College and Career-Ready Standards for School Leaders

Visuals and Reading by Kathleen Stern Over the last few years in my seventh grade reading class, I’ve asked students to do more visual analysis and creation. This has nothing to do with the fact th...

Long before the Common Core State Standards were on anyone’s radar, the “reading wars” raged furiously.

By Dan Willngham

"A New York Times editorial on December 6 called for improved math instruction, calling the current system “broken.” Although I agree we could be doing a better job of teaching math, the...

Patrick Riccards, Darren Burris, Governor Bob Wise, Jeff Nichols, Doug Sovde

How to make real progress in student achievement.

What should students, teachers, parents, and policy-makers look for in the emerging reform of high school mathematics?  From our perspective—as mathematicians, teachers, statisticians, teacher educators, and curriculum developers with extensive experience in school mathematics innovation—there are at least four key elements of the Common Core program that provide a basis for productive change in U. S. high school mathematics:

"Here's how Oklahoma Governor Fallin describes what she's doing through her executive order: "The executive order I signed today makes it clear that neither the Obama Administration nor any subsequent administration will have a hand in developing the Oklahoma Academic Standards. No data will be collected that jeopardizes the privacy of our children. Finally, these standards will not jeopardize the right of every parent to home school their children and educate them as they see fit."

The fundamental question that has been presented to all of us through the Common Core process is this one: Who decides what is taught in our schools?

The Common Core, however, will necessarily generate thousands of examples of high quality student work.

Teachers shift the focus of class time to critical thinking and reasoning skills, something many have wanted to do for years.

When I taught sixth grade, I used to have to teach 127 unique math standards or topics. Now I’d be able to focus on 27 standards, giving me the time needed to make sure all of my students understood the underlying concepts.

By Tim Shanahan

Does research show that adding more informational text will improve student achievement?

No, not directly. No one has done a study to examine the learning results when students read different proportions of different kinds of text. The idea that students should get more experience reading informational text is based on the following commonsense notions:

• Because people read more informational texts in college and the workplace, it's important to become proficient with these texts.
• Strong evidence shows the differences between informational and literary texts as well as in the cognitive processes we use to read such texts (Otto, 1982; Weaver & Kintsch, 1991), so it follows that reading literary texts will not necessarily improve one's ability to handle informational texts.
• Students have much less experience reading informational text, which means less opportunity to learn how to read such texts well.
• People usually get better at what they practice, so if students had more chances to read informational text, they might improve their abilities in this area.

by | Burkins & Yaris

"...many readers’ histories can be charted according to the series they passed through. And these readers share an important commonality. While some series may may linger longer than others, they are all eventually overshadowed by other series and titles.  The series that students move on to generally tend to become more sophisticated."

Mel Riddile of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, details five essential school wide conditions for the Common Core State Standards that will fundamentally shift the way principals lead schools.

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