The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts shift the balance of literature in the elementary grades to 50 percent informational texts and 50 percent literature. This balance is important in preparing students for later grades and non-literary texts.

The Common Core State Standards are the result of a collaborative effort of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association for Best Practices to ensure that the nation's students will be ready to be productive and successful in college and the global workplace.

This is a presentation of the five principles upon which the Common Core Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics are built, the first of which is that upon meeting these standards, students are college-and-career ready. This video discusses the process under which the Common Core standards were developed.

This brief explores ways to strengthen expanded learning opportunities (ELOs) by building their connection to the Common Core State Standards Initiative (Common Core). The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is interested in both efforts and wants to support states in maximizing their impact to ensure the success of all learners. Three examples of emerging state policies, practices, and programs are highlighed to foster dialogue in states about how ELOs and the Common Core can work together to advance student success.

The Common Core State Standards dedicate a strand to grammar in both writing and in speaking. Students are expected to apply these formal conventions in greater and greater measure as they progress through the grades. Students must be able to use grammar well in order to be successful in their post-secondary endeavors.

When developing the Common Core Standards, a wide range of education professors and practitioners, as well as leaders in fields of business, identified skills that students need in order to be successful in college and career.

This is a discussion of the key elements in the Common Core English Language Arts standards. It presents the five critical shifts within the standards toward: text complexity; analysis, inference and evidence; writing to sources; mastery of writing and speaking; and academic vocabulary, especially for English Learners.

Students often 'hit a wall' with Algebra. The Common Core Math Standards include an algebraic thinking strand beginning in kindergarten that supports later student success in formal Algebra courses.

This bibliography was developed to highlight some of the outstanding trade books published for older children and teens that can be used for the text complexity component of the CCS in grades 6-12.* All of the books have been selected based on their literary quality and other components of qualitative evaluation. Many of the books offer sophisticated narrative structures and other characteristics factored into quantitative evaluation. And the list as a whole offers a wide variety of books reflecting diversity of subject matter and style, allowing for a range of choices in matching reader to text and task.

The Common Core Math Standards free teachers to more fully address key mathematical concepts at each grade level.

The Common Core presents a careful, prescribed sequence of mathematics for elementary and middle school, but the sequence of mathematic instruction in high school has historically varied across the nation. Therefore, at the high school level, the Common Core Mathematics Standards present math subject matter and do not dictate courses. Modeling and probability/statistics is included in all math subjects.

The planning process for units of study described in this planning guide can be used to develop any unit of study regardless of grade level, content area, or level of integration. Using this planning process leads to a focused unit that ties together curriculum, instruction and assessments and keeps the identified standards as the focus of instruction, student learning and assessment. Appendix A illustrates how units of study fit into the big picture of curriculum instruction and assessment. It represents a method of planning and delivery of instruction that ensures all students understand what they are asked to learn and why it is important to learn

The Mathematics Common Core Standards are designed to be characterized by their coherence, so that students understand the context of their mathematics instruction and understand the subject as making sense and being highly applicable across all disciplines.

The Common Core State Standards were charged to base their work on evidence. The data revealed a mismatch between higher education and K-12 -- more mastery of fewer topics vs. covering more content. Focus means spending more time on fewer things, especially in lower grades, so that students build success upon foundational skills that they can expand and apply in later grades.

The Common Core Standards have content standards, as well as standards of practice. The standards of practice help students develop habits of mind that enable them to model mathematics to problems arising outside of the mathematics classroom. The math practice standards also ask students to use mathematics tools in flexible, sophisticated, and relevant ways across disciplines.

The writing of the mathematics standards was based upon a series of progressions in mathematics with natural tie-in points across a grade level.

The Common Core Math Standards are woven out of progressions in domains from one grade to another. These simultaneous progressions enable students to better see the application of fundamental mathematical properties in various math domains.

The Common Core Standards in English Language Arts are standards for a wide-range of literacies, including reading and understanding History, Social Science, Science and Technical subject texts. This focus helps students build knowledge through reading and writing in the disciplines, as they are able to analyze primary and secondary sources, reference material, and experimental results.

The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts expands the study of literary non-fiction in later grades. This allows English Language Arts teachers to utilize their expertize to cultivate students' deeper understanding of complex and varied texts.