Graduation Date
5-2013
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department or Program
Education
Department or Program Chair
Elizabeth Truesdell PhD
First Reader
Madalienne F. Peters, EdD
Abstract
The reception, by the educational community, of the imminent implementation of the Common Core State Standards in the elementary school classroom has been received with cautious fanfare. What will be the steps for implementation of the Common Core State Standards in the elementary school? How will the implementation of the Common Core State Standards across the United States create students with four areas of focus: life skills, learning skills, core subject themes and IT skill set aka 21st Century learning skills? Critics of the adoption of the Common Core State Standards fear the schools will focus primarily on reading and mathematics and traditional assessments. For the states that have met their educational benchmarks, the other aspects of a well-rounded learning based curriculum and its subsequent enrichment will be neglected. The purpose of the study is to explore the implementation of Common Core State Standards as a positive factor for teachers and students and will the CCSS in fact help the elementary students and the reach the goals relating to their 21st century learning skills set out by the state and federal education czars to prepare the students for success as they enter high school, college and their future careers. Findings indicate that the conceptualization of the standards as they apply to classroom implementation and the assessment of these broad ideas is ambiguous, to say the least.