Articles tagged with Common Core State Standards

CPE Director sorts out facts and myths of the Common Core

Implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has already started in 46 states and the District of Columbia—bringing major changes to public schools in those states. But such a large undertaking also brings many myths and misconceptions about the curricular changes.

Patte Barth, Director of the Center for Public Education (CPE) at the National School Boards Association, writes about what some of the changes will mean for public education in a column for the Huffington Post, “The Common Core Standards: Truths, Untruths and Ambiguities.”

“Despite their high-profile supporters, not everyone is feeling the common core love and a handful of early adopting states are experiencing second thoughts,” she writes. “These are legitimate debates for us to have. Indeed, something this central to public education demands it.”

Read more at the Huffington Post.

 

 

Joetta Sack-Min|April 29th, 2013|Categories: 21st Century Skills, Board governance, Center for Public Education, Educational Finance, Educational Research, National Standards, Policy Formation, Student Achievement|Tags: , , |

Common Core tests and school board success stories in the March issue of ASBJ

The Common Core State Standards are coming, and they will have a huge impact on how teachers are expected to teach, students are taught to think, and how both students and teachers are evaluated. In this month’s issue of American School Board Journal, online now, Senior Editor Lawrence Hardy looks at how schools around the country will now be facing not only common standards but also common tests.

Also in March:

A Michigan superintendent and two board members describe how they used test scores and other data to refocus and turn their district around.

In our continuing series of school board success stories, we feature an Arizona school board and superintendent team using a new approach to boost reading and math scores.

Also, make sure to vote on this month’s Adviser poll to see where your opinion on a sticky situation stacks up.

Kathleen Vail|March 5th, 2013|Categories: American School Board Journal, Assessment, National Standards, School Boards, School Reform, Student Achievement, Teachers|Tags: , , , |

Kentucky leads on Common Core

When its state legislature passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act more than two decades ago, the Bluegrass State was lauded as a leader in K-12 education reform.

“In 1990, we were the darling,” said David Baird, associate executive director of the Kentucky School Boards Association. “Everyone was looking to Kentucky and saying, ‘What a wonderful reform you have done.’”

Kentucky basked in that praise for many years – maybe too many years, Baird said Monday. Like just about every other state, even with education reform, too many of its high school graduates were needing remediation when they got to college.

But Kentucky snapped out of its complacency in 2009 when the legislature passed Senate Bill 1, a new education reform initiative that just happened to dovetail nicely with the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Once again, Kentucky was the first state to raise the bar.

Baird and Patte Barth, director of NSBA’s Center for Public Education, talked Monday morning at the Federal Relations Network (FRN) meeting in Washington, D.C., about what school districts should expect from the Common Core – and what the Common Core expects of them. Described as “fewer, clearer, higher,” the new standards aim to help all students be prepared for college or the 21st century workforce.

A state-led program sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, the Common Core standards in math and language arts have so far been embraced by 46 states and the District of Columbia. It is built upon the strengths of current state standards.

“[NSBA] supports these because they are state-led,” Barth said, but added that the organization expects more financial support for the program.

“We support more funding to go to research and support of assessments,” Barth said.

Two consortia are developing assessments to align with the common core. The assessments are scheduled to be released during the 2014-15 school year; it’s a scenario that doesn’t give school districts a lot of time.

Among the biggest changes in language arts standards will be a new emphasis on exploring and analyzing nonfiction texts, Barth said. She said U. S. students score highly on international comparisons on their ability to analyze fiction, but do less well on expository texts.

Some English teachers have been critical of the standards, believing it would force them to limit the teaching of literature, but Barth said the aim is to spread the requirements for nonfiction reading across the curriculum and to all teachers.

 

Lawrence Hardy|January 28th, 2013|Categories: FRN Conference 2013, Governance, National Standards, School Boards, School Reform|Tags: , , , , , , |

January ASBJ online now with Change Agents, Common Core backlash

The January issue of American School Board Journal is online now. This first issue of 2013 fittingly features our inaugural series on excellence in school governance: Change Agents. Each month we’ll tell the stories of reform-minded school boards that faced challenges and found solutions through strong leadership. January’s story shows how the Missoula, Mont., school board set a goal of having 100 percent of its students finish high school, and how the district responded with Graduation Matters Missoula.

The Common Core State Standards are coming — by the 2014-15 school year, more than 40 states will be introducing these math and language arts standards to their classrooms.  At least, that’s the plan.  Senior Editor Lawrence Hardy writes of the pushback the standards are receiving from both ends of the political spectrum in “The Backlash Against Common Core.”

Also in the new issue: an essay by education writer and commentator Alfie Kohn on the perils of top-down reform. And another article shows how last summer’s drought may be affecting school food service prices.

Kathleen Vail|January 3rd, 2013|Categories: 21st Century Skills, American School Board Journal, Board governance, Curriculum, Food Service, Governance, National Standards, Nutrition, School Reform, Student Achievement|Tags: , , , , , , |

Common Core ‘flying under the radar’

Roberta Stanley, NSBA’s director of federal affairs, has had a long career in public education, and she knows many key players at the state and federal levels. So when she says something is “flying under the radar” — as she did Monday at the Federal Relations Network (FRN) Conference when referring to the Common Core State Standards Initiative – she knows what she’s talking about.

In case the signal you’ve been receiving is a little faint, here are some basics, which Stanley provided at her National Issues session: the Common Core State Standards were released in the summer of 2010 and are, at current count, being adopted by 47 states and the District of Columbia. Internationally benchmarked and designed to be clearer and more rigorous than the patchwork of state standards, the standards are scheduled to be implemented, complete with new computerized assessment systems, by the 2014-15.

While Stanley thinks that date might be overly ambitious, she said the important point is that a big change is coming to K-12 standards and assessments. For the most part, these are good changes, designed by some of the nation’s best experts in the field, she added. It’s just that not a lot of people know about them.

But school board members should. In fact, as Stanley put it, now is no time to “wait for the state” to come up with policies and curricula that align with the Common Core. Among the steps districts should be taking now:

# Partner with local colleges and universities for professional development, curriculum alignment. Information sharing, and the sharing of placement tests.

# Survey local businesses on what they think about the Common Core and what they feel high school and colleges graduates need to know,

# Reach out the members of the community for their ideas

#Check national updates, such as those from NSBA’s Center for Education Policy.

The standards released in 2010 included math and language arts. In addition, 26 lead states are working with Achieve, the National Science Teachers Association, the National Research Council, and other groups on common science standards.

Lawrence Hardy|February 6th, 2012|Categories: Assessment, FRN Conference 2012, Governance, Key Work of School Boards|Tags: |
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