by Garth Kimbrell, Curriculum Developer, TenMarks:
This is part one of a two-part series about the surprising results of a study highlighting the efficacy of adopting the Common Core.
On February 9, the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University released a study, "Teaching Higher: Educators' Perspectives on Common Core Implementation," on how five different states have implemented the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This wide-ranging study presents the best view yet of how teachers and administrators are adapting to the new standards. The study also looked at the variety of implementation strategies in these different states to determine which, if any, strategies proved especially effective in helping teachers prepare their students for new Common Core-aligned exams.
The results might surprise you: What teachers thought helped them the most did not necessarily translate into higher test scores for students. Before we get to the results of the study though, it’s worth pausing over the other big finding from the study, namely that teachers and administrators have widely embraced the Common Core and attempted to adapt to it. This study presents the best snapshot to date of what Common Core implementation looks like nationwide.
The study surveyed 1,498 K-8 teachers and 142 principals in Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Nevada. These surveys aimed to find out how teachers and principals viewed the Common Core and how much of their curriculum needed to change to accommodate the new standards. Notably, teachers and principals in these states reported a significant amount of support for the Common Core and relatively little resistance from parents to the new standards. The report found that “three quarters of teachers reported that teachers in their school have embraced the CCSS ‘quite a bit’ or ‘fully’” and also that “eight out of 10 teachers agreed that their colleagues, as well as their principal, were implementing the standards effectively.”[1] Principals agreed: Almost 75% believed teachers had embraced the Common Core, and 69% thought that the new standards would have a positive effect in the long run.
Perhaps as a result of this optimism, teachers reported making extensive changes to what they teach and how they teach it in response to the Common Core. 82% of math teachers reported changing at least half of their curriculum to meet the new standards, with 33% of these teachers saying that they changed “almost all” of their instructional materials. Language arts has a similar story: 72% changed at least half of their curriculum, but only 21% reported changing almost all of their materials. For math teachers, 81% reported that they emphasized conceptual understanding because of the new standards, 78% said that they placed increased emphasis on the application of skills and knowledge, and 26% said that they de-emphasized procedural skills as a result of the Common Core. Over three-quarters of teachers reported changing at least half of their classroom instruction in response to the new standards.
Still, while teachers are working hard to adapt to the Common Core, many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to help their students succeed on the new assessments. 66% of the teachers surveyed did not feel fully prepared to help their students succeed on the PARCC and Smarter Balanced exams. Only 3% of teachers felt “extremely prepared.” In response, many teachers have turned to one another. The report notes, “nearly half of the teachers (45%) reported collaborating with their colleagues every week on a CCSS-related topic.”[2] Another 23% of teachers have their students do practice assessment questions at least once a week. All of this adds up to a trend that should be cause for concern: Teachers are embracing the Common Core; they are trying to adapt to it, but they still feel unprepared to help their students excel under the new standards.
More troubling, this report found that what teachers most often do to adapt to the Common Core might not be the most effective way of aligning with the new standards. The study did not find “statistically significant relationships for some other implementation strategies that practitioners and educators frequently cited as important.”[3] For instance, the study found no relationship between teacher collaboration and improved student test scores. Similarly, the use of practice exam questions did not appear to improve student test results. We should take this with a grain of salt, of course: This is one study. We need more such studies to confirm or correct these results. So, what did the report find to be the most effective implementation strategies? I’ll discuss that at length in the next post.
[1] Harvard University Center for Education Policy Research, Teaching Higher: Educators’ Perspectives on Common Core Implementation, by Thomas J. Kane, Antoniya M. Owens, William H. Marinell, Daniel R. C. Thal, Douglas O. Staiger, (2016), 9.
[2] Teaching Higher, 22.
[3] Teaching Higher, 22.
