$12.9M slated for Common Core curriculum guides
An English class at Ward Melville High School in Setauket. (March 2, 2012) Credit: Randee Daddona
New York State has taken a major step toward bringing new Common Core academic standards into local classrooms by awarding $12.9 million in contracts for development of curriculum guides in English and math.
The State Education Department announced Tuesday that Common Core Inc., based in Washington, would produce math curriculum materials for prekindergarten through fifth grade. The Core Knowledge Foundation of Charlottesville, Va., will develop English guides for pre-kindergarten through grade two, while Expeditionary Learning of Manhattan will do the same for grades three through five.
Contractors are being sought to write curriculum guides for the upper grades, with the entire project to be completed by fall 2013. All contract awards must be approved by the state comptroller's office.
State Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. said the planned curriculum guides would provide teachers with "a carefully sequenced road map" of topics to help students master high-quality texts and prep for new state tests. Common Core standards, unveiled by the National Governors Association in 2010, are intended to encourage more analytical reading in both fiction and nonfiction, and more in-depth problem-solving in math. Forty-five states, including New York, have adopted the standards so far.
While some academic experts contend the standards don't match up against those used overseas, many teachers who have tried Common Core-inspired lessons on Long Island and elsewhere consider them an improvement over current state requirements.
In Freeport, a ninth-grade algebra class taught by Karen Cohen recently tackled a "real life" problem of the sort recommended by Common Core guidelines. The assignment: Write a system of equations related to the amounts of money earned in two different sales jobs, each with different base salaries and commission incentives. Then, graph the equations to get a better sense of how the two jobs match up in terms of compensation.
The exercise completed, freshman Andrew Torres-Marin, 15, pronounced himself pleased with the result. "It's going to help us when we grow up," he said.
