How Schools are Prepping for the Common Core: California (Da Vinci Innovation Academy)

The Department of Education has had many hurdles in its effort to give students a valuable education. Across the board every state is different, but each has their own set of challenges and accomplishments. The Common Core State Standards are a set of changes in grades K – 12 effectively recreating how teachers produce critical thinking skills in English language arts and mathematics. The procedures are different in every state causing many educators to drastically change their approaches to teaching. At Schools That Can, we’re curious to see how schools across the country are adapting to these changes. We will have a brief summarization of a school’s action plan from a different state to implement the Common Core standards into their educational body. The first school of our series is the Da Vinci Innovation Academy, a small college prep charter school. Located in Hawthorne, CA, Da Vinci has already adopted the standards before their state’s implementation process which will occur over the next five years. They believe in common learning goals for both parents and educators to obtain in all states. These standards have strengthened California’s educational system in how they included more criteria for vocabulary and new ones for collaborative discussions; a high value at Da Vinci. A tougher approach on number sense and algebraic thinking were added to mathematics. Da Vinci prepared a more thorough explanation of their adaptation to the standards on their site. If you would like to view the full walk-through of what they did, you can check it out here. What do you think about this example of California’s approach to the Common Core? How does it differ from how your school aims to adapt to the standards? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.