Jared T. Bigham - The Common Core Standards

No one likes a know-it-all. Most of us realize theres no such thinghow could there be? The world is far too complicated for someone to understand everything there is to know. So when you come across a know-it-all, you smile to yourself as they ramble on because you know better.

You understand that the quest for knowledge is a never-ending one, and youre okay with that. You have no desire to know everything, just the next thing. You know what you dont know, youre confident enough to admit it, and youre motivated to do something about it.

At Idiots Guides, we, too, know what we dont know, and we make it our business to find out. We find really smart people who are experts in their fields and then we roll up our sleeves and get to work, asking lots of questions and thinking long and hard about how best to pass along their knowledge to you in the easiest, most-accessible way possible.

After all, thats our promiseto make whatever you want to learn As Easy as It Gets. That means giving you a well-organized design that seamlessly and effortlessly guides you from page to page, topic to topic. It means controlling the pace youre asked to absorb new informationnot too much at once but just what you need to know right now. It means giving you a clear progression from easy to more difficult. It means giving you more instructional steps wherever necessary to really explain the details. And it means giving you fewer words and more illustrations wherever its better to show rather than tell.

So here you are, at the start of something new. The next chapter in your quest. It can be an intimidating place to be, but youve been here before and so have we. Clear your mind and turn the page. By the end of this book, you wont be a know-it-all, but your world will be a little less complicated than it was before. And well be sure your journey is as easy as it gets.

Mike Sanders
Publisher, Idiots Guides

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Introduction

The Common Core State Standards have become an important topic across our country because they impact our most prized possession as parents and our most valuable resource as a nation: our children. The discussion around Common Core has moved from the classroom, schools, and other education circles to the forefront of many other political and social conversations.

There is a great deal of information out there on Common Core, especially in the opinion columns and blogosphere, so it can be a challenge to separate fact from fiction. It can also be a challenge to filter out the rhetoric that has nothing to do with education at all.

This book seeks to give a historical perspective on how Common Core came into being as a concept, how it was developed, and how it has been implemented across the country. It also seeks to give a simple nuts and bolts look at what the standards actually are at each grade level and you as a parent can support the standards in order to help prepare your child for life after high school.

How This Book Is Organized

, How Did We Get Here?, deals with the historical events that led to the idea of a common set of standards. It outlines the major players involved in the initial discussions about the Common Core and the steps that were taken to develop the standards. This section also discusses how states have successfully implemented the standards and why some states retreated from implementation. Finally, this section looks at how the Common Core is changing the way students are taught.