This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Pansy T. Ceballos, Catherine Gewertz, Christopher H. Tienken, Carol Corbett Burris, Alice Klein, Delia T. Garrity, Cathryn Colley Lambeth, Aaron Chatterji, Prentice Starkey, and Lydia DeFlorio.
(2012). Educators in Search of Common-Core Resources, Education Week. As states and districts begin the work of turning common academic standards into curriculum and instruction, educators searching for teaching resources are often finding that process frustrating and fruitless. Teachers and curriculum developers who are trying to craft road maps that reflect the Common Core State Standards can find themselves in a dispiriting bind: Their current materials fall short, and there is a dearth of good new ones to fill the void. Such frustrations are widespread. A report last fall by the Washington-based Center on Education Policy found school districts divided about how much curriculum change was truly required and reluctant to move forward with common-standards implementation, in part because of inadequate guidance from their states. Ironically, educators' frustrations take shape during an unprecedented buzz of activity to build knowledge about the standards and prepare resources for them. States and districts are bringing educators together to discuss the fundamental shifts demanded by the standards, which were unveiled in 2010. Advocacy groups and architects of the standards are holding workshops and posting documents and videos on the Web to illustrate new ways of thinking about and teaching what many now call simply "the core." But those messages have yet to reach everyone, and the resources and discussions taking shape online can be tough to locate. Not everyone supports the new standards, however. And some educators who don't are quite content with the complications of the current landscape. [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, Curriculum Development, State Standards, Internet
(2012). Opening the Common Core: How to Bring ALL Students to College and Career Readiness, Corwin. Do you wish you could leverage the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to equip all students–not just high achievers–with the higher-level thinking skills they need? You can, and this book will show you how. The authors helped lead their district–Rockville Centre in Long Island, New York–in closing achievement gaps and increasing the number of students who completed four-year college programs. The results of their efforts show a remarkable increase in both excellence and equity in English language arts, math, and science. This book outlines the authors' research-based ACES framework for instructional improvement to help achieve similar results: (1) Acceleration rather than remediation; (2) Critical thinking; (3) Equity in education for all students; and (4) Support. Educators will find practical strategies that are applied and developed in model lessons linked to the CCSS and KSUS (Knowledge and Skills for University Success) standards. Understanding why we need to prepare all children to be college and career ready is easy. Making it happen is not. Learn from those who have succeeded, and your students will reap the rewards. [More] Descriptors: Equal Education, State Standards, Instructional Improvement, Academic Achievement
(2012). A Rural County Journeys to the Common Core, School Administrator. Small, rural school districts face a special challenge when implementing the next generation of academic standards known as the Common Core State Standards. This is the task facing the instructional consultants with the Tulare County Office of Education. The county, located in central California with its dominant agricultural economy, has 45 school districts enrolling 98,000 students. About 25 percent are English language learners, and only 57 percent of the high school graduates continue their education at postsecondary institutions. Thirty of the districts operate a single school. Many of these schools have limited access to instructional resource personnel, which defines the model of service provided by the county office, an education service agency. The Tulare County Office of Education meets the rural districts' needs through content experts, who provide expertise and support on using instructional practices. The county office has six English language arts consultants, four math consultants and one consultant each for social studies, science and technology. This article describes how this rural county has followed a four-step collaborative process to work with small districts in central California. [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, Educational Methods, Consultants, English Language Learners
(2012). Collaborative Practices to Support All Students, Principal Leadership. Principals face a tangled web of accountability for several reasons: NCLB shifted the focus of programs for English language learners (ELLs). Success is no longer viewed with the single lens of meeting English proficiency, but rather with a magnifying glass to ensure that students "will meet the same challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards as all children are expected to meet". With the advent of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), school leaders must not only guide their faculty and staff members to meet a new framework of standards-based instruction but must also interpret how to meet those standards with ELLs. Collaborative practices are new to some administrators and teachers, and adopting them can be complex and challenging. In the authors' research and observation in numerous school districts, they have found that to successfully collaborate for the sake of ELLs, guidelines and procedures must be developed, implemented, and maintained that cultivate the transition from working in isolation to working in collaborative partnerships. They stress that collaborative, inclusive, and integrated service-delivery practices are the best way to serve students who are English language learners. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Academic Achievement, Second Language Learning, English (Second Language)
(2012). LEAP Assessment Guide. Grade 8: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies. "Louisiana Believes" embraces the principle that all children can achieve at high levels, as evidenced in Louisiana's recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). "Louisiana Believes" also promotes the idea that Louisiana's educators should be empowered to make decisions to support the success of their students. In keeping with these values, the Department has created transitional assessment guides to help prepare teachers and students as they transition to the new CCSS over the next two years. These guides reflect the State's commitment to consistent and rigorous assessments and provide educators and families with clear information about expectations for student performance. The LEAP Assessment Guide provides an overview of Louisiana assessments administered through the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP). In addition to providing teachers with a description of the overall design of the LEAP tests, this guide presents sample test items and suggested informational resources. Teachers should use this guide to: (1) become familiar with the LEAP test format; (2) include similar item formats in classroom instruction and assessments; (3) align instruction and assessment with the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum and Grade-Level Expectations (GLEs); and (4) provide appropriate test accommodations. Appended are: (1) Glossary; (2) LEAP Transitional Assessments: Frequently Asked Questions; (3) Testing Special Populations; and (4) Writer's Checklist and Mathematics Reference Sheet-Grade 8. [More] Descriptors: Student Evaluation, Achievement Tests, Grade 8, English
(2012). New Tests Put States on Spot, Education Week. As states begin to demand more rigor on their high-stakes tests–and the tests evolve to incorporate revised academic standards–many officials are gambling that an initial wave of lower scores will give way to greater student achievement in the future. Changes to statewide tests and subsequent plummeting scores sparked controversy and emergency action in Florida last month, and similar shock waves have been felt as Kentucky, Michigan, Texas, and Virginia remake their testing regimes. The increasing expectations are in many cases a preview of challenges expected nationally when new, rigorous assessments based on the Common Core State Standards are administered by nearly all states starting in 2014-2015. To date, 46 states have agreed to adopt the common-core standards in English/language arts and 45 in math, and two consortia with various member states are spending $360 million in federal money to develop common assessments for the new standards. States have long endured criticism that their existing tests, aimed at moving the states toward 2014 proficiency levels in reading and mathematics demanded by the No Child Left Behind Act, lacked the rigor necessary to gauge how well students stack up against the demands of college and workforce readiness. For many states implementing a new generation of tests, there will be a "shock" as test scores drop, a dynamic that typically occurs with each evolution of such assessments. [More] Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Difficulty Level, Academic Standards, State Standards
(2012). Establishing and Sustaining an Effective Pre-Kindergarten Math Intervention at Scale, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. Educators are increasingly concerned about the low level of mathematics performance of U.S. students on the TIMSS and other international assessments of mathematics (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008) as well as their insufficient preparation for mathematics standards, such as the Common Core State Standards. Students from low-income and minority backgrounds demonstrate lower levels of mathematics achievement than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds, and there is compelling evidence that this SES-related achievement gap in mathematics emerges prior to school entry. It is also known from a recent meta-analysis of several large longitudinal studies that children's mathematics knowledge in kindergarten is the strongest predictor of their later school achievement–stronger than early literacy knowledge, attention skills, or socioemotional development. If this gap is not addressed early, it persists and increases over time. Thus, it is clear that the acquisition of early mathematics knowledge by all children must be a major educational priority. To address this educational priority, the authors' research group has developed an early mathematics intervention, "Pre-K Mathematics." With collaborators, the authors have rigorously evaluated it over multiple studies and have found it to be highly effective at improving mathematical knowledge in economically disadvantaged pre-kindergarten children relative to a control group. [More] Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Mathematics Achievement, Achievement Gap, State Standards
(2012). iLEAP Assessment Guide-Revised Grade 7: English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies. "Louisiana Believes" embraces the principle that all children can achieve at high levels, as evidenced in Louisiana's recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). "Louisiana Believes" also promotes the idea that Louisiana's educators should be empowered to make decisions to support the success of their students. In keeping with these values, the Department has created transitional assessment guides to help prepare teachers and students as they transition to the new CCSS over the next two years. These guides reflect the State's commitment to consistent and rigorous assessments and provide educators and families with clear information about expectations for student performance. The iLEAP Assessment Guide provides an overview of Louisiana assessments administered through the integrated Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (iLEAP). In addition to providing teachers with a description of the overall design of the iLEAP tests, this guide presents sample test items and suggested informational resources. Teachers should use this guide to: (1) become familiar with the iLEAP test format; (2) include similar item formats in classroom instruction and assessments; (3) align instruction and assessment with the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum and Grade-Level Expectations (GLEs); and (4) provide appropriate test accommodations. Appended are: (1) Glossary; (2) iLEAP Transitional Assessments: Frequently Asked Questions; (3) Testing Special Populations; and (4) Writer's Checklist and Mathematics Reference Sheet-Grade 7. [More] Descriptors: Grade 7, Educational Assessment, State Standards, Academic Standards
(2012). Using Concurrent Verbalization to Measure Math Comprehension, ProQuest LLC. The current study investigated variability in student performance on a concurrent verbalization measure based on a grade-level sample math word problem and sought to determine to what extent the variability in verbalization scores is related to scores on a reliable measure of reading (DIBELS Next) and math (easyCBM) and to student factors (e.g. sex, grade, economic status). In light of the 2014 implementation of the Common Core State Standards and related measures of student performance, both of which contain components of language in mathematics curriculum and assessment, it was the intent of this study to identify factors associated with verbalization on sample math word problems that could be correlated with student performance on reliable, commonly used assessments of reading and math. The sample for analysis included 105 intermediate-grade students from one elementary school in the Pacific Northwest. Results support a relation between students' verbalizations about math word problems and benchmark assessments in reading and math. Limitations of the study, considerations for future research, and implications for practice are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta… [More] Descriptors: Word Problems (Mathematics), Numeracy, Reading Comprehension, Benchmarking
(2012). Shake It up with Reading, Science Scope. The author created a lesson in which students successfully practiced reading comprehension skills while developing an understanding of earthquakes. Not only did this lesson help students gain an understanding of the impact of earthquakes, a subject embedded into Missouri's eighth-grade science curriculum, but it also addresses one of the new Common Core State Standards for literacy in science, which says students should be able to "cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts" (CCSSO and NGA 2010). In this science reading lesson, the author required her students to decide what information would be important in the text, read to find the information, and then rely on the information to solve a problem. Because there was not a specific answer to the problem, students were able to explore their own ideas. This project helped them to question the text, address the text with their questions, and synthesize information while problem solving. [More] Descriptors: Evidence, Reading Comprehension, State Standards, Seismology
(2012). For the Record: What Education Policy Could Be, Kappa Delta Pi Record. A review of education reform policies reveals a shift from an input guarantee approach aimed at providing funds to level the playing field for all students to an output guarantee approach based on the expectation of achieving standardized results regardless of inputs. The shift reflects a belief that where a child starts his or her cognitive, social, and moral development has no bearing on where he or she might finish. The No Child Left Behind Act, Common Core State Standards Initiative, national high-stakes standardized testing, teacher and administrator pay for performance based on test results, the proliferation of charter schools, and publically funded vouchers for private schools are all outgrowths of a policy philosophy built on the standardization of knowledge and performance outputs. Although little empirical evidence exists to demonstrate that output guarantee approaches result in positive lifelong benefits to children, these mandates continue to pelt public education with growing frequency. This commentary questions the current policy environment and contributes holistic ideas to the current reform conversation. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Charter Schools, Teaching Methods, Standardized Tests
(2012). LEAP Assessment Guide-Revised. Grade 4: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies. "Louisiana Believes" embraces the principle that all children can achieve at high levels, as evidenced in Louisiana's recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). "Louisiana Believes" also promotes the idea that Louisiana educators should be empowered to make decisions to support the success of their students. In keeping with these values, the Department has created transitional assessment guides to help prepare teachers and students as they transition to the new CCSS over the next two years. These guides reflect the State's commitment to consistent and rigorous assessments and provide educators and families with clear information about expectations for student performance. In addition to providing teachers with a description of the overall design of the LEAP tests, this guide presents sample test items and suggested informational resources.Teachers should use this guide to: (1) become familiar with the LEAP test format; (2) include similar item formats in classroom instruction and assessments; (3) align instruction and assessment with the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum and Grade-Level Expectations (GLEs); and (4) provide appropriate test accommodations. Appended are: (1) Glossary; (2) LEAP Transitional Assessments: Frequently Asked Questions; (3) Testing Special Populations; and (4) Writer's Checklist and Mathematics Reference Sheet-Grade 4. [More] Descriptors: Student Evaluation, Achievement Tests, Test Items, Grade 4
(2012). Common Core Standards' Devastating Impact on Literary Study and Analytical Thinking. Issue Brief No. 3800, Heritage Foundation. Since coming to office, the Obama Administration has been intent on standardizing what is taught at each grade level in all of the nation's schools. It has used its flagship "Race to the Top" competitive grant program to entice states to adopt the K-12 standards developed by a joint project of the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Parents, teachers, and education leaders along the political spectrum are increasingly raising questions about the constitutionality and transparency of this joint project, called the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). They are also expressing concern about the high cost of implementing the standards and the national tests that will be based on them, as well as the potential loss of local control of curriculum and instruction. An English curriculum overloaded with advocacy journalism or with "informational" articles chosen for their topical and/or political nature should raise serious concerns among parents, school leaders, and policymakers. Common Core's standards not only present a serious threat to state and local education authority, but also put academic quality at risk. Pushing fatally flawed education standards into America's schools is not the way to improve education for America's students. [More] Descriptors: Elementary Secondary Education, Educational Quality, College Readiness, State Standards
(2012). iLEAP Assessment Guide-Revised. Grade 3: English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies. "Louisiana Believes" embraces the principle that all children can achieve at high levels, as evidenced in Louisiana's recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). "Louisiana Believes" also promotes the idea that Louisiana's educators should be empowered to make decisions to support the success of their students. In keeping with these values, the Department has created transitional assessment guides to help prepare teachers and students as they transition to the new CCSS over the next two years. These guides reflect the State's commitment to consistent and rigorous assessments and provide educators and families with clear information about expectations for student performance. The iLEAP Assessment Guide provides an overview of Louisiana assessments administered through the integrated Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (iLEAP). In addition to providing teachers with a description of the overall design of the iLEAP tests, this guide presents sample test items and suggested informational resources. Teachers should use this guide to; (1) become familiar with the iLEAP test format; (2) include similar item formats in classroom instruction and assessments; (3) align instruction and assessment with the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum and Grade-Level Expectations (GLEs); and (4) provide appropriate test accommodations. Appended are: (1) Glossary; (2) iLEAP Transitional Assessments: Frequently Asked Questions; (3) Testing Special Populations; and (4) Writer's Checklist and Mathematics Reference Sheet-Grade 3. [More] Descriptors: Student Evaluation, Achievement Tests, Educational Assessment, Testing Accommodations
(2012). Harnessing Technology to Improve K-12 Education. Discussion Paper 2012-05, Hamilton Project. Technological progress has consistently driven remarkable advances in the U.S. economy, yet K-12 education sees little technological change compared to other sectors, even as U.S. K-12 students increasingly lag behind students in other nations. This proposal considers how we can take a signature American strength–innovation–and apply it to K-12 education. We argue that the advent of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and broadband Internet create promising opportunities for developing new learning technologies but that a fundamental obstacle remains: the effectiveness of learning technologies is rarely known. Not surprisingly, when no one knows what works, schools are unlikely to buy, and innovators are unlikely to create. Our proposed EDU STAR system will solve this problem by (a) undertaking rapid, rigorous, and low-cost evaluations of learning tools and (b) reporting results to the public. Coupling Internet-based real-time evaluation systems (demonstrated daily by many leading companies) with trusted reporting (modeled by "Consumer Reports" and others), the proposed EDU STAR platform will help schools make informed learning technology decisions and substantially reduce entry barriers for innovators. EDU STAR will bring together K-12 schools, teachers, and innovators and continually improve this critical foundation for economic prosperity. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Educational Technology, Internet, Elementary Secondary Education