I just finished a year-long study of the math Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with the elementary teachers in my district as we developed our new curriculum.  I provided professional development, workshops, opportunities to attend conferences, and time for collaboration. We learned, we studied, we stressed, and we developed a solid, rigorous, and authentic curriculum.  The year was coming to a close, and we searched and we searched and searched some more for resources to support the quality work we had developed and the instruction we were ready to deliver.  Every text we opened, every program we explored, every option we uncovered fell short. We made the difficult decision not to purchase anything knowing that this would place extreme pressure on our teachers to develop quality materials and resources each and every day. 

We had been lurking on the Engage NY website, and we were impressed with what we saw. Highly trained mathematicians and teachers were working side by side to develop high quality, aligned math units and lessons.  We desperately wanted to be a part of that collaborative work.  Lurking transitioned to phone call after phone call, and finally Eureka!  We were introduced to the professional development coordinator from www.commoncore.org, Sandra Elliott, or Elliott as she is called.  Elliott welcomed us to the table for training and provided an opportunity for us to purchase the same resources developed and used through the Engage NY project.  For districts outside New York, these materials are known as Eureka! Math.

We poured over the pdf releases.  We shared the documents with our teachers.  We tried the lessons.  We needed more training.  Elliott welcomed us to the table again; however, it would require a trip to Yuma, Arizona.  Hot, distant, Yuma could not have been further away; however, the district serving 10,000 students had also decided to adopt the aptly named Eureka!  I couldn't control my enthusiasm.  Before I knew it, several other districts were interested as well, one of which even opted to take the cross-country trek along side us.  

The university conference room was packed with teachers from across the Yuma District as well as other interested "lurkers" from Illinois, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Douglas, Arizona and the full resources had not even gone public yet.  Why the excitement?  Training was not about a program, but about shifts in mathematical instruction, embedding practices into instruction, and using models.  Strategies were immediately presented that could be used the first day of school with students.  The problems were authentic, the learning was visual and kinesthetic, and the learning was fun.  As a curriculum director, I would not be with the students teaching, coaching, facilitating and debriefing on a daily basis, and I found myself feeling envious of the teachers sitting next to me.  I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to be a math teacher.  I wanted to return to the classroom and watch the faces of students as the look of discovery crossed their faces. I wanted to be a teacher in a classroom where students thought math was fun, and asked for more.  I wanted to experience students solving higher-order problems, creating solutions, collaborating with their peers, and debriefing and owning their learning. 

Since, I will not return to my district as a math teacher, I will return to train my teachers to use these materials and I will celebrate the successes of their students with them.  I will visit the classrooms often to see practice in action. So, maybe I will not grow up to be a math teacher after all, but I will be there to support them along their amazing work!

There is a misconception that a common curriculum now known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) exists in the United States as a base that all states and public school districts are required to follow. This misconception is exacerbated by concerns that one curriculum for all equates to one of two extremes; either dumbing down the curriculum, or creating one so rigorous as to be inaccessible. In fact www.corestandards.org states, “no state in the country was asked to lower their expectations for their students in adopting the Common Core. The standards are evidence-based, aligned with college and work expectations, include rigorous content and skills, and are informed by other top performing countries. They were developed in consultation with teachers and parents from across the country so they are also realistic and practical for the classroom.”

It is important to note that the CCSS are standards and are not curriculum. Often the two terms are used to mean the same, but separately they are very distinct. Standards are measures that allow educators to build curriculum units and lesson plans to a common, measurable goal. While, the curriculum units and lesson plans are unique in the way each curriculum team determines the best instructional methods and resources used to teach students to meet those standards. Quality curriculum plans are designed around essential questions and objectives that outline what the students should know and be able to do at the end of each lesson and unit. In addition, the plans include learning progressions that outline what students entered that grade with, what they should currently be working on, and where they are going in the next grade. The learning progressions allow curriculum teams and educators to provide scaffolds or differentiation for those that need support. Extensions are provided to push learning for students that have already mastered the standards presented in that unit or lesson. These elements do not result in a one size fits all curriculum that dumbs down or limits accessibility.

The Common Core State Standards was developed by a talented pool of educators and leaders from across the country through a joint efforts created by the nation’s governors and education commissioners and their representative organizations: the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).  Once released in 2010, each state had the opportunity to adopt and determine how best to roll-out the standards.  As of June 30, 2013, 45 states have adopted the standards (www.corestandards.org).  Some states have decided to develop a statewide curriculum while others have granted autonomy to the districts. In Rhode Island, the Commissioner of Education, granted each district the autonomy to develop and adopt their own curriculum aligned to the CCSS.  Grant funding to support this work has been provided through Race to the Top (RTTT), and districts have opted to engage in this curriculum revision and transition process in two distinct ways.

I was fortunate to be a part of two districts with two different approaches, allowing me to speak from experience that “common doesn’t mean same” (Sarah Brown Wessling, Teaching Channel). In my first district, we opted to work with a consortium of districts to develop a common curriculum that would be used in all participants. The work was supported by RTTT funds and led by the University of Texas, Dana Center. Participants spent sessions learning the standards deeply and then working together to create units of study. Upon completion, these districts selected resources, created lessons, individualized the curriculum documents to meet their unique needs, and provided roll-out sessions for all teachers. In my current district, we opted to work in-house to complete the work outlined above. After providing initial training to educators on the standards, curriculum teams worked with content experts to further study the standards, develop units of study, select resources, create assessments, and develop exemplar lesson plans. This template was created by our team to meet our goals and objectives, and teachers had a voice in every decision along the way.  Our new curriculum is just that, it is ours. It addresses our goals and our objectives aligned to the measurable standards of CCSS. The educators involved in both projects are talented individuals who understand their content and the needs of their students. They were thoughtful in their decision-making processes and creative in their approach. I am both proud and confident of the curriculum work of these educators, and can assure you that, as indicated by Sarah Brown Wessling in her Teaching Channel CCSS video overviews below “common doesn’t mean same.”