Setting Benchmarks for Student Success
Imagine a building stairwell where essential knowledge for kindergarten is found on the first floor and essential knowledge for college is found on the 12th floor. As you work your way to the top, you might stop at each landing to see how far you’ve come and how far you still have to go. For public schools in New York, those “landings” between each floor, or grade level, are known as the Common Core Learning Standards.
CCLS are benchmarks that set clear standards for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening, language and mathematics. They are a product of New York’s participation in a national, state-led initiative to ensure all students can be successful in colleges and careers. CCLS provides a framework that educators work within to develop local curriculum.
In Monticello, teams of teachers and administrators have worked to align local curriculum with the new standards. They have also taken part in professional development meant to help them implement CCLS in the classroom. For many teachers and principals, Annual Professional Performance Reviews will now at least partly reflect the roll out of CCCLS.
The state has begun using CCLS as a framework for the development of more rigorous state assessments. English language arts and math assessments in grades 3-8 for the 2012-13 school year were the first to be aligned with CCLS. The state also plans to align Regents exams with CCLS over time.
Common Core Resources for Parents
EngageNY offers a variety of resources to help parents understand CCLS and prepare their children for success under the new standards:
- EngageNY parent and family resources homepage
- Interpreting 3-8 ELA & mathematics tests, results and score reports
- Guides to the Common Core Learning Standards
The National PTA also offers guides for parents of students in grades K-12, in both English and Spanish:
- Parents’ guide to student success (grades K-12, English, Spanish)