ASN on the Move: A Framework for Mobile Students and Teachers

A military child knows the drill all too well. Pack up your things, say goodbye to your friends, and head off to your new adventure: A new school, a new teacher, and, many times, a bunch of new material to catch up on to be at the same level as your new classmates. Students moving across state lines have discovered how much standards can vary between states. Teachers moving from state to state have the problem of completely changing their curriculum on top of the hassles of transferring their certifications to the new state. Parents struggle during a move to advocate for their children and to ensure they have the opportunity to catch up on the standards required in their new state.

Although many of us have formed a love/hate relationship with state standards over the years, they play a very important role in providing quality, consistent education for students within each state. This consistency can often fall short when students move beyond state lines. People are mobile. Students and teachers will inevitably move from state to state. Until now, there hasn’t been a very good solution to make this transition from one set of standards to another. The Achievement Standards Network provides a framework to do just that. The ASN can help students, teachers, and parents view the differences between the various learning outcomes used by different states and the Common Core State Standards that are beginning to be used across the country.

The creation and implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by many states is one step toward making students’ and teachers’ transition between states smoother. Many states are in the process of implementing these standards to normalize what students are expected to learn in each grade level. Under CCSS, a child who completes the third grade in Maryland should have the same basic set of skills as an incoming fourth grader in Arizona. The adoption of the Common Core will take time, though, and using the ASN to compare standards in the meantime will be very useful. Before each state adopts CCSS, they have an option to modify those standards slightly to meet their needs. These modifications will be much easier to spot and compare with the tools available on the ASN.

To illustrate the power behind this type of comparison, let’s say you are a second grade teacher in California. During the second semester, you are getting two new students: one from Hawaii and one from Florida. As you begin planning your new science unit on motion, you wonder what type of background your new students should have in the subject you are studying. By browsing the ASN to look at the California standards, you will see how motion should be covered in second grade in California. You can also browse over to the Hawaii standards and the Florida standards. The child from Hawaii should know a lot about magnets and how they make objects move, but they probably won’t have much of a grasp on gravity or how machines cause motions. The student from Florida should be coming to you with a very similar background on the topic as your students because the Florida science standards are very similar to the California standards for the study of motion in second grade. This is a very useful comparison because you will be able to see exactly which topics the new students will need to study to catch up with the rest of your class.

The process of switching states should become a lot more streamlined as more states fully adopt the Common Core, but the ability to compare the exact standards statements of different states will still remain a powerful for teachers and parents. Make some comparisons yourself at: http://asn.jesandco.org/resources/ASNJurisdiction.