A Parent’s Guide to Navigating Common Core — and Helping Your Kids Succeed with It

Supporters of the Common Core State Standards are happy to see the increased rigor and uniform standards across states. Critics argue, among other things, that CCSS is a step towards a national curriculum. Some people objectively see both pros and cons to the new standards. Or, if you’re like most of the parents I’ve talked to, you don’t know how to feel because you are confused and frankly don’t understand what Common Core is all about. I’m not writing to debate the merits or weaknesses of Common Core here. I’m writing simply to give parents a few tips on how to help their children with the transition to CCSS because, personal feelings aside, 45 states have adopted these new standards and your children will soon be assessed on these new principles.

I work at a middle school in Florida. We rolled out the changes last year and will begin, like most states, assessing on the new standards this 2014/2015 school year. I think younger elementary kids will fare just fine with the CCSS, however, because these changes were implemented across every grade level at the same time, I feel that middle and high school students are at a disadvantage. They’ve learned one way for several years and now are being required to make sudden, dramatic changes. This guide is to help you, the parent, so you are best prepared to help your student be successful:

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