National Standards - The Inside Scoop
Want to know what is happening in the federal discussion about national curriculum standards. Here's the best insight you'll find. It's an email to me from Matt Gandal, VP, of Achieve.
Dear ADP State Leader:
As we have previously communicated to ADP Network states, Achieve is working with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and National Governors Association (NGA) on an important effort to create common core standards that can be adopted by states across the country. Over the last several weeks, this initiative has taken on a much more public profile, and leaders in ADP states have reached out to Achieve with a variety of questions about the process and our role in it. This update is designed to answer those questions.
Common Standards Development Process
CCSSO and NGA are leading the effort to bring states together around common core standards. In mid-April they convened a meeting of state leaders from over 40 states, and over the past several weeks they have been working to get governors and chief state school officers to sign a memorandum of agreement committing their states to be part of the process to arrive at common core standards.
Achieve has agreed to work with College Board and ACT to develop the standards that will form the basis of the common core. Each organization brings considerable research and experience to this process; by working together we can ensure that the resulting standards reflect the strongest possible combination of professional judgment and empirical evidence. We expect standards for end-of-high school English and mathematics to be completed over the summer, with an opportunity for state input in July 2009. We expect a full set of K-12 standards in those subjects to be completed by December 2009, with an opportunity for input in the fall.
The draft end-of-high school standards states will receive in July will be “college- and career–ready” standards; they will define the core knowledge and skills in mathematics and English that are essential to successfully place into, and have a strong likelihood of succeeding in, a wide range of first year college courses in the academic disciplines and in workforce training programs. When reviewing and providing feedback on these draft standards, we strongly urge governors and chief state school officers to fully engage the higher education and workforce training communities in each state. As we have learned from our work with ADP Network states, if these standards are to inform policies and practices that will improve the transition from secondary to postsecondary, it is essential that these sectors be involved and help ensure that the standards reflect their needs.
Maintaining Continuity with ADP
We have heard concerns from many ADP states that the development of new standards may mark a significant departure from the path they have been pursuing through participation in the ADP Network, and may therefore impede rather than accelerate their progress. We are committed to preventing that from happening.
ADP states have played a critical role in paving the way for a serious effort to establish common standards. Over twenty ADP states have aligned their high school standards with college- and career-ready expectations and a dozen more are in the process of completing that work. Last summer, Achieve released a report showing that a common core of English and math standards could be found in the states that went through a deliberate process to align their high school standards with college- and career-ready expectations. Common standards, it turns out, are a natural byproduct of working to align K-12 standards with the standards in the real world.
Through this alignment process, ADP states have demonstrated that a state-led effort to establish common standards is feasible, and they have helped spark the important initiative that is now underway.
As ADP state leaders know, Achieve has been working for the better part of the year to update the American Diploma Project benchmarks based on our alignment work in many of your states, the most recent research on college and career readiness, and analyses we’ve conducted of standards in top achieving countries around the world. While the revised ADP benchmarks are not the starting point for the joint ACT/Achieve/College Board work, Achieve will use these benchmarks and the supporting research to guide our work with our partners.
Helping ADP States
As the new common core K-12 standards get rolled out, Achieve will be prepared to help ADP Network states understand the relationship between the standards developed through the common standards initiative and your own state K-12 standards. We will work with states to help you get a quick handle on these comparisons and navigate any transition you choose to undertake. We will provide more details on this as the time gets closer.
Keeping you informed
Achieve will continue to collaborate with CCSSO, NGA and our other partners to keep leaders in ADP states updated on this work. We will also closely monitor the federal stimulus, including the Race to the Top grant process, to help you understand its possible connections to the ADP policy agenda.
We are planning a series of ADP Network calls this summer to keep you informed and connected. We are also looking forward to seeing you at our annual ADP meeting September 10-11, 2009 in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, please let us know if you have any questions about Achieve’s work in this area and feel free to offer suggestions for how we can make it of maximum value to you.
Regards,
Matt
