Raising the bar for students
Common Core standards aim to raise the rigor of instruction in schools across the country in order to get students college and career ready.
“In too many recent meetings, state leaders talk about how students will ‘all be at the same place’ when the new assessments are administered,” said Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, in a prepared statement. “But they aren’t at the same place. Instead of just pretending that the same amount of effort will be required everywhere to get children to the new standards, we need to make sure that the lessons from states that have improved the most for all groups of children inform implementation work more broadly and ensure that struggling states have the extra help they will need to build the forward momentum that is already present elsewhere.”
The Education Trust’s analysis cited Maryland and a handful of other states that have track records of high performance and strong improvement for all groups of learners.
Dr. Lillian M. Lowery, Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, said that while the State has a long history of high standards and improved performance, educators continue to work hard to set the stage for the transition to the new standards.
“Nobody involved in Maryland education is complacent. We have more than 7,000 teachers and administrators working this summer on Common Core implementation for this fall,” Dr. Lowery said. “This monumental effort to boost rigor began three years ago, and it is already at work in many of our schools. The goal is simple: to prepare graduates that are both career and college ready.”
Education Trust also issued a State Aademic Performance and Improvement Tool, which allows readers to view state-by-state performance in reading and mathemtics. The tool allows for easy comparisons of states.
For more details on the analysis visit The Education Trust website.
