ALEC Vote Rejects Anti-Common Core Resolution
This post originally appeared on November 19, 2012 on The Foundation for Excellence in Education’s EdFly Blog.
By Dave Myslinski
Over the weekend, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) rejected an anti-Common Core bill, thus completing its 18-month exploration of the Common Core State Standards. This action reaffirmed ALEC’s position that states should be in charge of their education standards and supports the option for states to freely adopt Common Core.
By rejecting the bill, which would have tied the hands of state legislators, ALEC made clear its support of states raising student expectations through higher standards—working in consort with other states or working independently. This position is laid out in ALEC’s current Resolution Opposing Federal Intrusion in State Education Content Standards. The decision to work together to improve academic standards is a choice all 50 states have freely made, with 46 states adopting Common Core so far, and four states choosing not to adopt the standards.
Read More →A Milestone on the Road to Next-Generation Assessments
By Joe Willhoft, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
We are at an exciting time in the development of the Smarter Balanced assessment system. After extensive collaboration with educators and content experts, the Consortium released a set of sample items and performance tasks in early October. This release provides an advance look at the rigor and complexity of the English language arts/literacy and mathematics questions that will appear on the assessments in the 2014-15 school year. With more than 100,000 unique visitors to the Smarter Balanced website in just the first few weeks, it is clear that this has been a highly anticipated release for educators and stakeholders.
Read More →Consensus on Essential Characteristics of Effective Professional Learning
Effective teaching and learning, not standards, prepare students for college, careers, and civic life. The Common Core State Standards and other rigorous college- and career-readiness standards, however, can contribute to effective teaching and learning by pointing to the centrality of educators in generating ever higher levels of student achievement. To support these higher levels of student achievement, schools and districts must support effective professional learning. Thirteen professional associations and education organizations have reached consensus about essential characteristics of effective professional learning.
Read More →Moving the Common Core State Standards from Adoption to Implementation to Sustainability
This post originally appeared on November 6, 2012 on ASCD’s Inservice blog.
By David Griffith, ASCD Public Policy
If you’re an educator in one of the 46 states that has adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), you’ve not only been learning about the standards and what they mean for you and your students, but you’ve most likely begun implementing them as well.
As you’ve been busy moving forward, you probably still have a great deal of questions. Does your district or school have the technological capacity to administer the new computer-based assessments? How can you better leverage technology for teaching to the standards? How can you take your understanding of the standards and translate them into effective lesson plans? What are the best professional development resources on the Common Core, and how can they help you?
Read More →Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity
By Howard Adelman, Ph.D. and Linda Taylor, Ph.D., UCLA School Mental Health Project/Center for Mental Health in Schools
When policymakers introduce another initiative for education reform, the press to implement the new initiative often draws attention away from other essential facets involved in improving and transforming schools. Currently, this is happening with the Common Core State Standards movement.
Efforts to revamp schools cannot afford to marginalize any primary and essential facet of what must take place at schools every day. As those who have followed the work of the Center for Mental Health in Schools know, we are moving efforts to improve schools from a two to a three component framework.
Read More →Assessing the Common Core
By Joe Willhoft, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
Students are getting ready to return to the classroom, and much work is being done to align lesson plans, professional learning opportunities, and instructional resources to the Common Core State Standards. As educators focus on effective implementation, the importance of developing next-generation assessments cannot be overlooked.
New assessments will give teachers, parents, and policymakers better, more timely information to determine whether students are meeting the high expectations of the standards—as well as tools to help them stay on track. They represent a new way of thinking about assessment to support instruction, and ultimately, the goal of college and career readiness for all students.
Read More →New, Free Resource for Implementing the Common Core
By Ed Milliken, ASCD
We know that implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a challenge for a lot of educators. That’s why we here at ASCD have created the new, free EduCore™ digital tool to help teachers and administrators implement the CCSS in both mathematics and literacy. Funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the EduCore tool is a repository of evidence-based strategies, videos, and supporting documents that help educators transition to the CCSS.
We’ve designed the EduCore tool for both the math and English language arts literacy standards. The math section of the EduCore tool supports CCSS implementation and features a variety of formative assessment lessons and videos ready for classroom use, including more than 20 formative assessment mathematics lessons. Developed by the Shell Centre these middle and high school Classroom Challenges include problem-solving and content-development formative assessments on subjects such as solving linear equations in two variables and applying angle theorems. Useful plans, student materials, PowerPoint slides, and other materials round out the many mathematics resources available.
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