Cavanagh, Sean (2012). Standards Backers Seek Out Support of Parents, Education Week. Backers of the common-core academic standards have worked for years to secure the support of a diverse collection of elected officials, academic scholars, and school employees. Now they're ramping up efforts to court a different and potentially critically important audience: parents. A number of national organizations are churning out written and online materials, videos, and even public service announcements aimed at explaining the Common Core State Standards to parents, in plain language, and building support for the new guidelines, which have been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. Some of those organizations, including the National Parent Teacher Association, are also staging workshops for parents in schools, community centers, churches, colleges, YMCAs, and other settings around the country. The PTA, which has 5 million members, says that it has already sponsored presentations for about 35,000 parents and members of the general public. Another organization engaged in the parent outreach, the Council of the Great City Schools, in Washington, plans to produce written guides to the standards, called "parent road maps," in 10 languages–including Korean, Russian, Arabic, Haitian Creole, and Mandarin–spoken in the districts it represents. Road maps in English and Spanish are already circulating in the big-city districts served by the organization. As those efforts roll forward, the organizations are also tailoring their messages to address parents' fears and misgivings about the common core: that its standards are too high or too low, that it will skew test scores or hurt students' academic progress, or even that it will hinder their chances of getting admitted to college.   [More]  Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Academic Standards, State Standards, Video Technology

Edenfield, Kelly W. (2012). The Common Core and Inverse Functions, Mathematics Teacher. The widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSI 2010) shows a commitment to changing mathematics teaching and learning in pursuit of increasing student achievement. CCSSM should not be viewed as just another list of content standards for publishers and assessment groups to design their products around. Many standards-based reforms to which CCSSI refer are described in NCTM's "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics" (2000). As a vision document rather than a curriculum document, "Principles and Standards" has been criticized in a variety of forums (e.g., blogs, discussion boards) for not going far enough to provide substantial guidance for the specific curriculum objectives that should be taught. CCSSM takes this extra step but remains aligned with NCTM's Principles. Despite some agreement, the groups differ somewhat in what is deemed essential for all students, particularly with respect to building functions. Specifically, they disagree about how essential the study of inverse functions is for all students and for curriculum coherence. In this article, the author suggests that as educators begin implementing CCSSM, they must remain fixed on the purpose of this initiative–to provide a focused, coherent curriculum. The challenge of accomplishing both focus and coherence is not completely met by the suggested pathways provided. They should consider topics such as inverse functions and composition that might increase the coherence of the curriculum and, therefore, be essential for all students. As teachers, curriculum coordinators, departments of education, and textbook publishers discuss which standards to include and in what order, they must consider which ideas will help students develop deeper understanding and engage in appropriate mathematical practices while maintaining coherence and focus.   [More]  Descriptors: State Standards, Teaching Methods, Mathematics Instruction, Core Curriculum

Rhee, Katherine L. (2012). Teachers' Explanations of a Key Developmental Understanding of Multiplicative Reasoning, ProQuest LLC. This qualitative research study explores teachers' understandings of multiplicative reasoning as a key developmental understanding (KDU). A KDU entails knowingly applying the same mathematical concepts within different contexts. A KDU supports an individual to build a connected understanding of mathematics as opposed to only understanding disconnected rules and procedures. In this study the KDU of multiplicative reasoning is defined and the researcher illustrates how this understanding connects the mathematical contexts of the elementary school curriculum. The data used to analyze the teachers' understandings of multiplicative reasoning was collected in a mathematics content course that focused on the KDU of multiplicative reasoning. The teachers also participated in a semi-structured interview the year following the course. The analysis of the data revealed that teachers did not continue to use the KDU of multiplicative reasoning once they were teaching, as they had during the course. If teachers are expected to teach a more connected understanding of mathematics as outlined in the Common Core State Standards then there needs to be more support for them to develop these understandings. Focusing on the development of KDUs is one way to begin to support these changes. This dissertation discusses how teachers may begin to develop an understanding of the KDU of multiplicative reasoning, which could allow them to teach a more connected understanding of mathematics. [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: Elementary School Mathematics, Elementary School Teachers, Multiplication, Mathematical Logic

Moreillon, Judi (2012). Reading Comprehension at the Core of the Library Program, School Library Monthly. Just as the mission of the library program evolves from the school's mission, the goals of school librarians' curriculum and teaching evolves from the needs of administrators and classroom teachers. In the 21st-century, these needs are framed by standards such as Common Core State Standards (CCSS). School librarians also have the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) "Standards for the 21st-Century Learner" that serves as a guide for information literacy standards that correlate easily to the CCSS. The task of aligning the library program with standards initiatives is essential work for 21st-century school librarians. Using this context, how can school librarians best position their work at the core of the academic program? Reading and writing across the curriculum and collaborative literacy teams are central themes of the CCSS. However, most content-area teachers are not taught how to teach reading comprehension during their preservice teacher preparation programs. Many do not think teaching reading (or writing) is or should be their job. This creates a perfect opportunity for a school librarian to practice job-embedded professional development, in which educators learn together in site-based, authentic professional learning opportunities that position school librarians in a leadership role (Yukawa and Harada 2011). Just as athletes "play to their strengths," school librarians can play to their strengths as well. Research shows that the impact of school libraries on student achievement is most evident in the area of reading. Also, library stakeholders, government officials, and the general public already associate libraries with reading. If the question is how school librarians can propel the profession into prominence in the current educational climate, the answer is coteaching reading comprehension strategies. In a collaborative climate focused on literacy improvement, school librarians can serve as teacher leaders as states transition to the CCSS and other literacy initiatives.   [More]  Descriptors: Reading Instruction, Teaching Methods, Library Services, Reading Comprehension

Kendall, John; Ryan, Susan (2012). Opportunity and Challenge: The 15% Rule, State Education Standard. By agreement, states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) accept them as representing 85 percent of the total number of the standards in a subject area, meaning states have the option to identify as much as 15 percent in additional standards. Those that elect to add standards may find opportunities and hazards at each step–from the development of the new standards themselves to choices about how they will be addressed in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. For example, stakeholders who believe the CCSS standards could be improved upon will welcome the opportunity to address their concerns. But states will want to ensure the additional content represents meaningful and necessary expectations for all students, not a spreading and thinning of content that creates an unrealistic burden for teachers. The growing number of curriculum resources designed to support the Common Core will not address any unique state standards. Similarly, professional development programs developed around the Common Core will be found lacking when it comes to a state's special set. Assessment is the thorniest question of all. Who will assess these standards, how, and when? Despite these inherent challenges, a number of states have elected to develop "the 15 percent." It may be useful to identify a number of plausible scenarios to determine how states might make best use of the 15 percent option. Although how these play out may reflect a mix of the following approaches, it's useful to think about states as taking one of four major tracks: (1) Do nothing, accepting the Common Core as 100 percent of the curriculum by default; (2) Do nothing, but presume ownership and take advantage of the 15 percent of instructional time available; (3) Offer the choice of whether and how to use the 15 percent to districts; and (4) Adopt new statewide standards, taking full advantage of the 15 percent option.   [More]  Descriptors: Core Curriculum, State Standards, Alignment (Education), Stakeholders

California Collaborative on District Reform (2012). Series Overview. Special Series on the Fresno-Long Beach Learning Partnership. In 2008, the leaders of two of California's largest urban school districts–Fresno and Long Beach Unified School Districts–entered into a formal learning partnership, with the goal of preparing all students for success in higher education or for a career with significant growth potential. Though initially designed to secure greater categorical funding flexibility from the state, the Partnership emerged as a strategy to direct the attention of both systems to important levers for improvement. Focused on mathematics instruction, improving outcomes for English learners, leadership development, and college and career readiness, the Partnership is designed to accelerate achievement for all students and to close achievement gaps by capitalizing on shared, systemic capacity-building across the two districts. As resource-strapped states and districts across the country begin to implement the Common Core State Standards, it is useful examine lessons from collaborations such as the one between these two districts. This Special Series on the Fresno-Long Beach Learning Partnership examines the evolution of this unique partnership, which began over four years ago with informal conversations between two superintendents. Those conversations revealed many commonalities, including a shared belief that district leaders and practitioners have much to learn from their own practice and from one another. It was this belief, along with the goals and values the two leaders shared, that ultimately led them to formalize their Partnership. (Contains 2 endnotes.) [For related report, "Building District Capacity for Data-Informed Leadership. Special Series on the Fresno-Long Beach Learning Partnership," see ED533732.]   [More]  Descriptors: Urban Schools, Second Language Learning, School Districts, Educational Change

Bush, Gail (2012). The Transliterate Learner, School Library Monthly. Thomas et al. have defined transliteracy as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks" (Transliteracy Research Group). The learner who is transliterate builds knowledge, communicates, and interacts across a range of platforms, tools, and media. This working definition provides a foundation on which to build strategic learning behaviors. The most reasoned application of this understanding of a transliterate learner and integration of it through the curriculum is to make the match to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) 21st-Century Learning Standards seem prescient in their smooth coherence to the spirit of CCSS. Exploration of the CCSS finds that the standards are replete with references to transliterate learning (CCSS 2010). The crosswalk with CCSS that is available for the four AASL standards is abundant with CCSS English Language Arts matching up to each standard (AASL 2011). Forward-thinking school librarians are readily adopting transliteracy as an evolution of information fluency, technology, and media literacy. The appeal of developing transliteracy proficient students encourages collaboration among technology specialists, classroom teachers, school librarians, resource specialists, and administrators. When collaborative school librarians do their homework, they explore the national content area standards to find commonality. The CCSS are now clearly aligned to school library content area standards. It is up to each school librarian to bring that message home to his/her own school learning communities and to prepare to take the lead.   [More]  Descriptors: State Standards, Information Literacy, Media Literacy, Social Networks

Katzman, John (2012). Putting the Schools in Charge: An Entrepreneur's Vision for a More Responsive Education System, Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review. It's no surprise that, 28 years after the publication of "A Nation at Risk," school-reform efforts have generated so little effect. The nation's schools have proven, over the past century, adept at resisting change. Recent attempts to inject accountability and innovation have brought an important opportunity. No Child Left Behind helped add transparency, and Race to the Top (RttT) motivated states to rethink teacher evaluation, charter limits, and more. The Investing in Innovation fund (i3) has seeded promising innovations and helped attract more private investment to public education. But none of these initiatives hits at the reasons that education has proven so innovation-resistant: governance and compensation. Further, there is good reason to believe a third impediment–the absence of useful data–will persist even through the Common Core State Standards initiatives. The author argues that a top-down system will continue to be the wrong approach in this country, whether on a national or state level. It doesn't reflect American values or culture, or address the size, diversity, or income disparity of the U.S. In a country of 300 million people, a top-down approach makes substantive change virtually impossible. To fix the nation's schools, states have to stop trying to fix them. The quickest way to raise performance is command and control, but over the long run martial law does not even work well for generals. States can create a more agile, more American, system of governance that eliminates impediments to improvement, empowers schools to innovate, and uses data to help families find the right schools. The federal government should encourage them to do so.   [More]  Descriptors: State Standards, Educational Innovation, Educational Change, Public Education

Ash, Katie (2012). K-12 Marketplace Sees Major Flow of Venture Capital, Education Week. The flow of venture capital into the K-12 education market has exploded over the past year, reaching its highest transaction values in a decade in 2011, industry observers say. They attribute that rise to such factors as a heightened interest in educational technology; the decreasing cost of electronic devices such as tablet computers, laptops, netbooks, and mobile devices; and the movement toward standardization of curriculum through the Common Core State Standards. Venture capital transaction values in the K-12 field, which include both public and private schools, increased from roughly $130 million in 2010 to $334 million last year, according to data from the Chicago-based GSV Advisors. Jennifer Carolan, an associate partner for the San Francisco-based NewSchools Venture Fund, said that venture capitalists always look for huge markets, and education is a massive market, but there's been a lot of friction in the past with getting for-profit companies to find profits in schools. Meanwhile, as education draws renewed interest from venture capitalists, a new breed of investors is emerging, said Kim Smith of Bellwether Education. "There's a small, emerging niche of "impact" investors," she said, who typically made their money in the corporate sector and now want to reinvest in a good company that will provide profitable returns, but will also have a positive social impact. "Education is a complicated business, but it hasn't made huge productivity gains, ever, so that's clearly an area ripe for innovation," Ms. Smith said. The productivity gains that technology could achieve in the education market are attracting attention from impact investors as well as traditional venture capitalists, she said.   [More]  Descriptors: Core Curriculum, State Standards, Alignment (Education), Elementary Secondary Education

Carey, Kevin (2012). Some Assembly Required: Building a Better Accountability System for California. Education Sector Reports, Education Sector. For years California has been a leader in public education. In 1999, the state implemented some of the strongest content standards in the country through its main accountability metric, the Academic Performance Index (API). The state has also signed onto the Common Core State Standards, taking important steps to ensure its students are college- and career-ready. But California faces big challenges. There is growing agreement that the API doesn't work as well as it should. Relying too heavily on low-level standardized tests, it has become more an indicator of students' wealth than of a school's educational quality. This shortcoming has left too many students unprepared for college work. Yet there is little agreement over what should replace the API. This paper argues that California and many other states have the foundations in place to build better accountability systems–systems that actually focus on meaningful school improvement; they just need to put the pieces together in the right way. Drawing lessons from previous Education Sector reports, the author proposes a three-pronged approach to putting California back on a path to national leadership in education. These are: (1) Measure a school's performance based on indicators of success, like graduation rates, college enrollment, remediation, and degree or certificate completion, rather than proxy measures, like standardized test scores; (2) Better analyze performance data. For example, rather than comparing a school's performance to an overall benchmark score, look at the school's individual progress year to year to see where exactly it is making gains and where it's not; and (3) Send highly trained, independent consultants to schools to review, observe, and judge performance. A borrowed idea from England's inspectorate model, these tailored visits will allow for more directive, personalized feedback that will better drive improvement efforts.   [More]  Descriptors: State Standards, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement, Educational Quality

Boss, Suzie (2012). The Challenge of Assessing Project-Based Learning, District Administration. For their ambitious project, called America at War, high school juniors at Da Vinci Charter Academy in the Davis (California) Joint Unified School District didn't just study history. They became historians. Their project offers compelling evidence of what students can accomplish through project-based learning (PBL), an instructional approach that emphasizes authentic assessment. Although PBL has a long history in American education, dating to John Dewey and other early advocates of learning by doing, the project approach has gotten a second wind over the past decade as a strategy to engage diverse learners in rigorous learning. Early adopters include several public school networks, such as the New Tech schools, High Tech High, and Expeditionary Learning. PBL is expanding beyond these early adopters as districts consider strategies to help students meet the Common Core State Standards. In projects such as America at War, students are assessed based on what they produce or demonstrate rather than what they can recall for a test. Project-based learning and assessments are becoming increasingly important as there is a need to measure students' abilities to think critically and collaborate with peers. For administrators accustomed to the bubble tests of No Child Left Behind, the decision to implement PBL across a school system raises a challenging question: How should districts assess more open-ended learning that likely involves critical thinking and collaboration as well as content mastery? Rather than testing for recall of information, projects are better suited to performance-based assessments that ask students to demonstrate, apply and reflect on what they have learned.   [More]  Descriptors: State Standards, Performance Based Assessment, Active Learning, Teaching Methods

Berninger, Virginia Wise (2012). Strengthening the Mind's Eye, Principal. "If it's not tested, it doesn't get taught" is the prevailing belief that guides many educators' practice of only teaching skills that are addressed in the latest governing standards. Most states have now adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which don't cover handwriting or spelling. Consequently, some states and school districts have stopped–or will stop–teaching these skills, which support the composing process. Although the CCSS specify desired goals at specific grade levels, the standards do not offer a plan for reaching those goals that takes into account the scope and sequence of developmentally appropriate curriculum "and" teaching practices. Even though handwriting is not specifically covered in the CCSS, handwriting instruction and mastery of the practice help students meet the standards that are included. Through handwriting students fine-tune several motor skills: (1) planning handwriting movements; (2) controlling them during letter production; and (3) executing them. Despite advances in computer technology, research supports the argument that today's students still need instruction in handwriting for two primary reasons. First, learning to form letters by hand improves perception of letters and contributes to better reading and spelling. Second, automatic letter writing promotes better composing–both amount written and quality of writing. Schools that have halted or plan to stop handwriting instruction should reconsider. Educators can set up their students for academic success by choosing an instructional program for handwriting that supports Common Core standards, providing adequate professional development for teaching handwriting, and assessing students' development of legible and automatic handwriting.   [More]  Descriptors: Academic Standards, State Standards, Computers, Teaching Methods

Chingos, Matthew M. (2012). Strength in Numbers: State Spending on K-12 Assessment Systems, Brookings Institution. In the coming years, states will need to make the most significant changes to their assessment systems in a decade as they implement the Common Core State Standards, a common framework for what students are expected to know that will replace existing standards in 45 states and the District of Columbia. The Common Core effort has prompted concerns about the cost of implementing the new standards and assessments, but there is little comprehensive up-to-date information on the costs of assessment systems currently in place throughout the country. This new report by Matthew Chingos fills this void by providing the most current, comprehensive evidence on state-level costs of assessment systems, based on new data from state contracts with testing vendors assembled by the Brown Center on Education Policy. These data cover a combined $669 million in annual spending on assessments in 45 states. The report identifies state collaboration on assessments as a clear strategy for achieving cost savings without compromising test quality. For example, a state with 100,000 students that joins a consortium of states containing one million students is predicted to save 37 percent, or $1.4 million per year; a state of 500,000 students saves an estimated 25 percent, or $3.9 million, by joining the same consortium. Collaborating to form assessment consortia is the strategy being pursued by nearly all of the states that have adopted the Common Core standards.  But it is not yet clear how these common assessments will be sustained after federal funding for their development ends in 2014, months before the tests are fully implemented. The report identifies a lack of transparency in assessment pricing as a barrier to states making informed decisions regarding their testing systems, and recommends that consortia of states use their market power to encourage test-makers to divulge more details about their pricing models. Modeling Assessment Costs are appended.   [More]  Descriptors: Costs, Educational Testing, Elementary Secondary Education, Vendors

Gewertz, Catherine (2012). Districts Gird for Added Use of Nonfiction, Education Week. An intensifying focus for teachers across the country is how to develop students' skills at reading and understanding informational texts. Teachers are rebalancing their fiction-and-nonfiction scales because the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts demand it. Since all but four states have adopted those guidelines, millions of teachers are now faced with the challenge of revising materials and instruction accordingly. As states and districts press more deeply into informational text, however, some experts are cautioning them to maintain a proper balance with fiction. The common standards' emphasis on informational text arose in part from research suggesting that employers and college instructors found students weak at comprehending technical manuals, scientific and historical journals, and other texts pivotal to their work in those arenas. Influencing the standards, also, were the frameworks for the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, which reflect an increasing emphasis on informational texts as students get older. They draw equally from informational and literary passages at the 4th grade level. But by 8th grade, the tilt toward informational reading reaches 55 percent, and by 12th grade, it's 70 percent. The common core's vision of informational text includes literary nonfiction, as well as historical documents, scientific journals and technical manuals, biographies and autobiographies, essays, speeches, and information displayed in charts, graphs, or maps, digitally or in print. Helping students tackle complex examples of such genres across the disciplines–from English to engineering–bolsters them for work and higher education by building foundational knowledge, vocabulary, and literacy strategies, common-core advocates contend. Many states and districts are responding to the new emphasis on nonfiction with new materials and training.   [More]  Descriptors: State Standards, National Competency Tests, Nonfiction, Reading

Louisiana Department of Education (2012). iLEAP Assessment Guide-Revised. Grade 6: 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. This "Assessment Guide" includes information about test design (format and blueprints), test content, sample test items, and scoring for Grade 6 subjects of English Language Arts. Math. Science. and Social Studies.  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 6.   [More]  Descriptors: Grade 6, Educational Assessment, Academic Standards, State Standards