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California forgoes second NCLB waiver request
California has decided not to try again for a waiver from some key provisions of No Child Left Behind, at least not for the next school year. Instead, state education officials told the U.S. Department of Education that California would instead focus its efforts next year on implementing the Common Core State Standards, federal and state officials said Monday. Federal education officials also said that they will continue to consider the waiver application from a group … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, Featured, Reporting & Analysis
Brown commits $1 billion for Common Core, sticks with funding formula
Gov. Jerry Brown proposed Tuesday to direct all of the extra $2.8 billion in revenue that the state expects to receive this year to K-12 schools and community colleges, mostly for one-time uses, including $1 billion to implement the Common Core standards. There had been projections of even more money this year, but in a news conference releasing his May budget revise, Gov. Jerry Brown tempered expectations; the drag of federal tax changes, sequestration of federal spending … Read entire article »
Filed under: Categorical Funding, Common Core standards, Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Poverty, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, Revenue and taxes, Student spending, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Common Core test is on track, State Board told
Four states have encountered serious glitches and system meltdowns over the past several weeks as they have moved their own state assessments online. But the head of the state-led consortium creating the Common Core tests for California and two dozen other states expressed confidence Wednesday that his organization is working closely with states and taking precautions to avoid significant problems. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is one of two state consortiums – the other is … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Standardized tests, Technology, Tests & Assessments, Twenty-first Century Learning
California looks to Ontario schools’ reformer for guidance
Michael Fullan may be coming soon to a school district near you. The man credited with transforming the Canadian province of Ontario into one of the world’s most effective school systems is ready to help California do the same. Fullan, though, would lead the state in a sharply different direction from the forced march that federal officials … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Featured, International Comparisons, No Child Left Behind, Program innovation, Race to the Top, Reporting & Analysis, Research, Standardized tests, Systemic Change, Teacher Collaboration, Teacher Unions, Teachers, Turning around failing schools
Duncan admits flaws in current standardized testing
SAN FRANCISCO – Secretary of Education Arne Duncan acknowledged serious flaws in the standardized tests that currently drive American schools, telling an audience of education researchers on Tuesday that the tests are an inadequate gauge of student and teacher performance. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Duncan criticized “high-stakes testing where children’s lives or teachers’ careers are based on one test,” but he said that abandoning standardized testing was not the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, Featured, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Reporting & Analysis, Standardized tests, Tests & Assessments, U.S. Education Policy
Math framework for Common Core ready for your critique
A draft of the California math curriculum framework went online Wednesday for public comments and suggestions. While weighing in at 1,200 pages, the document is actually a readable grade-by-grade manual that puts meat on the bare-bones Common Core standards that the state adopted in 2010. It explains the rationale for key standards and puts them in context of what students will learn, while providing guidance on how they should be taught. Interspersed are numerous sample … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Science, Math (STEM), Standardized tests, Standards
Under Common Core, leaders face big challenge of designing change
Over the past decade, many California teachers, especially in low-performing schools, were expected to teach a scripted curriculum. The advocates of this approach hoped to ensure that all students were exposed to high quality – or at least good enough – teaching. California’s choice of this strategy has left us with a generation of teachers who either never learned the skills involved in designing instruction or had little chance to practice them. This is a huge … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Common Core standards, Featured, Principals and Administrators, Teacher Collaboration
For kids’ sake, let’s not distract attention from Common Core
Remember the reading and math wars? Whole language vs. phonics. New math vs. old math. In the context of today’s education wars, it seems quaint to think about people arguing over curriculum and instruction. What seems even quainter is that these battles were based on the premise that all children can learn to read at grade level. As a young teacher, I didn’t fully believe this. I could mouth the words but I doubted it in my … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Common Core standards, English learners
U.S. middle-class students beaten on international test
Middle-class students are lagging far behind their peers in other countries, adding a new perspective to beliefs that low-income students are most in need of better educational opportunities, according to a new study. America Achieves, a nonprofit aimed at improving education and career opportunities for students, reviewed the 2009 science and math results on the Program for International Student Assessment, known as the PISA exam. Analysts divided students into four socio-economic levels and found that U.S. students in the second highest quarter were outperformed by students in similar income levels in 15 other countries in science and 24 countries in math. “Many assume that poverty in America is pulling down the overall U.S. scores, but when you divide each nation into socio-economic quarters, you can see that even America’s middle class students are … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, International Comparisons, Poverty, Quick Hits, Standardized tests, Tests, Tests & Assessments, Twenty-first Century Learning, Workforce preparation
California should not adopt Next Generation Science Standards
April 25th, 2013 | 34 Comments | By Paul Bruno / commentary
With the release of the final draft of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), states must begin in earnest to consider replacing their own existing standards. California should be especially cautious in this deliberation because, by some measures, the Golden State already has some of the strongest science standards in the country. In fact, while the NGSS may have much to recommend them to other states, it is unlikely that they represent an improvement over … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Featured, Science, Math (STEM), Standards, Twenty-first Century Learning