What is the Iowa Core Curriculum?

Research shows that high expectations are a critical ingredient in improving student performance and ensuring student success beyond high school. The Iowa Core Curriculum provides a guide to delivering challenging and meaningful content to students that prepares them for success in life.The Iowa Core Curriculum identifies essential concepts and skills for kindergarten through 12th grade in literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, and 21st century skills. It also includes direction for teachers regarding effective instruction and assessment. It takes learning to a deeper level by moving students beyond superficial knowledge to deep conceptual and procedural knowledge. It also enhances student engagement by emphasizing interesting, robust, and relevant learning experiences. The 2008 legislative session, through Senate File 2216, requires all school districts and accredited nonpublic schools to implement the Iowa Core Curriculum (July 1, 2012 for grades 9 through 12 and 2014-15 for kindergarten through 8th grade).

What will it offer Iowa students?
The intent of the Iowa Core Curriculum is to ensure that all Iowa students have access to the challenging and meaningful curriculum that prepares them for success in postsecondary education and the emerging global economy.

What will it offer Iowa educators?
The intent of the Iowa Core Curriculum is to provide a tool for Iowa school districts and educators to use in assuring that essential subject matter is being taught and essential knowledge and skills are being learned. The Iowa Core Curriculum also provides a foundation for school districts to implement graduation requirements more effectively and meaningfully.

What is a parent or community member's role?
The full picture of the Iowa Core Curriculum is one that includes communities and schools working together to support this historic endeavor. It galvanizes action to improve teaching and learning by encouraging educators, parents, and community members to strive toward a common goal of increasing student achievement and preparing students for the 21st century.

21st Century Skills

The Framework for 21st Century Learning stated, "We believe schools must move beyond a focus on basic competency in core subjects to promoting understanding of academic content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects" (2007). 21st century skills bridge the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of students from the core academic areas to real life applications. Robert Sternberg described the necessity for 21st century skills when he stated, "…When we teach only for facts, rather than for how to go beyond facts, we teach students how to get out of date… " (2008).

Descriptions of what constitute essential 21st century skills are plentiful as well. In the 2007 legislative session, the Iowa Legislature established the Iowa 21st century skills framework as
(1) employability skills
(2) financial literacy
(3) health literacy
(4) technology literacy
(5) civic literacy

Within this 21st century skill framework we must identify common strands, or learning skills that will allow students to thrive in the world of work and to be productive citizens. Tony Wagner, Harvard Graduate School of Education, labels these "survival skills" as (1) critical thinking and problem solving; (2) collaboration and leadership; (3) agility and adaptability; (4) initiative and entrepreneurialism; (5) effective oral and written communication; (6) accessing and analyzing information; and (7) curiosity and imagination. Wagner proposes that schools use academic content to teach these skills at every grade level, and be accountable for a new standard of rigor. (Wagner, 2008.)