NCEA 2013: Catholic AND Excellent

On Wednesday, April 3, NCEA 2013 attendees explored the Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative in which schools can design and direct the implementation of the Common Core standards within the culture and context of a Catholic school.

By collaborating with catholic school teachers, curriculum experts, catechetical experts, and principals since 2012, the CCII Project has been able to further develop and disseminate frameworks, guidelines, resources, and professional development that assists Catholic school educators in integrating Catholic values, beliefs, and principles of social teaching into all subjects using the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) beginning with K-8 English Language Arts (ELA).


The aim of the sessions about Common Core Catholic Identity were to assist educators in learning how to use a template to design units based on the Common Core and integrated with Catholic Identify elements.

Mary Jane Krebbs, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the School of Education at St. John's University, gave compelling reasons for using the CCII. She cited a few definitions, which helped to give context for why Common Core standards are necessary.

A learning goal or standard is only as good as the instructor’s ability to imagine what it would look like when it is being met. – Sarah Fine, Education Week, 10/28/10

It is essential to keep in mind the basic premise of what a school is because which does not reproduce the characteristics features of a school cannot be a Catholic school – Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977

An excellent catholic school has a clearly articulated rigorous curriculum aligned with relevant standard, 21st century skills, and gospel values implemented through effective instruction – National Standards and Benchmark for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools, 2012

We ask the schools to teach children to think, to socialize them, to alleviate poverty and inequality, to reduce crime, to perpetuate our cultural heritage, and to produce intelligent patriotic citizens – Ornstien and Levine, Foundations of Education, 2000

We need to fix our school to teach “entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity” so students can emulate the “new untouchables” in our work force today. – Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, October 2009

The Trend is that for more and more jobs, average is over… just doing a job in an average way will not return an average lifestyle any longer… We need to help every American understand the connection between educational attainment and what will be required to perform the jobs of the future. – Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, August 2012

At present, forty-six states have adopted the Common Core. We know that the teacher has the single greatest influence on student learning in the school. Therefore, if and when schools adopt and accept the Common Core standards, they are better equipped to prepare students for the complexity of college and career expectations.