The following websites provide information and resources to support teachers, coaches, and administrators in their efforts to promote the kind of ambitious teaching and learning environments that are characteristic of the Common Core State Standards.

Common Core Standards

K-8 Publisher's Criteria

Smarter Balanced

Illustrative Mathematics

MAP Shell Centre

Progression Documents

Achieve

ACHIEVE THE CORE

Inside Mathematics

NCTM CCSS Coalition

NCTM

Achievement Partners

The Structure is the Standards
You have just purchased an expensive Grecian urn and asked the dealer to ship it to your house. He picks up a hammer, shatters it into pieces, and explains that he will send one piece a day in an envelope for the next year. You object; he says “don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you get every single piece, and the markings are clear, so you’ll be able to glue them all back together. I’ve got it covered.” Absurd, no? But this is the way many school systems require teachers to deliver mathematics to their students; one piece (i.e. one standard) at a time. They promise their customers (the taxpayers) that by the end of the year they will have “covered” the standards.
In the Common Core State Standards, individual statements of what students are expected to understand and be able to do are embedded within domain headings and cluster headings designed to convey the structure of the subject. “The Standards” refers to all elements of the design—the wording of domain headings, cluster headings, and individual statements; the text of the grade level introductions and high school category descriptions; the placement of the standards for mathematical practice at each grade level.
The pieces are designed to fit together, and the standards document fits them together, presenting a coherent whole where the connections within grades and the flows of ideas across grades are as visible as the story depicted on the urn.

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