Common Core Identifiers and Granularity Summit

On April 23, 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hosted a one-day summit focused on the issue of education interoperability vis-a-vis the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. The issue of the granularity of the assignment of the identifiers in the work being undertaken by CCSSO and NGA, in partnership with Student Achievement Partners, has raised concerns and the convening was intended to help identify and chart a way forward to meeting the various requirements of the states and educational content industry. 

The nub of the issue is described in a memo distributed by CCSSO and NGA. Quoting from the memo:

“For both assessment and instruction, there is a need to attach assets to the standards at a finer grain level than the published documents. Be that as it may, there is no canonical way to subdivide an individual standard. To the contrary, it is a major act of authorship to break individual standards into parts. Such acts of authorship came to a close when the standards document was adopted by states.
 
“There is also no single way to divide an individual standard that is best for all purposes. Efforts to break down the standards must proceed based on particular purposes; standardizing the breakdown once and for all would not only be a new act of authorship; it would be counterproductive so therefore CCSSO and the NGA Center do not intend to officially release the standards at a finer granularity.
 
“CCSSO and the NGA Center do, however, encourage collaboration among organizations to complete any break downs of the standards necessary to support implementation efforts and stand ready to participate in this process where helpful. But a standardized view of how the standards should be subdivided is neither viable nor desirable.”

SETDA is among the organizations advocating for a finer grained approach to mapping the Common Core, as it is this mapping that will ensure the level of alignment necessary to power next generation assessments, instructional support systems, professional development offerings and instructional materials access. 

We'll be posting more details on and resources from the meeting shortly, so stay tuned for more information. In the mean time, don't forget to weigh in with your thoughts on the work done to date by CCSSO and NGA. The deadline for your comments is today.