Petition for the Endorsement of Common Core Readiness

Higher education in general, and colleges of education in particular, must join our public schools in modeling the instructional principles of the Common Core. We must all begin thinking and preparing for 2025 and beyond! That is when young learners who have spent their early childhood education under Ohio’s New Learning Standards will begin college.

Although colleges and universities may not be ready to change the curriculum of their programs, we in higher education will need to adapt to better engage the new college learner. The new academic standards are higher and more rigorous. Students will have been prepared to think more strategically, to analyze data more fully, and to think critically. Students in every program and every major will have an educational background different from those a decade before.

Teacher education programs will not be the only ones affected by these new standards. Deans of education and their faculty have the opportunity to provide leadership by demonstrating to their colleagues how best to instruct incoming students who have been educated by school systems that have adopted the new Common Core learning standards. Successfully implemented, these standards will increase the readiness and change the nature of students applying to colleges and universities. Higher education’s teacher education programs are uniquely situated to serve as leaders, preparing their institutions for the Common Core freshmen. And we must start preparing now!

Provosts and education experts must sit down to forecast the needs of these incoming students. Ten years may seem like a long time, but we are turning a large ship. That takes time. To ensure success, we must take the Common Core seriously, and we must begin to have these challenging conversations now.

Higher education must work with P-12 education to prepare for the Common Core graduates from our nation’s high schools. We must design educational opportunities in cooperation with elementary, middle, and high school teachers and their school districts for this purpose. Working together we can make certain that the new learning standards are built to last, and that educators at all levels consistently achieve a common purpose.

When we were children we learned that the only limit to what we could achieve was our imagination. Through cooperation between elementary, secondary, and higher education – and within our own institutions – we must make that dream a reality for this next generation.

These students will be ready for college. Will colleges be ready for them?

Please join Ohio University in being a partner and supporter of the new learning standards associated with the Common Core. The college readiness of the next generation of learners depends upon it. And prepare we must.