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Lessons Learned from the Volunteer State

By Jamie Woodson, President and CEO, State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) Nashville, Tennessee

Just a few years ago, Tennessee embarked on an ambitious plan to better prepare students for the future. Tennesseans took a hard look at student proficiency and concluded that continuing to accept mediocre academic performance was a disservice to our students. When SCORE was launched in 2009, we identified a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for unprecedented growth in student achievement in Tennessee.

Now, Tennessee has reached an important milestone. The November 7 release of the 2013 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) for 4th- and 8th-grade reading and math confirmed that student achievement in Tennessee has grown faster than any other state. Tennessee’s 2011-13 growth is the largest by any state since NAEP began consistent assessments in 2003. We are very aware that we have much work to do to sustain and accelerate these gains.

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19
Nov 2013
AUTHOR Jamie Woodson
CATEGORY

Commentary, Expanding Student Success

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There’s a Lot Left to Learn From Jim Hunt

By The Hunt Team

Sacramento Bee Associate Editor Foon Rhee shares his views on the political careers of California’s Governor Jerry Brown and North Carolina’s former Governor Jim Hunt in the op-ed, Editorial notebook: Jerry Brown could learn a thing or two from Jim Hunt, who took a similar path. A former reporter for The Charlotte Observer, Rhee discusses the parallel roads taken by these two longest serving governors in their states.

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15
Nov 2013
AUTHOR The Hunt Team
CATEGORY

In The News, North Carolina

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All Students Deserve the Full Benefit of Math and English Assessments

By Rick Miller, Executive Director, California Office to Reform Education (CORE)

Transitioning from California’s old standards to the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) over the past three years has been both exciting and challenging. Implementing an assessment system that is aligned to the new standards is a critical next step in this process as it will provide both accountability and important information to our teachers and administrators.

To address this need, California’s Governor signed a bill last month that eliminates the multiple choice standardized tests in reading, math, and social science that California public school students have been taking since 1999. Assembly Bill (AB) 484 replaces these pencil-and-paper exams with new computer-based adaptive tests. The new assessment system, called the California Measurement of Academic Progress and Performance (CalMAPP), includes the Smarter Balanced CCSS-aligned assessments for English language arts and mathematics.

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13
Nov 2013
AUTHOR Rick Miller
CATEGORY

Assessments, Commentary, Implementation

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Gov. Hunt Speaks on Early Childhood Investments

Recently, Governor Jim Hunt spoke to a crowd of business, political, and civic leaders in Greensboro about the importance of investing in early childhood education in Guilford County, NC. Gov. Hunt, a keynote speaker, – along with psychologist Nathan Fox a professor at the University of Maryland and David Lawrence, Jr., president of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation in Florida – stressed that children should begin school ready to learn, prepared mentally, emotionally and socially before kindergarten. He urged leaders to understand that “85 percent of brain growth occurs by age three and that that the first 2,000 days of a child’s life are critical to shaping who they will be. Investing in early childhood education is morally important and economically the smartest thing we could do.”

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05
Nov 2013
AUTHOR The Hunt Team
CATEGORY

Expanding Student Success, In The News, North Carolina

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