Redesigning Professional Development
By Patricia A. Wasley, CEO, Teaching Channel
For years we have invested significant resources in professional development for teachers – somewhere in the vicinity of $16 billion per year. And please don’t forget the countless hours of time and energy that teachers spend in trying to move their practice forward. Unfortunately, the disappointing fact is that we have not seen the corresponding jump in student achievement that such an investment merits. It’s no surprise why when the common approach to professional development is revealed. More often than not, new strategies are demonstrated in front of groups of teachers who come from a variety of disciplines, grade levels, and school contexts. In this setting, teachers can observe and can ask questions, but they are sent back to their own classrooms to figure out how to adapt new strategies on their own.
Read More →Gates Foundation’s Vicki Phillips: Common Core Momentum II
Vicki Phillips, director of education, college ready at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, continues her discussion about the momentum of the Common Core implementation process on Eduwonk.com. The first part of her discussion – Eduwonk: Gates Foundation’s Vicki Phillips On Common Core Momentum – can be found here. “Stick-to-itiveness. Determination. Tenacity. Grit. These are […]
Read More →RECAP: The 2014 Holshouser Legislators Retreat
By The Hunt Team
Sweeping education legislation in 2013 has resulted in monumental changes for teaching and student assessment in North Carolina’s public schools. Local school districts are working hard to implement these new policies and are calling on policymakers to re-examine the pace of change, the efficacy of these reforms, and the expectations being placed on classroom teachers.
Last month, The Hunt Institute convened North Carolina legislators in Greensboro, NC, for the 2014 Holshouser Legislators Retreat amidst this backdrop of trepidation and change. This bi-partisan group of 60 policymakers spent two days with national and state education experts discussing key topics such as teacher effectiveness and compensation, student assessments, school accountability, partnerships that promote college and career readiness, and the role rigorous standards play in securing North Carolina’s economic future.
Read More →Why do CEO’s support the Common Core State Standards? Craig Barrett, former Intel CEO and chairman and current CEO of BASIS Schools – one of the highest-performing charter school systems in the country – speaks candidly about why businesses and higher education benefit from the Common Core in the Journal Sentinel op-ed, “Why CEO’s Support […]
Lies, damned lies, and the Common Core
By The Hunt Team
Michael J. Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and one of the nation’s foremost education analysts, addresses more false claims about the Common Core State Standards in the Fordham Institute’s Flypaper blog, “Lies, damned lies, and the Common Core.”
If you want to understand why supporters of the Common Core are frustrated—OK, exasperated—by some of our opponents’ seemingly unlimited willingness to engage in dishonest debate, consider this latest episode.
On Monday, EAG News published an article entitled, “Common Core math question for sixth graders: Was the 2000 election ‘fair’?”
Would you ever consider the question ‘Whom do you want to be president?’ to be asked of your third grader during a math class (or any class)?
Would you expect your fourth grader to be asked to create a chart of presidents along with their political persuasions? Or, how about a discussion on whether the 2000 presidential election resulted in a “fair” outcome? Or, what if the teacher for your sixth grader was advised to “be prepared” to discuss the “politically charged” 2000 election – all during math.
Common Core aligned, of course.
This was picked up by the Daily Caller’s Eric Owens on Wednesday, who piled on via his article, “Common Core MATH lesson plans attack Reagan, list Lincoln’s religion as ‘liberal’”
Another week has gone by and, like clockwork, some more hilariously awful Common Core math lessons have oozed out of the woodwork.
And the story jumped to cable news this morning on a Fox segment, “Common Core lesson lists Abraham Lincoln as a liberal.”
So this is pretty damning for the Common Core, right?
Wrong.
Read More →