Common Core State Standards for School Leaders

by Learning Forward

1. Common Core standards are game changers.
    
2. Implementation of Common Core standards is not a light-switch change.
    
3. Any new set of behaviors requires new information, skill development, authentic opportunities to practice with constructive feedback and support and healthy doses of persistence and patience.

At NBC's Education Nation summit a big focus is on new standards in math and reading known as the "Common Core".

English Language Arts

1. The text is more complex.
2. The text covers a wider range of genres and formats.
3. There is a greater emphasis on evidence-based questioning.
4. Students are exposed to more authentic text.
5. Shared responsibility for students' literacy development.
6. Focus on academic vocabulary.

I want parents to understand how things are changing with the Common Core and what that means for their children in my classroom.

Jay McTighe and I have written a white paper on implementation of the Common Core Standards entitled From Common Core to Curriculum: 5 Big Ideas

Here are the 5 big ideas and an excerpt:

Big Idea # 1 – The Common Core Standards have new emphases and require a careful reading.
Big Idea # 2 – Standards are not curriculum.
Big Idea # 3 – Standards need to be “unpacked.”
Big Idea # 4 – A coherent curriculum is mapped backwards from desired performances.
Big Idea #5 – The Standards come to life through the assessments.

Link to Common Core White Paper: http://grantwiggins.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/mctighe_wiggins_final_common_core_standards.pdf

Reading Like a Historian: Sourcing

Sourcing documents is a key skill within the curriculum for Reading Like A Historian. Discover a way to structure a sourcing lesson for your High School History class.

What does it mean that literacy crosses all subjects? In short, this means that because we don’t read novels the same way we read science labs or the same way we read histories, all of us get to teach the different faces of literacy.

Not long ago, a survey of teachers found large numbers sizing up the Common Core State Standards as pretty similar to what they're already teaching. The architect of the survey, William Schmidt of Michigan State University, saw in this a distressing sign that too many teachers don't grasp the depth of the change the standards represent, so they might well resist embracing it (or, he theorized, they simply hadn't read the standards).

The harm of local grading in a world of standards: what NAEP reveals (Thoughtlessness part 4)

By Grant Wiggins

"Once again the recently released NAEP results reveal that American student achievement in writing is far worse than local report cards would have us believe. If the new assessments for Common Core are going to be as demanding as NAEP tests are – a likely bet – then we have a disaster in the making: scores are going to be bad and there is going to be hell to pay politically (since NAEP is not district-level reported and typically flies below the layperson radar)."

A new report calls for federal investment in training for jobs that require education beyond high school, but short of a bachelor's degree, calling such jobs a crucial ticket to a middle-class life.

The study, released today by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, mines a territory that's drawing increasing amounts of attention: the swath of the education landscape that begins with a high school diploma and stops short of a four-year college degree.

The authors define "middle jobs" as those requiring more education than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor's degree, and that pay at least $35,000 per year. Twenty-nine million—21 percent—of the economy's 139 million jobs are middle jobs, the report says, and two-fifths of them pay more than $50,000 per year.

Most middle jobs are reached through five key "pathways:" employer-based training, industry-based certifications, apprenticeships, postsecondary certificates, and associate's degrees. Of the $524 billion spent annually on training for these five pathways, by far the most is spent on employer-based training, both on-the-job and in the form of formal courses.