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NEWS BRIEFS
Researchers say national curriculum will help Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio's students will be better able to compete with those in top performing nations due to the state's participation in a new national curriculum plan, according to education researchers.
Ohio is to be among the first states to adopt the grade-by-grade Common Core curriculum for math and English being developed by 48 states. A proposal was released this week.
The standards would replace the varied state-by-state standards currently in use in an effort to make sure students receive the same level of education in all states and enable educators to share teaching tools and assessments across state lines.
Students will know more when they leave high school than they do under current standards, said Terry Ryan, vice president of Ohio programs and policy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education research group.
"The national standards in math and English are going to be better than what most states have now, including Ohio," he said.
Ohio has not yet compared the Common Core plan with Ohio's current curriculum.
"The content is not a lot different than what we have now. The difference is how we organize it and where things fall as far as when kids are exposed to certain concepts and ideas," said Ohio Department of Education spokesman Scott Blake.
The national proposal for math covers fewer topics but goes into greater detail in the areas covered.
"That is very consistent with how the highest-performing countries approach math," said Sandy Boyd, spokeswoman for Achieve Inc., a Washington-based nonprofit group that works for change in education. "You learn them deeply so by the time you get to middle school you have a very strong sense and can move very quickly on to geometry and algebra. That's very different than what states do now."
For example students would learn decimals and fractions in grade five and linear equations, functions and the Pythagorean theorem in grade eight.
Reading would include comprehension of both literature and nonfiction works, such as science and history texts.
Among books suggested for students in grades kindergarten through five are "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White, "The Black Stallion" by Walter Farley, "Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11" by Brian Floca and "A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder" by Walter Wick.
