In Checking In, Education Trust asks whether classroom assignments reflect higher Common Core standards. The answer is: “Not so much.”
Analysts looked at more than 1,500 assignments given by 92 teachers at six middle schools in in two urban school districts.
Thirty-eight percent were aligned with a grade-level standard — and the rate was lower in high-poverty schools.
Only 4 percent of assignments “pushed student thinking to higher levels,” concluded the analysis. Eighty-five percent “asked students to either recall information or apply basic skills and concepts as opposed to prompting for inferences or structural analysis, or requiring author critiques.”
Many assignments were “over-scaffolded,” the report found. “Much of the work was actually done for the students rather than by them.”
Attempts to motivate and engage students were “superficial,” according to Ed Trust. Teachers tried to provide “relevance” through pop-culture references and art activities.
In their attempt to align teaching to Common Core standards, schools and teachers are replicating what’s taught at workshops and picking up online resources, the report concluded. “The majority of assignments included keywords and phrases found in the common-core standards, fostering a comforting sense that ‘we are aligned.’ Unfortunately, this is not the case—much of this is window dressing.”
This is not surprising.