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Hannah Reed
EDML 324
McConnell
Standards
The Common Core State Standards, Practice Standards and National Council of Teacher of
Mathematics standards are all important. With the competition that other countries give us in
education we need to be sure that we are sending citizens out into the world with a broad
understanding of all subjects. The CCSSM can also allow us to be uniform across the United States.
For most states, the CCSSM are the guidelines in the classroom. Although, some states, Alaska,
Nebraska, Texas and Virginia, have not adopted these standards and others have withdrawn the
standards. Teacher of mathematics look at the standards that NCTM wrote and incorporate them in
the classroom as well. The uniformity is present for most of the states of the United States (Common
Core).
Currently many states have adopted the common core standards. as of now, 43, plus
Washington, D.C., and Puerto Ricowould sign on to such a great enterprise(Kendall, page 2). It is
important for many people in the United States for the standards to align. For families that have to
move often this is most beneficial. When you move from school to school and from state to state, you
can get lost in the system. I know this from personal experience, because of my relatives, this can be
challenging. A student was in 1st grade in Tennessee and then moved to Iowa. Upon the move to
Iowa the school determined that he did not have the skill set or knowledge base to be in 2nd grade
and that he must repeat 1st grade. For this student that means an extra year of school. It is important
for families that are moving around, so that the students can continue their education without any
interruptions. If we have nationwide standards that are taught in each grade this will minimize the
confusion for students. This is why teachers of mathematics look not only at the CCSSM, but they
look at the practice standards and the standards written by the NCTM.

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The practice standards include eight key concepts to help students solve problems. 1. Make
sense of the problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3.
Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use
appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look
for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. (Conley, page18) These practice standards should
be used every day in the classroom. If we think of these every time we show a student a new concept
or problem, we can help the student further understand the concept at hand. This is what the CCSSM
and the NCTM standards want to accomplish. Our students need to gain a better understanding of the
concepts, rather than just know a procedure. These eight items are very broad and can be useful for
every problem, yet the NCTM standards are more specific.
Each of the standards are set up differently. The CCSSM are set up by grade level. This can
be helpful for parents to look at the standards and know exactly what their student should be learning
in the grade he/she is currently in. The NCTM standards, however, are broken up into 6 groups. They
are: Number and Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, Data Analysis and Probability, and
Process Standards.(***)
In Principles to Actions the authors start by giving some fascinating statistics. Between 1990
and 2013, the mean SAT-Math score increased from 501 to 514, and the mean ACT-Math score
increased from 19.9 to 20.9 (Progress, page 1). This is just one of the facts that back up that the
standards are helping the students succeed. We, in education, base most of our instruction on what
research says. This fact, among many others, shows us that these standards are working! For those
that disagree with these standards I would say to them, Do you know the facts? It is very hard to
ignore what research is saying about these standards and how well it is improving our test score over
time. Testing is an important aspect, no, we should not teach to the test, but we should teach what is
on the test.

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We need to stop worrying about getting the test right and start worrying about how we help
our students understand the test. I think there is a very fine line with educators teaching to the test
and teaching to understand the test. Too much focus is on learning procedures without any
connection to meaning, understanding, or applications that require these procedures (Progress, page
3). This is something that the standards are trying to fix. Educators need to stop thinking about
pushing procedure at students and start letting students discover the procedure. Studies have shown
that a student who has a guided discovery of something will be more likely to remember it then a
student that is just given the information.
In education, some teachers use to go lesson by lesson as developed by the textbook. Prior
to the standards movement, the textbook largely defined what students should learn. The textbook
was the curriculum (Kendall, page 6). This is how most of us went through school. We needed
reform we needed change. This is where the Common Core Standards come in. The standards are an
important aspect of education today in all subjects. It is in my opinion that we need these standards to
help guide our population into being productive members of society. I feel as though we need to have
a minimum requirement for students to graduate in all subjects. The standards given are guidelines
for schools to follow in order to be successful. You do not have to be a robot and teach these
standards day by day. You can look at a standard and teach it the best way possible so that students
can understand the topic in depth. I agree that for some students this is a difficult task considering
learning disabilities and IEPs. However, they should still be able to at least have an idea of how to
solve the problem at hand.
I think that the standards are a good thing. In addition, Principles to Action has many
positive statistics about the common core standards within the first several pages. People are looking
at the standards in such a negative way because it is not how they learned the topics. They are not
even giving this new system a chance. Education will always be evolving and we will always have

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changing teaching styles. Some may think that this is a bad system and that it is not worth trying, but
the facts and the statistics say otherwise.
It is crucial for educators to try new things and become a sponge for new ideas. We can look
at the standards and pick them apart all we want, but in the end we need to look at the research. Many
scholarly sources will agree that the standards are a good thing. Many parents would disagree. I think
it is all correlated to your prospective. For those who may not understand what the standards say they
could be confusing and impractical. For me, as a future educator, I look at them in a different light.
We all need to take a step back and think more about the impact of the standards on students verses
the impact the standards on us. We may feel like we do not get to teach what we want or that the
standards are controlling and unrealistic. However, the research shows that things are improving
every year. Education is and will always be a changing profession. CCSS in general are what we
follow today. Years from now when research says otherwise we will have a new system that is also
ever-changing. For now, the CCSSM , NCTM standards, and the eight practice standards are
something we should embrace. After all is said and done, research proves that this is a good thing.
How can you argue with that?

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Cited
Conley, D. (2011). Building on the Common Core. 17-20.

Common Core State Standards Adoption Map - Academic Benchmarks. (2015, January
1). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://academicbenchmarks.com/commoncore-stateadoption-map/

Kendall, J. (2011). The Common Core State Standards in Contex. In Understanding

common core state standards. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Progress and Challenge. (2014). In Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical success

for all. Reston, VA: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.