Guess what? The old standards were centered around a "common core" of knowledge and skills that education professionals and our society felt were important for all citizens of a democracy to possess.
The CCSS are centered around that same core of common knowledge and skills. However, the CCSS "kick it up a notch," as Emeril Lagasse would say. These new standards require higher levels of cognition on the part of the student in learning activities.
Education professionals use Bloom's Taxonomy and its revisions as the standard for evaluating the cognitive levels at which students function during a learning activity. ALL levels of Bloom's are important; however, the key here is that the old standards did not require learning at the higher levels, and the new ones do.
The previous standards required students to remember and understand concepts and to do some low-level application of concepts. The excellent teachers were (and still are) having their students analyze, evaluate, and create using their new learning, but the standards did not require this higher-level cognition. Until these types of learning experiences are required, many students will not experience them.
The new standards, which originated through a partnership of state leaders, require ALL students to use new learning at a much higher level of cognition. This results in a much broader and deeper understanding of the concepts, as well as the ability to tackle complex problems intelligently and find or create solutions.
You can find out more FACTUAL information about the CCSS at http://www.corestandards.org/.
