As funding for education continues to be cut around the country, districts and schools in states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards are faced with the challenge of implementing them with limited resources to do so. A report by the Center on Education Policy explains, “Many states … viewed aligning teacher preparation to the standards, developing curriculum materials tied to the standards, and implementing new assessments aligned with the standards as major implementation challenges.”

Korean War Hero Walter E. Cole once said, “We must look for the opportunity in every difficulty instead of being paralyzed at the thought of the difficulty in every opportunity.” With each challenge, or difficulty, addressed in the Center on Education Policy’s report comes an opportunity to overcome that very obstacle. Where the Common Core State Standards are concerned, Laying the Foundation is here to help.

Developing curriculum materials tied to the standards

On July 8, somebody left this comment on our blog: “I love LTF lessons and find them applicable for all levels of students. I look forward to seeing the alignment with the core standards.” We now can say that we’re nearing completion of the alignment of our full suite of lessons with the Common Core State Standards.
 

Many lessons, including a few open source lessons—available for free—for math, science, and English, are already available on our website. Instead of a simple checkbox claiming to link the lesson to the standards, LTF goes above and beyond to show you explicitly how specific standards are addressed in each lesson. Within the lessons are charts that give you the code, the standard, the level of thinking category, and the depth of knowledge category. And because LTF is not a curriculum, these materials can be integrated into any existing curriculum.

Aligning teacher preparation to the standards

In conjunction with LTF lessons being aligned to the Common Core State Standards, our professional development program ensures teachers have the content knowledge, critical thinking strategies, and pedagogy necessary to effectively implement these college readiness standards in the classroom.

Implementing new assessments aligned with the standards
 

In the future, all of the LTF assessments, including embedded assessments, formative assessments, and online pretests and posttests, will not only be tied to AP exams—they will also be aligned with the Common Core State Standards.
 

Common Core is the opportunity to help your teachers raise the level of rigor and push the boundaries of student achievement in their classes, and we at LTF would like to partner with you to become your Common Core solution.