That’s the conclusion of a new report from the New America Foundation, which finds that “there is little evidence to suggest colleges are meaningfully aligning college instruction and teacher preparation programs with the Common Core standards.”
Even though the Common Core was meant largely to improve the college readiness of high school graduates, the report says, “Many of those within higher education were not involved in developing or endorsing the Common Core standards and assessments, and have not considered how they might change their own practices to align with this K–12 initiative. Indeed, many are not even aware of the Common Core.”
The findings follow earlier alarms that the people who run higher education have, for the most part, gotten involved only late in the Common Core process.
Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core, a set of standards meant to help improve the preparation of students from primary and secondary schools to go on to — and succeed in — college.
But “there are few coherent approaches being used to join these two systems into a rational shared commitment to the Common Core,” the report found.
One reason, it said, is that it’s hard to come up with a single definition of what makes a student ready for college. Another is the huge variety of colleges and universities. Yet another is that “there is little or no pressure on colleges and universities to change their own academic practices to align with or incorporate these new standards … even among educators who are genuinely invested in making these new standards and assessments work at the K–12 level.
