The real test of Common Core is about to begin (cites Stanford)

This spring, for the first time since its embrace of a new national road map for public school instruction, California’s students will take their first real Common Core tests.

Brace yourself. The results will be just a baseline, but they may not be pretty. That was the message last week from Michael Kirst, president of the state Board of Education, and he is smart to get out in front of that prospect.

Though Common Core is a major upgrade from the way students here have learned for a generation, surprises in other states have made it vulnerable to needless drama and politicization.

Aimed at better preparing kids for 21st-century college course work and career choices, the new standards push critical thinking and analysis over multiple choice and memorization. The idea is to teach kids to explain and defend their ideas, not just regurgitate answers to study-guide questions.

That’s a big deal. For decades, education advocates and employers have argued that American students need more rigorous training.

But more rigorous training means more rigorous testing. And in the couple of states that have tried so far to assess kids according to Common Core standards, scores have been sobering.

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So it won’t come as a surprise if it turns out this spring that we all have massive room for improvement. What will be a failure is if those scores don’t rise. 

Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of state and foundation dollars have been made available to facilitate Common Core, and some great development programs are underway at UC Davis, Stanford and elsewhere. School districts should use that new money to get all teachers fully trained, and quickly.

Read the full editorial in the Sacramento Bee.

Michael Kirst is a professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the president of the California State Board of Education.

To learn more about how the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education is preparing teachers for the Common Core State Standards, please visit https://edpolicy.stanford.edu/news/articles/1290.