ACT released a study called the ACT National Curriculum Study that demonstrates, once again, that Common Core does not prepare students for college the way that advocates have claimed that it does.
ACT first explained they have their own college readiness standards.
Over the past several years, much conversation has taken place about college and career readiness standards. Most of this has emanated from the creation, adoption, and implementation—as well as the politicization—of the Common Core State Standards. ACT was pleased to offer information about readiness to the Common Core development effort, but we should be clear that ACT’s college and career readiness assessments have always been based on its own empirical research and longitudinal data.
The ACT College and Career Readiness Standards describe the skills and knowledge that matter most to success beyond high school. Because of ACT’s extensive research and validation efforts, its College and Career Readiness Standards capture what is a priority for success in different content areas for college and career. ACT college and career readiness assessments provide reporting categories that align directly with ACT’s College and Career Readiness Standards strands to help with score interpretation and to provide actionable insights for improvement.
In their conclusion they found discrepancies with Common Core and what some educators consider to be college readiness.
Although standards are developed to help ensure that all students graduate from high school ready for college and career in English language arts and mathematics, some results of the ACT National Curriculum Survey suggest that some state standards may not reflect college readiness in some aspects.
In English Language Arts nding 2, high school teachers and perhaps some middle school teachers may be emphasizing certain approaches to writing over others due to a concern for source-based writing in response to the Common Core State Standards. But if so, college instructors appear to value some key features of source-based writing (the ability to analyze source texts and summarize other authors’ ideas) much less than the ability to generate sound ideas—a skill applicable across much broader contexts.
In Mathematics nding 1, some early elementary school teachers report that they are still teaching some of the topics omitted from the Common Core State Standards at certain early grade levels, perhaps in part because the teachers perceive that students are entering their classrooms unprepared for the demands that later mathematics courses will make of them.
Also in finding 1, less than half of middle school and high school teachers believe that the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics are aligned “a great deal” or “completely” with college instructors’ expectations for college readiness.
Read the study below:
brackenkaren says
June 12, 2016 at 11:55 amThis is really ironic when ACT takes credit for its HUGE participation in the creation of the Common Core standards. If you check the list of participants in the team that created the standards you will see many from ACT. So now they are basically admitting their product missed the mark. Now they will expect millions more to correct that INTENTIONAL decision.
brackenkaren says
June 12, 2016 at 11:58 amI hit the enter key by mistake before I was done…….they say CC was based on imperical research and longitudinal data both not true statements. It appears to me their pet project is now being proven a failure and they are back pedaling. But in a presentation of ACT Aspire they were all too happy to take credit for the CC standards.