The Common Core State Standards, released in June 2010, offer an opportunity to shift education away from shallow, test-prep instruction and toward a focus on key cognitive skills, writes Conley. Two consortia of states are now developing common assessments to measure these standards--assessments that will be designed to capture deeper, more…

A recent study in Baltimore shows that the inclusion of a structured cognitive skills program in the language arts curriculum significantly improved student verbal performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). (MD)