Learn More About Common Core on Tuesday

A nationally-recognized educational expert will be at Higgins Middle School on Tuesday night to discuss Common Core.

Sandra Stotsky, who is a Common Core expert and professor of education emerita at the University of Arkansas, will be speaking at the school at 7 p.m. Tuesday. 

State education leaders and governors in 48 states developed Common Core with the idea to create “clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in England language/literacy and mathematics.” Forty-five states have voluntarily adopted Common Core and are working to implement the standards.

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has approved pushing back Common Core implementation until 2015.

“Our system isn’t ready to deliver a college-ready education to all our students off the bat. I don’t want to get there by having students punished by not meeting that bar,” Mitchell Chester, commissioner of education, told Education Week. 

Preparing for Common Core's implementation next year, Massachusetts school districts are working on implementing the standards, but there are still concerns and some detractors, including education leaders who initially supported the idea.

With the Common Core debate raging across the country, the Peabody School Committee has invited Stotsky to speak about the standards. She was senior associate commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from 1999-2003, which include leading the revision of K-12 standards and teacher and administration licensure regulations.

She was also on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from 2006-2010, on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, from 2006-2008, and on the Common Core Validation Committee from 2009-2010.

Here is the Common Core State Standards Initiative in Massachusetts. 

Learn more about Common Core at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 11 in the Higgins Middle School auditorium.