What The Common Core Actually Looks Like In Everyday Classrooms

Stephane Mbenga goes over fractions with long-term substitute teacher Naomi Wamble in a fourth-grade math class at Piney Branch Elementary School in Takoma Park, Md., on May 16, 2013. Montgomery County fourth and fifth-grade math teachers are training themselves to teach students in a new style of learning math to prepare them for newer, more rigorous education standards under the Common Core. 

Reactions to the Common Core Standards -- a new set of education benchmarks that have been adopted in 45 states -- have been varied, polarized and political. On the one hand, conspiracy theorists argue that the Standards are a plot designed by the federal government to gain access to the minds of children. Others oppose the Standards for emphasizing high-stakes exams. Proponents of the Standards see them as a way to make sure American students can eventually compete in a global economy.

What we know is this: The Common Core Standards were designed to make sure students around the country are being held to the same criteria. They are meant to promote critical thinking and deeper learning, and they were adopted by states in a process that was incentivized with federal cash.

But how do these Standards actually impact classrooms on a day-to-day basis?

A chart (below) from GreatSchools.org, a nonprofit that helps parents support kids' education, breaks down the impact the Standards have on everyday class work. According to the chart, some of the changes associated with the Common Core include switching to keyboarding instead of writing in cursive, and using mental math instead of calculators to complete number problems. None of the changes, however, seem akin to a government takeover.

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