I agree with some aspects of both sides of the Common Core argument. At first I thought CC made it sound like every child was going to be gifted by the time the standards were in place since education in general was going to be more "rigorous" (they really like that term I noticed). Then it seemed more like CC lowered the standards in order to allow all children to meet the goals. CC has taken a page from gifted education, in general, just in that CC does seem to go deeper and require higher-order thinking, but CC even mentions that they don't really have anything for those students that meet the standards prior to the set time they are supposed to. “The Standards do not define the nature of advanced work for students who meet the Standards prior to the end of high school” (English Language Arts Standards, p. 6).
However, I do think Common Core can be utilized well for gifted students IF a school district chooses to do so. I see no reason why a teacher can't just look at the standards for grade 4 (for instance) then assess the gifted student that has already met those standards and move on to the next column for grade 5 standards and so on. Will this happen - maybe, but it really shouldn't be that difficult!
Since most states are just now implementing CC it will take time to get everything up and going, so once again the gifted children will probably take a back seat to getting the majority of students with the program. Of course we will again hear about how difficult it is to differentiate within the classroom for 1 gifted student when the teacher has 19 other nongifted students.
I personally believe that for my children, implementation of CC, is going to mean more advocating this upcoming school year. I'm worried our school will tell us that the standards are more "rigorous" and in-depth, which should compensate for what our daughters need. Or they will tell us that they are too busy with all the changes they have to make to be able to differentiate within the classroom. I don't like thinking this way, but I'd be willing to bet money I'm right!
