By Laura Moellering, Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Even if you are not involved in the business of education, no one can escape the news and controversy that surround it. The last several presidents and certainly all of our nation's governors want to improve the educational outcomes of American students. In Michigan, the enactment of the Michigan Merit Curriculum was one step toward this, but now there's a new game in town and it's called the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

CCSS is an effort to standardize what is taught across the nation in order to reduce the disparity in achievement from state to state, which could provide a more reliable measure of what works and what doesn't. The measure, of course, will be how many students move on to college and are successful in their first year. Michigan was one of the first states to adopt the CCSS and has already "rolled them out" for schools to begin implementing them.  The main recommendation for improving student achievement?  Increase complexity in reading in all content areas and improve student understanding of mathematical processes.

The two main contributors in developing the new standards were the organizations that produce the ACT and SAT, two widely used and reliable tests that predict student success in the first years of college. Michigan adopted the ACT as its high school achievement test a few years ago, replacing the high school MEAP.  Details from the ACT about achievement and about what a college ready score means can be found here:  http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/FirstLook.pdf

During the Thanksgiving break, Kensington Woods faculty dug into the performance dataof our students on the Explore, PLAN and ACT tests.  The Explore and PLAN are "pre-ACT" tests; the former administered in the spring of 9^thgrade and the latter in 10th grade.  We analyzed the questions on the tests, discussed the skills that students needed in order to do well, and looked for patterns in our students' scores.  Our goal in this analysis was to learn how we could help our students succeed, not necessarily on the test, but once they leave us.  The test, a tool, is simply a reliable predictor of that success.  

The primary skill that students need to do well on the ACT is capable, critical reading, clearly a skill that is applicable to all parts of life. Even in the math section, students have to look carefully at what the question is asking and determine an appropriate strategy based on that interpretation. In the Reading and Science sections, students are presented with complex and, in their opinion, boring texts to analyze. The only way to prepare them for those texts is to expose them to increasingly complex non-fiction, informational texts as early as possible. 

In the reading and science sections, students are asked to find main ideas and identify inconsistencies. This is evidence of a skilled thinker, the content doesn't matter, it's the conclusions they draw. Think of the application of this skill in personal finance, in voting and citizenship, even in personal relationships. Being able to read, listen and think critically is the single most important skill a high school graduate needs.

This is the kind of work that the ACT measures.  Can a student draw reasonable conclusions from a complex passage? Can they recognize and evaluate inconsistencies in that passage? In the writing section, they are provided a prompt.  Can they quickly develop a thesis and argue it with supporting information? Students who have interacted with a variety of complex, challenging texts in their course work will be best prepared for the ACT and for what college and career life throws at them. Informative texts, whether developing an argument or not, are structured in a logical and reasonable fashion.  Students with wide experience in this type of reading are most likely to exhibit reason when asked to make a decision and defend an opinion. This is a life skill, not just a college skill.

Information about how to help our students succeed at college and beyond greatly informs our teaching practices at Kensington Woods. We are always revising and refining what it is we do with the goal of college readiness in mind. You can help at home, too. Provide your student with a rich text environment to turn to when boredom strikes. Leave copies of Car and Driver, Popular Mechanics, Discovery Magazine, or any other high interest magazine scattered around the house or in the car. Allow "boredom" to happen, and subtly provide relief with non-fiction reading, it sure can't hurt and it might even prove to be enjoyable!