Who wrote the Common Core State Standards?
There are two answers. First, we’ll talk about the background of the movement itself. Next, we’ll talk about the actual authors and watch them explain the standards in a set of videos.
BACKGROUND. The standards were written and modified in phases.
In 1996 Achieve, Inc was created, a non-profit organization supported by the business community, especially high-tech concerns.
From Achieve’s website (emphasis mine):
Created by the nation’s governors and business leaders in 1996, Achieve, Inc., is a bipartisan, non-profit organization that helps states raise academic standards, improve assessments and strengthen accountability to prepare all young people for postsecondary education, work and citizenship. Achieve has helped nearly half the states benchmark their standards and tests against the best examples in this country and abroad and work in partnership to improve teaching and learning. Achieve serves as a significant national voice for quality in standards-based reform and regularly convenes governors, CEOs and other influential leaders at National Education Summits and other gatherings to sustain support for higher standards and achievement for all of America’s schoolchildren.
In short, Achieve brought together business and political concerns in a non-profit organization to design new academic standards. They began with five states in a project to develop the American Diploma Project (ADP).
The Common Core standards grew out of the ADP. Everything in the Common Core standards points toward the end result of the ADP standards, which are focused on college-and-career readiness. Knowing the desired result, they worked backward to design standards then align states who voluntarily (at the strong suggestion of their governors) wanted to align.
As momentum grew, more and more states had their curriculum’s aligned to the ADP standards that Achieve, Inc. had written, so that by 2009, about 30 had already been aligned and it was time to announce to the world that reform was at hand.
At that point, July, 2009, the National Governor’s Association Center for Best Practices( NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) announced they would begin working on standards. Their press release announced an accelerated process of developing standards, with input from educators and parents, expecting the work to be done in six months flat. Of course, that was only possible because the ADP standards and Achieve’s work for the preceding thirteen years.
Who wrote the Common Core Standards? It is predominantly the work of Achieve, Inc, with some modifications after public input was sought.
Author, blogger and writing teacher Darcy Pattison writes about publishing, fiction and the Common Core. Published in eight languages, Pattison has written how-to-write books, picture books for children, teacher resource books and middle grade novels.
