1. Common Core State Standards
An Informational Update
January 28, 2011
Dr. Laura Bednar, Assistant Commissioner
Learning Services Division
Arkansas Department of Education

2. Arkansas Implementation Timeline
Grades K – 2: School Year 2011 – 2012
Grades 3 – 8: School Year 2012 – 2013
Grades 9 –12: School Year 2013 – 2014
2014 – 2015 : Full Implementation of Common Core and Common Assessments
Next year’s kindergarten students will be the first class of 3rd graders to participate in the new common core assessments during the 2014 – 2015 school. Ideally, as next year’s kindergarteners progress through the grade levels, they will be taught ONLY common core standards. Students in grades 1 – 12 will receive some type of introduction to CC, along with the Arkansas standards for the 2011 – 2012 school year.

3. What are the Common Core State Standards?
A set of shared K-12 learning expectations for students in English language arts and mathematics
Provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn
Designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers

4. Why does Arkansas need CCSS?
Help ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state
Provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to serve the needs of students

5. Will the CCSS prevent local teachers from deciding what or how to teach?
No. Local teachers, principals, superintendents, and others will decide how the standards are to be met.
Teachers will continue to develop lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.
Local teachers, principals, superintendents, and school boards will continue to make decisions about curriculum.

6. Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers understand the knowledge and skills their students should have so that teachers can build the best lessons for their classrooms

7. Will the CCSS completely replace Arkansas’s existing academic standards for mathematics and English language arts?
Yes. However, many of Arkansas’s current academic standards and student learning expectations align to the CCSS, although the CCSS may introduce some content at different grade levels and the breadth and depth of topic complexities may be greater.

8. Will we see a drop in test scores due to the more rigorous standards?
The new standards require a higher level of mastery of information and concepts and this higher bar may impact student scores, at least initially.
There is a dip in scores for a short period of time until schools are able to incorporate all the changes that are part of the CCSS. As the new requirements are established, our scores will rise.

9. Will states receive financial help to implement the CCSS?
Resources designed to support the standards have the potential to be shared readily with all states
A Joint Task Force on the Mathematics has united to help support mathematics educators in the implementation of the new CCSS
A primary goal of this group is to create a CCSS implementation website that includes a variety of tools and resources for K-12 teachers

10. A Common Core Curriculum Mapping Project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has designed English language arts curriculum maps for use by school districts.
It is anticipated that, in the future, textbooks and curriculum resources could be available through open source environments for use by all participating states.

11. The 25 states in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers PARCC) plan to develop content frameworks, units of study and performance tasks aligned to the CSS, and additional resources.
These will be available for all of our school districts to use. The economies of scale that the CC will bring to Arkansas will allow our state to spend more of its k-12 budget on other vital efforts to support teaching and learning in the classroom.

12. THE BIG QUESTION…
WHAT SHOULD WE BE DOING RIGHT NOW IN PREPARATION FOR IMPLEMENTING THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS?
Approach in a positive manner; open-mind; communicate with our stakeholders – we tend to panic at first – really look at where we are – High Standards are already here!

13. Guiding Questions for Understanding the Common Core State Standards
What are we currently doing that is in line with the content of these standards?
What is different between these standards and what we are currently teaching?

14. What changes in practice will these standards necessitate?
How will we go about making these changes?
What support will we need?

15. How can social studies, science, and technical subject areas begin to use the literacy standards in their content areas?
What support will they need?

16. What is ADE doing to help schools transition to the CCSS?
A detailed crosswalk that identifies which standards match between the two sets - and indicates the degree to which the Arkansas standards are found within the new Common Core Standards - has been completed and sent to districts and education cooperatives.

17. Common Core State Standards Task Force Professional Development
Leadership Teams
Additional resources will be forthcoming from ADE; PARCC and Achieve
ADE Website - Area has been designated for CCSS Initiative
Maximize the use of technology
ADE’s professional development unit will be working with school districts and education cooperatives to establish leadership teams to assist with the transition to the new standards.

18. Please Share Your Ideas
Your suggestions for additional tools/resources to support the transition are welcome. Please send your ideas to:

19. Understanding the Common Core State Standards

20. Common Core State Standards Design
Building on the strength of current state standards, the CCSS are designed to be:
Focused, coherent, clear and rigorous
Internationally benchmarked
Anchored in college and career readiness*
Evidence and research based
*Ready for first-year credit-bearing, postsecondary coursework in mathematics and English without the need for remediation.
*Ready for first-year credit-bearing, postsecondary coursework in mathematics and English without the need for remediation.

21. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

22. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics
Grade-Level Standards
K-8 grade-by-grade standards organized by domain
9-12 high school standards organized by conceptual categories
Standards for Mathematical Practice
Describe mathematical “habits of mind”
Standards for mathematical proficiency: reasoning, problem solving, modeling, decision making, and engagement
Connect with content standards in each grade
Learning mathematics is not just about knowing, understanding, and applying its concepts, principles and all the associated procedures. It’s not just even about  acquiring the capacity to solve problem,  to reason and to communicate. It is only when these capacities become part of students’ thinking habits that one can be said to be mathematically literate. “A habit is any activity that is so well established that it occurs without thought on the part of the individual.”

23. Overview of K-8 Mathematics Standards
The K- 8 standards:
The K-5 standards provide students with a solid foundation in whole numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and decimals
The 6-8 standards describe robust learning in geometry, algebra, and probability and statistics
Modeled after the focus of standards from high-performing nations, the standards for grades 7 and 8 include significant algebra and geometry content
Students who have completed 7th grade and mastered the content and skills will be prepared for algebra, in 8th grade or after

24. Overview of K-8 Mathematics Standards
Each grade includes an overview of cross- cutting themes and critical areas of study

25. Format of K-8 Mathematics Standards
Domains: overarching ideas that connect topics across the grades
Clusters: illustrate progression of increasing complexity from grade to grade
Standards: define what students should know and be able to do at each grade level

26. Format of High School Mathematics Standards
Content categories: overarching ideas that describe strands of content in high school
Domains/Clusters: groups of standards that describe coherent aspects of the content category
Standards: define what students should know and be able to do at each grade level
High school standards are organized around five conceptual categories: Number and Quantity, Algebra, Functions, Geometry, and Statistics and Probability
Modeling standards are distributed under the five major headings and are indicated with a () symbol.
Standards indicated as (+) are beyond the college and career readiness level but are necessary for advanced mathematics courses, such as calculus, discrete mathematics, and advanced statistics. Standards with a (+) may still be found in courses expected for all students.

27. Overview of High School Mathematics Standards
The high school mathematics standards:
Call on students to practice applying mathematical ways of thinking to real world issues and challenges
Require students to develop a depth of understanding and ability to apply mathematics to novel situations, as college students and employees regularly are called to do
Emphasize mathematical modeling, the use of mathematics and statistics to analyze empirical situations, understand them better, and improve decisions
Identify the mathematics that all students should study in order to be college and career ready.

28. Format of High School Mathematics Standards
Each content category includes an overview of the content found within it
Example for Number and Quantity

29. Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/ Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects

30. 9-10 and 11-12 grade bands for high school
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
College and Career Readiness (CCR) Standards
Overarching standards for each strand that are further defined by grade-specific standards
Grade-Level Standards in English Language Arts
K-8, grade-by-grade
9-10 and grade bands for high school
Four strands: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language
Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Standards are embedded at grades K-5
Content-specific literacy standards are provided for grades 6-8, 9-10, and 11-12

31. Overview of Reading Strand
Progressive development of reading comprehension; students gain more from what they read
Emphasize the importance of grade-level texts that are of appropriate difficulty and are increasingly sophisticated
Standards for Reading Foundational Skills (K-5)
Reading Standards for Literature (K-12)
Reading Standards for Informational Text (K-12)
Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies (6-12)
Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects (6-12)

32. Example of Grade-Level Progression in Reading
CCR Reading Standard 3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Reading Standards for Literature
Reading Standards for Informational Text
Grade 3: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Grade 3: Describe the relationships between a series of historical events, scientific ideas of concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
Grade 7: Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot)
Grade 7: Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events).
Grades 11-12: Evaluate various explanations for characters’ actions or for events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Grades 11-12: Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.

33. Overview of Writing Strand
Expect students to compose arguments and opinions, informative/explanatory pieces, and narrative texts
Focus on the use of reason and evidence to substantiate an argument or claim
Emphasize ability to conduct research – short projects and sustained inquiry
Require students to incorporate technology as they create, refine, and collaborate on writing
Include student writing samples that illustrate the criteria required to meet the standards (See standards’ appendices for writing samples)

34. Overview of Speaking and Listening and Language Strands
Focus on speaking and listening in a range of settings, both formal and informal – academic, small-group, whole-class discussions
Emphasize effective communication practices
Require interpretation and analysis of message as presented through oral, visual, or multimodal formats
Language
Include conventions for writing and speaking
Highlight the importance of vocabulary acquisition through a mix of conversation, direct instruction, and reading
To be addressed in context of reading, writing, speaking and listening
Media and Technology are integrated throughout the standards.

35. Overview of Standards for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Reading Standards for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Knowledge of domain-specific vocabulary
Analyze, evaluate, and differentiate primary and secondary sources
Synthesize quantitative and technical information, including facts presented in maps, timelines, flowcharts, or diagrams
Writing Standards for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Write arguments on discipline-specific content and informative/explanatory texts
Use of data, evidence, and reason to support arguments and claims
Use of domain-specific vocabulary