It seems like not a day goes by that some newspaper or blog doesn’t write an article about Common Core State Standards (CCSS). But between all the political talk and the impassioned language, it can be hard to get a real idea of what actually happens behind the scenes of public education these days. Mississippi’s Board of Education adopted the Common Core State Standards back in August 2010, coincidentally the month I became a freshman in the College of Education at Mississippi State University. Next school year, the standards are to be implemented in all Mississippi public schools, where students will take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers (PARCC)  assessments, which go with CCSS instead of Mississippi Curriculum Test, second edition (MCT-2) in spring 2015.
   But what is Common Core anyway? The Common Core Standards are a set of guidelines for teachers of math and English language arts to create a curriculum for their students. Though the standards set requirements for students to reach, they allow much flexibility for the teachers who must get their students to those goals. The standards are meant to encourage critical perspectives and higher-order thinking, and they encourage research from elementary onward. Forty-five of the 50 states have adopted the standards, though every day another story comes out about one state or another that puts the brakes on their implementation.
  There are many good things about this national push for CCSS. As someone who has been immersed in the English standards for four years now, I can tell you they are rich and challenging. They also aren’t drastically different from the previous Mississippi standards, though they are more detailed and encourage more best practices of teaching. I have heard differing reports about the math standards, but they seem to be largely similar. The best thing about CCSS is that they are standardized across the states. This prevents things like the scandal back in 2006 when Mississippi fourth graders who had scored 90 percent proficient on the end-of term Mississippi standardized reading test fell to 19 percent proficient on a nationally-normed reading test. All students will be judged across the same criteria, which is both scary for a state like Mississippi and a good move forward.
    So if these standards are so great, what’s all the fuss about? Why do so many states throw on the brakes on implementation? Well, first you have to understand that though CCSS is touted as “state-led,” states got a significant amount of points to go toward Race to the Top funding if they adopted them. To obatin funds without adopting the standards proved difficult. So though it may seem like a vast majority of the states read and liked the standards, the reality is very different. Add to that when states adopted the standards back in 2010, they were largely untested and incomplete. Four years later, they still are. The PARCC assessment, which will be taken by all Mississippi students in English language arts and math next year, is still unavailable to teachers. Real evidence that the standards are effective in practice is virtually non-existent, and the standards only exist for two subjects, even though it was understood that standards for science and social studies were in the works. Further, a plan for implementation is largely absent in Mississippi. PARCC calls for computer testing, and the standards in general call for increased computer research, but many schools struggle to fill these needs. Questions about funding and resources plague school boards while teachers struggle to prepare students to pass a test they have not even seen.
    This is not a new problem in education. Trends and movements come and go, and teachers struggle to keep afloat. Lawmakers make decisions about issues they are largely uninformed about, and it is no wonder that situations like this arise. Though I hope and believe that CCSS will be less of a disaster than No Child Left Behind, I can’t help feeling that it is not off to a good start.