Education Next – Tom Loveless
“This post continues a series begun in 2014 on implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The first installment introduced an analytical scheme investigating CCSS implementation along four dimensions: curriculum, instruction, assessment, and accountability. Three posts focused on curriculum. This post turns to instruction. Although the impact of CCSS on how teachers teach is discussed, the post is also concerned with the inverse relationship, how decisions that teachers make about instruction shape the implementation of CCSS. A couple of points before we get started. The previous posts on curriculum led readers from the upper levels of the educational system—federal and state policies—down to curricular decisions made “in the trenches”—in districts, schools, and classrooms. Standards emanate from the top of the system and are produced by politicians, policymakers, and experts. Curricular decisions are shared across education’s systemic levels. Instruction, on the other hand, is dominated by practitioners. The daily decisions that teachers make about how to teach under CCSS—and not the idealizations of instruction embraced by upper-level authorities—will ultimately determine what “CCSS instruction” really means.”(more)