Transitioning to the Common Core Standards in South Carolina
Howard V. Coleman
UNC Wilmington
Jeremy Dickerson
Coastal Carolina University
Abstract
Large-scale planning is currently underway for school systems preparing to adopt the Common Core Standards for K-12 education. The adoption of these standards requires effort and coordination by all stakeholders in the educational system and places significant pressure on teachers and school leaders to ensure that the transition is efficient and effective. This article provides a brief context for the Common Core Standards, gives an overview of the transition process many schools are undertaking and concludes by describing how this transition is relevant to the preparation of new teachers and school leaders who are in university-level educator preparation programs.
Introduction
The federal government released its Blueprint for Reform plan to revise the Elementary and Secondary Education Act on March 13, 2010 (US Department of Education, 2012). The plan challenges the nation to embrace education standards that would put America on a path to global leadership. It provides incentives for states to adopt academic standards that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace, and create accountability systems that measure student growth toward meeting the overall goal that all children graduate high school and complete a college degree.
The Blueprint for Reform’s call to action resulted in the development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative. The CCSS is an effort coordinated by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers that is designed to establish national educational standards and to increase high school and college graduation rates (Common Core Standards, 2012). The standards were developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.
The standards are based on effective models from states across the country and countries around the world that define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education so they will graduate high school with the ability to succeed in academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards are aligned with college work and expectations, include rigorous content and the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills, and are clear, consistent and evidence-based. The CCSS provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn and helps make students experiences more uniform from state to state. The CCSS were built upon the strengths of current state standards across the nation as well as top performing countries in an effort to ensure that all students will be well-prepared to succeed in the global economy.
The CCSS for English Language Arts and Mathematics were adopted by the South Carolina State Department of Education (SCSDE) as the standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics in July of 2010 (SCSDE, 2012). The SC implementation schedule for the CCSS will be two transition years from 2011 through 2013, a 2013/2014 bridge year for instructional purposes and full implementation by the 2014/2015 school year.
The Standards Moving Forward
The SCSDE has identified web-based instructional support tools that can assist educators in unpacking and understanding the standards for grade and subject areas. These instructional support tools provide educators with information on what each common core standard means relative to what a student must know and what a student must be able to do. The 2013/2014 instructional support year is designed to prepare educators for full implementation of CCSS in 2014/2015.
The CCSS focus on “fewer, clearer and higher” standards. Fewer standards are intended to provide clearer instruction so that higher goals can be obtained (Gates Foundation, 2010). The CCSS also focus on college and career readiness to prepare students with the knowledge and the skills they need to succeed in college and the work place. The grade-level standards provide specific grade-level skills and understandings that include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order thinking skills (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). The grade-level standards are designed to ensure that students will have the knowledge and the skills to be globally competitive.
Transition Years
The South Carolina process for transitioning from the current accountability model began in 2011 and will continue through 2014. Educators are reviewing and studying standards to develop, modify and revise curriculum as needed to address the changes of CCSS. The SCSDE is recommending an extension of the current curriculum where CCSS standards are correlated with the existing program of studies. New replacement curriculum topics areas must meet both South Carolina and CCSS standards.
The Office of Standards and Support at the SCSDE has developed instructional documents for teachers to use to provide students with standards-aligned curriculum in English, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies (2012). Teachers are being encouraged to use their own data to assist in meeting the needs of their students. In addition, SCSDE is providing professional development support to help teachers in modifying modules to fit the specified needs of students. SCSDE has also provided K-12 outlines for Language Arts/English and mathematics program areas to reflect the content changes resulting from the implementation of the CCSS standards.
CCSS Planning & Implementation
South Carolina’s transition process from 2012 through 2015 is complicated by the following issues: (a) the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS) tests for grades 3-8, the End-of-Course (EOC) exams, and the High School Assessment Program (HSAP) for reading and math will continue to be based on 2008 ELA and 2007 Math SC standards through 2012/2013; (b) the 2013/2014 school year will be a “bridge” year for assessments with tests based on commonalities between the current program of studies and the CCSS; and (c) the 2014/2015 school year will be the “full implementation” year requiring school districts to use tests based on the CCSS.
School districts should have completed a review of the CCSS and participated in SC staff development workshops to ensure that all teachers and administrators fully understand the new standards and their relationship to current SC standards by the end of the 2011/2012 school year. It will be important for all educators to gain a clear understanding of the CCSS and the revisions that will be required to move forward in teaching and assessing student achievement of the new standards. In addition, teachers should begin designing lesson plans to include CCSS at all grade-levels. At the same time, teachers will also need to continue to provide instruction based on current South Carolina ELA and mathematics standards.
Process Evaluation Plans
School districts are advised to provide CCSS transitional and continued professional development programs for all educators. The content and duration of these programs should be based on the teachers’ and administrators’ needs, relative to understanding the CCSS and the transition process. In addition, post-training surveys and interviews should be conducted to determine the impact and effectiveness of the professional development programs (Harrison, Peterman, Greham, Ross, Dexter & Inan, 2008). If the intended outcomes for the transition from the current South Carolina standards to the new CCSS standards are for educators to fully understand the new standards, to identify the commonalities between the CCSS and the current South Carolina standards, and to develop curriculum guides, lesson plans and instructional activities to support the achievement of the new standards, then it makes sense for school districts to monitor and evaluate the process.
Process evaluation plans are designed to monitor change efforts and to determine the achievement of goals and objectives (Stufflebeam, 2000). Process evaluation plans provide a means for tracking how well school districts are achieving the intended outcomes of transitioning educators from SC current standards to the new CCSS. Traditionally used in simple situations, process evaluation plans can be used for complicated and complex systems if relevant indicators are reviewed and periodically updated.
An important component of the process evaluation plan will be monitoring student achievement test data. Educators will need to conduct gap analysis on students who are not demonstrating grade-level achievement. During the transitional years, local schools and school districts are advised to continue to collect, maintain and review the percentage of student proficiency test scores. Three-year trend data for student subgroups will provide valuable information for monitoring student progress and for identifying high-need areas for instructional support and interventions, as well as an indicator of the effectiveness of the professional development programs.
The CCSS professional development programs should be assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative data could be collected using multiple-choice surveys completed by teachers and administrators. Qualitative data could be collected via open-ended interviews and observations. This information would provide valuable information about the success of the training programs and how well educators understand the new standards. The data collection could be based on answering the following three questions: (a) what data will be collected, b) how the data will be collected, and c) when the data will be collected.
The data to be collected should include any relevant information related to the professional development programs, the CCSS standards, the transition from current South Carolina standards and the impact on student achievement. How the data is to be collected could include online surveys, emails, group discussions and one-on-one interviews. The determination of when the data is to be collected should be based on a schedule that closely follows the professional development programs and both short-term and long-term student assessments. In addition, there should be regularly scheduled meetings for grade-level/subject area teachers to meet to discuss the quality of the professional development programs and to compare student performance. This information should be maintained and accessible for all educators involved in the change effort.
Bridge Year
Curriculum content for the 2013/2014 “bridge” year will be based on commonalities between the current SC standards and the CCSS. This will be the most difficult year for educators because they will be required to teach lessons based on both the current SC standards and the CCSS. At the same time, student assessments for the 2013/2014 school year will be PASS in grades 2-8 and HSAP in grades 9-12. District-level and school-level professional development must be provided to specifically identify the similarities and differences between the two sets of standards. The shift to CCSS will be moving forward in preparation for full implementation in 2014/2015.
Connections
The SCSDE has developed English and mathematics “connection” documents to highlight the similarities and differences between CCSS and the current South Carolina standards (2012). The purpose of these documents is to identify the shifts in content related to the revision of the standards and the future changes in assessment measures. Assessments that will measure student mastery of the CCSS are being developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC, 2012). The SBAC is a state-led Consortium that is developing student achievement tests to be aligned with the Common Core State Standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. These tests are to be designed to help prepare all students to graduate high school, complete a college degree and become career-ready.
SBAC is working collaboratively with educators to develop assessments aligned to the CCSS that accurately measure student progress toward college and career readiness. The SBAC summative assessments will be administered during the last 12 weeks of the school year. The two assessment components are a computer adaptive test and a performance tasks test taken on a computer. The purpose of the assessments is to try and describe student achievement and the growth as part of school, district, and state accountability systems.
The SBAC’s intention is to provide valid, reliable, and fair measures of students’ progress toward and achievement of the knowledge and skills required to be college-ready and career-ready. The SBAC also intends to develop optional interim assessments to provide educators with information on student progress throughout the year. These interim assessments will be designed to help teachers, administrators, students and parents understand whether students are on track relative to achieving the CCSS. In addition, a digital library is being created to serve as a repository for professional development materials that are aligned with the CCSS and the SBAC assessment targets, research-based instructional tools and scoring rubrics.
Conclusions: Integration in Teacher and School Leader Preparation
The ability to systemically and methodologically implement new curriculum is a necessary skill for teachers and school leaders. Colleges of education should use this transition process as an example for aspiring teachers and school leaders to effectively implement a curriculum change effort. The CCSS transition process is a learning module that could be customized and integrated into a variety of teacher and school leader preparation programs. The initial steps in transitioning from the current South Carolina standards to the CCSS would be stakeholder engagement, database management and resource procurement.
First, the engagement of all key stakeholders should occur from the beginning of the process and continue through the full implementation year. Stakeholders would include all teachers, administrators, central office leaders, support staff and parents. These individuals must be identified early on and should be representative of all school participants. This step is critical in developing followership and support for successfully initiating and implementing the transition to the CCSS.
Second, a clear, detailed and comprehensive database should be created to determine how the CCSS standards are different from the current South Carolina standards. This step will assist educators in determining the types of professional development teachers will need to understand the differences and to identify what they must do to develop lesson plans that are congruent with helping students to meet the new standards. This information should be archived on the local school districts websites and should be readily accessible to all stakeholders. In addition, this information should be available in text, emails, videos and webinars. Finally, there should be an ongoing communication and data distribution plan supported and implemented by the district and the local schools to ensure that all stakeholders are receiving regular updates on the transition process in a variety of formats.