Could someone explain Common Core from a teacher's standpoint?

Okay...so here's my two-cents worth as a teacher in Iowa. The Common Core are a group of standards created to try and keep education consistent nationwide. Basically, the Core states what students should be learning at each grade level.

In reality, many of the Core standards were already in place--the Core simply provides a more specific guideline. (For example, I review all grammar in 6th grade, but the Core has an emphasis on pronouns at that grade level.) In Iowa, we have our own Iowa Core, which aligns with the Common Core and has some additional focuses.

Flexibility really depends on district and curriculum. Our Literacy curriculum is aligned with the Core, but we are free to choose the stories from the text we want to use, the writing projects we want to engage students in, and are allowed to use supplementary materials as needed. I have quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to HOW I want to teach the standards, as long as I am addressing them. (We submit lessons plans to administration as a form of monitoring.)

The big change in the CC Standards is the emphasis on what students can DO rather than what they know. That is, the memorization of facts is no longer the main goal. Since it's easy to find information these days, it's more important for kids to develop skills in reading comprehension, analyzing information and applying it. The Common Core Standards give you the goals to work toward, but they don't dictate how you do that or what materials you use. Now, how that's implemented depends on your school system. Also, we haven't really seen the tests that are going to be used to assess progress . I've been told that there will be no more multiple choice (at least, not if you're in one of the PARC states). It will be all constructed responses. That should be a good thing, although I know at least one person on the PARC committee who is not very happy about how they're going to be scored. But as you know, the tests drive everything. Whatever the tests focus on is what our school systems are going to be obsessed with!