The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12: Origins, Goals, Challenges

I am fairly new to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and got my first exposure to using them a few months ago for my summer class. My first thoughts were that there were a lot of standards and my experience with standards is that they can be very limiting to a student. The more I look into the CCSS though, the more I see that it is different from my previous notions about standards in our education system. It recognizes that “standardization is not the same thing as holding high standards.” It leaves room for teachers and other faculty to choose how they want to meet these standards, which is very appealing to a future educator such as myself. An example from the reading that supports my own excitement about this freedom to teach using CCSS is from a teacher who decides to teach composition using online role play instead of the typical five-paragraph essay form. It is examples like this that make me look forward to experiencing teaching in the CCSS system. This short reading explains how in the past, educational standards have been very limiting because of their tendency to initiate teaching to the test, fragmented curricula, failure to recognize cultural diversity, etc. These have been major flaws in our education system and its impact cannot be overlooked as it has been in recent years. Hopefully with the new Common Core State Standards set in place, we can find a way to reverse the effects of the “achievement gap” in our country which heavily favors white US households. The poor are being neglected in this sense and the CCSS is the first step to a long recovery process for our education system. The end of this reading explains that the CCSS is a “road map for developing your own curriculum that is relevant to your unique students and classrooms.” This is an idea about the CCSS that I strongly support because it allows for teachers to tap into the potential of every student when it comes to their education and that is what our job as educators is all about.