Many education experts are hoping for curriculum support as common standards take hold.

A diverse group of educators and stakeholders is calling for clear curricular guidance to complement the new Common Core State Standards that most states have adopted, including support for practical designs and examples of curriculum strategies that educators can use in their own classrooms.

The statement, released by the nonpartisan Albert Shanker Institute and signed by dozens of educators, advocates, policy makers, researchers, and scholars from across the educational and political spectrum, highlights the creation of voluntary model curricula that can be taught in the nation’s classrooms.

“It’s really a travesty … what many of our children are receiving in terms of instruction today,” said Susan B. Neuman, a professor in the University of Michigan’s School of Education and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education.

For more on the Common Core standards, see:

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“Standards are merely road maps—but they don’t tell us much about what kids really need. So many of our children are in test-driven situations … and are really not getting the depth of instruction that they so clearly need. This is a complement to the standards,” Neuman said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, urged broad support and dissemination for the statement, titled “A Call for Common Content.”

“We are arguing for the tools and materials that teachers need,” she said. “With rich, sequential common curricula, amplified by state and local content—and with teacher preparation, classroom materials, student assessments, teacher development, and teacher evaluation all aimed at the mastery of that content—we can finally build the kind of coherent system that supports the achievement of all learners; the kind of system enjoyed by the world’s highest performing nations.”

“The curriculum is a necessary bridge between standards and assessments,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University. “We need to be thinking systemically—we can’t leave out the whole notion of curriculum support again, as we have in past years of curriculum reform. … Good curriculum is built with an understanding of learning in mind.”

For more on the Common Core standards, see:

Common Core standards call for uncommon shifts in practices

Viewpoint: School leaders need more help, and not red tape, to transform education

States having problems with Common Core standards