Brick Schools Falling in Line With Common Core Standards

Much of the Brick School District falls in line with Common Core curriculum standards, but more work will inevitably need to be done as the standards continue to change, according to teachers who presented on the subject at the Board of Education meeting held recently.

An audit of the standards examined all of the course offerings within the township district.

In the course offerings that fell under the core curriculum heading, which includes language arts, literacy, mathematics, science and social studies, 76 had objectives that aligned with the state requirements, 23 had stated objectives but they did not align with state standards, and four had vague or nonmeasurable objectives. 

In the "noncore areas," of business, world language, visual and performing arts, world language, and physical education, 53 courses had curriculum guides with objectives that aligned with state standards, 103 curriculum guides had objectives present, and 12 curriculum guides had vague or nonmeasurable objectives. Seven curriculum guides had no objectives present, the audit showed.

Regarding the second standard, assessed curriculum, the audit reveled that of the 104 courses in the core curriculum areas three curriculum guides had common assessments that matched student behaviors and state standards. 

Forty-six curriculum guides had common assessments that did not match student behaviors, 51 curriculum guides had assessments that varied by teacher, and four curriculum guides did not include assessment as part of the curriculum.

On the third standard, the taught curriculum, of the 104 courses in the core curriculum, 56 had curriculum guides with chapter material linked to objectives, 41 had curriculum guides that had chapter/material content linked to objectives, six curriculum guides had text materials referenced as a source only, and one curriculum guide provided no mention of text support materials.

Several teachers presented on the audit during the Board of Education meeting, and noted that many of the areas identified in the audit are already being addressed.

For example, Cynthia Kinney, who presented on the elementary mathematics program, noted that "although we were following the Ocean County curricula, it was too broad, and our taught and assessed curriculum exceeded requirements."

She said the program "adopted new math program, which was a more compacted and  focused curriculum, and now the content of the assessments, are now fully aligned with Common Core."

Joanne Krausman added that currently, the science program is working under 2009 New Jersey Core Curriculum standards, "however our state Department of Education, is in process of adopting a national standard for science ... New Jersey will probably adopt them, and that means more curriculum writing for us, and revisions."