California Common Core State Standards Overview 

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards that 45 states, including California, have voluntarily adopted.  The new Common Core State Standards will direct educators in how to prepare students for college and career readiness.  They are much more rigorous than the previous state academic standards and emphasize critical thinking, creativity, and the use of technology. 

As we implement the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), parents may be wondering exactly what the standards are, and what they will mean for students.  Educational standards set guidelines and describe what students should know and be able to do as they progress from kindergarten through 12th grade. They define the knowledge and skills that students are expected to gain​ in each grade level.

Language Arts 

1. Regular practice with complex text and its academic language
Rather than focusing solely on the skills of reading and writing, the Standards highlight the growing complexity of the texts students must read to be ready for the demands of college and careers. The Standards build a staircase of text complexity so that all students are ready for the demands of college- and career-level reading no later than the end of high school. Closely related to text complexity—and inextricably connected to reading comprehension—is a focus on academic vocabulary: words that appear in a variety of content areas (such as ignite and commit).

2. Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational
The Standards place a premium on students writing to sources, i.e., using evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information. Rather than asking students questions they can answer solely from their prior knowledge or experience, the Standards expect students to answer questions that depend on their having read the information with care. The Standards also require the cultivation of narrative writing throughout the grades, and in later grades, a command of sequence and detail will be essential for effective argumentative and informational writing.

Likewise, the reading standards focus on students’ ability to read carefully and grasp information, arguments, ideas, and details based on text evidence. Students should be able to answer a range of text-dependent questions in which the answers require inferences based on careful attention to the text.

3. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction
Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction plays an essential role in literacy and in the Standards. In K–5, fulfilling the standards requires a 50–50 balance between informational and literary reading. Informational reading primarily includes content-rich nonfiction in history/social studies, science, and the arts; the K–5 Standards strongly recommend that students build coherent general knowledge across each year. In 6–12, ELA classes place much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary nonfiction—than has been traditional. In grades 6–12, the Standards for literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects ensure that students can independently build knowledge in these disciplines through reading and writing. To be clear, the Standards do require substantial attention to literature throughout K–12, as half of the required work in K–5, and the core of the work in 6–12 ELA.

Math

1. Focus strongly where the standards focus
The Standards call for a greater focus in mathematics. Rather than racing to cover topics in a mile-wide, inch-deep curriculum, the Standards require us to significantly narrow and deepen the way time and energy is spent in the math classroom. We focus deeply on the major work* of each grade so that students can gain strong foundations: solid conceptual understanding, a high degree of procedural skill and fluency, and the ability to apply the math they know to solve problems inside and outside the math classroom.

2. Coherence - Think across grades, and link to major topics within grades
Thinking across grades: The Standards are designed around coherent progressions from grade to grade. Learning is carefully connected
across grades so that students can build new understanding onto foundations built in previous years. Each standard is not a new event, but an extension of previous learning.

Linking to major topics: Instead of allowing additional or supporting topics to detract from the focus of the grade, these concepts serve the grade level focus. For example, instead of data displays as an end in themselves, they are an opportunity to do grade-level word problems.

3. Rigor in major topics and pursue:

• conceptual understanding,
• procedural skill and fluency, and 
• application with equal intensity

Conceptual understanding: The Standards call for conceptual understanding of key concepts, such as place value and ratios. Students must be able to access concepts from a number of perspectives so that they are able to see math as more than a set of mnemonics or discrete procedures.

Procedural skill and fluency: The Standards call for speed and accuracy in calculation. Students are given opportunities to practice core functions such as single-digit multiplication so that they have access to more complex concepts and procedures.

Application: The Standards call for students to use math flexibly for applications in problem-solving contexts. In content areas outside of math, particularly science, students are given the opportunity to use math to make meaning of and access content.

* Summary of Major Work in Grades K–5

• K–2 Addition and subtraction—concepts, skills, and problem solving; place value 
• 3–5 Multiplication and division of whole numbers and fractions—concepts, skills, and problem solving