Common Core teaching coming to C-Falls

Columbia Falls School District 6 is in the process of implementing a new curriculum standard called Common Core.

Adopted in 2011, the standards has been embraced by 45 states across the U.S., the most notable exception being Texas.

The standards were crafted by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association.

Common Core is not a federal program crafted by the Obama administration, SD6 curriculum development director Dot Wood pointed out. It was adopted and crafted individually by the participating states.

The goal is get students ready for college and careers by the end of high school and to meet content standards for math, English and language arts.

There are many misconceptions about the program, Wood noted. For one, while the test for the new curriculum is standardized, it’s entirely up to each school district how it will teach the curriculum.

Students also can grow with the test. Under the old testing method, the Criteria Reference Test, students were assessed as to whether or not they reached grade level, but not whether they reached beyond or below grade level.

The Common Core test adapts to each student. As a student taking the test begins to answer questions above his or her grade level and gets more correct, the test will offer harder questions. Test results will show if students are performing at above or below their grade level.

Montana joined with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to adopt the testing methods, and all be conducted on a computer. Testing will begin on a trial basis this spring, but the results won’t be tabulated — it’s a “test of the test,” Wood said. Real testing will begin next school year.

The teaching part of Common Core is not really new. Math questions for a fifth grader read like math problems from 30 years ago — math is still math.

But further down the line, for example in a 10th grade shop class, students might be required to use math skills to craft a bid for a project in a real world setting, or to complete a project like making a coffee table, Wood explained.

The goal is to prepare students coming out of high school for two- and four-year colleges. Common Core also focuses on not just learning facts, such as dates and times in history, but comprehension of historical events.

“It’s not radically different,” Wood said. “You’re not going to see things you haven’t seen before.”

What is different is that participating states crafted Common Core, not the federal government, and for the first time in years, many states will use the exact same test.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states had to meet what the federal government called “adequate yearly progress,” but each state had its own standardized tests. School District 6 schools failed to meet adequate yearly progress last year, but SD6 superintendent Michael Nicosia called the goals unrealistic.

By the end of this school year, the No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to have 100 percent proficiency in their subjects across the entire spectrum of students, including special education students.

Last year, more than 90 percent of students were required to be proficient.

That goal is nearly impossible in a community where 30 percent of the student body comes and goes in a given school year, Nicosia said. About 13 percent of households in Flathead County live below the federal poverty level, and only 28 percent have a four-year college degree or higher.

“We can’t solve the social issues,” Nicosia said.

Common Core has come under fire by some groups across the U.S, and some states have tied test scores to teacher pay and performance. That won’t happen here, Nicosia said.

The best teachers often get the worst students, he noted, and tying their performance to test scores would be unfair.

“It doesn’t seem to us in Montana as a good way to measure teacher effectiveness,” Nicosia said.

Parents and students can learn more about the Common Core curriculum standards online at http://opi.mt.gov/Curriculum/montCAS/MCCS/index.php. The site includes tips for parents and test exams.