The majority of Renton teachers, principals and staff expressed a positive view on new national reading, writing and math standards adopted by Washington state.

The Common Core State Standards are academic benchmarks for reading and math that lay out what students should know and do at each grade level, as well as after high school. Currently, 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards, while five other states created their own version.

For those that have adopted the standards, they will be fully implemented by the 2014-15 school year, when new assessments aligned with the Common Core are published.

“I definitely like the Common Core Standards,” said Laurie Parten, Math Department chair at McKnight Middle School. “The standards are evidence-based and developed using the most effective models from states across the country and countries around the world. For the first time, teachers and parents have a common understanding of what students are expected to learn.”

Common Core Standards are designed to better prepare students for college and career by raising expectations for what students should know by the end of each grade level and delve deeper into fewer topics so students better understand the content.

“The standards are clear, explicit, and rigorous without dictating specific instructional strategies,” said Laurie Wasson, instructional facilitator at Lakeridge Elementary School. “They will help us raise the quality of instruction by emphasizing student thinking and understanding of processes, together with opportunities for student discourse.”

Under these new standards, educators across the country will work under the same guidelines for student learning and expectations, while applying their own content. This way, if a student moves from one district or state to another, they will learn at the same level they were at in their previous school.

“I believe the standards are a clear roadmap for what we need our children to learn in order to be successful in school and in life,” said Lynne Morgan, kindergarten teacher at Highlands Elementary School. “They are easier to read and understand than our previous standards, but still take time to process.”

Morgan said the kindergarten team at Highlands has multiple conversations about what it means to “meet standard.”

“This has forced us to have these ongoing conversations about what meeting standards look like and what we need to do to ensure that they achieve those standards,” Morgan said. “The standards are no longer just a list of activities that students need to learn, instead they are a logical sequence of skills that lead to  broad understandings that all critical for students to be prepared for the demands that will face in the future. This means that our teaching must be focused.”

Morgan stated one result from the new rigorous curriculum entails teachers to monitor their students’ progress more vigorously.

“We need to see how skills combine to work together to make students who are critical thinkers and problems solvers, students who can read, write, speak, and understand complex thinking,” she said. “It is no longer enough to go through teaching manuals lesson by lesson. We need to constantly monitor where students are at and what their needs are.”

The creation of the Common Core standards grew out of a bipartisan effort by state governors and education leaders to raise academic standards nationwide. Individual state leaders adopting the standards wanted to end disparities in student proficiency resulting from a difference in learning standards in every state.

“I like the shift to Common Core Standards because they make sense, they are more rigorous and they push learning to the application level beyond just learning the skills discreetly,” said Janet Fawcett, principal at Highlands. “These are standards that we call ‘enduring skills’ or skills that students will need their whole life.”

Renton teachers are receiving training on how to incorporate Common Core standards into classroom instruction.

“A couple of years ago our teachers were given the task to identify the most important of the standards and select these as power standards,” Fawcett said. “By being asked to select the most important power standards, the teachers had to become familiar with and understand the standards more deeply. They spent time understanding what the standard is asking students to do, analyzing the skills that it takes to get to the standard, and examining the gaps in our instruction that needed to be filled in order to help the students get to the standard.”

In July 2013, an analysis by The Education Trust used national performance data to track students’ improvement and achievement in reading and math in all 50 states over the last decade. The report found that, overall, states were evenly split between those that scored significantly above the national average, and those that made no significant improvement, or scored far below the national average.

But scoring above the average doesn’t mean a state is ready to adopt the new standards, says Natasha Ushomirsky, the author of report. It simply means that those states have made more progress than the country has made as a whole.

Renton School Board members recently held a public study session to learn more about how district teachers and staff are shifting classroom instruction to meet Common Core Requirements.

“I appreciate all the efforts the Renton School District has taken to communicate the many changes required by the new standards while constantly seeking feedback from staff,” said Parten, the math chair. “Change is never easy and Common Core implementation is an enormous task, but one that I strongly feel will pay big dividends for our kids in the future.”

Superintendent Dr. Merri Rieger said the district wants to hear how their teachers feel about the new standards.

“I believe Common Core is a good thing, but it won’t be easy,” Rieger said. “The shift from what we are currently doing to what these new rigorous standards are going to take a lot of work and support for our students, teachers, parents, everyone. But we have a global world and a global nation and more kids are moving from place to place, so it is nice for our teachers because no matter where a new student might be coming from, these new standards are set to ensure the teachers will know where the student is at academically.”

The Renton School District teachers have been meeting for the past two years to take professional development courses.

“The teachers have been very open and receptive,” Rieger said. “They’ve also expressed any challenges that have presented themselves and I am always grateful to hear that and discuss that.”

A handful of states are already rethinking Common Core, some citing its expense. The Common Core Standards will costs schools money to update the technology needed for the Common Core Standards Assessments. Most of the assessments will be online. This will create many districts issues in that they will not have enough computers for all students to be assessed in a timely manner.

Another common complaint is that the standards will lead to an increased value on standardized test performance. High stakes testing is already a trending issue and now that states will be able to accurately compare their performances against another, the stakes will only get higher.

Renton teachers say they agree the new standards raise challenges, but feel the kids and educators are up to the task.

“The level of thinking required by the common core standards is challenging, but students are rising to the occasion,” Erica Anderson, fifth-grade teacher at Highlands. “They enjoy having opportunities to express and debate their thinking, and to discuss interesting content. I’m sure that after a few years of experience with the standards, both teachers and students will display deeper thinking and knowledge.”

Anderson says her teaching style has stayed the same, but the focus has shifted.

“I am more aware of incorporating certain aspects of the standards into each school day, having students read and respond to non-fiction texts more often,” she said. “For example, I am integrating reading and writing skills into social studies and science instruction, and increasing the complexity of what students are reading.”

A few Renton teachers expressed the burden of extra time it will take for teacher collaboration.

“This additional time is increasingly difficult to find,” said Stephanie Latimer, third-grade teacher at Lakeridge. “In addition, like any change in education, the effectiveness of the Common Core Standards will take time to show results. It feels at this moment however, like we are moving in the right direction.”

Rieger and several school district teachers said one of their focuses is on helping to educate the parents about Common Core.

“Our students and parents are still learning about what Common Core is,” Rieger said. “We as a district are constantly doing our best to do things to get the word out.”