Maryland's Common Core State Curriculum Frameworks and Assessments

Maryland's Common Core State Curriculum Frameworks

The Common Core State Curriculum Frameworks for Mathematics will form the foundation for Howard County's mathematics curriculum and help prepare graduates to be college and career ready. Howard County has launched a broad-based process to revise its curriculum to align with the Core Standards, which will be fully implemented by the 2014-15 school year. With students, parents and teachers all on the same page and working together for shared goals, Howard County can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from school prepared to succeed and build a strong future for themselves, for Maryland, and the country.

Since the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, educators from around Maryland have met to determine the Essential Skills and Knowledge associated with these standards. The draft frameworks are the result of this work. Over the next several years, the Maryland Common Core State Curriculum will be developed by Maryland educators to support the implementation of these new standards in Howard County and other Maryland districts.

Assessments

Although Maryland's students who are enrolled in grades 3-8 and/or Algebra/Data Analysis in middle or high school will continue to take the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) and Algebra/Data Analysis High School Assessment (HSA) until 2014-15, Howard County will continue to raise student proficiency with both the current State Curriculum and new Common Core State Standards over the next several school years.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is developing new assessments that are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. PARCC is a consortium of 24 states working together to develop an assessment system aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Maryland is a Governing State in the PARCC consortium. The benefits of a common assessment system are that:

• Students will know if they are on track to graduate ready for college and careers.
• Parents will have clear and timely information about the progress of their children.
• Teachers with be able to use results to help them guide learning and instruction.
• States and districts will have access to valid results that are comparable across the member states.

The new assessments will be anchored in college and career readiness; provide comparability across states; and be able to assess and measure higher-order skills such as critical thinking, communications, and problem solving. The PARCC assessments will be implemented in Howard County in the 2014-15 school year and will replace the Maryland School Assessments.