Revere school committee weighs impact of new school curriculum framework on students

REVERE – The Revere School Committee discussed the impact Common Core has on the school curriculum as well as the honor and Pre-AP programs during Tuesday night?s meeting.Common Core is a framework for mathematics and humanities studies that 48 states, including Massachusetts, have adopted. The frameworks help teachers know what to teach each year.With the new frameworks set in place, students will study fewer topics but go into topics deeper and with increased rigor, so students learn new material each year and avoid redundancy.?Every year three to four big ideas will be focused on heavily, instead of trying to cover everything,” STEM Director for K-12 Matt Costa said. “It is about finding out what math skills our students will need to succeed after they graduate. The math skills you needed to succeed 15 years ago are very different then what you would need now.”Costa shared with the committee what areas in math will be in focus. “In eighth-grade math they will be focusing on expressions, equations, in-depth study of linear equations and functions,” Costa said as an example.These new frameworks will impact the honor and Pre-AP classes in middle school. Now, an honor math student will be one year accelerated and a Pre-AP will be accelerated two years.Also, with these frameworks, it will not be possible for a student to skip a grade. “Since they will be learning new material each year, it is essential that they stay in that year,” Costa said.Common Core will also impact humanities. One of the biggest changes is that students will now receive an emphasis on both narrative and informational texts.?While students can usually read a narrative text or a story with ease, sometimes it is harder for them when they have to read an informational text,” Humanities Director Jonathan Mitchell said. “We all know about the informational texts these students will have to read once they hit college.”This lessens the stress on English teachers to teach the students how to read. “We are not asking every teacher to become a reading teacher,” Costa said. “We just want everyone to help them understand text in context with that subject.”?I am relieved to know other teachers are encouraged to help,” School Committee member Carol Tye said.The curriculum has been changed because of the new frameworks. For example, seniors in high school once read To Kill A Mocking Bird, but now that will be required reading for freshmen.?We thought that book was too easy for high school seniors,” Costa said. “We are constantly looking to ramp up the challenge of reading each year.”Sara Brown can be reached at [email protected].