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What is Common Core....REALLY? click here
To Steal a Generation of Children from 2005 to 2015, Indoctrinate Them with Common Core So That They Except These Ideas of Agenda 21 and Become Global Citizens in the Coming Global Village? The Purpose of Common Core 2nd Grade Social Studies is to Transfer Loyality From the Family to the Government and Teach Them About Sustainable Economic Consuption "Agenda 21"? |
What is Common Core?.... Common Core Effects "EVERYONE" Public School - Private School - Home Schoolers !
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IS THE ‘COMMON CORE’ INITIATIVE DUMBING DOWN AMERICA’S STUDENTS?
LNK: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/14/is-the-common-core-initiative-dumbing-down-americas-students
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Common Core State Standards
Wikipedia: Common Core State Standards Initiative
Source Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a U.S. education initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of standards-based education reform. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The past twenty years in the U.S. have also been termed the "Accountability Movement," as states are being held to mandatory tests of student achievement, which are expected to demonstrate a common core of knowledge that all citizens should have to be successful in this country.[1] As part of this overarching education reform movement, the nation’s governors and corporate leaders founded Achieve, Inc. in 1996 as a bi-partisan organization to raise academic standards, graduation requirements, improve assessments, and strengthen accountability in all 50 states.[2] The initial motivation for the development of the Common Core State Standards was part of the American Diploma Project (ADP).[3]
A report titled, “Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts,” from 2004 found that both employers and colleges are demanding more of high school graduates than in the past.[4] According to Achieve, Inc., “current high-school exit expectations fall well short of [employer and college] demands.”[5] The report explains that the major problem currently facing the American school system is that high school graduates were not provided with the skills and knowledge they needed to succeed.[5] "While students and their parents may still believe that the diploma reflects adequate preparation for the intellectual demands of adult life, in reality it falls far short of this common-sense goal." (page 1). The report continues that the diploma itself lost its value because graduates could not compete successfully beyond high school,[5] and that the solution to this problem is a common set of rigorous standards.
Announced on June 1, 2009,[6] the initiative's stated purpose is to "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them."[7] Additionally, "The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers," which will place American students in a position in which they can compete in a global economy.[7] Forty-five of the fifty states in the United States are members of the initiative, with the states of Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska and Minnesota not adopting the initiative at a state level.[8]
Standards were released for mathematics and English language arts on June 2, 2010, with a majority of states adopting the standards in the subsequent months. (See below for current status.) States were given an incentive to adopt the Common Core Standards through the possibility of competitive federal Race to the Top grants. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform.[9] To be eligible, states had to adopt "internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place."[10] This meant that in order for a state to be eligible for these grants, the states had to adopt the Common Core State Standards or a similar career and college readiness curriculum. The competition for these grants provided a major push for states to adopt the standards.[11] The adoption dates for those states that chose to adopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative are all within the two years following this announcement.[12] The common standards are funded by the governors and state schools chiefs, with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, theCharles Stewart Mott Foundation, and others.[13] States are planning to implement this initiative by 2015[14] by basing at least 85% of their state curricula on the Standards.
Standards
In 2010, Standards were released for English language arts and mathematics. Standards have not yet been developed for science or social studies.
English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
The stated goal of the English & Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects standards[15] is to ensure that students are college and career ready in literacy no later than the end of high school (page 3). There are five key components to the standards for English and Language Arts: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Media and Technology.[16] The essential components and breakdown of each of these key points within the standards are as follows:
Reading
Writing
Speaking and Listening
Language
Media and Technology
Preliminary "example" works to be studied by students include works by Ovid, Atul Gawande, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Turgenev, Poe, Robert Frost, Yeats, Nathaniel Hawthorne,Amy Tan, and Julia Alvarez.[14]
Cursive and keyboarding
The standards do not mandate the teaching of cursive handwriting, although states are free either to add a cursive requirement or to permit individual school districts to require it. The standards include instruction in keyboarding.[17]
Mathematics
The stated goal of the mathematics Standards[18] is to achieve greater focus and coherence in the curriculum (page 3). This is largely in response to the criticism that American mathematics curricula are "a mile wide and an inch deep".
The mathematics Standards include Standards for Mathematical Practice and Standards for Mathematical Content.
Mathematical practice
The Standards mandate that eight principles of mathematical practice be taught:
As an example of mathematical practice, here is the full description of the sixth practice:
6 Attend to precision.
Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning. They state the meaning of the symbols they choose, including using the equal sign consistently and appropriately. They are careful about specifying units of measure, and labeling axes to clarify the correspondence with quantities in a problem. They calculate accurately and efficiently, express numerical answers with a degree of precision appropriate for the problem context. In the elementary grades, students give carefully formulated explanations to each other. By the time they reach high school they have learned to examine claims and make explicit use of definitions.
Mathematical content
The Standards lay out the mathematics content that should be learned at each grade level from kindergarten to Grade 8 (age 13-14), as well as the mathematics to be learned in high school. The Standards do not dictate any particular pedagogy or what order topics should be taught within a particular grade level. Mathematical content is organized in a number of domains. At each grade level there are several standards for each domain, organized into clusters of related standards. (See examples below.)
There are four main domains to be taught from kindergarten (age 5-6) to fifth grade (age 10-11):
In Grades 6 through 8 the four main domains students study are:
In addition to detailed standards (of which there are 21 to 28 for each grade from kindergarten to eighth grade), the Standards also list a few critical areas that should be the focus at each grade level. (See examples below.)
In high school (Grades 9 to 12), the Standards do not specify which content is to be taught at each grade level. Up to Grade 8, the curriculum is integrated; students study four or five different mathematical domains every year. The Standards do not dictate whether the curriculum should continue to be integrated in high school with study of several domains each year (as is done in other countries, as well as New York and Georgia), or whether the curriculum should be separated out into separate year-long algebra and geometry courses (as has been the tradition in most U.S. states). An appendix[20] to the Standards describes four possible pathways for covering high school content (two traditional and two integrated), but states are free to organize the content any way they want.
There are six conceptual categories of content to be covered at the high school level:
Each of the six high school categories includes a number of domains. For example, the "number and quantity" category contains four domains: the real number system; quantities; the complex number system; and vector and matrix quantities. The "vector and matrix quantities" domain is reserved for advanced students, as are some of the standards in "the complex number system".
Examples of mathematical content
Second grade example: In the second grade there are 26 standards in four domains. The four critical areas of focus for second grade are (1) extending understanding of base-ten notation; (2) building fluency with addition and subtraction; (3) using standard units of measure; and (4) describing and analyzing shapes. Below are the second grade standards for the domain of "operations and algebraic thinking" (Domain 2.OA). This second grade domain contains four standards, organized into three clusters:
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a U.S. education initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of standards-based education reform. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The past twenty years in the U.S. have also been termed the "Accountability Movement," as states are being held to mandatory tests of student achievement, which are expected to demonstrate a common core of knowledge that all citizens should have to be successful in this country.[1] As part of this overarching education reform movement, the nation’s governors and corporate leaders founded Achieve, Inc. in 1996 as a bi-partisan organization to raise academic standards, graduation requirements, improve assessments, and strengthen accountability in all 50 states.[2] The initial motivation for the development of the Common Core State Standards was part of the American Diploma Project (ADP).[3]
A report titled, “Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts,” from 2004 found that both employers and colleges are demanding more of high school graduates than in the past.[4] According to Achieve, Inc., “current high-school exit expectations fall well short of [employer and college] demands.”[5] The report explains that the major problem currently facing the American school system is that high school graduates were not provided with the skills and knowledge they needed to succeed.[5] "While students and their parents may still believe that the diploma reflects adequate preparation for the intellectual demands of adult life, in reality it falls far short of this common-sense goal." (page 1). The report continues that the diploma itself lost its value because graduates could not compete successfully beyond high school,[5] and that the solution to this problem is a common set of rigorous standards.
Announced on June 1, 2009,[6] the initiative's stated purpose is to "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them."[7] Additionally, "The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers," which will place American students in a position in which they can compete in a global economy.[7] Forty-five of the fifty states in the United States are members of the initiative, with the states of Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska and Minnesota not adopting the initiative at a state level.[8]
Standards were released for mathematics and English language arts on June 2, 2010, with a majority of states adopting the standards in the subsequent months. (See below for current status.) States were given an incentive to adopt the Common Core Standards through the possibility of competitive federal Race to the Top grants. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform.[9] To be eligible, states had to adopt "internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place."[10] This meant that in order for a state to be eligible for these grants, the states had to adopt the Common Core State Standards or a similar career and college readiness curriculum. The competition for these grants provided a major push for states to adopt the standards.[11] The adoption dates for those states that chose to adopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative are all within the two years following this announcement.[12] The common standards are funded by the governors and state schools chiefs, with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, theCharles Stewart Mott Foundation, and others.[13] States are planning to implement this initiative by 2015[14] by basing at least 85% of their state curricula on the Standards.
Standards
In 2010, Standards were released for English language arts and mathematics. Standards have not yet been developed for science or social studies.
English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
The stated goal of the English & Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects standards[15] is to ensure that students are college and career ready in literacy no later than the end of high school (page 3). There are five key components to the standards for English and Language Arts: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Media and Technology.[16] The essential components and breakdown of each of these key points within the standards are as follows:
Reading
- As students advance through each grade, there is an increased level of complexity to what students are expected to read and there is also a progressive development of reading comprehension so that students can gain more from what they read.[16]
- There is no reading list to accompany the reading standards. Instead, students are simply expected to read a range of classic and contemporary literature as well as challenging informative texts from an array of subjects. This is so that students can acquire new knowledge, insights, and consider varying perspectives as they read. Teachers, school districts, and states are expected to decide on the appropriate curriculum, but sample texts are included to help teachers, students, and parents prepare for the year ahead.[16]
- There is some critical content for all students — classic myths and stories from around the world, foundational U.S. documents, seminal works of American literature, and the writings of Shakespeare — but the rest is left up to the states and the districts.[16]
Writing
- The driving force of the writing standards is logical arguments based on claims, solid reasoning, and relevant evidence. The writing also includes opinion writing even within the K–5 standards.[16]
- Short, focused research projects, similar to the kind of projects students will face in their careers as well as long-term, in-depth research is another important piece of the writing standards. This is because written analysis and the presentation of significant findings is critical to career and college readiness.[16]
- The standards also include annotated samples of student writing to help determine performance levels in writing arguments, explanatory texts, and narratives across the grades.[16]
Speaking and Listening
- Although reading and writing are the expected components of an ELA curriculum, standards are written so that students gain, evaluate, and present complex information, ideas, and evidence specifically through listening and speaking.[16]
- There is also an emphasis on academic discussion in one-on-one, small-group, and whole-class settings, which can take place as formal presentations as well as informal discussions during student collaboration.[16]
Language
- Vocabulary instruction in the standards takes place through a mix of conversations, direct instruction, and reading so that students can determine word meanings and can expand their use of words and phrases.[16]
- The standards expect students to use formal English in their writing and speaking, but also recognize that colleges and 21st century careers will require students to make wise, skilled decisions about how to express themselves through language in a variety of contexts.[16]
- Vocabulary and conventions are their own strand because these skills extend across reading, writing, speaking, and listening.[16]
Media and Technology
- Since media and technology are intertwined with every student's life and in school in the 21st century, skills related to media use, which includes the analysis and production of various forms of media, are also included in these standards.[16]
Preliminary "example" works to be studied by students include works by Ovid, Atul Gawande, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Turgenev, Poe, Robert Frost, Yeats, Nathaniel Hawthorne,Amy Tan, and Julia Alvarez.[14]
Cursive and keyboarding
The standards do not mandate the teaching of cursive handwriting, although states are free either to add a cursive requirement or to permit individual school districts to require it. The standards include instruction in keyboarding.[17]
Mathematics
The stated goal of the mathematics Standards[18] is to achieve greater focus and coherence in the curriculum (page 3). This is largely in response to the criticism that American mathematics curricula are "a mile wide and an inch deep".
The mathematics Standards include Standards for Mathematical Practice and Standards for Mathematical Content.
Mathematical practice
The Standards mandate that eight principles of mathematical practice be taught:
- Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
- Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
- Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
- Model with mathematics.
- Use appropriate tools strategically.
- Attend to precision.
- Look for and make use of structure.
- Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
As an example of mathematical practice, here is the full description of the sixth practice:
6 Attend to precision.
Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning. They state the meaning of the symbols they choose, including using the equal sign consistently and appropriately. They are careful about specifying units of measure, and labeling axes to clarify the correspondence with quantities in a problem. They calculate accurately and efficiently, express numerical answers with a degree of precision appropriate for the problem context. In the elementary grades, students give carefully formulated explanations to each other. By the time they reach high school they have learned to examine claims and make explicit use of definitions.
Mathematical content
The Standards lay out the mathematics content that should be learned at each grade level from kindergarten to Grade 8 (age 13-14), as well as the mathematics to be learned in high school. The Standards do not dictate any particular pedagogy or what order topics should be taught within a particular grade level. Mathematical content is organized in a number of domains. At each grade level there are several standards for each domain, organized into clusters of related standards. (See examples below.)
There are four main domains to be taught from kindergarten (age 5-6) to fifth grade (age 10-11):
- Operations and algebraic thinking;
- Number and operations in base 10;
- Measurement and data;
- Geometry.
In Grades 6 through 8 the four main domains students study are:
- The number system;
- Expressions and equations;
- Geometry;
- Statistics and probability.
In addition to detailed standards (of which there are 21 to 28 for each grade from kindergarten to eighth grade), the Standards also list a few critical areas that should be the focus at each grade level. (See examples below.)
In high school (Grades 9 to 12), the Standards do not specify which content is to be taught at each grade level. Up to Grade 8, the curriculum is integrated; students study four or five different mathematical domains every year. The Standards do not dictate whether the curriculum should continue to be integrated in high school with study of several domains each year (as is done in other countries, as well as New York and Georgia), or whether the curriculum should be separated out into separate year-long algebra and geometry courses (as has been the tradition in most U.S. states). An appendix[20] to the Standards describes four possible pathways for covering high school content (two traditional and two integrated), but states are free to organize the content any way they want.
There are six conceptual categories of content to be covered at the high school level:
- Number and quantity;
- Algebra;
- Functions;
- Modeling;
- Geometry;
- Statistics and probability.
Each of the six high school categories includes a number of domains. For example, the "number and quantity" category contains four domains: the real number system; quantities; the complex number system; and vector and matrix quantities. The "vector and matrix quantities" domain is reserved for advanced students, as are some of the standards in "the complex number system".
Examples of mathematical content
Second grade example: In the second grade there are 26 standards in four domains. The four critical areas of focus for second grade are (1) extending understanding of base-ten notation; (2) building fluency with addition and subtraction; (3) using standard units of measure; and (4) describing and analyzing shapes. Below are the second grade standards for the domain of "operations and algebraic thinking" (Domain 2.OA). This second grade domain contains four standards, organized into three clusters:
Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.
1. Use addition and subtraction within 100 to solve one- and two-step word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem. Add and subtract within 20. 2. Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers. Work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication. 3. Determine whether a group of objects (up to 20) has an odd or even number of members, e.g., by pairing objects or counting them by 2s; write an equation to express an even number as a sum of two equal addends. 4. Use addition to find the total number of objects arranged in rectangular arrays with up to 5 rows and up to 5 columns; write an equation to express the total as a sum of equal addends. |
Domain example: As an example of the development of a domain across several grades, here are the clusters for learning fractions (Domain NF, which stands for "Number and Operations—Fractions") in Grades 3 through 6. Each cluster contains several standards (not listed here):
Grade 3:
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High school example: As an example of a high school category, here are the domains and clusters for algebra. There are four algebra domains (in bold below), each of which is broken down into as many as four clusters (bullet points below). Each cluster contains one to five detailed standards (not listed here). Starred standards, such as the Creating Equations domain (A-CED), are also intended to be part of the modeling category.
Seeing Structure in Expressions (A-SSE)
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As an example of detailed high school standards, the first cluster above is broken down into two standards as follows:
Interpret the structure of expressions
1. Interpret expressions that represent a quantity in terms of its context.★ a. Interpret parts of an expression, such as terms, factors, and coefficients. b. Interpret complicated expressions by viewing one or more of their parts as a single entity. For example, interpret P(1+r)n as the product of P and a factor not depending on P. 2. Use the structure of an expression to identify ways to rewrite it. For example, see x4 – y4 as (x2)2 – (y2)2, thus recognizing it as a difference of squares that can be factored as (x2 – y2)(x2 + y2). |
Different standards, by state
States have individual variations on implementing the standards.
Vermont
Critics question forcing a rigid template on schools already coping with other initiatives like No Child Left Behind. For some states, this will be the third (or more) major change over the past 16 years.[14]
Some critics also question whether there is a demand for creating state standards to begin with. According to the NGA and the CCSSO one motivating factor is the U.S.’s ranking on international test results; however, there does not seem to be a relationship between the US's low score on these tests and the US's economic ranking.[21] The United States has ranked 1st or 2nd on the World Economic Forum since 1998 despite scoring near the bottom on the International Mathematics and Science Studies for the past 50 years.[21]
In June 2011, the Voice of America Special English reported on the common core standards on its weekly Education Report for people learning American English. Some commentators criticized the idea that "one size fits all."[22][23]
In a Huffington Post piece, "Do We Need a Common Core?", Nicholas Tampio raised two objections to the Common Core. First, he suggests the importance of "America's historical commitment to local control over school districts," and the second is his anecdotal discussion of the Common Core claims that the program provide appropriate benchmarks to all students everywhere. He recounts the changes in his son's kindergarten as the teacher began spending more time teaching from the Common Core curriculum, and says an "inspired kindergarten curriculum has been replaced with a banal one."
Adoption of Common Core Standards by states
The chart below contains the adoption status of the Common Core Standards as of January 15, 2013.[24] Texas and Alaska are the only states that are not members of the initiative. Nebraska and Virginia are members but have decided not to adopt the standards. Minnesota rejected the Common Core Standards for mathematics, but accepted the English/Language Arts standards. The District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the American Samoa Islands have also adopted the standards. Puerto Rico has not adopted the standards.
States have individual variations on implementing the standards.
Vermont
- Emphasize basic arithmetic, fractions in elementary school. Focus on memorization instead of reliance on calculators.
- An Algebra I capability is perceived for elementary school graduates; Algebra II for high school graduates.
- Improve difficulty level of books being read. Less emphasis on how students "feel" about a book and more on analyzing content.
- Testing by computer is planned with results available almost "instantly."[14]
Critics question forcing a rigid template on schools already coping with other initiatives like No Child Left Behind. For some states, this will be the third (or more) major change over the past 16 years.[14]
Some critics also question whether there is a demand for creating state standards to begin with. According to the NGA and the CCSSO one motivating factor is the U.S.’s ranking on international test results; however, there does not seem to be a relationship between the US's low score on these tests and the US's economic ranking.[21] The United States has ranked 1st or 2nd on the World Economic Forum since 1998 despite scoring near the bottom on the International Mathematics and Science Studies for the past 50 years.[21]
In June 2011, the Voice of America Special English reported on the common core standards on its weekly Education Report for people learning American English. Some commentators criticized the idea that "one size fits all."[22][23]
In a Huffington Post piece, "Do We Need a Common Core?", Nicholas Tampio raised two objections to the Common Core. First, he suggests the importance of "America's historical commitment to local control over school districts," and the second is his anecdotal discussion of the Common Core claims that the program provide appropriate benchmarks to all students everywhere. He recounts the changes in his son's kindergarten as the teacher began spending more time teaching from the Common Core curriculum, and says an "inspired kindergarten curriculum has been replaced with a banal one."
Adoption of Common Core Standards by states
The chart below contains the adoption status of the Common Core Standards as of January 15, 2013.[24] Texas and Alaska are the only states that are not members of the initiative. Nebraska and Virginia are members but have decided not to adopt the standards. Minnesota rejected the Common Core Standards for mathematics, but accepted the English/Language Arts standards. The District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the American Samoa Islands have also adopted the standards. Puerto Rico has not adopted the standards.
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What Florida’s Next Standardized Test Will Look Like
Source Link: http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/08/21/what-floridas-next-standardized-test-will-look-like/
Fed up with FCAT? Well now you can get a peek at the test which will replace it.
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, has released the first batch of sample questions tied to the new exams.
Florida is starting the transition to the newCommon Core standards and PARCC assessments this year, beginning with kindergarteners and first graders. The transition will take three years.
Common Core and PARCC are part of a national effort among states to standardized U.S. curriculum and assessments in order to make more accurate comparisons of state school performance. The new assessments will also allow the comparison of U.S. students to international students.
The new tests are intended to eliminate the concept of “teaching to the test” because the curriculum emphasizes problem solving and analytical thinking and not memorization of facts or lists.
The PARCC sample questions explain the question methodology and what it is designed to measure. For instance, this is from a 7th grade reading and writing exam:
“The Literature Task plays an important role in honing students’ ability to read complex text closely, a skill that research reveals as the most significant factor differentiating college-ready from non-college-ready readers. This task will ask students to carefully consider literature worthy of close study and compose an analytic essay.”
Check out more on the PARCC here.
Source Link: http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/08/21/what-floridas-next-standardized-test-will-look-like/
Fed up with FCAT? Well now you can get a peek at the test which will replace it.
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, has released the first batch of sample questions tied to the new exams.
Florida is starting the transition to the newCommon Core standards and PARCC assessments this year, beginning with kindergarteners and first graders. The transition will take three years.
Common Core and PARCC are part of a national effort among states to standardized U.S. curriculum and assessments in order to make more accurate comparisons of state school performance. The new assessments will also allow the comparison of U.S. students to international students.
The new tests are intended to eliminate the concept of “teaching to the test” because the curriculum emphasizes problem solving and analytical thinking and not memorization of facts or lists.
The PARCC sample questions explain the question methodology and what it is designed to measure. For instance, this is from a 7th grade reading and writing exam:
“The Literature Task plays an important role in honing students’ ability to read complex text closely, a skill that research reveals as the most significant factor differentiating college-ready from non-college-ready readers. This task will ask students to carefully consider literature worthy of close study and compose an analytic essay.”
Check out more on the PARCC here.
Common Core State Standards
Source Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/18/1111502/-Common-Core-State-Standards-Are-Dangerous
Original Source Link: Common Corporate State Standards and Other Obscenities http://www.dailykos.com/blog/tultican/
Another untested therefore dangerous theory is being foisted on public schools. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are still being written but we already have schedules for implementation. Budget strained school districts across the country are spending money on CCSS implementation. This is not a reasonable approach when radically changing education in America. A new airplane design is tested, a new marketing system is piloted but a radical and significant restructuring of public education is being instituted with no field tests. Diane Ravitch recently wrote, “The Common Core will be implemented in 45 states without that kind of trial. No one knows if they will raise expectations and achievement, whether they will have no effect, whether they will depress achievement, or whether they will be so rigorous that they increase the achievement gaps.” This risky endeavor with the future of America’s children should be abandoned. It is based on bad education philosophy; however, if this foolish approach to education reform cannot be stopped at the minimum it should be implemented in a prudent way. Slow down the entrepreneurs lusting for new business, be responsible stewards for America’s schools and run some thorough field tests on these proposed Common Core State Standards.
A recently released Brookings Institute Study called “The 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education: HOW WELL ARE AMERICAN STUDENTS LEARNING?” tells us “Don’t let the ferocity of the oncoming debate fool you. The empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will have little effect on American students’ achievement. The nation will have to look elsewhere for ways to improve its school”
The Professional Educators of Tennessee’s blog site has a primer on the CCSS which quotes several expert views:
“The Obama administration has pressed hard for the speedy acceptance of the so-called common core standards, arguing that the establishment of centralized norms replacing those in 50 states will raise the achievement of students who most need help. The opponents say that a system created in Washington will become captive to the education establishment, and that the standards, as currently written, will promote mediocrity across the board. …
“Critic Alfie Kohn, the author of a dozen books on education and human behavior, states ‘uniformity isn’t the same thing as excellence; high standards don’t require common standards. And neither does uniformity promote equity’….
“Sandra Stotsky a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas takes a different approach, but reaches a similar conclusion: ‘The Common Core standards may accomplish the goal of equalizing education but not in a way the supporters initially hoped: they may lead to more uniformly mediocre student achievement than we now have.…’
“Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested: ‘standards threaten to further routinize pedagogy, filling students with bits of reified knowledge — leaving behind the essence, the humanistic genius of liberal learning.’ Then Fuller points out: ‘The strange thing in all this is that the political left is now preaching the virtues of systems, uniformity and sacred knowledge. Lost are the virtues of liberal learning, going back to the Enlightenment when progressives first nudged educators to nurture in children a sense of curiosity and how to question dominant doctrine persuasively.’”
Jim Arnold Pelham City, Ga., school chief writes:
“Common Core is a standardized national curriculum. Why is this problematic? From an historical context, a centralized school curriculum serves the goals of totalitarian states. Jefferson warned us about that.
“There are additional issues: 1) there are few interdisciplinary connections between subjects. Research for many years has shown the positive effects of interdisciplinary connections on student learning and achievement; 2) citizenship, personal development and the promotion of democratic values is ignored.
“It is rather troubling to note the number of educational ‘reforms’ that ignore educational research, as if invoking the magic word ‘reform’ is enough to allow any imposition however implausible.
“With adoption of the Common Core standards, you can rest assured that Common Core standardized testing is not far behind. How can we expect a single, nationwide standardized ‘pick-a-bubble’ machine scored test to effectively measure what is taught in practically every school system in the United States? The documented testing issues we already see with state assessments will increase exponentially.”
Lynn Stoddard a retired educator from Utah and the author of four books on the need for authentic reform of public education wrote this month in the Deseret News, “One big problem with the Common Core Curriculum, recently adopted by Utah and 46 other states, is this feature. It specifies what all students should know and be able to do at grade-level check points. It pressures teachers, with excessive testing; to make students fit the curriculum. The testing draws forth low level teaching by trying to measure student growth in likenesses. Never mind that it's impossible to standardize students; the Common Core is exactly what it says it is, ‘common.’ It tries to make students "common" in knowledge and skills. It's a generic, narrow curriculum designed by subject matter specialists who have never even met the students it is designed to serve.”
There are several valid reasons why so many voices across the nation are speaking out against the CCSS. (1) They are untested, so no one knows whether they will work or not. (2) They are based on a bad theory of pedagogy. It is a theory of pedagogy that encourages direct instruction and the development of fact knowledge and the accountability portion will narrow curriculum. What is tested is what is taught in a high stakes environment. It is the behavioral theory of education that was promoted by Edgar Thorndike and BF Skinner. (3) Professionals in the classroom have had no authentic input into the standards development which means the standards are not likely to be appropriate for various aged students. They are being written by university professors, noble laureates and businessmen none of whom have a reputation for knowing how to teach even at the college level and are especially clueless about how to teach third graders. (4) Who has control over the standards is a big concern. Are the standards being perverted for various business or religious or political purposes?
In his recent book Teaching Minds, Roger Schank - the founder of the renowned Institute for Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, where he is John P. Evans Professor Emeritus in Computer Science, Education and Psychology – makes several important points about good pedagogy. He point out, “There is no evidence whatsoever that accumulation of facts and background knowledge are the same thing. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Facts learned out of context, and apart from actual real-world experience that is repeated over and over, are not retained.”
In another section of the book, Dr. Schank quotes many politicians and describes their lack of understanding about how people learn and why they support accountability. He states:
“Accountability must play well in Peoria because every politician is for it.
“Accountability must mean to voters, I assume, that teacher will be measured by how well they teach their students. Political candidates, always willing to hop on an uncontroversial point of view, are all quite certain that the voters know what they are talking about. No matter how stupid NCLB is, no matter how mean spirited, no matter how awful for both teachers and students, its very horror rests on the premise that no one seems to be disputing that the federal government has the right to tell the schools what to teach and to see whether they are indeed teaching it.”
In his book Dr. Schank excoriates the quality of teaching at universities. He attributes the poor quality of teaching to what he calls the star system in higher education. Universities that want high ratings look for Nobel Prize winners and other internationally famous professors. They do not look for good teachers. Dr. Schank himself came to Northwestern via the star system when Northwestern made him a better offer than Yale was willing to match. The point is that quality of teaching is not a consideration, yet these same professors who gained fame through the star system and not their understanding of pedagogy are writing the CCSS.
Dr. Schank shares and interesting anecdote to bolster this point:
“At MIT, where students are different than they are at Northwestern by quite a bit, there are a number of superstars that I know quite well. Two of them, whom I will not name but are about as famous as a professor can be, are people I have heard lecture many times. I have never understood what they were talking about in any of those lectures. Now, bear in mind that I know their fields very well so I should have been able to understand them. Also, bear in mind that I was a terrible student, which means my attention fades fast when I am bored or irritated.”
The CCSS are purported to be the result of a group of states voluntarily agreeing to a set of curricular standards. The reality is the Gates foundation paid to develop the standards, paid to evaluate the standards, and is underwriting Pearson’s program to create online courses and resources for the standards, which will be sold by Pearson, for a profit, to schools across the nation. We are told, “The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an effort led by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.” However, the reality is different. An example of the real process is the present Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) which are in progress. Officially the NGSS development is “a joint effort between the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve.” When queried about the NGSS the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Achieve are the only sites that give current information. The information at NSTA is illuminating:
“In a process managed by Achieve, 26 states are leading the development of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The science education community got a first glimpse of the NGSS draft when it was released during the first public comment period from May 11 through June 1. According to Achieve, the writers are now working to review all of the comments and develop a second draft to be released for public comment in the fall 2012. Achieve has removed the first draft from the web while it undergoes revision."
Achieve is the lead partner writing the science standards, but achieve is a private non-profit that is only accountable to its founders and donors. The Achieve web site lists their contributors:
"The Battelle Foundation; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; The Boeing Company; Brookhill Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Cisco Foundation; The GE Foundation; IBM Corporation; Intel Foundation; JP Morgan Chase Foundation; The Joyce Foundation; Lumina; MetLife Foundation; Nationwide; Noyce Foundation; The Prudential Foundation; Sandler Foundation; State Farm Insurance Companies; and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation."
So it is really these corporations and foundations who are writing the NGSS. The people of this country and professional educators have already lost control of these standards. They are in the control of these corporations which is exactly what is to be feared, an unaccountable group gaining sway over national education standards.
The state of New York recently published some sample English language and mathematics Common Core questions for third graders. Jeff Nichols a parent of a 3rd grader responded, “Well, I looked at the sample 3rd grade ELA questions. Utterly bizarre (sic). I would never put this material in front of my 8-year-olds (avid, enthusiastic, proficient readers both). The Tolstoy translation is stilted and boring, and full of inappropriate vocabulary (hoarfrost? caftan? threshing-floor?) It's as though the selection were made to project this to the kids: "reading is excruciatingly dull and confusing; maybe you thought you could do it, but I'm here to tell you 8-year-olds are stupid and teachers (and test designers) are smart. You're going to have to work like a dog and suffer a lot if you want to pass this test." Honestly, I thought the practice tests that came home all year as homework were bad, but they were just meaty, unreadable trivial passages followed by absurd and confusing questions. This CC sample is worse: it's perverse, overtly hostile to young children. A former 3rd grade teacher commented, “I just looked at the 3rd grade math assessment and they are asking the children to understand algebra.” They are asking third graders to understand algebra because it is in the CCSS math standards for third grade. These standards and tests are not ready for prime time. They are being rushed through without regard for the possible damage.
Stephen Krashen is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. He recently wrote:
“The mediocre performance of American students on international tests seems to show that our schools are doing poorly. But students from middle-class homes who attend well-funded schools rank among the best in world on these tests, which means that teaching is not the problem. The problem is poverty. Our overall scores are unspectacular because so many American children live in poverty (23 percent, ranking us 34th out of 35 “economically advanced countries”).
“Poverty means inadequate nutrition and health care, and little access to books, all associated with lower school achievement. Addressing those needs will increase achievement and better the lives of millions of children.
“How can we pay for this? Reduce testing. The common core demands an astonishing increase in testing, far more than needed and far more than the already excessive amount required by No Child Left Behind.
….
“The cost will be enormous. New York City plans to spend over half a billion dollars on technology in schools, primarily so that students can take the electronically delivered national tests. Research shows that increasing testing does not increase achievement. A better investment is protecting children from the effects of poverty, in feeding the animal, not just weighing it.”
We are in a period in which states across the country are slashing education budgets but the CCSS which will cost billions up front for: text books; infrastructure such as high speed networks, new software and more computers; training; consultants; tests; and much more is being pushed through as if it were going to stop the end of civilization. This push to spend money we don’t have on standards that are not fully developed and are based on questionable pedagogical theory is unreasonable. The only thing certain about the CCSS is that a lot of private businesses will make a lot of money. A likely outcome of CCSS is less money will reach the classroom and another likely outcome is that education in America will be harmed!
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO TULTICAN ON WED JUL 18, 2012 AT 05:15 PM PDT.ALSO REPUBLISHED BY TEACHERS LOUNGE, EDUCATION ALTERNATIVES, ANDCOMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT.
Source Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/18/1111502/-Common-Core-State-Standards-Are-Dangerous
Original Source Link: Common Corporate State Standards and Other Obscenities http://www.dailykos.com/blog/tultican/
Another untested therefore dangerous theory is being foisted on public schools. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are still being written but we already have schedules for implementation. Budget strained school districts across the country are spending money on CCSS implementation. This is not a reasonable approach when radically changing education in America. A new airplane design is tested, a new marketing system is piloted but a radical and significant restructuring of public education is being instituted with no field tests. Diane Ravitch recently wrote, “The Common Core will be implemented in 45 states without that kind of trial. No one knows if they will raise expectations and achievement, whether they will have no effect, whether they will depress achievement, or whether they will be so rigorous that they increase the achievement gaps.” This risky endeavor with the future of America’s children should be abandoned. It is based on bad education philosophy; however, if this foolish approach to education reform cannot be stopped at the minimum it should be implemented in a prudent way. Slow down the entrepreneurs lusting for new business, be responsible stewards for America’s schools and run some thorough field tests on these proposed Common Core State Standards.
A recently released Brookings Institute Study called “The 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education: HOW WELL ARE AMERICAN STUDENTS LEARNING?” tells us “Don’t let the ferocity of the oncoming debate fool you. The empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will have little effect on American students’ achievement. The nation will have to look elsewhere for ways to improve its school”
The Professional Educators of Tennessee’s blog site has a primer on the CCSS which quotes several expert views:
“The Obama administration has pressed hard for the speedy acceptance of the so-called common core standards, arguing that the establishment of centralized norms replacing those in 50 states will raise the achievement of students who most need help. The opponents say that a system created in Washington will become captive to the education establishment, and that the standards, as currently written, will promote mediocrity across the board. …
“Critic Alfie Kohn, the author of a dozen books on education and human behavior, states ‘uniformity isn’t the same thing as excellence; high standards don’t require common standards. And neither does uniformity promote equity’….
“Sandra Stotsky a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas takes a different approach, but reaches a similar conclusion: ‘The Common Core standards may accomplish the goal of equalizing education but not in a way the supporters initially hoped: they may lead to more uniformly mediocre student achievement than we now have.…’
“Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested: ‘standards threaten to further routinize pedagogy, filling students with bits of reified knowledge — leaving behind the essence, the humanistic genius of liberal learning.’ Then Fuller points out: ‘The strange thing in all this is that the political left is now preaching the virtues of systems, uniformity and sacred knowledge. Lost are the virtues of liberal learning, going back to the Enlightenment when progressives first nudged educators to nurture in children a sense of curiosity and how to question dominant doctrine persuasively.’”
Jim Arnold Pelham City, Ga., school chief writes:
“Common Core is a standardized national curriculum. Why is this problematic? From an historical context, a centralized school curriculum serves the goals of totalitarian states. Jefferson warned us about that.
“There are additional issues: 1) there are few interdisciplinary connections between subjects. Research for many years has shown the positive effects of interdisciplinary connections on student learning and achievement; 2) citizenship, personal development and the promotion of democratic values is ignored.
“It is rather troubling to note the number of educational ‘reforms’ that ignore educational research, as if invoking the magic word ‘reform’ is enough to allow any imposition however implausible.
“With adoption of the Common Core standards, you can rest assured that Common Core standardized testing is not far behind. How can we expect a single, nationwide standardized ‘pick-a-bubble’ machine scored test to effectively measure what is taught in practically every school system in the United States? The documented testing issues we already see with state assessments will increase exponentially.”
Lynn Stoddard a retired educator from Utah and the author of four books on the need for authentic reform of public education wrote this month in the Deseret News, “One big problem with the Common Core Curriculum, recently adopted by Utah and 46 other states, is this feature. It specifies what all students should know and be able to do at grade-level check points. It pressures teachers, with excessive testing; to make students fit the curriculum. The testing draws forth low level teaching by trying to measure student growth in likenesses. Never mind that it's impossible to standardize students; the Common Core is exactly what it says it is, ‘common.’ It tries to make students "common" in knowledge and skills. It's a generic, narrow curriculum designed by subject matter specialists who have never even met the students it is designed to serve.”
There are several valid reasons why so many voices across the nation are speaking out against the CCSS. (1) They are untested, so no one knows whether they will work or not. (2) They are based on a bad theory of pedagogy. It is a theory of pedagogy that encourages direct instruction and the development of fact knowledge and the accountability portion will narrow curriculum. What is tested is what is taught in a high stakes environment. It is the behavioral theory of education that was promoted by Edgar Thorndike and BF Skinner. (3) Professionals in the classroom have had no authentic input into the standards development which means the standards are not likely to be appropriate for various aged students. They are being written by university professors, noble laureates and businessmen none of whom have a reputation for knowing how to teach even at the college level and are especially clueless about how to teach third graders. (4) Who has control over the standards is a big concern. Are the standards being perverted for various business or religious or political purposes?
In his recent book Teaching Minds, Roger Schank - the founder of the renowned Institute for Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, where he is John P. Evans Professor Emeritus in Computer Science, Education and Psychology – makes several important points about good pedagogy. He point out, “There is no evidence whatsoever that accumulation of facts and background knowledge are the same thing. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Facts learned out of context, and apart from actual real-world experience that is repeated over and over, are not retained.”
In another section of the book, Dr. Schank quotes many politicians and describes their lack of understanding about how people learn and why they support accountability. He states:
“Accountability must play well in Peoria because every politician is for it.
“Accountability must mean to voters, I assume, that teacher will be measured by how well they teach their students. Political candidates, always willing to hop on an uncontroversial point of view, are all quite certain that the voters know what they are talking about. No matter how stupid NCLB is, no matter how mean spirited, no matter how awful for both teachers and students, its very horror rests on the premise that no one seems to be disputing that the federal government has the right to tell the schools what to teach and to see whether they are indeed teaching it.”
In his book Dr. Schank excoriates the quality of teaching at universities. He attributes the poor quality of teaching to what he calls the star system in higher education. Universities that want high ratings look for Nobel Prize winners and other internationally famous professors. They do not look for good teachers. Dr. Schank himself came to Northwestern via the star system when Northwestern made him a better offer than Yale was willing to match. The point is that quality of teaching is not a consideration, yet these same professors who gained fame through the star system and not their understanding of pedagogy are writing the CCSS.
Dr. Schank shares and interesting anecdote to bolster this point:
“At MIT, where students are different than they are at Northwestern by quite a bit, there are a number of superstars that I know quite well. Two of them, whom I will not name but are about as famous as a professor can be, are people I have heard lecture many times. I have never understood what they were talking about in any of those lectures. Now, bear in mind that I know their fields very well so I should have been able to understand them. Also, bear in mind that I was a terrible student, which means my attention fades fast when I am bored or irritated.”
The CCSS are purported to be the result of a group of states voluntarily agreeing to a set of curricular standards. The reality is the Gates foundation paid to develop the standards, paid to evaluate the standards, and is underwriting Pearson’s program to create online courses and resources for the standards, which will be sold by Pearson, for a profit, to schools across the nation. We are told, “The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an effort led by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.” However, the reality is different. An example of the real process is the present Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) which are in progress. Officially the NGSS development is “a joint effort between the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve.” When queried about the NGSS the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Achieve are the only sites that give current information. The information at NSTA is illuminating:
“In a process managed by Achieve, 26 states are leading the development of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The science education community got a first glimpse of the NGSS draft when it was released during the first public comment period from May 11 through June 1. According to Achieve, the writers are now working to review all of the comments and develop a second draft to be released for public comment in the fall 2012. Achieve has removed the first draft from the web while it undergoes revision."
Achieve is the lead partner writing the science standards, but achieve is a private non-profit that is only accountable to its founders and donors. The Achieve web site lists their contributors:
"The Battelle Foundation; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; The Boeing Company; Brookhill Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Cisco Foundation; The GE Foundation; IBM Corporation; Intel Foundation; JP Morgan Chase Foundation; The Joyce Foundation; Lumina; MetLife Foundation; Nationwide; Noyce Foundation; The Prudential Foundation; Sandler Foundation; State Farm Insurance Companies; and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation."
So it is really these corporations and foundations who are writing the NGSS. The people of this country and professional educators have already lost control of these standards. They are in the control of these corporations which is exactly what is to be feared, an unaccountable group gaining sway over national education standards.
The state of New York recently published some sample English language and mathematics Common Core questions for third graders. Jeff Nichols a parent of a 3rd grader responded, “Well, I looked at the sample 3rd grade ELA questions. Utterly bizarre (sic). I would never put this material in front of my 8-year-olds (avid, enthusiastic, proficient readers both). The Tolstoy translation is stilted and boring, and full of inappropriate vocabulary (hoarfrost? caftan? threshing-floor?) It's as though the selection were made to project this to the kids: "reading is excruciatingly dull and confusing; maybe you thought you could do it, but I'm here to tell you 8-year-olds are stupid and teachers (and test designers) are smart. You're going to have to work like a dog and suffer a lot if you want to pass this test." Honestly, I thought the practice tests that came home all year as homework were bad, but they were just meaty, unreadable trivial passages followed by absurd and confusing questions. This CC sample is worse: it's perverse, overtly hostile to young children. A former 3rd grade teacher commented, “I just looked at the 3rd grade math assessment and they are asking the children to understand algebra.” They are asking third graders to understand algebra because it is in the CCSS math standards for third grade. These standards and tests are not ready for prime time. They are being rushed through without regard for the possible damage.
Stephen Krashen is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. He recently wrote:
“The mediocre performance of American students on international tests seems to show that our schools are doing poorly. But students from middle-class homes who attend well-funded schools rank among the best in world on these tests, which means that teaching is not the problem. The problem is poverty. Our overall scores are unspectacular because so many American children live in poverty (23 percent, ranking us 34th out of 35 “economically advanced countries”).
“Poverty means inadequate nutrition and health care, and little access to books, all associated with lower school achievement. Addressing those needs will increase achievement and better the lives of millions of children.
“How can we pay for this? Reduce testing. The common core demands an astonishing increase in testing, far more than needed and far more than the already excessive amount required by No Child Left Behind.
….
“The cost will be enormous. New York City plans to spend over half a billion dollars on technology in schools, primarily so that students can take the electronically delivered national tests. Research shows that increasing testing does not increase achievement. A better investment is protecting children from the effects of poverty, in feeding the animal, not just weighing it.”
We are in a period in which states across the country are slashing education budgets but the CCSS which will cost billions up front for: text books; infrastructure such as high speed networks, new software and more computers; training; consultants; tests; and much more is being pushed through as if it were going to stop the end of civilization. This push to spend money we don’t have on standards that are not fully developed and are based on questionable pedagogical theory is unreasonable. The only thing certain about the CCSS is that a lot of private businesses will make a lot of money. A likely outcome of CCSS is less money will reach the classroom and another likely outcome is that education in America will be harmed!
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO TULTICAN ON WED JUL 18, 2012 AT 05:15 PM PDT.ALSO REPUBLISHED BY TEACHERS LOUNGE, EDUCATION ALTERNATIVES, ANDCOMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT.
Common Core Standards And Assessments
By Janelle L. Rivers, PhD
Source Link: http://www.lwv.org/content/common-core-standards-and-assessments
IntroductionThe need for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has fostered interest in questions like these:
What are the current sources of information about academic standards and student achievement in the United States? Students who move from one part of the United States to another during their K-12 school careers are likely to encounter substantial variations in curriculum. Standards for student performance vary widely by state. States publish annual reports of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which are required by federal law, but the meaning of “proficient” in those reports can vary widely from one state to another (Cronin, Dahlin, Adkins, & Kingsbury, 2007). The roots of current state-to-state inconsistencies lie in the fact that public education in the United States has traditionally been a local responsibility. The tradition of local governance has led to inconsistent requirements and standards for student performance across the country.
Textbook publishers have created something of a de facto national curriculum, based on market needs. Consequently, many textbooks from major publishers have reflected the curricular choices that were made by educational groups in the largest states. Some publishers do create textbooks and other curricula for smaller markets. Large testing companies market a variety of norm-referenced standardized tests designed to compare performance of students across the country, but these tests are generally designed to rank students, rather than to determine how well students have mastered curricular objectives as criterion-referenced tests would do. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) publishes results that are technically adequate for state-to-state comparisons, but that assessment is not designed to produce individual student scores. NAEP requires a large sample of students to produce results for the local level; however, most school systems are too small to qualify for testing that would produce local NAEP results. Therefore, in 2010, the United States does not have a consistent set of academic standards for grades K-12. In fact, even high school graduation requirements vary widely across the 50 states (Achieve, 2010).
Furthermore, recent international comparisons of students in 60 countries and five other educational systems (Kerachsky, 2010) have shown that American 15-year-old students perform approximately at the average level in reading and science and lower than average in mathematics. Noted critics such as the late Gerald Bracey (2008) have cautioned against overly simplistic interpretation of these results, charging that the real underlying problem is that there is more poverty in the United States than in most of the countries in the international comparison.
As usual in these comparisons, Americans in low-poverty schools look very good, even in mathematics. They would be ranked third in the 4th grade (among 36 nations) and 6th in the 8th grade (among 47 nations). This is important because while other developed nations have poor children, the U. S. has a much higher proportion and a much weaker safety net. When UNICEF studied poverty in 22 wealthy nations, the U.S. ranked 21st. (Bracey, 2008)
The blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) references the decline in American education by tracking the decline among college graduates:
Today, more than ever, a world-class education is a prerequisite for success. America was once the best educated nation in the world. A generation ago, we led all nations in college completion, but today, 10 countries have passed us. It is not that their students are smarter than ours. It is that these countries are being smarter about how to educate their students. And the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. (p.1)
If state standards vary widely, then opportunities for learning, expectations for achievement and standards for performance will depend upon where students happen to live. Educational expectations of employers have increased steadily over the past half-century, and students who live in areas that continue to hold low expectations may not be prepared to compete in a global economy. In addition, if state standards vary widely, then states must develop, publish, administer, score and report on their own tests. Consequently, those states cannot hope to save money by pooling resources for efficiency.
What attempts have been made to create common standards?An Issue Brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education (Rothman, 2009) summarized the efforts of various groups to create common standards across the United States. Early efforts to foster development of national standards and a related system of assessments in the core subject areas began in 1992 through awarding of grants to a dozen national organizations. Now, the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has created a 50-states-and-50-tests environment in public education. Neither of these efforts brought about the hoped-for consensus to bring equity, efficiency and higher expectations to K-12 education in the United States.
Instead, each state has been allowed to develop its own tests and standards, which were approved by the U.S. Department of Education. The consequence in 2010 is that there is wide variation in rigor and content of both curriculum and assessments for accountability across the 50 states. This has led to wide state-to-state discrepancies in the level of achievement that is called “proficient” for reporting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for NCLB (Cronin, et al., 2007). These discrepancies are very evident when NAEP results are compared with state results. Similarly, at the end of high school, data from college admissions tests (ACT, 2010) reveal variations among states in expectations and performance resulting in a state-to-state range in the percent of students who met college readiness standards that varied from 10 percent to 37 percent in the 2009 data.
What is the Common Core State Standards Initiative?In an effort to bring more alignment, rigor, and consistency to student ‘proficiency’ and to foster improvement in college-and-career readiness across the nation, the National Governor’s Association (NGA), Common Core Standards Initiative 2010 and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) initiated the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI). It is important to note that this was a collaborative effort among groups with state representation; this was not a federal government initiative.
The developers (CCSI, 2010) collaborated with teachers, school administrators and experts, and then took into account over 10,000 public comments in order to develop standards that would provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare students for college and the workforce.
Forty-eight states and three U.S. territories supported the initiative, as did many organizations; however, Alaska and Texas did not participate (NGA, 2009). The final report was issued on June 2, 2010 (NGA, 2010).
The current standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics are posted on the Common Core Standards Initiative’s website. Anchor standards for College and Career Readiness (CCR) in reading, writing, speaking, listening, language and mathematics were developed first. The K-12 Standards provide grade-specific targets that lead toward attainment of the CCR standards in each subject area. The current Standards include literacy standards for science, social studies and technical subjects for grades 6-12. Consensus for content standards in science and social studies had not been developed as of winter 2010 (CCSI, 2010).
What are the arguments for and against adopting common educational standards for grades K-12?To answer the frequently asked question of why we need nation-wide standards for grades K-12, the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI, 2010) asserts:
We need standards to ensure that all students, no matter where they live, are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the workforce. Common standards will help ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Common standards will provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of students.
Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have so that teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms. Standards also help students and parents by setting clear and realistic goals for success. Standards are a first step – a key building block – in providing our young people with a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in college and work. Of course, standards are not the only thing that is needed for our children’s success, but they provide an accessible roadmap for our teachers, parents, and students.
Early childhood experts (Gerwertz, 2010), focused on development of children from kindergarten through third grade, have varied in their degree of support for the standards. Some saw value in having a common set of expectations, while others worried that the standards may be too narrow or that important standards could be misused.
The U.S. Department of Education has not required adoption of the standards as a condition of eligibility for federal funds. Recurring federal funds have been distributed to states according to previously established criteria, without regard to whether states adopted the Common Core. However, states that chose to apply for the competitive grant funds associated with the Barack Obama administration’s Race to the Top (RTTT) program were required to adopt the Common Core (U. S. Department of Education (USDE, 2009). The Obama administration’s blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA has indicated that in various grant competitions priority will be given to applications from states that have adopted the Common Core (U.S. Department of Education, 2010a).
The strongest arguments against adopting the Common Core Standards for K-12 seem to center on two issues: (1) the cost and difficulty of changing the existing curriculum and assessments and (2) the sovereignty of states in issues related to education. These arguments were articulated in a letter from Texas Governor Rick Perry to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The letter objected to the U.S. Department of Education’s requirement that states must have adopted the K-12 Common Core Standards as a condition for receiving RTTT competitive grant funding. Governor Perry (Perry, 2010) said:
I will not commit Texas taxpayers to unfunded federal obligations or to the adoption of unproven, cost-prohibitive national curriculum standards and tests. RTTT would amount to as little as $75 per student in one-time funding, yet the cost to Texas taxpayers to implement national standards and assessments could be up to an estimated $3 billion.
In the interest of preserving our state sovereignty over matters concerning education and shielding local schools from unwarranted federal intrusion into local district decision-making, Texas will not be submitting an application for RTTT funds.
Requiring adoption of the Common Core in the competition for RTTT funds appears to have influenced the majority of states to commit to making the change. Forty states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, had adopted the Common Core by December, 2010 (CCSI, 2010).
How do content and rigor of state standards compare with the Common Core?Governor Perry (Perry, 2010) raised a third argument, saying, “States agreeing to adopt these national curriculum standards would be hamstrung from adopting their own, more comprehensive standards.”
This argument has been addressed in two ways. Although the U.S. Department of Education (USDE, 2009) required states to adopt the Common Core in order to apply for grant funds associated with its RTTT competition, it gave states “the latitude to add 15 percent to the content of the standards to reflect state preferences and areas of emphasis.”
Secondly, the suggestion that state standards are likely to be more rigorous than the Common Core Standards has been thoroughly evaluated in a 373-page report from the Fordham Institute (Carmichael, Martino, Porter-Magee, & Wilson, 2010, pp. 3-4). The main points are summarized below:
What is the state of state standards in 2010? And how does the Common Core compare?
The Common Core math standards earn a grade of A-minus while the Common Core ELA standards earn a B-plus, both solidly in the honors range. Neither is perfect. Both are very, very strong.
Indeed the Common Core standards are clearer and more rigorous than the ELA and math standards presently used by the vast majority of states. Out of 102 comparisons—fifty-one jurisdictions times two subjects—we found the Common Core clearly superior seventy-six times.
But the story gets more complicated, because we also discovered that the present ELA standards of three jurisdictions—California, the District of Columbia, and Indiana—are clearly better than the Common Core. … Furthermore, the ELA standards of eleven other states are roughly equivalent in quality to the Common Core, or “too close to call.” … As for math, the current standards of eleven states plus the District of Columbia are roughly equivalent in quality to the Common Core, also “too close to call.”
With only a few exceptions, the Fordham Institute report (Carmichael, et al. 2010, pp 3-4) evaluated the Common Core standards very favorably, when compared with individual state standards. In only three of 102 comparisons were the state standards judged to be more rigorous than the Common Core.
Would rigorous standards improve achievement? A 2009 study published by the Brookings Institute (Whitehurst, 2009) concluded that there was no statistical association between ratings of the quality of state standards and state scores on NAEP. In fact, it is interesting to note that some of the low-performing states have some of the most rigorous standards. The explanation offered for this discrepant finding is that “high-quality common standards may affect student achievement only in a system in which there are also aligned assessments, aligned curriculum, accountability for educators, accountability for students, aligned professional development, managerial autonomy for school leaders, and teachers who are drawn from the best and brightest, and so on.” This finding echoes the concerns of educators and decision makers who understand that improvement occurs only when standards are effectively implemented in conjunction with other aspects of the educational system, such as curriculum and assessment.
A Fordham Institute report (Finn & Petrilli, 2010) discussed at least three possible models for implementing the Common Core Standards:
How will the Common Core be assessed? The norm-referenced tests that have been in widespread use across the United States do a good job of ranking students and identifying those who are particularly strong or particularly weak in academic skills; however, norm-referenced tests are not designed to measure how well students have mastered specific content and skills that are part of the curriculum. Instead, updated accountability systems will require new standardized criterion-referenced tests, which do measure mastery of a curriculum that is based on the Common Core.
The federal government is not planning a national test for this purpose. Instead two groups of states have combined resources to create options for assessing the common core. These assessments differ in many ways from the multiple-choice tests that have typically been used for state accountability in recent years.
Two coalitions, together representing 44 states and the District of Columbia, won a U.S. Department of Education competition for $330 million dollars federal aid to design “comprehensive assessment systems” aligned to the Common Core and designed to measure whether students are on track for college and career success. The awards, announced in September, 2010, (Robelen, 2010) were divided between the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), which consists of 26 states and received $170 million, and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), which consists of 31 states and received $160 million. At least twelve states participated in both coalitions and are waiting to decide which assessment system will best meet their needs.
The PARCC consortium (PARCC, 2010), led by the state of Florida, proposed a system that would include:
The development contracts call for both PARCC and SBAC systems to be ready for implementation by the 2014-2015 school year. In addition, two other consortia are developing alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities, which are also aligned to the Common Core (Jones, S.C. Department of Education Presentation at Instructional Leaders Roundtable, 2010a).
How would scores from Common-Core assessments be used?The developers of the Common-Core assessments have described ways that teachers could use the resulting information. Providing student achievement reports in a timely manner would be only one step in making use of test results. Staff development activities for teachers and administrators would have to address appropriate and inappropriate uses of score reports and help teachers find ways to use the resulting information to adjust instruction. Training teachers and administrators to interpret and use the score report information is important to the quality of implementation of the Common Core.
The American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2008), the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education have appointed a joint committee to revise the well established Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Joint Committee of the American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA] and National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME], 1999), which have long been “considered to be the definitive source for information concerning sound test development and use.” The Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education (Joint Committee of AERA, APA, and NCME, 2004), summarized the main principles of the Standards in a shorter document for distribution in the public domain. Both of these documents address important principles, such as “Avoid using a single test score as the sole determinant of decisions about test takers. Interpret test scores in conjunction with other information about individuals.”
The proposed assessments of the Common Core and the current interest in using test scores for evaluating teacher performance have created issues that were not addressed in earlier versions of the Standards. However, the planned revision gives measurement experts an opportunity to address the appropriateness of proposed uses of scores from the new assessments.
One critical set of issues involves the potential to use test scores in a variety of ways for accountability. Both of the development consortia are planning systems that allow for cross-state comparisons (Jones, Side-by-side overview of consortia of states, 2010b). Would there be sanctions or rewards associated with performance on standardized tests? Should any possible rewards or sanctions include awarding bonuses or withholding salary increases?
A poll conducted by TIME magazine (TIME, 2010) in August 2010, found that, within ±3 percentage points, 64 percent of Americans support the idea that teacher evaluations should be based in part on their students’ performance on standardized tests. With merit pay, as with many other appealing ideas, the “devil is in the details.”
The notion that merit pay for individual teachers would result in improved student achievement seems obvious until people begin to think about how to implement an effective merit pay system at the individual teacher level. The list of obstacles seems endless. The most obvious problem is that teaching assignments vary greatly from grade-to-grade, subject-to-subject and school-to-school. Another problem is that it simply is not feasible to require enough different standardized tests to measure all grades and content areas. A third problem is that any scheme that uses nothing but test scores to determine rewards or sanctions would leave out many important variables, such as the educational attainment of parents or the difficulty of educating children from families in poverty. Since many factors outside of school can affect test scores, other measures, such as observations of teaching performance, must be incorporated into any teacher’s evaluation. Furthermore, if classroom observations are included, it is critical that they be unannounced, so that they sample typical performance, rather than showcase lessons.
Anyone who attempts to devise a plan to use test scores in an equitable way to award merit pay must carefully consider the psychometric properties of a variety of tests and the statistical properties of various possible reward systems. Wisdom dictates that anyone who tries to design such a system must also consider the likely, but unintended, outcomes that would result. For example, a system that pits teachers against one another to compete for a limited pool of funds would likely foster competition instead of much-needed collaboration.
In August 2010, ten of the nation’s premier educational researchers (Baker, Barton, Darling-Hammond, Haertel, Ladd, Linn, Ravtich, Rothstein, Shavelson & Shepard, 2010) co-authored a report that cautioned against relying on student test scores, even in the popular value-added statistical models, as a major indicator for evaluating teachers. In its news release, the Economic Policy Institute (2010), noted the extraordinary credentials of this group of authors and summarized their caution to policy makers.
The distinguished authors of EPI’s report, Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, include four former presidents of the American Educational Research Association; two former presidents of the National Council on Measurement in Education; the current and two former chairs of the Board of Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences; the president-elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management; the former director of the Educational Testing Service's Policy Information Center and a former associate director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress; a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education; a former and current member of the National Assessment Governing Board; and the current vice-president, a former president, and three other members of the National Academy of Education.
The co-authors make clear that the accuracy and reliability of analyses of student test scores, even in their most sophisticated form, is highly problematic for high-stakes decisions regarding teachers. Consequently, policymakers and all stakeholders in education should rethink this new emphasis on the centrality of test scores for holding teachers accountable.
Some of the implementation problems associated with merit pay programs can be avoided by creating a system that rewards entire schools or teams of teachers, instead of individuals. However, Diane Ravitch (2010), a highly respected scholar, has pointed out that there is very little evidence to suggest that any proposal to use test data either to award bonuses or to fire teachers could be implemented fairly and effectively, simply because there are too many other confounding factors that affect the scores.
Some districts have offered bonuses to teachers who accept positions that are judged to be unusually difficult assignments. In summarizing the issues surrounding merit pay, Marshall (2010) concluded, “There is a role for monetary incentives in three areas: career-ladder opportunities for the most highly rated teachers to take on extra responsibilities for extra pay; incentives for the most effective teachers to work in high-need schools and subject areas; and denial of step-increases to teachers with mediocre ratings, (while, of course, moving to dismiss teachers with unsatisfactory ratings).”
What is the role of the federal government with respect to accountability?Since 1969, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2011) has reported results from NAEP, which is also known as the Nation’s Report Card. NAEP has conducted periodic national assessments in reading, mathematics, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, geography and other subjects. In 1990, NAEP began conducting and reporting results from voluntary state-level assessments (NCES, 2010). Since the NCLB reauthorization of the ESEA in 2001, states that receive Title I funding have been required to participate in state NAEP in reading and mathematics at grades 4 and 8 every two years.
Pursuant to the NCLB Legislation of 2001, the U.S. Department of Education (2010b) issued regulations detailing requirements for states to report results of peer-reviewed state assessments and outlining consequences for schools that receive Title I funds if they fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Schools that consistently fail to meet their targets face a series of increasingly onerous sanctions (Ravitch, 2010, pp. 97-98). The possible consequences include being required to allow students to transfer to successful schools and paying for their transportation, offering tutoring at public expense, and eventually restructuring the school. Options for resturcturing schools include converting to a charter school, replacing the principal and staff, and relinquishing control to private management or the state. There is not much evidence to support the effectiveness of any of these restructuring options (Ravitch, 104-105).
The blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2010a) has proposed modifying the state-by-state accountability measures by reporting graduation rates and measures of academic growth in addition to student academic achievement.
What happens next?Most, but not all, states have adopted the Common Core. Assessment consortia have begun working to develop new ways to measure achievement of the Common Core standards. State agencies have begun to develop implementation plans, but many teachers and administrators have had little or no exposure to the standards. The media has indicated that there is considerable interest in using test scores as part of evaluation and accountability systems, and professional measurement experts have agreed to collaborate on revised recommendations for appropriate test construction and appropriate uses of resulting scores. Still many questions remain unanswered.
The future of public education in the United States has become uncertain. Vouchers and tax credit proposals continue to compete for educational funds. Public schools in many places have reported that funding sources are inadequate. In recent years, an ever-increasing number of students have opted for online educational opportunities, either through public school options or through private providers. Gaps between historically underachieving groups and the rest of the population continue to exist. The Common Core has created an opportunity to achieve consistency and raise standards. The Common Core has also raised concerns about the latitude that local educators have to determine curriculum and set standards. Finally, state consortia have begun developing new assessments, but many questions remain as to how the resulting scores might be used or misused. Revision of the ESEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) looms on the horizon, and the role of the federal government in supporting and regulating public education could be redefined in numerous ways.
Bibliography
By Janelle L. Rivers, PhD
Source Link: http://www.lwv.org/content/common-core-standards-and-assessments
IntroductionThe need for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has fostered interest in questions like these:
- What are the current sources of information about academic standards and student achievement in the United States?
- What attempts have been made to create common standards?
- What is the Common Core State Standards Initiative?
- What are the arguments for and against adopting common educational standards for grades K-12?
- How do content and rigor of state standards compare with the Common Core?
- Would rigorous standards improve achievement?
- How will the Common Core be assessed?
- How would scores from Common-Core assessments be used?
- What is the role of the federal government with respect to accountability?
What are the current sources of information about academic standards and student achievement in the United States? Students who move from one part of the United States to another during their K-12 school careers are likely to encounter substantial variations in curriculum. Standards for student performance vary widely by state. States publish annual reports of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which are required by federal law, but the meaning of “proficient” in those reports can vary widely from one state to another (Cronin, Dahlin, Adkins, & Kingsbury, 2007). The roots of current state-to-state inconsistencies lie in the fact that public education in the United States has traditionally been a local responsibility. The tradition of local governance has led to inconsistent requirements and standards for student performance across the country.
Textbook publishers have created something of a de facto national curriculum, based on market needs. Consequently, many textbooks from major publishers have reflected the curricular choices that were made by educational groups in the largest states. Some publishers do create textbooks and other curricula for smaller markets. Large testing companies market a variety of norm-referenced standardized tests designed to compare performance of students across the country, but these tests are generally designed to rank students, rather than to determine how well students have mastered curricular objectives as criterion-referenced tests would do. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) publishes results that are technically adequate for state-to-state comparisons, but that assessment is not designed to produce individual student scores. NAEP requires a large sample of students to produce results for the local level; however, most school systems are too small to qualify for testing that would produce local NAEP results. Therefore, in 2010, the United States does not have a consistent set of academic standards for grades K-12. In fact, even high school graduation requirements vary widely across the 50 states (Achieve, 2010).
Furthermore, recent international comparisons of students in 60 countries and five other educational systems (Kerachsky, 2010) have shown that American 15-year-old students perform approximately at the average level in reading and science and lower than average in mathematics. Noted critics such as the late Gerald Bracey (2008) have cautioned against overly simplistic interpretation of these results, charging that the real underlying problem is that there is more poverty in the United States than in most of the countries in the international comparison.
As usual in these comparisons, Americans in low-poverty schools look very good, even in mathematics. They would be ranked third in the 4th grade (among 36 nations) and 6th in the 8th grade (among 47 nations). This is important because while other developed nations have poor children, the U. S. has a much higher proportion and a much weaker safety net. When UNICEF studied poverty in 22 wealthy nations, the U.S. ranked 21st. (Bracey, 2008)
The blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) references the decline in American education by tracking the decline among college graduates:
Today, more than ever, a world-class education is a prerequisite for success. America was once the best educated nation in the world. A generation ago, we led all nations in college completion, but today, 10 countries have passed us. It is not that their students are smarter than ours. It is that these countries are being smarter about how to educate their students. And the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. (p.1)
If state standards vary widely, then opportunities for learning, expectations for achievement and standards for performance will depend upon where students happen to live. Educational expectations of employers have increased steadily over the past half-century, and students who live in areas that continue to hold low expectations may not be prepared to compete in a global economy. In addition, if state standards vary widely, then states must develop, publish, administer, score and report on their own tests. Consequently, those states cannot hope to save money by pooling resources for efficiency.
What attempts have been made to create common standards?An Issue Brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education (Rothman, 2009) summarized the efforts of various groups to create common standards across the United States. Early efforts to foster development of national standards and a related system of assessments in the core subject areas began in 1992 through awarding of grants to a dozen national organizations. Now, the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has created a 50-states-and-50-tests environment in public education. Neither of these efforts brought about the hoped-for consensus to bring equity, efficiency and higher expectations to K-12 education in the United States.
Instead, each state has been allowed to develop its own tests and standards, which were approved by the U.S. Department of Education. The consequence in 2010 is that there is wide variation in rigor and content of both curriculum and assessments for accountability across the 50 states. This has led to wide state-to-state discrepancies in the level of achievement that is called “proficient” for reporting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for NCLB (Cronin, et al., 2007). These discrepancies are very evident when NAEP results are compared with state results. Similarly, at the end of high school, data from college admissions tests (ACT, 2010) reveal variations among states in expectations and performance resulting in a state-to-state range in the percent of students who met college readiness standards that varied from 10 percent to 37 percent in the 2009 data.
What is the Common Core State Standards Initiative?In an effort to bring more alignment, rigor, and consistency to student ‘proficiency’ and to foster improvement in college-and-career readiness across the nation, the National Governor’s Association (NGA), Common Core Standards Initiative 2010 and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) initiated the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI). It is important to note that this was a collaborative effort among groups with state representation; this was not a federal government initiative.
The developers (CCSI, 2010) collaborated with teachers, school administrators and experts, and then took into account over 10,000 public comments in order to develop standards that would provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare students for college and the workforce.
Forty-eight states and three U.S. territories supported the initiative, as did many organizations; however, Alaska and Texas did not participate (NGA, 2009). The final report was issued on June 2, 2010 (NGA, 2010).
The current standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics are posted on the Common Core Standards Initiative’s website. Anchor standards for College and Career Readiness (CCR) in reading, writing, speaking, listening, language and mathematics were developed first. The K-12 Standards provide grade-specific targets that lead toward attainment of the CCR standards in each subject area. The current Standards include literacy standards for science, social studies and technical subjects for grades 6-12. Consensus for content standards in science and social studies had not been developed as of winter 2010 (CCSI, 2010).
What are the arguments for and against adopting common educational standards for grades K-12?To answer the frequently asked question of why we need nation-wide standards for grades K-12, the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI, 2010) asserts:
We need standards to ensure that all students, no matter where they live, are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the workforce. Common standards will help ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Common standards will provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of students.
Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have so that teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms. Standards also help students and parents by setting clear and realistic goals for success. Standards are a first step – a key building block – in providing our young people with a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in college and work. Of course, standards are not the only thing that is needed for our children’s success, but they provide an accessible roadmap for our teachers, parents, and students.
Early childhood experts (Gerwertz, 2010), focused on development of children from kindergarten through third grade, have varied in their degree of support for the standards. Some saw value in having a common set of expectations, while others worried that the standards may be too narrow or that important standards could be misused.
The U.S. Department of Education has not required adoption of the standards as a condition of eligibility for federal funds. Recurring federal funds have been distributed to states according to previously established criteria, without regard to whether states adopted the Common Core. However, states that chose to apply for the competitive grant funds associated with the Barack Obama administration’s Race to the Top (RTTT) program were required to adopt the Common Core (U. S. Department of Education (USDE, 2009). The Obama administration’s blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA has indicated that in various grant competitions priority will be given to applications from states that have adopted the Common Core (U.S. Department of Education, 2010a).
The strongest arguments against adopting the Common Core Standards for K-12 seem to center on two issues: (1) the cost and difficulty of changing the existing curriculum and assessments and (2) the sovereignty of states in issues related to education. These arguments were articulated in a letter from Texas Governor Rick Perry to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The letter objected to the U.S. Department of Education’s requirement that states must have adopted the K-12 Common Core Standards as a condition for receiving RTTT competitive grant funding. Governor Perry (Perry, 2010) said:
I will not commit Texas taxpayers to unfunded federal obligations or to the adoption of unproven, cost-prohibitive national curriculum standards and tests. RTTT would amount to as little as $75 per student in one-time funding, yet the cost to Texas taxpayers to implement national standards and assessments could be up to an estimated $3 billion.
In the interest of preserving our state sovereignty over matters concerning education and shielding local schools from unwarranted federal intrusion into local district decision-making, Texas will not be submitting an application for RTTT funds.
Requiring adoption of the Common Core in the competition for RTTT funds appears to have influenced the majority of states to commit to making the change. Forty states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, had adopted the Common Core by December, 2010 (CCSI, 2010).
How do content and rigor of state standards compare with the Common Core?Governor Perry (Perry, 2010) raised a third argument, saying, “States agreeing to adopt these national curriculum standards would be hamstrung from adopting their own, more comprehensive standards.”
This argument has been addressed in two ways. Although the U.S. Department of Education (USDE, 2009) required states to adopt the Common Core in order to apply for grant funds associated with its RTTT competition, it gave states “the latitude to add 15 percent to the content of the standards to reflect state preferences and areas of emphasis.”
Secondly, the suggestion that state standards are likely to be more rigorous than the Common Core Standards has been thoroughly evaluated in a 373-page report from the Fordham Institute (Carmichael, Martino, Porter-Magee, & Wilson, 2010, pp. 3-4). The main points are summarized below:
What is the state of state standards in 2010? And how does the Common Core compare?
The Common Core math standards earn a grade of A-minus while the Common Core ELA standards earn a B-plus, both solidly in the honors range. Neither is perfect. Both are very, very strong.
Indeed the Common Core standards are clearer and more rigorous than the ELA and math standards presently used by the vast majority of states. Out of 102 comparisons—fifty-one jurisdictions times two subjects—we found the Common Core clearly superior seventy-six times.
But the story gets more complicated, because we also discovered that the present ELA standards of three jurisdictions—California, the District of Columbia, and Indiana—are clearly better than the Common Core. … Furthermore, the ELA standards of eleven other states are roughly equivalent in quality to the Common Core, or “too close to call.” … As for math, the current standards of eleven states plus the District of Columbia are roughly equivalent in quality to the Common Core, also “too close to call.”
With only a few exceptions, the Fordham Institute report (Carmichael, et al. 2010, pp 3-4) evaluated the Common Core standards very favorably, when compared with individual state standards. In only three of 102 comparisons were the state standards judged to be more rigorous than the Common Core.
Would rigorous standards improve achievement? A 2009 study published by the Brookings Institute (Whitehurst, 2009) concluded that there was no statistical association between ratings of the quality of state standards and state scores on NAEP. In fact, it is interesting to note that some of the low-performing states have some of the most rigorous standards. The explanation offered for this discrepant finding is that “high-quality common standards may affect student achievement only in a system in which there are also aligned assessments, aligned curriculum, accountability for educators, accountability for students, aligned professional development, managerial autonomy for school leaders, and teachers who are drawn from the best and brightest, and so on.” This finding echoes the concerns of educators and decision makers who understand that improvement occurs only when standards are effectively implemented in conjunction with other aspects of the educational system, such as curriculum and assessment.
A Fordham Institute report (Finn & Petrilli, 2010) discussed at least three possible models for implementing the Common Core Standards:
- Create a powerful national governing board to oversee implementation of the Common Core and related assessments,
- Stay with the status quo, leaving implementation to districts, states and the market and have the CCSSI update the standards every five or ten years, and
- Set up an interim coordinating council, funded by private foundations and state dues and possibly some federal funds, to promote information sharing and capacity building among states, conduct research to track implementation of the Standards, and recommend a long-term governance strategy.
How will the Common Core be assessed? The norm-referenced tests that have been in widespread use across the United States do a good job of ranking students and identifying those who are particularly strong or particularly weak in academic skills; however, norm-referenced tests are not designed to measure how well students have mastered specific content and skills that are part of the curriculum. Instead, updated accountability systems will require new standardized criterion-referenced tests, which do measure mastery of a curriculum that is based on the Common Core.
The federal government is not planning a national test for this purpose. Instead two groups of states have combined resources to create options for assessing the common core. These assessments differ in many ways from the multiple-choice tests that have typically been used for state accountability in recent years.
Two coalitions, together representing 44 states and the District of Columbia, won a U.S. Department of Education competition for $330 million dollars federal aid to design “comprehensive assessment systems” aligned to the Common Core and designed to measure whether students are on track for college and career success. The awards, announced in September, 2010, (Robelen, 2010) were divided between the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), which consists of 26 states and received $170 million, and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), which consists of 31 states and received $160 million. At least twelve states participated in both coalitions and are waiting to decide which assessment system will best meet their needs.
The PARCC consortium (PARCC, 2010), led by the state of Florida, proposed a system that would include:
- several assessments offered at key times during year to provide feedback and allow teachers to make adjustments,
- streamlined end-of-year assessments,
- administration of assessments via computer to allow faster turn-around of results and allow developers to include new types of test items (students in the early grades may respond on paper until they have developed adequate computer skills), and
- sophisticated items and performance tasks, including innovative computer-enhanced items designed to measure a wide range of knowledge and skills.
- the required summative exams (offered twice each school year),
- optional formative or benchmark exams,
- a variety of tools, processes and practices that teachers may use in planning and implementing informal, ongoing assessment to assist teachers in understanding what students are and are not learning on a daily basis so they can adjust instruction accordingly, and
- a paper-and-pencil option, which will be offered for the first three years.
The development contracts call for both PARCC and SBAC systems to be ready for implementation by the 2014-2015 school year. In addition, two other consortia are developing alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities, which are also aligned to the Common Core (Jones, S.C. Department of Education Presentation at Instructional Leaders Roundtable, 2010a).
How would scores from Common-Core assessments be used?The developers of the Common-Core assessments have described ways that teachers could use the resulting information. Providing student achievement reports in a timely manner would be only one step in making use of test results. Staff development activities for teachers and administrators would have to address appropriate and inappropriate uses of score reports and help teachers find ways to use the resulting information to adjust instruction. Training teachers and administrators to interpret and use the score report information is important to the quality of implementation of the Common Core.
The American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2008), the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education have appointed a joint committee to revise the well established Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Joint Committee of the American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA] and National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME], 1999), which have long been “considered to be the definitive source for information concerning sound test development and use.” The Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education (Joint Committee of AERA, APA, and NCME, 2004), summarized the main principles of the Standards in a shorter document for distribution in the public domain. Both of these documents address important principles, such as “Avoid using a single test score as the sole determinant of decisions about test takers. Interpret test scores in conjunction with other information about individuals.”
The proposed assessments of the Common Core and the current interest in using test scores for evaluating teacher performance have created issues that were not addressed in earlier versions of the Standards. However, the planned revision gives measurement experts an opportunity to address the appropriateness of proposed uses of scores from the new assessments.
One critical set of issues involves the potential to use test scores in a variety of ways for accountability. Both of the development consortia are planning systems that allow for cross-state comparisons (Jones, Side-by-side overview of consortia of states, 2010b). Would there be sanctions or rewards associated with performance on standardized tests? Should any possible rewards or sanctions include awarding bonuses or withholding salary increases?
A poll conducted by TIME magazine (TIME, 2010) in August 2010, found that, within ±3 percentage points, 64 percent of Americans support the idea that teacher evaluations should be based in part on their students’ performance on standardized tests. With merit pay, as with many other appealing ideas, the “devil is in the details.”
The notion that merit pay for individual teachers would result in improved student achievement seems obvious until people begin to think about how to implement an effective merit pay system at the individual teacher level. The list of obstacles seems endless. The most obvious problem is that teaching assignments vary greatly from grade-to-grade, subject-to-subject and school-to-school. Another problem is that it simply is not feasible to require enough different standardized tests to measure all grades and content areas. A third problem is that any scheme that uses nothing but test scores to determine rewards or sanctions would leave out many important variables, such as the educational attainment of parents or the difficulty of educating children from families in poverty. Since many factors outside of school can affect test scores, other measures, such as observations of teaching performance, must be incorporated into any teacher’s evaluation. Furthermore, if classroom observations are included, it is critical that they be unannounced, so that they sample typical performance, rather than showcase lessons.
Anyone who attempts to devise a plan to use test scores in an equitable way to award merit pay must carefully consider the psychometric properties of a variety of tests and the statistical properties of various possible reward systems. Wisdom dictates that anyone who tries to design such a system must also consider the likely, but unintended, outcomes that would result. For example, a system that pits teachers against one another to compete for a limited pool of funds would likely foster competition instead of much-needed collaboration.
In August 2010, ten of the nation’s premier educational researchers (Baker, Barton, Darling-Hammond, Haertel, Ladd, Linn, Ravtich, Rothstein, Shavelson & Shepard, 2010) co-authored a report that cautioned against relying on student test scores, even in the popular value-added statistical models, as a major indicator for evaluating teachers. In its news release, the Economic Policy Institute (2010), noted the extraordinary credentials of this group of authors and summarized their caution to policy makers.
The distinguished authors of EPI’s report, Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, include four former presidents of the American Educational Research Association; two former presidents of the National Council on Measurement in Education; the current and two former chairs of the Board of Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences; the president-elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management; the former director of the Educational Testing Service's Policy Information Center and a former associate director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress; a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education; a former and current member of the National Assessment Governing Board; and the current vice-president, a former president, and three other members of the National Academy of Education.
The co-authors make clear that the accuracy and reliability of analyses of student test scores, even in their most sophisticated form, is highly problematic for high-stakes decisions regarding teachers. Consequently, policymakers and all stakeholders in education should rethink this new emphasis on the centrality of test scores for holding teachers accountable.
Some of the implementation problems associated with merit pay programs can be avoided by creating a system that rewards entire schools or teams of teachers, instead of individuals. However, Diane Ravitch (2010), a highly respected scholar, has pointed out that there is very little evidence to suggest that any proposal to use test data either to award bonuses or to fire teachers could be implemented fairly and effectively, simply because there are too many other confounding factors that affect the scores.
Some districts have offered bonuses to teachers who accept positions that are judged to be unusually difficult assignments. In summarizing the issues surrounding merit pay, Marshall (2010) concluded, “There is a role for monetary incentives in three areas: career-ladder opportunities for the most highly rated teachers to take on extra responsibilities for extra pay; incentives for the most effective teachers to work in high-need schools and subject areas; and denial of step-increases to teachers with mediocre ratings, (while, of course, moving to dismiss teachers with unsatisfactory ratings).”
What is the role of the federal government with respect to accountability?Since 1969, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2011) has reported results from NAEP, which is also known as the Nation’s Report Card. NAEP has conducted periodic national assessments in reading, mathematics, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, geography and other subjects. In 1990, NAEP began conducting and reporting results from voluntary state-level assessments (NCES, 2010). Since the NCLB reauthorization of the ESEA in 2001, states that receive Title I funding have been required to participate in state NAEP in reading and mathematics at grades 4 and 8 every two years.
Pursuant to the NCLB Legislation of 2001, the U.S. Department of Education (2010b) issued regulations detailing requirements for states to report results of peer-reviewed state assessments and outlining consequences for schools that receive Title I funds if they fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Schools that consistently fail to meet their targets face a series of increasingly onerous sanctions (Ravitch, 2010, pp. 97-98). The possible consequences include being required to allow students to transfer to successful schools and paying for their transportation, offering tutoring at public expense, and eventually restructuring the school. Options for resturcturing schools include converting to a charter school, replacing the principal and staff, and relinquishing control to private management or the state. There is not much evidence to support the effectiveness of any of these restructuring options (Ravitch, 104-105).
The blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2010a) has proposed modifying the state-by-state accountability measures by reporting graduation rates and measures of academic growth in addition to student academic achievement.
What happens next?Most, but not all, states have adopted the Common Core. Assessment consortia have begun working to develop new ways to measure achievement of the Common Core standards. State agencies have begun to develop implementation plans, but many teachers and administrators have had little or no exposure to the standards. The media has indicated that there is considerable interest in using test scores as part of evaluation and accountability systems, and professional measurement experts have agreed to collaborate on revised recommendations for appropriate test construction and appropriate uses of resulting scores. Still many questions remain unanswered.
The future of public education in the United States has become uncertain. Vouchers and tax credit proposals continue to compete for educational funds. Public schools in many places have reported that funding sources are inadequate. In recent years, an ever-increasing number of students have opted for online educational opportunities, either through public school options or through private providers. Gaps between historically underachieving groups and the rest of the population continue to exist. The Common Core has created an opportunity to achieve consistency and raise standards. The Common Core has also raised concerns about the latitude that local educators have to determine curriculum and set standards. Finally, state consortia have begun developing new assessments, but many questions remain as to how the resulting scores might be used or misused. Revision of the ESEA (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) looms on the horizon, and the role of the federal government in supporting and regulating public education could be redefined in numerous ways.
Bibliography
A Common Core legal mess in — where else? — Florida
Source Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/20/a-common-core-legal-mess-in-where-else-florida/
This isn’t the way it was supposed to work, but…. there’s a legal battle in the state of Florida over part of the implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
Education Week chronicles in this article why Tallahassee-based Infinity Software Development filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Education over a Web site it was hired to build to help students and teachers prepare for the new standards and related curriculum and assessments, and why, a week after the lawsuit was filed, the department terminated its $20 million contract with the firm.
“Common Core” refers to a set of new standards in math and English/Language Arts that have been accepted by most states — at the urging of the Obama administration. New standardized tests are being designed to go along with the standards. Supporters say they elevate and standardize academic standards across the country; critics attack the standards for a number of reasons, which you can see here.
The Web site that the state of Florida contracted for — which was to feature lessons and assessments — was already supposed to be up and running, Ed Week reports. The idea was to allow students and teachers to start preparing for the implementation of new Common Core-aligned curriculum in 2014, with the new standardized tests set to begin in the 2014-15 school year.
Florida, it turns out, had originally given the contract to build the Web site to Microsoft Corp. in 2011 but Infinity successfully challenged that contract award by arguing that Microsoft’s intent to keep ownership of the software went against the best interests of the state. But from the start of the contract there were tensions between the company and the state, Ed Week reports, with both sides accusing the other of bad behavior. According to the story:
A particularly heated exchange arose over allegations that Infinity wasn’t properly submitting content produced for the website to a panel of experts, as required, and that factual errors resulted.
For example, one civics lesson suggested a discussion on the meaning of “the pursuit of happiness” in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, though the phrase is actually found in the Declaration of Independence, the department said. In response, Mr. Taylor said the department didn’t understand the point of the lesson, which was to draw comparisons between the ideals in both documents.
Read the whole story here. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/14/12infinity.h32.html?tkn=VYLFasCwbjXSWMCRiG3DMYWUeXRJKd2%2BYOMK&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
Common-Core Deal in Florida Sparks Legal Feud
Lawsuit filed after state terminates contractBy
Jason Tomassini and Nikhita Venugopal
If the implementation of the Common Core State Standards is an opportunity for government and the private sector to work together toward a mutual goal, a bitter dispute in Florida over a website planned to prepare teachers and students for the standards is proving the messy realities of what can happen when government agencies and private companies can't get along.
The Florida Department of Education terminated a $20 million contract with Infinity Software Development on Oct. 30, about a week after the company filed a lawsuit against interim Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart. The dueling public disclosures outlined a bitter dispute in which both sides claim the other acted too slowly and too sloppily on the project.
While the project is in litigation, Florida educators are left without a preparation resource officials expected would be in use by now, in advance of the curriculum being in place by 2014. Assessments for the common standards are set to begin in the 2014-15 school year.
"It's the definition of building a car while it's careening downhill at 60 miles per hour," said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
Complex RelationshipsAs a majority of states scramble to meet the common academic standards that were unveiled in 2010, Florida's dispute could serve as a cautionary tale for the unusually complex public-private relationships developing to make sure the new standards are used in classrooms.
"It's one thing to procure for buses and desks, but if you're procuring for a more complicated product, you need more expertise and resources to manage contracts," said Douglas Levin, the executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, or SETDA, based in Glen Burnie, Md. "It needs to be a collaborative effort, and the state needs to take a leadership approach."
Last December, Florida's education department signed the contract with Infinity, an established software company based in Tallahassee. Infinity would create a website for students and teachers featuring mini-assessments and lessons aligned with the common standards and Florida's Next Generation Sunshine State Standards that were adopted in 2007. Tutorials in high school biology, English/language arts, civics, and mathematics would prepare students for more rigorous state testing, and eventually the common assessments, which are being developed in the common-core subjects of English/language arts and math.
Infinity earned the contract in a roundabout way. Florida had initially turned to the Microsoft Corp. to develop the website in early 2011. However, Infinity challenged the contract, claiming Microsoft's intent to retain ownership of the software was not in the state's best interest, according to the Associated Press. Infinity won the contract in July 2011 and signed it a few months later.
Poor Communication?Right away, the relationship went bad, according to court documents and correspondence between the two parties. Infinity accused the education department of not altering the contract's timetable to account for Microsoft's dismissal, and of missing review deadlines. The department claimed the company missed its initial deadlines and had fallen six months behind schedule.
Both sides accused the other of missing meetings and communicating poorly. The department said Infinity "thwarted" efforts to "foster an environment of cooperation and support," accusations that Jon Taylor, Infinity's president, called "inaccurate and offensive."
A particularly heated exchange arose over allegations that Infinity wasn't properly submitting content produced for the website to a panel of experts, as required, and that factual errors resulted.
For example, one civics lesson suggested a discussion on the meaning of "the pursuit of happiness" in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, though the phrase is actually found in the Declaration of Independence, the department said. In response, Mr. Taylor said the department didn't understand the point of the lesson, which was to draw comparisons between the ideals in both documents.
Students were supposed to begin work on the site last month, and in an Oct. 3 letter, the department said it would be "extremely damaging" if lessons weren't delivered this school year. On Oct. 22, Infinity sued the state, and a week later the state terminated the contract.
Infinity, which told the AP it laid off 17 employees and halted work with 100 contracts because of the situation, requested a payment of $3.23 million for the completed work.
The state education department reportedly has spent nearly $2.5 million on the project already, according to the AP. The department is now in the process of rebidding the contract, the letter of termination says.
Test scores suggest there is a need for the resources. Just a few months ago, a more rigorous Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, caused student scores toplunge and led the state's board of education to lower the test's passing score.
The education department declined to comment about the legal feud.
Mr. Taylor also declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal situation, but issued a statement. "Our goal was to reach a resolution that would be in the best interest of everyone, especially Florida's students and educators," he said. "Unfortunately, it now appears that a fair, objective arbiter, in this case the courts, may be the best means to addressing our concerns."
'Ambitious Project'Florida is not the only state looking for large-scale ways to use technology to prepare for the common standards, Mr. Levin of SETDA said.
Massachusetts and Ohio are negotiating with vendors to build a shared, comprehensive training and classroom-management website for teachers in both states. It will be Ohio's first statewide online instructional system, said John Charlton, a spokesman for the Ohio education department. In addition to serving as a digital repository for lessons aligned with the common core, the site will allow for creation and delivery of lessons and assessments, search of online educational resources, and student data reporting and analysis.
"It's an ambitious project," Mr. Charlton said.
Complex projects, like the one Infinity was hired for, bring with them difficult management decisions. In August, the Florida education department asked to meet with Infinity to discuss "turning over the content-development portion" of the contract to the state. It appears that Infinity hired subcontractors to help create content aligned with the common standards for the site, and the department wasn't satisfied with the quality.
The content creation was too "intertwined" with the technology component for the responsibilities to be separated, Infinity responded.
Disputes over content development could become more frequent on common-core projects, because the standards are such a large shift for educators, administrators, and vendors, Mr. Levin said. And with budget and personnel constraints, that content development could be increasingly contracted and subcontracted to parties further from the classroom.
"Staffing levels are only going in one direction," Mr. Levin said. "This is more complicated work than states have done before." He added: "Departments absolutely have expertise, but they have few experts."
Coverage of the education industry and K-12 innovation is supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Comment by kafkateach - Hmm...so Microsoft stands to make mucho millions off of the Common Core. The Gates foundation has been pushing the Common Core and basically owns the Department of Ed and every school district in America. How very philanthropic of Mr. Gates!
Comment by EduMich - Did anyone really believe it was all in the name of altruistically helping students achieve at higher levels???? I believe the right always claims the best social-welfare program is a good job. So why does Mr. Gates and other business leaders send so many of their good paying jobs to China?
Source Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/20/a-common-core-legal-mess-in-where-else-florida/
This isn’t the way it was supposed to work, but…. there’s a legal battle in the state of Florida over part of the implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
Education Week chronicles in this article why Tallahassee-based Infinity Software Development filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Education over a Web site it was hired to build to help students and teachers prepare for the new standards and related curriculum and assessments, and why, a week after the lawsuit was filed, the department terminated its $20 million contract with the firm.
“Common Core” refers to a set of new standards in math and English/Language Arts that have been accepted by most states — at the urging of the Obama administration. New standardized tests are being designed to go along with the standards. Supporters say they elevate and standardize academic standards across the country; critics attack the standards for a number of reasons, which you can see here.
The Web site that the state of Florida contracted for — which was to feature lessons and assessments — was already supposed to be up and running, Ed Week reports. The idea was to allow students and teachers to start preparing for the implementation of new Common Core-aligned curriculum in 2014, with the new standardized tests set to begin in the 2014-15 school year.
Florida, it turns out, had originally given the contract to build the Web site to Microsoft Corp. in 2011 but Infinity successfully challenged that contract award by arguing that Microsoft’s intent to keep ownership of the software went against the best interests of the state. But from the start of the contract there were tensions between the company and the state, Ed Week reports, with both sides accusing the other of bad behavior. According to the story:
A particularly heated exchange arose over allegations that Infinity wasn’t properly submitting content produced for the website to a panel of experts, as required, and that factual errors resulted.
For example, one civics lesson suggested a discussion on the meaning of “the pursuit of happiness” in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, though the phrase is actually found in the Declaration of Independence, the department said. In response, Mr. Taylor said the department didn’t understand the point of the lesson, which was to draw comparisons between the ideals in both documents.
Read the whole story here. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/14/12infinity.h32.html?tkn=VYLFasCwbjXSWMCRiG3DMYWUeXRJKd2%2BYOMK&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
Common-Core Deal in Florida Sparks Legal Feud
Lawsuit filed after state terminates contractBy
Jason Tomassini and Nikhita Venugopal
If the implementation of the Common Core State Standards is an opportunity for government and the private sector to work together toward a mutual goal, a bitter dispute in Florida over a website planned to prepare teachers and students for the standards is proving the messy realities of what can happen when government agencies and private companies can't get along.
The Florida Department of Education terminated a $20 million contract with Infinity Software Development on Oct. 30, about a week after the company filed a lawsuit against interim Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart. The dueling public disclosures outlined a bitter dispute in which both sides claim the other acted too slowly and too sloppily on the project.
While the project is in litigation, Florida educators are left without a preparation resource officials expected would be in use by now, in advance of the curriculum being in place by 2014. Assessments for the common standards are set to begin in the 2014-15 school year.
"It's the definition of building a car while it's careening downhill at 60 miles per hour," said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
Complex RelationshipsAs a majority of states scramble to meet the common academic standards that were unveiled in 2010, Florida's dispute could serve as a cautionary tale for the unusually complex public-private relationships developing to make sure the new standards are used in classrooms.
"It's one thing to procure for buses and desks, but if you're procuring for a more complicated product, you need more expertise and resources to manage contracts," said Douglas Levin, the executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, or SETDA, based in Glen Burnie, Md. "It needs to be a collaborative effort, and the state needs to take a leadership approach."
Last December, Florida's education department signed the contract with Infinity, an established software company based in Tallahassee. Infinity would create a website for students and teachers featuring mini-assessments and lessons aligned with the common standards and Florida's Next Generation Sunshine State Standards that were adopted in 2007. Tutorials in high school biology, English/language arts, civics, and mathematics would prepare students for more rigorous state testing, and eventually the common assessments, which are being developed in the common-core subjects of English/language arts and math.
Infinity earned the contract in a roundabout way. Florida had initially turned to the Microsoft Corp. to develop the website in early 2011. However, Infinity challenged the contract, claiming Microsoft's intent to retain ownership of the software was not in the state's best interest, according to the Associated Press. Infinity won the contract in July 2011 and signed it a few months later.
Poor Communication?Right away, the relationship went bad, according to court documents and correspondence between the two parties. Infinity accused the education department of not altering the contract's timetable to account for Microsoft's dismissal, and of missing review deadlines. The department claimed the company missed its initial deadlines and had fallen six months behind schedule.
Both sides accused the other of missing meetings and communicating poorly. The department said Infinity "thwarted" efforts to "foster an environment of cooperation and support," accusations that Jon Taylor, Infinity's president, called "inaccurate and offensive."
A particularly heated exchange arose over allegations that Infinity wasn't properly submitting content produced for the website to a panel of experts, as required, and that factual errors resulted.
For example, one civics lesson suggested a discussion on the meaning of "the pursuit of happiness" in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, though the phrase is actually found in the Declaration of Independence, the department said. In response, Mr. Taylor said the department didn't understand the point of the lesson, which was to draw comparisons between the ideals in both documents.
Students were supposed to begin work on the site last month, and in an Oct. 3 letter, the department said it would be "extremely damaging" if lessons weren't delivered this school year. On Oct. 22, Infinity sued the state, and a week later the state terminated the contract.
Infinity, which told the AP it laid off 17 employees and halted work with 100 contracts because of the situation, requested a payment of $3.23 million for the completed work.
The state education department reportedly has spent nearly $2.5 million on the project already, according to the AP. The department is now in the process of rebidding the contract, the letter of termination says.
Test scores suggest there is a need for the resources. Just a few months ago, a more rigorous Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, caused student scores toplunge and led the state's board of education to lower the test's passing score.
The education department declined to comment about the legal feud.
Mr. Taylor also declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal situation, but issued a statement. "Our goal was to reach a resolution that would be in the best interest of everyone, especially Florida's students and educators," he said. "Unfortunately, it now appears that a fair, objective arbiter, in this case the courts, may be the best means to addressing our concerns."
'Ambitious Project'Florida is not the only state looking for large-scale ways to use technology to prepare for the common standards, Mr. Levin of SETDA said.
Massachusetts and Ohio are negotiating with vendors to build a shared, comprehensive training and classroom-management website for teachers in both states. It will be Ohio's first statewide online instructional system, said John Charlton, a spokesman for the Ohio education department. In addition to serving as a digital repository for lessons aligned with the common core, the site will allow for creation and delivery of lessons and assessments, search of online educational resources, and student data reporting and analysis.
"It's an ambitious project," Mr. Charlton said.
Complex projects, like the one Infinity was hired for, bring with them difficult management decisions. In August, the Florida education department asked to meet with Infinity to discuss "turning over the content-development portion" of the contract to the state. It appears that Infinity hired subcontractors to help create content aligned with the common standards for the site, and the department wasn't satisfied with the quality.
The content creation was too "intertwined" with the technology component for the responsibilities to be separated, Infinity responded.
Disputes over content development could become more frequent on common-core projects, because the standards are such a large shift for educators, administrators, and vendors, Mr. Levin said. And with budget and personnel constraints, that content development could be increasingly contracted and subcontracted to parties further from the classroom.
"Staffing levels are only going in one direction," Mr. Levin said. "This is more complicated work than states have done before." He added: "Departments absolutely have expertise, but they have few experts."
Coverage of the education industry and K-12 innovation is supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Comment by kafkateach - Hmm...so Microsoft stands to make mucho millions off of the Common Core. The Gates foundation has been pushing the Common Core and basically owns the Department of Ed and every school district in America. How very philanthropic of Mr. Gates!
Comment by EduMich - Did anyone really believe it was all in the name of altruistically helping students achieve at higher levels???? I believe the right always claims the best social-welfare program is a good job. So why does Mr. Gates and other business leaders send so many of their good paying jobs to China?
ARTICLE: Schools should be cautious with common core
By CAROL VERAVANICH / FOR THE REGISTER
Source Link: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/common-383537-core-standards.html
Q. I totally support your comments today regarding teaching children classic literature such as John Steinbeck, Poe and Twain.
I agree with your comments that we have too much emphasis on assessment testing and have forgotten to develop the whole child.
One consideration to contemplate regarding the common core standards is that they may be problematic. In theory, it sounds great that we should be teaching similar concepts and certain core principles to every child.
I agree that our children need greater critical thinking skills, but I am concerned that a certain group of educators has declared rote memorization as an unnecessary experience.
We need a balanced approach and the entire child needs to be the central focus of what we do as educators.
I see problems with the common core standards in that we are lowering the high bar of achievement. I see future assessment testing standards as lowering expectations rather than maintaining high expectations and standards.
A. The Common Core is a term parents and the public will likely hear more and more since it has been growing in the education sector as well as the Federal Government. Right now, our president and his U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, are requiring states to adopt the Common Core or else they will lose out on some education funding.
We are moving as a nation from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation to the Race to the Top legislation. Along with pushing states to adopt the Common Core standards, the federal government wants to tie teacher evaluations to test scores. This last part alone does not have many teachers lining up to support it, but it remains a push from the president's program. Under the Common Core, children may also be tested online, which is problematic in itself for those countless schools without the necessary technology to facilitate such a practice, but that is a whole other ball of wax.
In many states, the Common Core is seen as a lowering of the bar because it is supposed to find the commonality we can require of all children – low-income students, second-language learners, average, above-average and GATE – all across our nation.
In many places, we are finding that we can advance many students past where "all" kids might be able to achieve. Under the Common Core, you should be able to do this, yet still test the base skills each year. All states except three, Texas, Nebraska, and Alaska, have adopted the Common Core Standards.
There is no doubt that higher-level, critical thinking must be part of educating children if you want an educated class. This seems to be a movement to be more globally competitive, though we are a nation that educates every child without weeding out students that struggle or cannot perform.
If we use the Common Core as it is "sold" then we would all be testing the same progression of skills, all research-based as well, and then we will build on those skills in the classroom. It is supposed to be a movement from teaching to the test to broadening the base we are giving our children.
I agree a healthy dose of skepticism is necessary when looking at any new movement in education. If the Common Core lowers the bar, I would not support it either.
Whether we want it or not, I think we will be seeing soon whether it works because NCLB ends in 2014 and the new movement is under way for the following year.
Contact the writer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/goasktheteacher or email at [email protected].
Kachina Lively First, get the politicians out of our educational system! Race to the Top is a program designed to enforce our teachers and students programs and testing that will hamper education of the 'whole child'. The STEM program may be great for students that are technically inclined to math and sciences but there are 80% of other students who are using the left brain while others are using the right brain. We can not design an educational program that One Size Fits All! We are ignoring the fact that music develops a vital part of the brain and martial arts is a way to teach our children self-control, respect and defense against the many enemies that lay in wait for easy prey. We must incorporate Psychology starting in Kindergarten to prevent bullying, prejudice and help students understand their own emotions and those of others. We have a long way to go before we can say we have championed a solid education system. CCSS is not one of them but it may be a start to betterment. Aligning our education system with International Agencies, U.N. is a troubling concern that may lead US to educate our children according to what is best for International Corporations and not our children. God Help Us...protect our children from a One World Government!
By CAROL VERAVANICH / FOR THE REGISTER
Source Link: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/common-383537-core-standards.html
Q. I totally support your comments today regarding teaching children classic literature such as John Steinbeck, Poe and Twain.
I agree with your comments that we have too much emphasis on assessment testing and have forgotten to develop the whole child.
One consideration to contemplate regarding the common core standards is that they may be problematic. In theory, it sounds great that we should be teaching similar concepts and certain core principles to every child.
I agree that our children need greater critical thinking skills, but I am concerned that a certain group of educators has declared rote memorization as an unnecessary experience.
We need a balanced approach and the entire child needs to be the central focus of what we do as educators.
I see problems with the common core standards in that we are lowering the high bar of achievement. I see future assessment testing standards as lowering expectations rather than maintaining high expectations and standards.
A. The Common Core is a term parents and the public will likely hear more and more since it has been growing in the education sector as well as the Federal Government. Right now, our president and his U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, are requiring states to adopt the Common Core or else they will lose out on some education funding.
We are moving as a nation from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation to the Race to the Top legislation. Along with pushing states to adopt the Common Core standards, the federal government wants to tie teacher evaluations to test scores. This last part alone does not have many teachers lining up to support it, but it remains a push from the president's program. Under the Common Core, children may also be tested online, which is problematic in itself for those countless schools without the necessary technology to facilitate such a practice, but that is a whole other ball of wax.
In many states, the Common Core is seen as a lowering of the bar because it is supposed to find the commonality we can require of all children – low-income students, second-language learners, average, above-average and GATE – all across our nation.
In many places, we are finding that we can advance many students past where "all" kids might be able to achieve. Under the Common Core, you should be able to do this, yet still test the base skills each year. All states except three, Texas, Nebraska, and Alaska, have adopted the Common Core Standards.
There is no doubt that higher-level, critical thinking must be part of educating children if you want an educated class. This seems to be a movement to be more globally competitive, though we are a nation that educates every child without weeding out students that struggle or cannot perform.
If we use the Common Core as it is "sold" then we would all be testing the same progression of skills, all research-based as well, and then we will build on those skills in the classroom. It is supposed to be a movement from teaching to the test to broadening the base we are giving our children.
I agree a healthy dose of skepticism is necessary when looking at any new movement in education. If the Common Core lowers the bar, I would not support it either.
Whether we want it or not, I think we will be seeing soon whether it works because NCLB ends in 2014 and the new movement is under way for the following year.
Contact the writer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/goasktheteacher or email at [email protected].
Kachina Lively First, get the politicians out of our educational system! Race to the Top is a program designed to enforce our teachers and students programs and testing that will hamper education of the 'whole child'. The STEM program may be great for students that are technically inclined to math and sciences but there are 80% of other students who are using the left brain while others are using the right brain. We can not design an educational program that One Size Fits All! We are ignoring the fact that music develops a vital part of the brain and martial arts is a way to teach our children self-control, respect and defense against the many enemies that lay in wait for easy prey. We must incorporate Psychology starting in Kindergarten to prevent bullying, prejudice and help students understand their own emotions and those of others. We have a long way to go before we can say we have championed a solid education system. CCSS is not one of them but it may be a start to betterment. Aligning our education system with International Agencies, U.N. is a troubling concern that may lead US to educate our children according to what is best for International Corporations and not our children. God Help Us...protect our children from a One World Government!
BACKGROUND
Source Link: http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/tag/common-core-standards/
The Common Core is a set of expectations for what students should know and be able to do in math and English at each grade level. It was developed by teachers, math and language experts and others in an effort organized by state school chiefs and governors.
Ohio is one of 45 states that have fully adopted the Common Core. (Ohio’s state Board of Education adopted the new standards in June 2010.) One other state – Minnesota — has adopted only the English language arts standards. The states that are notparticipating are Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia.
Promising to use the Common Core helped some states, including Ohio, win federal Race to the Top education grants. Ohio expects all schools to be teaching these new standards by fall 2013.
The Common Core is better than what Ohio teachers are supposed to be teaching in math and English today, the Fordham Institute says. The group gives Ohio’s current English language arts standards a “C” and the Common Core English standards a “B+.” Ohio’s current math standards get a “C” and the Common Core’s an “A-.”
All the states that adopted the Common Core are are also planning to also switch their state testing systems. These new tests will be given on computers rather than on paper and will replace current state math and English language arts tests.
There are two groups that are developing these new, Common Core tests: the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Ohio is a member of PARCC and sits on the group’s governing board.
Got questions about the Common Core? Visit our Core Questions page for information on how to get them answered.
COMMON CORE TIMELINE
1983 A commission established by President Reagan publishes A Nation at Risk. The report calls for setting standards for what students should know and be able to do and marks the starting point of “standards-based” education reform. The movement calls for setting standards for what students should learn and monitoring whether they are learning through standardized tests. In the following years, states move to adopt standards, pushed along by federal legislation. Teachers groups also publish model standards of their own.
1994 A series of Clinton administration-backed laws (Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the Improving America’s Schools Act) require states to set standards and corresponding tests.
1996 At the 1996 National Education Summit, governors and business leaders pledge to work together to raise standards and achievement in public schools. Achieve, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group which will become instrumental in the creation of the Common Core, is founded.
2001 President Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act which strengthens requirements for the kinds of standards states must set and requires states to test students in specific grades and subjects. However, states are still free to set their own standards and create their own tests.
2008 The National Governors Association, state education commissioners and other groups begin organizing development of common standards in math and English language arts for grades K-12.
2009 Governors and state education commissioners from 48 states plus the District of Columbia commit to developing the Common Core standards. Only Alaska and Texas do not join the effort.
February, 2010 Kentucky adopts the Common Core standards before they’ve been publicly released, making it the first state to adopt them.
March 10, 2010 First draft of the Common Core standards are released to the public for comment.
June 2, 2010 Final Common Core standards released for states to adopt or reject.
August 2, 2010 California adopts Common Core standards on the day federal officials set as the deadline for states to apply for federal funds through the Race to the Topprogram. In the competition, states get extra points for having adopted the common core standards.
November 4, 2011 Montana becomes the 46th (and final) state to adopt the Common Core standards. Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia are the four that did not; Minnesota did not adopt the math standards but did adopt the English language arts standards.
2011-12 School Year Development of new standardized tests tied to the Common Core standards begins. The effort is led by two consortia of states, PARCC and Smarter Balanced. The groups will share $360 million in federal grants to develop the new tests. Ohio is a member of PARCC.
2012-13 School Year PARCC and Smarter Balanced begin pilot testing of new standardized tests.
2013-14 School Year Field testing to continue for new standardized tests. In Ohio, the Common Core standards should be fully implemented for all grade levels.
2014-15 School Year All participating states to begin using new standardized tests for math and English language arts. The new tests replace tests that had previously been used in each state.
Summer 2015: Ohio to set performance standards for the new tests.
The Common Core is a set of expectations for what students should know and be able to do in math and English at each grade level. It was developed by teachers, math and language experts and others in an effort organized by state school chiefs and governors.
Ohio is one of 45 states that have fully adopted the Common Core. (Ohio’s state Board of Education adopted the new standards in June 2010.) One other state – Minnesota — has adopted only the English language arts standards. The states that are notparticipating are Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia.
Promising to use the Common Core helped some states, including Ohio, win federal Race to the Top education grants. Ohio expects all schools to be teaching these new standards by fall 2013.
The Common Core is better than what Ohio teachers are supposed to be teaching in math and English today, the Fordham Institute says. The group gives Ohio’s current English language arts standards a “C” and the Common Core English standards a “B+.” Ohio’s current math standards get a “C” and the Common Core’s an “A-.”
All the states that adopted the Common Core are are also planning to also switch their state testing systems. These new tests will be given on computers rather than on paper and will replace current state math and English language arts tests.
There are two groups that are developing these new, Common Core tests: the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Ohio is a member of PARCC and sits on the group’s governing board.
Got questions about the Common Core? Visit our Core Questions page for information on how to get them answered.
COMMON CORE TIMELINE
1983 A commission established by President Reagan publishes A Nation at Risk. The report calls for setting standards for what students should know and be able to do and marks the starting point of “standards-based” education reform. The movement calls for setting standards for what students should learn and monitoring whether they are learning through standardized tests. In the following years, states move to adopt standards, pushed along by federal legislation. Teachers groups also publish model standards of their own.
1994 A series of Clinton administration-backed laws (Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the Improving America’s Schools Act) require states to set standards and corresponding tests.
1996 At the 1996 National Education Summit, governors and business leaders pledge to work together to raise standards and achievement in public schools. Achieve, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group which will become instrumental in the creation of the Common Core, is founded.
2001 President Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act which strengthens requirements for the kinds of standards states must set and requires states to test students in specific grades and subjects. However, states are still free to set their own standards and create their own tests.
2008 The National Governors Association, state education commissioners and other groups begin organizing development of common standards in math and English language arts for grades K-12.
2009 Governors and state education commissioners from 48 states plus the District of Columbia commit to developing the Common Core standards. Only Alaska and Texas do not join the effort.
February, 2010 Kentucky adopts the Common Core standards before they’ve been publicly released, making it the first state to adopt them.
March 10, 2010 First draft of the Common Core standards are released to the public for comment.
June 2, 2010 Final Common Core standards released for states to adopt or reject.
August 2, 2010 California adopts Common Core standards on the day federal officials set as the deadline for states to apply for federal funds through the Race to the Topprogram. In the competition, states get extra points for having adopted the common core standards.
November 4, 2011 Montana becomes the 46th (and final) state to adopt the Common Core standards. Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia are the four that did not; Minnesota did not adopt the math standards but did adopt the English language arts standards.
2011-12 School Year Development of new standardized tests tied to the Common Core standards begins. The effort is led by two consortia of states, PARCC and Smarter Balanced. The groups will share $360 million in federal grants to develop the new tests. Ohio is a member of PARCC.
2012-13 School Year PARCC and Smarter Balanced begin pilot testing of new standardized tests.
2013-14 School Year Field testing to continue for new standardized tests. In Ohio, the Common Core standards should be fully implemented for all grade levels.
2014-15 School Year All participating states to begin using new standardized tests for math and English language arts. The new tests replace tests that had previously been used in each state.
Summer 2015: Ohio to set performance standards for the new tests.
What’s at the core of Common Core State Standards?
As an informed parent, you have undoubtedly become accustomed to hearing the words Common Core State Standards float around your child’s school. However, what exactly are Common Core Standards and how do they relate to your child’s education?
Aristotle Circle is here to help explain the Common Core Standards, what they mean to your child and how to assess your child’s performance in them even before your child’s teacher knows!
Common Core State Standards 101
The Common Core State Standards is a U.S. initiative in education whose main goal is to align curriculum across states from Kindergarten to 12th Grade. In order to assess such curriculum, states must adhere to standardized testing assessments. The Common Core State Standards stated purpose is to “provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.”
States who adopted the Common Core State Standards were incentivized by the opportunity of receiving federal Race to the Top grants. So far, 45 states, including the District of Columbia, have adopted the Common Core State Standards. Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska and Minnesota have not yet adopted the standards.
How The Common Cores Relate to Your Child’s Education
Common Core Standards were released for English Language Arts and Mathematics on June 2, 2010 resulting in curriculum changes for states that adopted them. Common Core content is broken into ‘content strands.’ Standards for science and social studies have not yet been released. By 2015, states aim to base 85% of their curricula on these Standards. Many state tests used for admissions purposes and graduation requirements are aligned with Common Core Standards. Thus it is becoming increasingly critical that your child masters these standards.
English Language Arts
The main goal of the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts is to ensure that students are prepared in literacy for college and/or a career after high school. The five main components of the English Language Arts Common Core Content Strands are Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Media and Technology.
Mathematics
The eight main goals of the Common Core Standards for Mathematics are
Different grade levels focus on different content strands for Mathematics in order to adhere to the Common Core Standards. For instance children in Kindergarten to 5th Grade focus on operations, numbers, measurement and data, counting, geometry and fractions.
What You Can Do About the Common Core Standards
There have been many criticisms of the Common Core Standards. One main argument comes from Huffington Post writer Nicholas Tampio who says that with the Common Core Standards, an “inspired Kindergarten curriculum has been replaced with a banal one,” in his article “Do We Need a Common Core?”
Another major argument comes from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The NAEYC recently stated that before- or after-school programs might be required to meet the standards.
With Common Core Standards in the pipeline, Aristotle Peer Tutors can assess how your child is performing in the Common Core State Standards specific to your state and child’s grade level as well as identify any areas of content strand weaknesses that could potentially negatively impact academics.
Aristotle Peer Tutors offer enrichment and subject tutoring while also aiding with Common Core curriculum to fill in any knowledge gaps. With Peer Tutoring, your child can have a fuller educational experience in a comfortable learning environment. We give your child the opportunity to focus on passions outside of the classroom while also excelling in school through the mastery of Common Core content strands.
Contact us to learn more about our Peer Tutoring!
For more information on the Common Core State Standards, visit www.corestandards.org.
Mathematics Common Core Standards and content strands here.
English Common Core Standards and content strands here.
As an informed parent, you have undoubtedly become accustomed to hearing the words Common Core State Standards float around your child’s school. However, what exactly are Common Core Standards and how do they relate to your child’s education?
Aristotle Circle is here to help explain the Common Core Standards, what they mean to your child and how to assess your child’s performance in them even before your child’s teacher knows!
Common Core State Standards 101
The Common Core State Standards is a U.S. initiative in education whose main goal is to align curriculum across states from Kindergarten to 12th Grade. In order to assess such curriculum, states must adhere to standardized testing assessments. The Common Core State Standards stated purpose is to “provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.”
States who adopted the Common Core State Standards were incentivized by the opportunity of receiving federal Race to the Top grants. So far, 45 states, including the District of Columbia, have adopted the Common Core State Standards. Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska and Minnesota have not yet adopted the standards.
How The Common Cores Relate to Your Child’s Education
Common Core Standards were released for English Language Arts and Mathematics on June 2, 2010 resulting in curriculum changes for states that adopted them. Common Core content is broken into ‘content strands.’ Standards for science and social studies have not yet been released. By 2015, states aim to base 85% of their curricula on these Standards. Many state tests used for admissions purposes and graduation requirements are aligned with Common Core Standards. Thus it is becoming increasingly critical that your child masters these standards.
English Language Arts
The main goal of the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts is to ensure that students are prepared in literacy for college and/or a career after high school. The five main components of the English Language Arts Common Core Content Strands are Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Media and Technology.
Mathematics
The eight main goals of the Common Core Standards for Mathematics are
- Figure out problems and solve them
- Reason both quantitatively and abstractly
- Argue the reasoning of viable arguments and construct others
- Model with Mathematics
- Strategically use tools
- Attend to precision
- Use structure
- State regularity in reasoning
Different grade levels focus on different content strands for Mathematics in order to adhere to the Common Core Standards. For instance children in Kindergarten to 5th Grade focus on operations, numbers, measurement and data, counting, geometry and fractions.
What You Can Do About the Common Core Standards
There have been many criticisms of the Common Core Standards. One main argument comes from Huffington Post writer Nicholas Tampio who says that with the Common Core Standards, an “inspired Kindergarten curriculum has been replaced with a banal one,” in his article “Do We Need a Common Core?”
Another major argument comes from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The NAEYC recently stated that before- or after-school programs might be required to meet the standards.
With Common Core Standards in the pipeline, Aristotle Peer Tutors can assess how your child is performing in the Common Core State Standards specific to your state and child’s grade level as well as identify any areas of content strand weaknesses that could potentially negatively impact academics.
Aristotle Peer Tutors offer enrichment and subject tutoring while also aiding with Common Core curriculum to fill in any knowledge gaps. With Peer Tutoring, your child can have a fuller educational experience in a comfortable learning environment. We give your child the opportunity to focus on passions outside of the classroom while also excelling in school through the mastery of Common Core content strands.
Contact us to learn more about our Peer Tutoring!
For more information on the Common Core State Standards, visit www.corestandards.org.
Mathematics Common Core Standards and content strands here.
English Common Core Standards and content strands here.
HOLLAND: Obama quietly implements Common CoreFederal funds buy control of school curriculum
Source Link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/23/obama-quietly-implements-common-core/?page=all
New standards for math and English called Common Core are poised to hit public schools across the nation. Some schools will begin implementing them as early as this fall, before parents have any inkling what has happened to their children’s classroom instruction.
Parents will not know how or why the nationally prescribed curriculum came about or how to change it if they don’t like it.
That undoubtedly sounds similar to the famous assertion of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Congress would have to pass the Affordable Care Act for people to know what’s in it. The nationalized Common Core for education is like Obamacare in ripping control over critical, life-altering decisions from those most affected.
Achieve, a band of like-minded corporate moguls that formed in 1996 to push national education standards, had to report rather sheepishly last month that its own poll showed Americans are almost totally in the dark about the Common Core juggernaut.
A remarkable 79 percent of registered voters know “nothing” or “not much” about what Achieve calls the Common Core State Standards. Another 14 percent said they knew “some,” and just 7 percent claimed to know “a lot.”
None of that is surprising: Those standards for teaching English and mathematics were put together behind closed doors starting in 2009 by “experts” assembled by resident bureaucrats of the Washington-based Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association.
In 2010, even before a final draft had been made public, the Obama administration began pressuring states to commit to the Common Core in order to be eligible for a slice of the $4.5 billion Race to the Top fund carved out of the federal stimulus.
More recently, the U.S. Department of Education made adoption of such “college- and career-ready standards” one of its many conditions for granting states No Child Left Behind waivers.
Thus, any pretense of these being voluntary “state standards” went out the window long ago — all the more so because the Common Core now is linked to mandatory national tests that are being paid for by another $350 million in Obama stimulus bucks.
Achieve had a headache remedy handy for the embarrassing lack of public knowledge revealed by its own pollsters: Write a glowing description of the Common Core and then ask folks again what they thought. After reading it, 77 percent of respondents said they supported implementation of the Common Core, a finding Achieve then touted. This was the description the pollster spoon-fed them: “These new standards have been set to internationally competitive levels in English and math. This means that students may be more challenged by the material they study, and the tests they take will measure more advanced concepts and require students to show their work.”
That’s a classic example of a pollster manipulating questions to obtain a result desired by an advocacy group. Remember, the description was for folks who confessed to knowing basically nothing about the Common Core.
Suppose respondents had before them instead the following description:
“Your local schools are about to start implementing standards and assessments developed by Washington-based interest groups and pushed by the federal government. These standards, known as the Common Core, have never been field-tested, and your local school board has been unable to put them to a public hearing or vote.
“The national standards provide no process for states or localities to amend them. They will require students to take four federally subsidized tests a year, all of them via computer, and the results will be a factor in evaluating local teachers.”
Given that factual statement, it is doubtful the desire to push forward with immediate implementation would have reached 25 percent.
Would parents really trust behind-the-scenes forces to have total sway over their children’s education if they knew they would be powerless to monitor the content of lessons or the online testing?
Forty-six states are on board with the Common Core. Only Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia have chosen to stick completely to their own standards and thereby safeguard the rights of their citizens. In the compliant 46, local school systems are dutifully beginning the process of retraining their teachers to conform to the centralized system.
When 90 percent of parents, taxpayers and voters learn what is going on, perhaps the “repeal and replace” battle cry won’t refer only to Obamacare.
Robert Holland ([email protected]) is a senior fellow for education policy with the Heartland Institute.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/23/obama-quietly-implements-common-core/#ixzz2Ix3i2xxX
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Source Link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/23/obama-quietly-implements-common-core/?page=all
New standards for math and English called Common Core are poised to hit public schools across the nation. Some schools will begin implementing them as early as this fall, before parents have any inkling what has happened to their children’s classroom instruction.
Parents will not know how or why the nationally prescribed curriculum came about or how to change it if they don’t like it.
That undoubtedly sounds similar to the famous assertion of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Congress would have to pass the Affordable Care Act for people to know what’s in it. The nationalized Common Core for education is like Obamacare in ripping control over critical, life-altering decisions from those most affected.
Achieve, a band of like-minded corporate moguls that formed in 1996 to push national education standards, had to report rather sheepishly last month that its own poll showed Americans are almost totally in the dark about the Common Core juggernaut.
A remarkable 79 percent of registered voters know “nothing” or “not much” about what Achieve calls the Common Core State Standards. Another 14 percent said they knew “some,” and just 7 percent claimed to know “a lot.”
None of that is surprising: Those standards for teaching English and mathematics were put together behind closed doors starting in 2009 by “experts” assembled by resident bureaucrats of the Washington-based Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association.
In 2010, even before a final draft had been made public, the Obama administration began pressuring states to commit to the Common Core in order to be eligible for a slice of the $4.5 billion Race to the Top fund carved out of the federal stimulus.
More recently, the U.S. Department of Education made adoption of such “college- and career-ready standards” one of its many conditions for granting states No Child Left Behind waivers.
Thus, any pretense of these being voluntary “state standards” went out the window long ago — all the more so because the Common Core now is linked to mandatory national tests that are being paid for by another $350 million in Obama stimulus bucks.
Achieve had a headache remedy handy for the embarrassing lack of public knowledge revealed by its own pollsters: Write a glowing description of the Common Core and then ask folks again what they thought. After reading it, 77 percent of respondents said they supported implementation of the Common Core, a finding Achieve then touted. This was the description the pollster spoon-fed them: “These new standards have been set to internationally competitive levels in English and math. This means that students may be more challenged by the material they study, and the tests they take will measure more advanced concepts and require students to show their work.”
That’s a classic example of a pollster manipulating questions to obtain a result desired by an advocacy group. Remember, the description was for folks who confessed to knowing basically nothing about the Common Core.
Suppose respondents had before them instead the following description:
“Your local schools are about to start implementing standards and assessments developed by Washington-based interest groups and pushed by the federal government. These standards, known as the Common Core, have never been field-tested, and your local school board has been unable to put them to a public hearing or vote.
“The national standards provide no process for states or localities to amend them. They will require students to take four federally subsidized tests a year, all of them via computer, and the results will be a factor in evaluating local teachers.”
Given that factual statement, it is doubtful the desire to push forward with immediate implementation would have reached 25 percent.
Would parents really trust behind-the-scenes forces to have total sway over their children’s education if they knew they would be powerless to monitor the content of lessons or the online testing?
Forty-six states are on board with the Common Core. Only Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia have chosen to stick completely to their own standards and thereby safeguard the rights of their citizens. In the compliant 46, local school systems are dutifully beginning the process of retraining their teachers to conform to the centralized system.
When 90 percent of parents, taxpayers and voters learn what is going on, perhaps the “repeal and replace” battle cry won’t refer only to Obamacare.
Robert Holland ([email protected]) is a senior fellow for education policy with the Heartland Institute.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/23/obama-quietly-implements-common-core/#ixzz2Ix3i2xxX
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Resist the Common CoreResist the Common CoreSource Link: http://www.platteinstitute.org/blog/blog_detail.asp?id=170
Until 1980, primary education policy generally fell under the purview of state and local governments and the federal government had little involvement with how states ran their educational programs. In 1980 the Department of Education was established as a Cabinet-level agency, resulting in greater federal involvement in education.[1] Over the past several years, another movement has sought to further nationalize K-12 education through the implementation of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, often referred to simply as the Common Core.
The Common Core Standards are an effort to establish uniform standards across all fifty states. So far, 45 states have adopted the standards; only Nebraska, Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and Virginia have not.[2] However, the Nebraska Department of Education has begun aligning Nebraska state standards in reading and mathematics with those of the Common Core, even without formally adopting them.[3]
Important issues must be discussed before Nebraska's educational administrators further align with the standards.
The first issue is whether or not Common Core standards are effective. A study by the Brookings Institution found that "the empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will have little effect on American student's achievement."[4] Indeed, for some states the Common Core would actually lower their standards; California and Massachusetts-states widely recognized for their rigorous educational standards-would be lowering their institutional expectations with the implementation of Common Core.[5] Students in North Carolina's elementary schools would even see their choice of classes restricted, as they would no longer be able to take middle school math classes because changes to the curriculum from Common Core would deem such classes as being "too difficult."[6]
In addition to questions about academic standards, there is the theoretical issue of the federal government creating a one-size-fits-all national curriculum. The Obama administration is moving in this direction by issuing waivers to states for No Child Left Behind in exchange for states adopting certain federal standards, i.e. Common Core.[7] Additionally, the administration ties discretionary grant money to stipulations related to Common Core standards.[8] Using waivers and grants to control state education policy essentially "plac[es] the nation on the road to federal direction over elementary and secondary school curriculum and instruction."[9]
Part of the strength of America's federal system is the ability of the states to act as metaphorical "laboratories of democracy;" states can experiment and innovate with new policies and ideas and adopt the best practices of other states and improve upon them. A national standard would smother innovation and limit educational standards beyond those set by the federal government.[10]
Additionally, there is the issue of cost. The implementation of Common Core is expected to cost the 45 states involved a combined total of $16 billion over seven years, which is nearly four times the amount of money given through the federal government's Race to the Top grant program, leaving state and local taxpayers to pay approximately 90 percent of the cost to transition to Common Core.[11]
Common Core would also make state and local officials less accountable to parents and students. If standards are set by the federal government rather than at the state and local level, parents would have little input on the process, as public hearings-like those Nebraska recently had to discuss new social studies curriculum[12]-would have to be held across the nation, diluting the impact of suggestions by local teachers, parents, and students. With Common Core, responsiveness to the needs of local communities would be lost.
Nebraska should resist adopting Common Core standards because it costs too much to implement, does not raise student achievement, and it would lead to a federal takeover of education, something that should be handled at the state and local level.
Nebraska does have substantial work to do to improve student achievement, but giving into the Common Core and abdicating the responsibility of educating our children to the federal government is not the answer.
Until 1980, primary education policy generally fell under the purview of state and local governments and the federal government had little involvement with how states ran their educational programs. In 1980 the Department of Education was established as a Cabinet-level agency, resulting in greater federal involvement in education.[1] Over the past several years, another movement has sought to further nationalize K-12 education through the implementation of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, often referred to simply as the Common Core.
The Common Core Standards are an effort to establish uniform standards across all fifty states. So far, 45 states have adopted the standards; only Nebraska, Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and Virginia have not.[2] However, the Nebraska Department of Education has begun aligning Nebraska state standards in reading and mathematics with those of the Common Core, even without formally adopting them.[3]
Important issues must be discussed before Nebraska's educational administrators further align with the standards.
The first issue is whether or not Common Core standards are effective. A study by the Brookings Institution found that "the empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will have little effect on American student's achievement."[4] Indeed, for some states the Common Core would actually lower their standards; California and Massachusetts-states widely recognized for their rigorous educational standards-would be lowering their institutional expectations with the implementation of Common Core.[5] Students in North Carolina's elementary schools would even see their choice of classes restricted, as they would no longer be able to take middle school math classes because changes to the curriculum from Common Core would deem such classes as being "too difficult."[6]
In addition to questions about academic standards, there is the theoretical issue of the federal government creating a one-size-fits-all national curriculum. The Obama administration is moving in this direction by issuing waivers to states for No Child Left Behind in exchange for states adopting certain federal standards, i.e. Common Core.[7] Additionally, the administration ties discretionary grant money to stipulations related to Common Core standards.[8] Using waivers and grants to control state education policy essentially "plac[es] the nation on the road to federal direction over elementary and secondary school curriculum and instruction."[9]
Part of the strength of America's federal system is the ability of the states to act as metaphorical "laboratories of democracy;" states can experiment and innovate with new policies and ideas and adopt the best practices of other states and improve upon them. A national standard would smother innovation and limit educational standards beyond those set by the federal government.[10]
Additionally, there is the issue of cost. The implementation of Common Core is expected to cost the 45 states involved a combined total of $16 billion over seven years, which is nearly four times the amount of money given through the federal government's Race to the Top grant program, leaving state and local taxpayers to pay approximately 90 percent of the cost to transition to Common Core.[11]
Common Core would also make state and local officials less accountable to parents and students. If standards are set by the federal government rather than at the state and local level, parents would have little input on the process, as public hearings-like those Nebraska recently had to discuss new social studies curriculum[12]-would have to be held across the nation, diluting the impact of suggestions by local teachers, parents, and students. With Common Core, responsiveness to the needs of local communities would be lost.
Nebraska should resist adopting Common Core standards because it costs too much to implement, does not raise student achievement, and it would lead to a federal takeover of education, something that should be handled at the state and local level.
Nebraska does have substantial work to do to improve student achievement, but giving into the Common Core and abdicating the responsibility of educating our children to the federal government is not the answer.
Diane Ravitch's blog
Source Link: http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/09/my-view-of-the-common-core-standards/
A site to discuss better education for all
My View of the Common Core Standards
I have neither endorsed nor rejected the Common Core national standards, for one simple reason: They are being rolled out in 45 states without a field trial anywhere. How can I say that I love them or like them or hate them when I don’t know how they will work when they reach the nation’s classrooms?
In 2009, I went to an event sponsored by the Aspen Institute where Dane Linn, one of the project directors for developing the standards, described the process. I asked if they intended to pilot test them, and I did not get a “yes” answer. The standards were released early in 2010. By happenstance, I was invited to the White House to meet with the head of the President’s Domestic Policy Council, the President’s education advisor, and Rahm Emanuel. When asked what I thought of the standards, I suggested that they should be tried out in three or four or five states first, to work out the bugs. They were not interested.
I have worked on state standards in various states. When the standards are written, no one knows how they will work until teachers take them and teach them. When you get feedback from teachers, you find out what works and what doesn’t work. You find out that some content or expectations are in the wrong grade level; some are too hard for that grade, and some are too easy. And some stuff just doesn’t work at all, and you take it out.
The Common Core will be implemented in 45 states without that kind of trial. No one knows if they will raise expectations and achievement, whether they will have no effect, whether they will depress achievement, or whether they will be so rigorous that they increase the achievement gaps.
Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution thinks they won’t matter.
The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which received large grants from the Gates Foundation to evaluate the standards and has supported them vigorously, estimates that the cost of implementing themwill be between $1 billion and $8.3 billion. The conservative Pioneer Institute estimates that the cost of implementation would be about $16 billion, and suggests this figure is a “mid-range” estimate.
The Gates Foundation, lest we forget, paid to develop the standards, paid to evaluate the standards, and is underwriting Pearson’s program to create online courses and resources for the standards, which will be sold by Pearson, for a profit, to schools across the nation.
Of course, every textbook publisher now says that its products are aligned with the Common Core standards, and a bevy of consultants have come out of the woodwork to teach everyone how to teach them.
In these times of austerity, I wonder how much money districts and states have available to implement the standards faithfully. I wonder how much money they will put into professional development. I wonder about the quality of the two new assessments that the U.S. Department of Education laid out $350 million for.
These are things I wonder. But how can I possibly pass judgment until I find out how the standards work in real classrooms with real children and real teachers?
Source Link: http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/09/my-view-of-the-common-core-standards/
A site to discuss better education for all
My View of the Common Core Standards
I have neither endorsed nor rejected the Common Core national standards, for one simple reason: They are being rolled out in 45 states without a field trial anywhere. How can I say that I love them or like them or hate them when I don’t know how they will work when they reach the nation’s classrooms?
In 2009, I went to an event sponsored by the Aspen Institute where Dane Linn, one of the project directors for developing the standards, described the process. I asked if they intended to pilot test them, and I did not get a “yes” answer. The standards were released early in 2010. By happenstance, I was invited to the White House to meet with the head of the President’s Domestic Policy Council, the President’s education advisor, and Rahm Emanuel. When asked what I thought of the standards, I suggested that they should be tried out in three or four or five states first, to work out the bugs. They were not interested.
I have worked on state standards in various states. When the standards are written, no one knows how they will work until teachers take them and teach them. When you get feedback from teachers, you find out what works and what doesn’t work. You find out that some content or expectations are in the wrong grade level; some are too hard for that grade, and some are too easy. And some stuff just doesn’t work at all, and you take it out.
The Common Core will be implemented in 45 states without that kind of trial. No one knows if they will raise expectations and achievement, whether they will have no effect, whether they will depress achievement, or whether they will be so rigorous that they increase the achievement gaps.
Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution thinks they won’t matter.
The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which received large grants from the Gates Foundation to evaluate the standards and has supported them vigorously, estimates that the cost of implementing themwill be between $1 billion and $8.3 billion. The conservative Pioneer Institute estimates that the cost of implementation would be about $16 billion, and suggests this figure is a “mid-range” estimate.
The Gates Foundation, lest we forget, paid to develop the standards, paid to evaluate the standards, and is underwriting Pearson’s program to create online courses and resources for the standards, which will be sold by Pearson, for a profit, to schools across the nation.
Of course, every textbook publisher now says that its products are aligned with the Common Core standards, and a bevy of consultants have come out of the woodwork to teach everyone how to teach them.
In these times of austerity, I wonder how much money districts and states have available to implement the standards faithfully. I wonder how much money they will put into professional development. I wonder about the quality of the two new assessments that the U.S. Department of Education laid out $350 million for.
These are things I wonder. But how can I possibly pass judgment until I find out how the standards work in real classrooms with real children and real teachers?