around the world, as well as its impact on the future of higher
education and employment opportunities for young professionals, and economic
equality around the world [18].
Part of the OECD is the Center
for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). This organization is based in France, and has
done extensive educational research across all ages and beyond the formal
education system. Their current projects
include Education and Social Progress, Governing Complex Education Systems and
Innovative Teaching and Effective Learning.
Their vision is that education promotes social, economical and
environmental progress (19).
While many organizations focus on developing benchmarks,
standards and assessments, CERI focuses on understanding better ways to teach
and learn and their effects on the individual an ultimately the society as a
whole. I have also been particularly
struck by their work on art in education.
The Global Partner
for Education (GPE) is an international organization based in Washington,
D.C. It was launched in 2002 to tackle
efforts to achieve the United
Nations Millennium
Development Goal for Universal Primary Education by 2015. Besides focusing their work on children with
disabilities, early childhood, literacy and numeracy, and out-of-school
children, GPE see teachers as the key to quality education. With that in mind, GPE aims to improve
teachers’ employment conditions and to improve teachers’ effectiveness by
providing training and promoting teacher development programs [20].
It is interesting to me to review the work that all these different
organizations are doing. It seems to me
that the U.S. based organizations are focusing their efforts on developing and
implementing benchmarks, resources, tools and assessments that contribute to a
better student knowledge in literacy and numeracy, and in some cases in science.
In contrast, international organizations appear to be focusing
their efforts on developing a more innovative approach to teaching and
developing students skills that may be more appropriate for the future. In addition, organizations such as UNICEF and
UNESCO are advocating for universal access to primary schools for regions that
are in conflict or in extreme poverty.
The CCSS were developed in response to the lack of
standardized teaching goals across the United States, as well as to students’ deficiency
in readiness for postsecondary education.
Even though the CCSS are needed for those two reasons, more efforts are
needed to develop innovative ways of teaching and learning, and connect CCSS
with both implementation in the classroom and utility for students’ future
careers. Teacher resources, professional
development and creating a culture of collaboration and innovation in the learning
process are key to promote not just student readiness for post secondary
education, but to promote life skills for the future.
[1] Sabrina Holcomb (2006, January 21) Answering the Call:
The History of NEA, Part 1. Retrieve
from http://www.nea.org/home/11608.htm
http://commoncoreworks.org/Page/239 [2] Wikipedia (2014, August 12) National Education
Association. Retrieve from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Education_Association
[3] National Education Association
(2014) NEA . Retrieve from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/Common-Core-State-Standards-Toolkit.pdf
[4] Wikipedia (2014, August 21) American Federation of
Teachers. Retrieve from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Federation_of_Teachers
[5] American Federation of Teachers. AFT Hystory.
Retrieve from http://www.aft.org/about/history/
[6] American Federation of Teachers. Key Issues. Retrieve on 2014, September
16. Retrieve from http://www.aft.org/issues/
[7] American Federation of Teachers. Common Core
Standards. Retrieve on 2014, September
16. Retrieve from http://www.aft.org/issues/standards/nationalstandards//
[8]Council of Chief State School Officers (2014) Our
Promise. Retrieve from http://www.ccsso.org/Who_We_Are/Our_Promise.html
[9] Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2014) About the
Core Standards. Retrieve from http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/
[10] Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2014)
Development Process. Retrieve from http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/development-process/
[11] National Governors Association (2014) NGA Center Education
Division. Retrieve from
[12] National Governors Association (Retrieve on 2014,
September 16) Building a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education
Agenda. Retrieve from http://www.ncscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/National-Gov-Assoc-Building-a-STEM-Education-Agenda-1-2012.pdf
[13] Council of the Great City Schools (2012) Parents Road
Map. Retrieve from http://commoncoreworks.org/domain/114
[14] Achieve (2014) Achieving the Common Core. Retrieve from
http://achieve.org/achieving-common-core
[15] Association for the Advancement of International
Education (Retrieve 2014, September 16) Who we are. Retrieve from http://www.aaie.org/page.cfm?p=374
[16] UNESCO (Retrieve 2014, September 17) Education for the
21st Century. Retrieve from http://en.unesco.org/themes/education-21st-century
[17] UNESCO (Retrieve 2014,
September 17) Communication and Information. Retrieve from
[18] Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (2014) Education at a Glace 2014: OECD Indicators.
Retrieve from http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm
[19] Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (Retrieve 2014, September 17) Retrieve from http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/
[20] Global Partners for Education
(Retrieve 2014, September 17) Retrieve from http://www.globalpartnership.org/focus-areas/teachers
CCSS VIDEO:
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