Parent Teacher Magazine Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools January 2014 | Page 4

Message from Superintendent Dr. Heath Morrison There’s been a lot of discussion of the new Common Core State Standards – if you’re a parent, you’ve probably heard about them at your child’s school and you may have heard some of the national conversation about them. These new standards have their advocates and their detractors. I’m an advocate – a strong one! -- because these standards are going to help us better prepare our children for college, career and success in later life. The new North Carolina tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards are more rigorous. Students are expected to apply information they have learned, not merely memorize it. The Common Core standards will establish the framework we need by defining what students need to know and be able to do at each grade level, so that by graduation, they are prepared for post-secondary work in college or in workplace training. What does more rigor look like on these tests? Here’s an example from a math test. The old kind of question asked students to identify from a list of four numbers which was closest to three-fourths of a dollar. Here’s the new kind of question: “Two-thirds of the students in a class are wearing blue jeans. Two-sixths of the students who are wearing blue jeans are also wearing red shirts. What fraction of the students in the class are wearing blue jeans and red shirts?” The second question requires a far