EdTrust-West Speaks Out Against CA Testing Ban
The Education Trust-West – a statewide educational policy, research, and advocacy organization that works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels – spoke out in support of the Obama Administration’s efforts to protect the rights of students, parents and educators in the following article, “National and State Organizations Respond to Elimination […]
Read More →North Carolina is Underinvesting in Education
The following is an excerpt from Governor Jim Hunt’s speech for The Thomas Willis Lambeth Lecture given on September 26, 2013 at The University of North Carolina At Chapel Hill.
By The Hunt Team
Looking ahead, it is important for us in North Carolina to study and enact school reform ideas that are well proven. Setting high standards for our students makes sense. And I commend Governor (Pat) McCrory for endorsing the new college- and career-ready Common Core State Standards for North Carolina. Assessing teacher effectiveness, by means that include data on their students’ learning gains, makes sense. And some “pay for performance” as a part of compensation for teachers is a good idea.
Read More →NBC News Unveils Parent Toolkit
In an effort to aid parents understanding of the new Common Core State Standards, NBC News’ Education Nation team created an easily accessible parent toolkit to help parents participate in their children’s academic success and personal growth. This free resource is a one-stop-shop for parents as a website and mobile app, and includes:
Read More →By Vicki Phillips, Director, College-Ready Education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
All students deserve an education that prepares them to succeed in college, career and life. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we are focused on finding ways to support both teachers and students in this pursuit, and one of the most important ways is the adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
The standards are being implemented in classrooms across the country to ensure students have the skills and knowledge needed for the next grade level, and ultimately college and career success. And we want to hear from teachers on how it is going.
Virtual Worlds Allow Us To Play And Dream — But Do Educators Dare To And Remember How To Do Just That?
By Lisa Dieker, Ph.D. and Michael Hynes, Ph.D., University of Central Florida
As we face class-size increases, new or improved standards, reduction of budgets, higher and higher levels of accountability and whatever else can be thrown at us as educators, we wondered what would happen if we just stopped for a minute, closed our eyes and dreamed about a utopia in education. What would we dream? Would we see classrooms in jet planes traveling the world, unlimited access to the latest developments in technology, teachers supporting each and every student, daily massages for our hard working classroom teachers, or would we simply dream of peace, happiness and harmony for each student who walks into the door of a school?
Read More →N.C. Takes A Sound, Balanced Approach to Student Performance and Teacher Assessment
By The Hunt Team
The North Carolina State Board of Education has taken a bold approach to accurately measuring student performance while sensibly delaying high-stakes school and teacher evaluation changes based on new test results.
Across the state, North Carolina teachers have been hard at work teaching their students to new, more rigorous standards. Last school year, students were assessed against these standards for the first time. Scores typically drop when new tests are introduced, and as expected, lower student scores on the 2012-2013 tests reflect the more challenging standards and assessments. It’s not that students are performing worse—they aren’t —they are just being measured against a higher bar.
Read More →Ten Big Takeaways from CEP’s Research on State Implementation of the Common Core
By Diane Stark Rentner, Deputy Director, Center on Education Policy, The George Washington University
In the late winter/early spring of this year, the Center on Education Policy at the George Washington University surveyed state education agency (SEA) officials in the 45 states and DC that have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in math and/or English language arts (ELA). Forty of these CCSS-adopting states participated in the CEP survey, which covered a wide range of issues, including general implementation efforts, opposition to the CCSS, activities to prepare for CCSS-aligned assessments, and the challenges that states face. Altogether, CEP issued six reports based on the survey data. Here are the ten big takeaways from this extensive research:
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