College and Career-Ready Standards for School Leaders

Barbara Blackburn joins us to talk about some of the issues that the Common Core State Standards raise when it comes to providing support and scaffolding.

The standards build on knowledge and skills from prior grade levels as they deal with increasingly complex topics such as fractions and negative numbers. They stress conceptual understanding to ensure that students truly absorb what they are learning, instead of merely memorizing for a test, then forgetting much of what they learn.

Besides content-area knowledge, the Common Core math standards include a list of eight skills—called the Standards for Mathematical Practice—that math teachers should integrate across the curriculum. These skills are:

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
• Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
• Model with mathematics.
• Use appropriate tools strategically.
• Attend to precision.
• Look for and make use of structure.
• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Educators should use the common-core standards as a springboard to deeper learning in schools, Ken Kay and Bob Lenz write.

1. The first path treats the common core as just another set of standards to implement and assess. 
2. The second path leverages the strengths of the common core to transform teaching and learning. It entails educators’ taking the time to understand what is visionary about these new standards and how they can help drive college and career success for students.

"If we narrow the Common Core down to a handful of changes, one of the largest is that students will need to read texts much more attentively than ever.

According to the standards, students will begin analyzing figurative language in fifth grade; they'll tackle allusions in eighth. And these skills can't be taught in isolation, either -- the Common Core asks us to create authentic experiences with text. Essentially, if you see a literature discussion in which kids aren't flipping through pages feverishly, the class likely isn't standards-aligned."

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) voted to put Pennsylvania Common Core Standards into place and will also require students to meet proficient requirements on either the Keystone Exams, or comparable examinations, in...

Through written guidance sent to schools last week, school administrators learned that all third- to 11th-grade students will take nine online tests - each around an hour in length - for English and math under the new testing system.

Five of the nine will be in English, and four will be in math. Those tests will replace the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests in the two subjects. Students now take one test in English and one in math.

Educators around the country are exploring innovative ways to teach the new common-core literacy standards, and some are calling attention to an approach they say is working well: cross-subject thematic units.

 The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement

Massachusetts (the nation's highest performing state) is currently phasing in the Common Core, the new national... standards that were adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia.

In theory, here’s what they’ll do:

• Place a larger emphasis on the writing process and the construction of arguments, even in classes other than English.
• Encourage English teachers to work with science and social studies teachers.
• Force math students to focus on problem-solving instead of concept drills.

Integrating Common Core learning standards at the same time that special education reform is taking hold in schools citywide made sense, Corinne Rello-Anselmi said Thursday, despite the obvious challenges. She is the deputy chancellor for students with disabilities and English language learners. Both efforts require a shift in instruction, she said, and both require more collaboration among teachers.

By Catherine Gewertz

You can review Smarter Balanced's achievement-level descriptors on a special page of its website.

PARCC's "performance-level descriptors" and college-readiness policy

“Just like the standards we had in place before we adopted these, the federal government has never reviewed or approved state standards. And they have NOT reviewed or approved these. These are Idaho standards. If the federal government ever tries to approve or regulate these, no one will fight harder than we will.” - Tom Luna, Idaho State Superintendent

Educators are emphasizing the use of nonfiction texts, developing literacy skills across the curriculum, and collaborating with librarians to help prepare for the common-core standards in reading.

By Tim Shanahan

"The trick is to scaffold the readings and re-readings sufficiently to allow these students to participate successfully—they have to do the reading and thinking, you can’t do it for them."

On Common Core | School Library Journal

Knowing the research behind text complexity is critical to understanding the call for more complexity.

• The CCSS crafters examined college freshman textbooks and career manuals.
• These texts typically measure at a Lexile score of 1450.
• This Lexile measure was used as a benchmark for college and career readiness (CCR).
• Grade level Lexiles were then scaffolded in reverse, defining grade level Lexile expectations as stated in the Common Core Appendix A.

Teaching expert Charlotte Danielson discusses the effects of the common standards on instructional practice and teacher professional development.

Despite often lacking support and clear guidance, math educators are taking steps to refine their practice and adopt creative methods to help at-risk and struggling students make the shift to the new instructional paradigm.