The Common Core State Standards have rolled slowly from the writing tables to state departments of education and on down to districts and schools. Even more slowly, they're making their way into parents' homes. If there could be a sure sign of that, it might well be this table at Barnes & Noble:
My colleague Michele McNeil caught sight of this with her trusty iPhone on a recent stroll through the Barnes & Noble around the corner from EdWeek's office in Bethesda, Md.
I wondered whether the bookstore chose its display titles for grades 4 and 5 straight from the common core's list of recommended readings (contained in Appendix B of the English/language arts standards), so I flipped open the list for that grade band. Only one—Bud, Not Buddy—was taken from that list of exemplars for grades 4 and 5 (although it's true, I can't see the other side of the display in this photograph). Another, Sarah, Plain and Tall, came from the list of exemplars for grades 2 and 3.
