Kim Parker from Sandra Day O’Connor High School in Phoenix has taught language arts for 15 years, but with 45 states adopting the new Common Core State Standards, Parker and other teachers are trying to come up with ways to meet those standards.

The Common Core State Standards set new national expectation for all students. They were adopted to increase rigor and to get students ready for college and careers.

How teachers reach those standards is not clear, and the tests that will measure students’ abilities have yet to be created. Teachers are struggling to reach those destinations without a road map. 

“It’s kind of feeling your way through the dark and seeing where you end up,” said Parker, the language arts department chairwoman at her school. “It’s not comfortable, and stakes are high.”

By combining journalism skills with her expertise in language arts, Parker and other English teachers will have an easier time implementing Common Core and will see better results from their students, according to some experts.

High school teacher and working journalist Stan West said journalism can teach all students much-needed skills including critical thinking, fact checking, face-to-face communication and critical analysis. 

“They are not just educational skills, they are life skills,” said West, who teaches at Hales Franciscan High School and Columbia College in Chicago. He also writes for the Wednesday Journal. 

“If we can give them a tool, where they can apply those skills in any situation, we all win,” he said.

Because teaching and testing of the Common Core are not clearly defined, journalism teachers can help lead the way. Journalism already focuses on research, support, examination, cooperation, structure, editing, clarification and citation. Language arts teachers could begin teaching those skills through journalism.

Sarah Zerwin, who has taught English the last 15 years and journalism the last three, sees journalism and language arts working together to create well-prepared students. 

“If it’s our goal to prepare students with literacy skills for their world, then everything they learn in journalism will help them with that,” Zerwin said.

Zerwin said journalism teaches students about all types of multimedia and students will need to know how to read, use and understand it. 

“They (students) need to learn how to be critical consumers of everything they read,” said Zerwin, who has taught in Washington and Illinois and is currently at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colo.

Liz Homan has experience in several aspects of education, including work on the book series, Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards, which is a resource for teachers. 

“The genres of journalism aren't featured anywhere in these standards, but the standards are vague enough that I imagine journalism teachers can make strong arguments for why journalism is a powerful course for the 21st century student,” Homan said via email. She has taught for two years and is currently a doctoral student in English and education in Michigan. 

The Common Core Standards focus on the abilities that the federal government wants to see students achieve, but it doesn’t give teachers training in order to implement.

Jack Kennedy was the driving force behind connecting skills taught in journalism classes to the Common Core State Standards in his home state of Colorado. He is a retired high school English teacher and former president of the Journalism Education Association.

“This is a terrific opportunity for journalism teachers to step up and help English teachers teach those (journalism) skills,” said Kennedy, who advised student publications for over three decades and won multiple national journalism educator awards.

With the Colorado High School Press Association, Kennedy produced Journalism is the New English, a document that could be used to start discussions between journalism and language arts teachers, with the goal of getting the most out of their students.

High school students on newspaper and yearbook staffs had higher grade-point averages and ACT reading and English composite scores than other students, according to a 2008 study by the Newspaper Association of America.

If teachers are trying to teach critical thinking and prepare students for college and the workforce, journalism is a beneficial avenue.

“If all kids can learn journalism and language arts skills we’ll all be better,” Kennedy said. “Journalism teachers have been doing common core skills for years.”