Common Core State Standards

Common Core State Standards Turning Threat to Opportunity

“GINORMOUS” national debate • Catholic identity, mission and purpose • Assessment/standardized testing • Textbook and resource materials • Data mining and privacy issues Common Core State Standards #Common Core: take the best, leave the rest!

Adopted Paused Rejected Never Adopted

Total Dioceses in the United States • 195 Dioceses in the United States • 178 Latin Catholic Arch/Dioceses • 17 Eastern Rite Eparchies

USCCB Frequently Asked Questions • Catholic schools must consider standards that support the mission and purpose of the school as a Catholic institution. • The Common Core State Standards should be neither adopted nor rejected without review, study, consultation, discussion and caution. • In the Church, the principle of subsidiarity directs that human events are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the individuals affected by the decisions being made.

USCCB Frequently Asked Questions • This principle provides a great strength for Catholic schools as it gives the local diocesan and school community the ability to make decisions at the school level related to guidelines and curriculum. It also allows for adjustments and adaptations to be made by teachers and administrators for the children under their care. • The great strength of Catholic schools is that they control and directtheir own curricula. • The Committee encourages a rigorous discussion at the local level that reinforces a solid understanding of the philosophy and mission of Catholic schools with a clearrationale for the standards and guidelines implemented by the diocese.

USCCB Frequently Asked Questions • The CCSS was developed for a public school audience. The CCSS is of its nature incomplete as it pertains to the Catholic school. • Our schools have resisted the need to adopt educational trends while addressing the ever changing needs of children in education. We have tried to integrate the best in education while leaving behind what is not appropriate to the Church’s educational mission.

1925 Pierce v. the Society of Sisters “The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

Separation of Religious and Secular Catholic education does not compartmentalize the education of the whole person into religious and secular. It aims to achieve a true education through a Catholic worldview that sees education, religious and secular, through the lens of our ultimate end – it has an integrated approach to faith and knowledge. Compartmentalization of religious and secular as it applies to standards and curriculum can be dangerous and relativistic. “Being aware of the relative nature of cultures and opting for relativism are two profoundly different things. Relativism respects differences but also separates them out into autonomous spheres, considering them as isolated and impermeable and making dialogue impossible.” Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: Living in Harmony for a Civilization of Love, #22

Congregation for Catholic Education • But its [the school] proper function is to create for the school community a special atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity. • Declaration on Christian Education, #8 • The Catholic school is committed thus to the development of the whole man, since in Christ, the Perfect Man, all human values find their fulfillment and unity. Herein lies the specifically Catholic character of the school. • The Catholic School, #35

Congregation for Catholic Education • Every human being is called to communion because of his nature which is created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, within the sphere of biblical anthropology, man is not an isolated individual, but a person: a being who is essentially relational.The communion to which man is called always involves a double dimension, that is to say vertical (communion with God) and horizontal (communion with people). • Educating Together in Catholic Schools: A Shared Mission between Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful, #8 • It is also helpful to bear in mind, in harmony with the Second Vatican Council, (23) that this community dimension in the Catholic school is not a merely sociological category; it has a theological foundation as well. The educating community, taken as a whole, is thus called to further the objective of a school as a place of complete formation through interpersonal relations. • The Catholic School on the Threshold of the • Third Millennium, #18

Congregation for Catholic Education • The specific mission of the school, then, is a critical, systematic transmission of culture in the light of faith and the bringing forth of the power of Christian virtue by the integration of culture with faith and of faith with living. • The Catholic School, #49. • A Catholic school must be committed to the development of a program which will overcome the problems of a fragmented and insufficient curriculum. • Religious Dimensions of Education in a Catholic School: Guidelines for Reflection and Renewal, #55

Congregation for Catholic Education • The responsibility of a Catholic school is enormous and complex. It must respect and obey the laws that define methods, programs, structure, etc., and at the same time it must fulfill its own educational goals by blending human culture with the message of salvation into a coordinated program; it must help each of the students to actually become the "new creature" that each one is potentially, and at the same time prepare them for the responsibilities of an adult member of society. • Religious Dimensions of Education in a Catholic School: Guidelines for Reflection and Renewal, #100

Congregation for Catholic Education • This means that a Catholic school needs to have a set of educational goals which are "distinctive" in the sense that the school has a specific objective in mind, and all of the goals are related to this objective. Concretely, the educational goals provide a frame of reference which: • defines the school's identity: in particular, the Gospel values which are its inspiration must be explicitly mentioned; • gives a precise description of the pedagogical, educational and cultural aims of the school; • presents the course content, along with the values that are to be transmitted through these courses; • describes the organization and the management of the school; • determines which policy decisions are to be reserved to professional staff (governors and teachers), which policies are to be developed with the help of parents and students, and which activities are to be left to the free initiative of teachers, parents, or students; • indicates the ways in which student progress is to be tested and evaluated. • Religious Dimensions of Education in a Catholic School: • Guidelines for Reflection and Renewal, #100

Congregation for Catholic Education • From the nature of the Catholic school also stems one of the most significant elements of its educational project: the synthesis between culture and faith. Indeed, knowledge set in the context of faith becomes wisdom and life vision. The endeavor to interweave reason and faith, which has become the heart of individual subjects, makes for unity, articulation and coordination, bringing forth within what is learnt in school a Christian vision of the world, of life, of culture and of history. • In the Catholic school's educational project there is no separation between time for learning and time for formation, between acquiring notions and growing in wisdom. The various school subjects do not present only knowledge to be attained, but also values to be acquired and truths to be discovered. • The Catholic School on the Threshold • of the Third Millennium, #14

Congregation for Catholic Education • In the section entitled, The Curriculum as the Expression of the School’s Identity, the Congregation states: • The curriculum is how the school community makes explicit its goals and objectives, the content of its teaching and the means for communicating it effectively. In the curriculum, the school’s cultural and pedagogical identity are made manifest. • Developing the curriculum is one of the school’s most demanding tasks, because here one makes explicit what are the school’s reference values, subject priorities, and practical choices. • Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: Living in Harmony for a Civilization of Love, #64

Congregation for Catholic Education • For a Catholic school, examining its curriculum leads to strengthening what is specific to its nature. It means strengthening the particular way it serves individuals, using the tools offered by culture. Thus, the school’s programmes can be effectively harmonized with the school’s original mission. • One cannot be content merely with an up-to-date didactic offering that simply responds to the demands deriving from the ever-changing economic situation. Catholic schools think out their curricula to place center-stage both individuals and their search for meaning. • This is the reference value, in view of which the various disciplines are important resources and take on greater value to the extent that they are tools for educating. From this perspective, what is taught is not neutral, and neither is the way of teaching it. • Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: Living in Harmony for a Civilization of Love, #64

Congregation for Catholic Education • “It has been said that we live in a knowledge-based society. However, Catholic schools are encouraged to promote a wisdom-based society, to go beyond knowledge and educate people to think, evaluating facts in the light of values. They educate people to take on responsibility and duties, and exercise active citizenship.” • Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: • Living in Harmony for a Civilization of Love, #66

Integration of Faith and Learning • Teaching young people the Gospel of Jesus Christ • Environment of a love of learning • Beauty of the good moral life taught in the Catholic tradition • Excellent habits of mind and heart • Respect for the dignity of the human person • Love of the sacramental life of the Church

Questions for Discussion • How can the present debate about the Common Core help us to begin to address a relativistic approach in our standards and curriculums? • How do we ensure that the standards/guidelines we claim as our own support the distinctive mission and purpose of Catholic schools? • How can we best communicate to parents what is distinctive about our standards, goals, and objectives so as to show the integration of faith in reason on our curriculums? • What would we identify at the diocesan level as obstacles to an integrated Catholic curriculum and what can we do to remove some of the obstacles? • What opportunities/threats do the Common Core State Standards present to the viability of our Catholic schools?

The bishops who attended the Synod on the New Evangelization said: “If evangelization is to be true to itself, it cannot take place apart from education; it is directly related to it.” Thank you!!

Common Core State Standards