National Common Core K-12 Standards

1. National Common Core K-12 Standards Elluminate Meeting for Delaware Districts and Charter Schools December 1, 2009

2. Introductory Remarks – Mike Stetter • Welcome • Today’s Agenda and Objectives • Requirements for States • Delaware Standards Revision and Adoption Process • Key Issues • Path Forward after today’s meeting

3. Today’s Meeting Objectives • Overview to National Common Core Standards Initiative • Requirements for Participating States • Steps in the Process of Development • Steps in the Delaware Adoption Process • Issues we should consider (DCAS, LFS Prioritized Curriculum Project) • Details of the K-12 Standards in ELA and Mathematics • Your Input to our review and feedback due Dec. 4

4. National Common Core Standards Initiative • Sponsored by CCSSO, National Governors’ Association, Achieve, Inc. • Majority of States have signed MOU to participate in development and adoption • Participating states agree to review and adopt Common Core National Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics • US DOE requires RTTT applicant states to submit adoption timeline and draft document showing completion by August 2010

5. Proposed National Common Core is comprised of two documents College & Career Readiness Standards • Delaware has provided feedback to initial and revised versions • Final version due to be released Late January 2010 K-12 Standards • Initial version released in mid November • Deadline for states feedback- Dec. 4 • Details to be discussed in today’s Elluminate meeting • Initial Draft has not been released to the public; Mid-December revision will be made public

6. National Standards Development Process

7. Delaware’s Timeline for Review and Adoption of National Common Core

8. Key Issues • Mapping DE Prioritized Standards to Proposed Common Core Standards • Overlapping timeframes for Standards initiative and DCAS Test Development, and DCAS Field testing • Timeframe for activating revised DE Standards in ELA & Math as basis for classroom instruction • Alignment considerations

9. Consolidating the Most Important Standards and GLEs in ELA & Mathematics Delaware Content Standards in ELA Mathematics Science Social Studies Prioritization of Standards and GLEs through LFS Process Revised Delaware Content Standards & GLEs (ELA &Mathematics) State Board of Education Action in May-June 2010 Synthesis of Common Core & Prioritized DE Standards & GLEs February 2010 National Common Core Standards in ELA, Mathematics proposed for Adoption by Participating States To Represent 85% of State’s Standards

10. Your Feedback will help us answer these questions posed to states • 1. Is the architecture of the draft standards clear and easy to follow? How can we ensure the documents are designed to be accessible for all audiences? • 2. In what ways does this early draft convey a coherent vision of the discipline? What else is needed to enhance a coherent vision? • 3. To the extent that the early drafts provide progressions for grade level/grade span expectations, does the document present a rigorous, yet reasonable continuum of expectations? • 4. Is the language in this early draft clear, concise, and precise? Please identify any areas where more concision and precision is needed. • 5. If you could add and/or remove ONE concept or skill, what it would be? Please provide an explanation/justification. • 6. Do you have any other general feedback about the draft standards?

11. Path forward after today’s meeting • Proposed Feedback to Sec. of Ed Lowery by Dec. 3 • DE Feedback submitted Dec. 4 • Review K-12 Standards revision in mid-December • Move to Standards Review and Adoption Timeline as detailed in earlier slide

12. Proposed K-8 English Language Arts Standards Juley Harper Education Associate, English Language Arts

13. 1. Is the architecture of the draft standards clear and easy to follow? How can we ensure the documents are designed to be accessible for all audiences? • The layout and embedding of the expectations in paragraphs make it difficult to recognize the major strategies that should be taught at a particular level.  (For instance, there is no mention of the use of questioning in the Core skills for K-3, but the strategy of questioning is mentioned in Core Text-type Nonfiction.) • Need some standardization – especially of language – across contents and across grade clusters (and with college/career readiness document). For example: standards are skills in K-8.

14. 2. In what ways does this early draft convey a coherent vision of the discipline? What else is needed to enhance a coherent vision? • We liked the explorer, reporter, detective metaphor. Is it based on any particular scholar’s vision? Will it be carried through grade 12? Needs to be clearly defined to discourage misinterpretation. Recommendations: • Need a glossary • terms need to be consistent in two ways: with the acknowledged scholarly literature of the content area and aligned with college/career readiness and across grades/content areas. For example: “mode of discourse” vs. “type of writing” • reading core skills need to be organized as Before/During/After or some other recognized format.

15. 3. To the extent that the early drafts provide progressions for grade level/grade span expectations, does the document present a rigorous, yet reasonable continuum of expectations? • The reading skills were sometimes more rigorous in 6-8 than in college/career version (evaluate versus ascertain) • Core reading skills seemed to emphasize more lower level skills rather than comprehension and critical thinking (again, not based on research that we could see) • Writing: the specificity for grammar skills sends a message that conventions are more valuable than organization and development of ideas. Furthermore, at times there is an inappropriate emphasis on discrete skills (for example - transitive/ intransitive verbs at grades 4-5; or “soliloquy” as an appropriate form for grades 4-5)

16. 4. Is the language in this early draft clear, concise, and precise? Please identify any areas where more concision and precision is needed. • No, the language is not consistently used throughout, and it is not always the terminology of the field. For example: “mode of discourse” vs. “type of writing” and or “reader interest” rather than “needs of the audience” or “author purpose.”

17. 5. If you could add and/or remove ONE concept or skill, what it would be? Please provide an explanation/justification. ADD: • text to text connections, text to world connections, text to self connections • reading strategies (making predictions, self-monitor) • the explicit teaching of vocabulary • comprehension strategies (use organizers to enhance comprehension, evaluate the validity of information, recognize text structure and identify story elements) • the writing process • research • author’s purpose REMOVE: • focus on handwriting

18. 6. Do you have any other general feedback about the draft standards? • For writing, a magnifying glass seemed to be focused on discrete – and unimportant – skills such as using perfect and progressive verbs. Overall, the writing section seemed to place an undue emphasis on grammar/conventions. For example, including an Appendix – with tables –for conventions, which is already 3 times longer than the 2 bullet points allotted for development, sends a message that conventions are more important than organization/development.

19. ELA Big Ideas DE Standards/GLEs K-8 Common Core Reading Fiction Poetry Drama Literary Non-fiction Non-fiction Writing Narrative Informative/Explanatory Argumentative Speaking and Listening Writing • Persuasive • Expressive • Informative • Development • Organization • Word Choice/Style • Sentence Structure • Conventions • Oral Communication • Listening Reading • Literary fiction and non-fiction • Informative/Technical Research/Technology/Media

20. Proposed K-12 Mathematics Standards Diana Roscoe and Crystal Lancour Education Associates, Mathematics

21. Commendations – Mathematics K - 8 • The authors have divided the standards into Core Concepts and Core Skills.

22. Commendations – Mathematics K - 8 2. We commend the attention given to learning trajectories and progressions.

23. Commendations – Mathematics K - 8 3. The “narrative” for each grade level is essential. The narratives provide an opportunity to enhance the knowledge & understanding of teachers, parents, and students with regard to learning mathematics.

24. Recommendations – Mathematics K - 8 1. We recommend that the design team continue to work on a coherent vision grounded in cognitive science and mathematical research. Delaware found many ideas missing and yet necessary to align with our vision of learning and teaching mathematical proficiency to all students.

25. Recommendations – Mathematics K - 8 2. Reconsider the heavy emphasis on only standard algorithms • We support the use of multiple strategies and student invented algorithms as well as standard algorithms.

26. Recommendations – Mathematics K - 8 3. Reconfigure the beginning Number categories to make them one category of Number Sense and Operations.

27. To provide additional feedback • Email Mike Stetter mstetter@doe.k12.de.us