What are common standards?

In general, standards refer to the knowledge and skills a student should master in a particular subject area by a given point in time—usually by the end of a grade. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort to establish a single set of clear educational standards for K–12 English language arts and mathematics that states can share and voluntarily adopt.

The standards have been informed by the best available evidence and the highest standards across the country and around the world. They are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to go to college or enter the workforce and that parents, teachers, and students have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. They are benchmarked to international standards to guarantee that the nation’s students are competitive in the emerging global marketplace. The initiative is led by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices who have worked with teams of experts from all around the country and globe, and with forty-eight states, the District of Columbia, and two territories who signed onto the initiative. The common core state standards developed through the initiative have come to be more generally referred to as "common standards" and are considered "fewer, clearer, and higher" than most existing state standards.

Why do we need common standards?

• To ensure student preparation for success in college and work. Increasingly, in order to secure a good job, one must have a postsecondary degree or advanced skills. In fact, by 2018, it is estimated that 63 percent of all jobs will require education beyond high school. Yet today’s standards too often hold students to low expectations—expectations that do not align with the demands of college and careers. Fewer than one in four 2009 high school graduates who completed a core academic curriculum and took the ACT were deemed ready for college-level work in English, writing, reading, math, and science. And 60 percent of all students attending community college must take at least one remedial course. Similarly, business community surveys indicate that employers typically believe that high schools do not provide students with the skills they look for in prospective employees. The common standards are aligned with what research says students need to be prepared for success after high school.
  
  



• To bolster our global competitiveness. Compared to the United States, countries that rank highest on international assessments of student learning generally have standards that expect students to learn challenging subject matters in great depth. The common standards are benchmarked to the best standards around the world, thus helping ensure that the United States can compete internationally by making sure our students do not fall behind their international peers.
  
  
  
• To bring greater equity to the U.S. education system. Currently, every U.S. state and territory sets its own academic standards, leading to wide variations in quality and rigor. Students of color are disproportionately affected by low standards because they are more likely to live in states with lower standards. In part because of lower academic standards, African American, Latino, American Indian, and Alaska Native high school students have—at best—a 55 percent chance of graduating from high school on time with a regular diploma. And many of those who do graduate are unprepared for college. Unless trends in minority achievement and high school graduation are reversed, the nation’s schools will be complicit in creating a permanent underclass. Common standards can help ensure that all students are taught and held to the same high standards as other children, regardless of zip code.
  
  
• To provide opportunities for states to save money by collaborating to create superior assessments and instructional materials. A common framework in the form of core standards opens the door to new levels of collaboration on assessment, curricula, instructional materials, and other learning resources. Collectively, states currently spend approximately $1.3 billion annually just to develop, publish, administer, score, and report on tests. Common standards offer new opportunities for states to work together to improve the quality of these essential elements of education while also conserving resources