The new standards emphasize reading and writing and preparing students for college and career upon graduation.
“We’re excited about the changes; overall the goal is to have fewer standards with clearer progressions between grade levels,” said Keith Millard, assistant superintendent of instruction for Hamilton City Schools. “The deeper exploration of topics will have a positive effect.”
Jenny Beckham, of West Chester Twp., has three daughters enrolled in Lakota Local Schools — Taylor, a sophomore at Lakota East; Madison, an eighth grader at Hopewell Jr.; and Abby, in sixth grade at Hopewell Elementary. The school year began Thursday for Lakota students and Beckham said she’s already noticing positive changes in the curriculum.
“There used to be 20 things (they’d learn) and now it’s 10 to 12 so they get more in depth into the curriculum rather than just learn facts and move on,” Beckham said. “It gets the students ready to compete globally.”
Over the past two years in Hamilton, roughly 200 teachers and instructional coaches worked to develop 88 unique curriculum maps using content standards for each grade level and subject area, Millard said.
“With the implementation of this we, like other districts, are already well down the road,” Millard said. “The next piece is to begin preparing for the (online) assessments in 2014-15.”
Millard said a noticeable change in the curriculum standards is an increase in the amount of reading and writing responses students are expected to do in all subjects. Students will be doing more “close readings” of text to ensure they understand it and can apply it to the real world.
“A big emphasis of the Common Core is literacy; it shouldn’t only be the responsibility of language arts teachers,” Millard said.
Beckham said the way students are taught has changed drastically since she was in school. Beckham believes the Common Core will help prepare students for the next generation.
For the first time, Beckham said her daughters’ teachers have already developed syllabuses that provide an outline for the entire year.
“It’s almost like a calendar,” Beckham said. “I’m excited about more reading in science and social studies.”
With more than 20 years as a curriculum director, Elizabeth Lolli, senior director of PreK-12 curriculum and instruction for Middletown City Schools, said the latest academic standards are the most rigorous she’s seen.
Lolli said staff in Middletown have worked since April to deconstruct the Common Core and create “well-defined” units of study and “mini skills lessons” based on the content standards for each grade level and subject.
“Reading and writing across the board has been a push for a long time,” Lolli said, but teachers weren’t taught how to teach mathematical reading or reading of technical manuals. “The biggest emphasis (of the Common Core) is pumping up rigor and text complexity by level.”
Fairfield, Lakota and Middletown are among districts in Butler County adopting the online assessments Measures of Academic Progress by Northwest Evaluation Association.
Lolli said the MAP assessments — given three times a year — will be used in Middletown for grades three to nine this year. The tests will determine how the student’s learning is progressing over the year.
After each assessment, the teacher will tailor instruction based on the student’s level of knowledge and provide enrichment if the student is ahead.
“Every child is on their own level,” Lolli said.
At Ross Local Schools, the MAP assessments will be used in reading, math and science for grades kindergarten through 10, said Kathy DiBlasi, director of curriculum and instruction for Ross.
“They are very individualized and we’ll be able to find individual students’ strengths and weaknesses,” DiBlasi said.
DiBlasi said over the past year the district has conducted a gap analysis between the previous content standards and new Common Core.
“We built the curriculum up to the level of rigor in the Common Core,” DiBlasi said. “In the past teachers delivered instruction, now they will help facilitate learning.”
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