Now that the battle over adoption of the Common Core ELA and math standards is largely over (with more than three quarters of students in America now in Common Core states), attention is turning sharply?and appropriately?in the direction of implementation.
Unfortunately, too many people seem to believe that the way to ensure that the Common Core standards gain traction in the classroom is for states to provide ?teacher-proof? curricula that will clearly outline how to link the standards to daily classroom instruction. (Recently, for example, the Shanker Institute put their weight behind the idea of establishing a common curriculum that is aligned to the common standards.)
There is a certain logic to this idea. A well-designed (and aligned) curriculum, paired with high quality instruction, has the power to drive life-altering student achievement gains. But there is a far more pressing and important role for states to play in CCSS implementation: linking it to real accountability.
If Common Core supporters want to ensure that these new standards drive student achievement in classrooms across the country, they should first push states to clearly define the student achievement goals to which teachers, schools, and districts will be held accountable, and to create accountability systems that will ensure that leaders manage to those student achievement results.
In the past, too many states set standards and administered assessments that had no real teeth. Too few teachers used the standards and assessments as the endpoint from which they planned their curricula. And the standards were too frequently ignored for all but the few weeks leading up to test administration when many teachers would shift their focus from ?real? instruction to ?test prep.?
The results have been disastrous, and even some of the most rigorous standards in the country have done little to drive curriculum, instruction, and achievement.
The push to focus first on curriculum is a well-intentioned attempt to address this misalignment. The theory is that curriculum is going to be the bridge that better links rigorous standards to day-to-day classroom instruction.
Of course, the road to mediocrity is paved with good intentions, and advocates risk gutting the Common Core of its real power by skipping the crucial step of getting state, district, school, and teacher accountability systems right first. After all, absent clear accountability, it will be just as easy to ignore curriculum as it is to ignore standards.
What's more, for states that do skip this crucial step, in order to ensure that a common curriculum is not ignored, too many school and district leaders will be encouraged to manage the faithful implementation of the curriculum, the assumption of course being that proper implementation of the curriculum will drive student achievement.
Unfortunately, as we all know, even perfect implementation of a well-designed and rigorous curriculum will not always yield outstanding student achievement results.
That is not to say that states and districts shouldn't be investing in or even recommending curricula. On the contrary, as the Shanker Institute notes, curriculum is a critical and often missing link between standards and student achievement. And, once student achievement targets and accountability have been set, state and district leaders have a responsibility to provide teachers with access to high-quality tools that will help them meet ambitious achievement goals.
But states should make it clear that the curriculum resources and materials are just that: resources that teachers can use, modify?or even choose to ignore?as long as their students are meeting their achievement benchmarks. In the end, that's the only way to ensure that we don't take our eye off the student achievement ball.
?Kathleen Porter-Magee
