With the 2013-2014 school year, teachers are instructing based upon a new set of standards known as the Common Core.

English teacher Bond Cashmere described Common Core.

“It’s a nationalized set of standards instead of each state individually setting standards for education, so a kid in Georgia will get the same type of education as a child in California,” Cashmere said.

Common Core’s goals differed from those of previous standards. History teacher Karleen Kurys emphasized that Common Core allowed for better college preparedness.

“The goals of CC were designed to help students prepare better for college,” Kurys said. “The colleges were coming back to the high schools and saying, ‘These are the areas that students are struggling with in college and we need them to be better prepared.’”

Cashmere agreed.

“The goal is to make sure that all students across the United States are receiving an equally great education, that everybody’s prepared for the challenges of career and college,” Cashmere said.

Students also recognized the shift in teaching goals, including sophomore Mikaela Minamishin.

“Teachers are making us do what will better prepare us for college,” Minamishin said.

On a more specific level, Common Core presented three key differences: greater focus on the depth of material, emphasis on applying what students are learning, and stronger development of critical thinking skills.

In regard to a greater focus on the depth of material, Cashmere stressed that depth is more important than breadth.

“Whenever you teach a kid something you have to go through certain steps to get them to true mastery and common core is about depth and not breadth,” Cashmere said.

English department chairperson Gary Henderson echoed Cashmere’s statement.

“It’s more of a depth of a material rather than trying to cram in all this literature. It’s more of a focus on critical reading and writing skills,” Henderson said.

Both Cashmere and Henderson have altered the way they teach their English courses.

“I shifted some of the literature with the junior class. I’m not covering as much literature because I’m adding informational text to augment so the literature still there, but they won’t get as much literature,” Cashmere said. “They’re actually doing more reading now but they’re looking at informational material in addition to literature.”

Cashmere explained her rationale for increasing the amount of informational text covered in her classroom.

“By the time you are a junior in high school, you have read enough literature over the years and probably not as many informational pieces,” Cashmere said.

Henderson mentioned that introducing more informational text better aligns with state testing in the spring.

“Recently in education in English Language Arts (ELA), the emphasis has been on literature, but when you take state testing, it tends to be on informational text,” Henderson said. “Common Core tries to involve a little more informational text. I do obviously make a lot of more opportunities to look at those informational texts.”

Another key difference of Common Core is its emphasis on students applying what they learn.

“One of the key elements in the Common Core is to only give a structural guide for students and to really shift the focus from teacher-directed learning to student-directed learning,” Kurys said. “I’m not here to give you, ‘okay this is what you need to know on the test.’ I’m going to give you some basic information and then it’s your responsibility to take what you learned and apply it to a much broader idea.”

Kurys explained exactly how students are applying the material they learn.

“We’re not just reading for an answer now,” Kurys said. “We’re taking what we read and applying it to a relevant situation today or even trying to predict what could have happened in the past, like in history, if we had done something or approached it differently.”

Kurys has changed her teaching methods in order to incorporate the emphasis on applying the material.

“We’ve done a lot more primary and secondary source analysis. Everything that we do now as far as testing is written form. There’s not going to be multiple choice type responses,” Kurys said. “It’s all about implementation. You’re given the basic information by me, but now you are having to show me that not only that you learned that but you have to actually apply it.”

Teachers have also recognized another one of Common Core’s differences: stronger development of critical thinking skills. Henderson explained the focus on critical thinking in his English classes.

“Rather than having students read a story and analyze questions about it, I’m shifting to having students critically read something and formulate what they think it is about,” Henderson said. “I then have them develop their own thesis statements on what they felt about the information they read.”

The science department also has embraced the stronger focus on critical thinking. However, instead of having explicit Common Core standards for science, science teachers are looking toward next generation science standards, which the California State Board of Education adopted on Sep. 4, 2013. Science teacher Jon Waggle explained how the next generation science standards relate to Common Core.

“The next generation science standards have incorporated the method that common core tries to achieve, which is that students are using more critical thinking skills, using models to explain answers, as opposed to rote memorization of facts,” Waggle said.

Waggle elaborated on how critical thinking skills are developed more in science curriculum.

“To be specific in a science context, as opposed to telling students to read an article or define terms, we are moving towards things like presenting student with the claim and evidence of a particular scientist, and analyzing what evidence the scientist used to make that claim,” Waggle said.

With all the changes in teaching that Common Core has produced, the positive impacts on students have begun to show.

“I think that they’re just getting better at what I have introduced and I feel like there’s less reteaching,” Cashmere said. “They’re doing better work, they’re doing more work, and they seem to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

Sophomore Lovon Lockahart also has felt the improvements.

“I definitely value the different teaching methods,” Lockahart said. “Compared to last year, the Cornell notes are a lot better.”

Sophomore Carlo Mejia elaborated on Kurys’ shift with Cornell notes.

“She’s really strict about the new Cornell way we take notes,” Mejia said. “We’ll stay on one particular section of notes and day by day will highlight and circle key ideas, and handwrite summaries.”

Although Common Core has improved the quality of students’ education, teachers have had some difficulties in adjusting to Common Core.

“My planning has been more challenging. Usually I’m able to plan two weeks to a month ahead based just on the content standards,” Kurys said. “Now with the Common Core, something that may have taken three days as an activity now is taking five or six days and I just have to adjust for that.”

Cashmere concurred.

“It’s going to require a little more time for lesson planning,” Cashmere said. “I’m changing some of my older lessons to be more aligned with Common Core.”

However, teachers have been receiving a lot of mutual support, especially in terms of school meetings in which teachers discuss how to implement Common Core standards.

“We have professional learning communities, where teachers from different disciplines come together in small groups and we implement some strategies,” Waggle said.

The professional learning communities occur on early release Mondays. Cashmere expressed gratitude toward the school for allowing teachers to use the time to better implement Common Core into the classroom.

“We have had a lot of support from our principal in allowing us to use our meeting time to use as training time. We use all of our staff meeting time as staff development,” Cashmere said. “We’re looking at the different content areas, looking at the ways we can help our students access rigorous texts.”

Kurys mentioned that there are additional opportunities for teachers to enhance their implementation of Common Core standards at the San Joaquin County Office of Education.

“There have been some training opportunities,” Kurys said. “There’s a few of us at the school, one from each major department, that’s been going to a training at the county office. We meet about once every quarter.”

Common Core also has changed standardized testing for students in the spring. In regard to standardized testing, Cashmere explained why it is necessary.

“You have to have some unit of measurement, and standardized testing is the easiest way for the state to get some sort of a baseline for how their students are doing,” Cashmere said. “It is a necessary evil.”

Henderson pointed out one flaw in the current system of standardized testing: the lack of motivation for students to try their best on the tests.

“If someone were to throw a test in front of a student and the test doesn’t affect anything that the student does, including whether the student graduates, it’s not an honest measure of what students can do, because there’s no accountability,” Henderson said.

Waggle pointed out that although critical thinking skills were a part of the previous standards, the new standardized tests, modeled after the Common Core, emphasize critical thinking more.

“The old system of testing and curriculum, the standards-based one, could have just as easily emphasized critical thinking skills,” Waggle said. “It would have been fine, but it wasn’t emphasized on the exams so therefore it was not necessarily emphasized in the classrooms.”

The structure of standardized testing will also change, including a shift to an electronic format as opposed to the paper format before.

“It’s going to be computer based,” Cashmere said. “We have an option of possibly doing a trial run this spring. We don’t know if we will.”

Kurys described another change with the new standardized tests: solving problems in partners.

“The standardized test is going to have a cooperative aspect where students will actually have a problem they will have to solve with a partner and then respond in written form through the computer,” Kurys said. “That’s why I like my desks in pairs because it’s really important to get students talking to one another and really working with each other to come up with problems.”

The new standardized tests will be implemented shortly, yet teachers worried about the issues related to the logistics of implementing these new standardized tests.

“We only have two computer labs here at campus and all of the testing for CC is computer-based and it’s all short response answers,” Kurys said. “It’s due to come in 2015 or 2014.”

Kurys also mentioned the problems other schools have had with the new standardized tests.

“Even the schools that have piloted it have had logistical issues with scheduling classes, with the amount of time it takes, the number of computers versus the student ratio,” Kurys said.

Waggle pointed out that because the new standardized tests will not be focusing solely on content standards, teachers are left with uncertainty as to what exactly the new standardized tests will test.

“It’s great to give flexibility, sure, but suppose I myself as a teacher spent an entire month on one topic that I liked and I taught the students how to think critically on that topic, taught the students every aspect of that topic, but when it came to their exams in April, that topic was not on that exam,” Waggle said. “However, I emphasized Common Core techniques, I emphasized next-generation science standards, but because it wasn’t clear what exactly was going to be on the test, if I guessed wrong, is that going to adversely affect my students?”

Waggle mentioned that because of the uncertainty surrounding the new standardized tests, teachers do not know precisely what they should be teaching their students.

“I am worried about it, because if I don’t know exactly what to teach,” Waggle said. “If it’s just ‘teach them how to think,’ that’s great, but how do you assess someone on how they think at this level?”

Another hardship teachers faced was the lack of materials that directly align with the Common Core.

“We don’t have new materials that are Common Core based,” Henderson said. “We are using the old materials as best we can to integrate Common Core.”

History teachers faced another problem: the heavy amount of California content standards that need to be covered in addition to the Common Core standards.

“The problem is that we have to cover both the Common Core and the California content standards. The Common Core is very time-consuming and in-depth, whereas the content standards are general ideas and topics that need to be learned,” Kurys said. “You cannot cover all of those and still do the skills.”

Kurys suggested that the policy makers of education reduce some of the content standards.

“If you want us to implement the Common Core, you have to not have the expectation that we are going to cover every single content area. Give us the main content areas that you want us to cover and then let us implement the common core,” Kurys said. “Right now it is very difficult to find that balance, because I’m unsure where the emphasis should be.”

Waggle stressed that education policy makers should begin by solidifying how to assess students before altering the educational material itself.

“You need to think from the top-down in the education process. You start with how you are going to be accessed, and you work backwards from there,” Waggle said. “At this point they are working from the bottom up, they are focused more on how we’re going to teach them without giving any thought to how we’re going to assess them. Ultimately, what are we gauging success on? Exam scores.”

However, teachers still possess an overall positive outlook toward Common Core.

“I really think that challenging students by facilitating more rigor in our classes, will help them become better thinkers and better learners,” Kurys said.

Henderson understands the challenges but believes that Common Core is improving students’ education.

“Any time you’re changing is tough. You get used to the old standards. You get very comfortable with them,” Henderson said. “But when you see something new that can help you do it more effectively, you’re like, ‘hey, that really could work’ and that’s where I see the Common Core.”

Gallery • 7 Photos

Ellie Fisher

Jon Waggle, science teacher