College and Career-Ready Standards for School Leaders

The standards are goals, not mandates. Teachers at individual schools will continue to decide what to teach and how to help children meet the basic goals.

Elsewhere I have written about the potential power of narrative to help students understand and remember complex subject matter (Willingham, 2004 ; 2009). Now a new study ( Arya & Maul, 2012 )...

By Catherine Gewertz

"The next couple of years will be rough going. That's no surprise to anyone who's been tracking the Common Core State Standards and waivers from key parts of the No Child Left Behind Act."

What are the Common Core State Standards? The CCSS are a set of internationally benchmarked K-12 educational standards to ensure every students’ college and career readiness in English language arts and mathematics. These standards increase rigor in every school, and provide clarity and consistency for what all students need to know once they graduate from high school. To date, 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoan Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands and the Anchorage, AK School District have voluntarily adopted CCSS.

Computer-adaptive testing, designed to respond to students' answers and more accurately pinpoint their performance level, is gaining support in both chambers of Congress as lawmakers consider proposals to reauthorize No Child Left Behind.

"Adaptive tests are already being used in several states, including Delaware, Hawaii, and Oregon, and at least 20 states plan to use adaptive tests by 2014-15.

Education Trust

June 5, 2013

"Programs like Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) are designed to provide high school students with challenging academic course work and a head start on a college education. But despite aggressive efforts to expand participation, there remain significant differences in the rates at which students from different racial and economic groups gain access."

Given that 20 states and most test publishers (CTB, ETS, NWEA, Measured Progress, Pearson, Scholastic, Scantron, Cambium-Voyager) currently report student reading ability on the Lexile scale from MetaMetrics, it seems like a logical choice for a common reference point. In addition to test publishers, all the major text and trade book publishers have elected to use Lexile measures as a way to describe text complexity.

Instructional companies are building intervention and instructional programs around Lexile measures. For example, Scholastic Reading Inventory and Curriculum Associates' i-Ready have also linked their assessments with the Lexile Framework illustrating the practicality of a common scale.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas today signed legislation to rewrite state graduation requirements, reducing from 15 to five the number of end-of-course exams students must pass to earn a high school diploma.

Recently, I had a conversation with a group of math coaches who are working with elementary teachers on implementation of the Common Core Standards for Mathematics. The discussion turned to a description of rigor in the classroom. The coaches commented that many of their teachers were confused by exactly what was meant by teaching and learning with rigor. The coaches weren’t sure how to respond.

Up-Close Reading: Tackling Complex Text | Scholastic.com

Are your students ready to attack complex text and break it down for absolute understanding? They will be well on their way with these strategies!

Cold Versus Warm Close Reading: Stamina and the Accumulation of Misdirection

by Catherine Snow

"The tasks were more rigorous and more challenging than most students currently have access to, and undeniably would constitute a better preparation for the demands of college and the work place – if students can actually engage them. But if students find the tasks too difficult or too irrelevant to bother with, then the rigor will be of little value."