Understanding Illinois: Common Core is Here in Illinois
August 6, 2014
by Jim Nowlan
Outside Columnist
After five years in the works, the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for American education are here.
Near the end of the 2014-2015 school year, students in Illinois and 40 other states will be tested according to new learning standards. The standards are about what K-12 students should know in English and mathematics at the end of each grade.
By eighth grade, for example, students will be able to do linear algebra and linear functions.
Based on talking with teachers in my locale, I sense that some are confident while others are deeply worried about how things will go in this first year of testing to what most observers consider more rigorous standards.