The Applicability and Importance of the Common Core State Standards to College and Career Readiness

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Reaching the Goal: The Applicability and Importance of the Common Core State Standards to College and Career Readiness

Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) has released the above study on the Common Core State Standards. For the study, researchers asked a national sample of entry-level college instructors to rate the applicability and importance of each Common Core State Standard in comparison to their courses. The study analyzes ratings from instructors of courses at two- and four-year degree-granting institutions, including courses commonly required for two-year certificates that would be necessary to enter a career pathway. EPIC selected 25 courses to be representative examples of common offerings in seven major subject areas: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Business Management, Computer Technology, and Healthcare.

For the ELA and literacy standards, applicability ratings for non-literary reading and writing standards were very high, particularly when results from the English language arts strands of Reading for Informational Texts and Writing are combined with results from the literacy, subject-specific versions of these same strands. With few exceptions, a large percent of instructors across all content areas rated the Speaking and Listening strand and Language strand as applicable. Given the broad applicability of these standards to a wide range of postsecondary courses, the Speaking and Listening standards seem particularly important to teach and assess at the classroom level and to be included in some form by the two consortia of states working on common assessments of the Common Core standards.

For the mathematics standards, the applicability ratings varied according to the categories included in the standards. For example, the Standards for Mathematical Practice were relevant to a large majority of the sample, whereas Functions and Geometry were applicable to a relatively small percentage of the sample.
For a majority of instructors in almost all content areas rated the Mathematical Practices as applicable.