Common Core State Standards
Our nation’s ability to remain a global competitor depends on teaching all students well. We must start now.
Setting common academic standards offers tremendous potential for addressing the achievement and dropout crisis facing the nation that will benefit students of color if designed and implemented effectively, fairly, and with the input of their communities. Specifically, high-quality common standards could ensure that all students, regardless of zip code, income, race, or ethnicity, will be taught to and held to the same, high standards; ensure that all students have access to high-quality educational content, supports, and opportunities; allow parents and caregivers to more effectively assess their children’s progress; and free up resources to create high-quality assessments that accurately and reliably measure every student’s progress.
The standards discussion is particularly important to CHSE, because students of color are disproportionately affected by low academic standards.
Policy Recommendations
To ensure that American high schools are serving all students equally the Campaign for High School Equity asserts that:
- communities of color must be meaningful partners in the development, implementation, evaluation, and validation phases of settings common standards;
- quality is a top priority in setting and implementing common standards;
- the specific needs of communities of color must be addressed in the setting of common standards; and
- standards must be aligned to assessments that accurately and fairly measure progress in meeting them.