New Common Core Briefs Highlight Instructional Shifts, Assessments
Communicator
January 2014, Volume 37, Issue 5
Find the answers to your most pressing questions about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in two new briefs from the K-12 Center at ETS.
These timely, informative briefs—“Seeing the Future: How the Common Core Will Affect Mathematics and English Language Arts in Grades 3-12 Across America,” and “Coming Together to Raise Achievement: New Assessments for the Common Core State Standards”—were released in May and June, 2013, respectively.
NAESP has partnered with the K-12 Center to provide NAESP members with electronic access to two publications. Principals can use the insights in these briefs to lead instructional shifts and communicate with teachers, parents, students, and communities about the standards.
This publication is intended to help you help parents and your school community members understand the CCSS shifts in progress nationwide. In it, educators from across the country who are working to implement the standards provide their insights on the standards’ rigor. Examples and prototype test items are drawn from PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and the Illustrative Mathematics Project. The brief also answers common questions on the CCSS: why did the states adopt the new standards, and how will they affect day-to-day instruction?; will the new standards and assessments lead to more students being better prepared for success in college, the workplace, and life?
This guide explores how the consortia of states are developing technology-based next-generation CCSS assessments. It includes:
- A discussion of the larger context of reform initiatives and the goal to create real and lasting improvements in student achievement;
- A description of the federally-funded assessment consortia now developing next-generation assessment systems and the types of supports they will provide to states, districts, educators, parents, and students;
- Information on the work underway to ensure that schools will be as ready as possible to administer the new online assessments in 2014-2015;
- Consideration for what it will take to ensure the work underway right now will improve our nation’s teaching and learning.
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