College and Career-Ready Standards for School Leaders

By Catherine Gewertz

Now that South Carolina has made its choice, the only states still participating in both consortia are Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. Five states don't belong to either group: Texas, Virginia, Nebraska, Minnesota and Alaska.

And, as recompense for the long wait, we have added a bonus grade level, Grade 6.

By Kathleen Porter-Magee

The guidance that’s starting to emerge about how teachers can best select “grade-appropriate” texts may actually end up undermining the Common Core’s emphasis on improving the quality and rigor of the texts students are reading.

By Gail Connelly, Executive Director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals

"School culture is hard to characterize and cultivate, but it's arguably the defining factor in school change."

Washington Examiner

By Lisa Gartner

June 30, 2012

Teacher evaluations to be based heavily on student achievement

Virginia schools officially will base 40 percent of their teacher evaluations on students' academic achievement as the U.S.

Federation of Teachers President Steven Greenburg said he was "absolutely disgusted that the U.S. Department of Education would leverage" the evaluations so Virginia's application could be accepted.

By Prathima Kathiresan for the Huffington Post

"As a science teacher, I learned a great deal by putting on my writing teacher hat. I also learned how important it is for students to see how all content can relate on an interdisciplinary level."

"At the beginning of the school year, my colleagues and I discussed the notion that "every teacher is a literacy teacher." Reading and writing skills should not be the responsibility of English teachers alone, but of all teachers. I teach biology, so coaching my students in writing isn't exactly in my comfort zone. But among my ninth grade students, writing and research skills were weak."

One of the thornier aspects of the new common standards is the formula for sizing up the complexity of a text. You've probably heard that the standards hit heavily on the importance of students reading stuff that is sufficiently complex to challenge them and evolve their reading skills. You've probably heard less, however, about exactly how teachers are supposed to gauge a text's complexity.