College and Career-Ready Standards for School Leaders

At Education Nation, there was "widespread acknowledgement that Common Core implementation will require significant time and attention to building educator capacity."

Phi Delta Kappan

Vicki Phillips and Carina Wong shed some light on plans to help educators move the Common Core State Standards into practice.

No teacher or administrator should use or support the use of Khan Academy videos without watching the first episode of Mystery Teacher Theater 2000 or MTT2K.

Khan Academy teaches only one part of mathematics—procedures—and that isn't the most important part. Writing about mathematics, developing a disposition for mathematical thinking, demonstrating a conceptual understanding of mathematical topics are all more important than procedures. That said, procedures are still important, and Khan Academy provides one venue where students can learn them. In the end, I think every young person should have an account there. Even if only one in a thousand or ten thousand benefit, that would be a terrific outcome.

After attending the 2012 Common Core State Standards Summer Institute, I read the article by Merissa Green ["Polk Teachers Start Training in the New Nationwide Assessment Test to Replace FCAT," June 21]. The first paragraph stated, "Polk County school teachers are starting to train on how they will teach to a new test." These are the words of a reporter, not those of Florida educators.

I can think of no way to teach to a test unless the questions on the test are known and the students are coached to answer specific questions. Clearly, this is not the case with FCAT, nor will it be the case with PARCC in 2014-2015. What teachers do, which is both ethical and the right thing to do, is teach the standards that are required by the curriculum and by which the students will be assessed.

"So much is expected of teachers today, but too little is offered in the way of resources, support and professional development."--Randi Weingarten

This fall, millions of teachers will be expected to start teaching to the Common Core State Standards. These standards, if implemented right, have the potential to help students acquire the subject knowledge, deep understanding and skills to apply concepts that will prepare them for college, career and life. Most teachers have not received the tools and preparation they need to meet these instructional challenges because of budget cuts or inadequate implementation.

"The common-core standards envision a higher level of rigor based on the deeper understanding of a pared-down number of curricular aims. But effective implementation poses a particular challenge for teachers, who must not only be fluent in that content themselves but also attain the appropriate pedagogy and curricula to be able to convey it to their students."

Source: Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/13/35teachers.h31.html?tkn=MOCFNDgbXea%2B7t%2Fh9qydyM4AVhl7IBRsUdxL&cmp=clp-sb-ascd